Wendy’s medical plan part two–and more

President Obama is having a difficult enough time sticking to his campaign promises without Congress getting in his way.  Yet here you have the odd experience of seeing fellow Democrats block his closing of Guantanamo because (gasp) some of the prisoners might be sent to the US.  We want them sent, apparently, to OTHER COUNTRIES.  I guess the citizens of those other countries aren’t as important as us Americans.

Reality check:  these suspected terrorists aren’t being released into our public parks.  They would be sent to prison,prisons that are strong enough to contain serial murderers and attempted presidential assassins, as well as convicted domestic terrorists like Timothy Mc Veigh.  Then, in a transparent public process, they would undergo a fair trial to determine if they are innocent or guilty of specific crimes.  This is how justice supposedly works in a democracy.

Unlike amorphous problems like the economic crisis and health care, which have many causes and many potential solutions, the closing of Guantanamo is straightforward.  You either believe in constitutional rights and the process of law or you don’t.  One would hope the constitutional law professor we’ve installed as President knows the difference.

Back to the amorphous problem of health care.  I see the health care industry is now pledging to save tons of money.  They could start by cutting down on all the ridiculous paperwork.  Going to the doctor now requires several pieces of paper before you even get in the examining room.  You need to sign the same privacy form you’ve signed zillions of times before (couldn’t they keep ONE in your record).  They need a copy of your insurance card (again, couldn’t a copy be kept on file?) Then the constant updates of information, when you could easily supply this type of info (change of address, new medical problem) yourself when applicable. AFter your doctor’s visit, more paper arrives.  There’s the statement that is “not a bill”.  So what is it?  something to clog up your desk?  There’s the bill from the doctor sent before they hear from the insurance company.  There’s the statement from the insurance company when they finally process your bill.  If you have any kind of lab tests, they are billed separately.  My son had a vision test as part of his pediatric checkup–by the same nurse, right there in the same office.  It was billed separately.

Then consider that the bills themselves are incomprehensible.  There is an amount billed.  Then there is an allowed amount.  When you get, say, your car serviced it costs a fixed amount.  There’s not one amount the shop charges you and a smaller “allowed amount” determined by some bureaucrat.  Doctors should charge a fixed amount that is covered at the fixed percentage allowed by your insurance plan.  Let’s say the doctor charges $100 for an office visit and your insurance covers 80%. Your bill is $20, plain and simple.  And why issue these statements ever single time you see a doctor? Why not send quarterly statements, detailing your expenses, the amount covered, and the amount owed?  Obviously to the insurance companies, complication and confusion operates to their advantage–I’m sure a lot of inaccurate charges slip by because people do not understand statements that look like a tax return (another exercise in obfuscation).

Lastly (for today) , let medical personnel determine how often a procedure needs to be done.  They are far from perfect in their judgement, but at least they have the expertise.  For instance, my dental insurance covers a replacement crown for a tooth every five years.  What if your crown doesn’t last five years?  Are you supposed to suffer, maybe develop a tooth abscess requiring more expensive care?   My vision coverage covers one checkup every two years despite the fact that my opthamologist specifically requests that I have a yearly checkup due to my cataracts.

I could go on all day, but  I have other things to do, so stay tuned for my next post on this subject.

feet of clay

A day doesn’t go by where you don’t hear about another politician’s career sidetracked as the truth comes out about his personal foibles, whether they be sexual or financial.  Some of these “mistakes” do reflect on them pretty badly.  Surely someone in charge of nationwide economic reform, a REGULATOR himself, should know how to dot all the is and cross all the ts on his income taxes.  Surely an elected official should know better than to chase after a seventeen year old boy and have sex with him, whether or not he was technically of age at the time.

And yet I still can’t get too enraged at most of these screwups.  Embarrassing as they may be, they pale at the outrages perpetrated by political and business leaders who send young people to die in pointless wars, who imprison innocent people, who order waterboarding and extraordinary renditions, who knowingly send salmonella-contaminated food out on the market, who manufacture costly drugs that are life threatening at worst and useless at best.  Some of these folks might pay their taxes on time and never ever cheat on their spouse, but they are perpetrating much worse evils.  They get away scot free while we are distracted by the Mc Guffin of these relatively minor infractions.

Ideally, I would like my leaders to be individuals I could admire in all respects. I think we need to maintain reasonable standards for our elected officials.  But I respect that people come in complicated packages, and often you have to balance the good with the bad. Politicians , like actors and rock stars, seem to need constant approval and ego gratification, which apparently makes it really difficult for them to keep their pants on.  Politicians tend to be wealthy, with abundant household help , investments, honoraria, and employment perks, tending to complicate their tax returns more than the average Joe.  None of these failings necessarily mean  they can’t enact good health care legislation or broker a peace agreement in the Middle East.

I think we go after these public servants with feet of clay because it is easier and safer to attack their relatively minor infractions than to bring truly evil people to justice.  If we want real change, it’s the CEOS of Monsanto and Halliburton, and people like them who need to be shamed and brought down, not the Daschles and Adams of the world.

the content of their character

As Hilary Clinton’s campaign rapidly loses its sizzle, I’ve been reading a lot of complaints from baby boomer feminists bemoaning the sexism inherent in her (apparent) downfall.

Excuse me, but where do they get the notion that Hilary Clinton represents something special to me, because, like fifty percent of the world’s population, we share the same gender?  Hilary Clinton is not all women to me.

Likewise, I don’t think Barack Obama represents all black people.  But while black people are by no means a homogeneous group there is a group of cultural attitudes– music, food, manners of speech, shared history–that can be identified as “American black culture”.  The same cannot be said for women.

Women, however, do share the same biology.  They are the half of the human population that bears children, and they traditionally, in most cultures throughout history, have been the ones to raise those children, cook the food, and take care of the home.  In our current culture we are slowly edging towards sharing these tasks more evenly.  There ARE plenty of ways to successfully balance family and career, but a high powered career (like running for president) is not about balance.  By definition, it is about career.

I think there is some sexism at work in people’s perceptions of Hilary Clinton, but its a function of the type of woman that chooses to function in what has been traditionally a man’s world.  They are pushy, abrasive, ruthlessly efficient, take-charge…they’ve had to be to survive.  People wonder why Hilary doesn’t show her “tender” side more–I suspect its because its not her biggest side, and its a side she’s had to hide for a long time.

Women in high powered careers have to make tougher decisions than men.  Unlike we were told in the ’70s, you can’t have it all.  You can choose not to have children.  But if you do, someone has to take care of them, and I’m not talking about a “quality time” story before bed.  I’m talking about changing their diapers, and spending hours with them at the playground, and listening attentively while they tell you the plot of a superhero movie for the thousanth time, and driving them to basketball practice.  Someone has to cook dinner every night.  Someone has to do the dishes, and the laundry, and wait for the plumber. 

If you want that high powered career, you can marry a man willing to take on the traditional female role.  Or more commonly, you can offload the work on a subclass of women–nannies, day care workers, the food service worker who’s putting together that “ready to eat” meal at the deli–who, while equally female, somehow don’t deserve the same right to personal fulfillment.

I’m sorry about this feminist heresy, but while I respect the right of women like Hilary Clinton to make their life choices, I generally don’t like them very much personally.  The weirdest thing about Clinton is she isn’t even running on her own accomplishments.  She is leveraging off her husband. I know far more accomplished women in my own community on the basis of their work in law and politics.

One of Barack Obamas strengths is that, while he has overwhelming black support, he isn’t running as a “black candidate”.  He transcends that.  He is biracial, for one thing, truly an “African-American”.  He was raised internationally.  He came of age after the civil rights movement, benefiting from it enough not to let that struggle define him.  Maybe the first woman president will be a post feminist candidate, less strident, someone who happens to be  a woman but who does not let that biological fact define her. 

Obama was two years old when Martin Luther King gave his famous March on Washington speech.  I am judging both he and Clinton by the content of their character. 

stuck with sugar water

Well, it looks like after the withdrawal of Kucinich and Edwards we are stuck with sugar water on the Democratic side and various flavors of cyanide-laced koolaid on the Republican.

Given the false choice between Coke and Pepsi, I guess I’ll have to go with Pepsi (the “New Generation”, right?)  Although, first let me make a correction.  Voting for Barack Obama is not “passing the torch to a new generation” as  much as the press loves to make Kennedy analogies.  The Baby Boom ran from 1948-1964.  Hilary Clinton, at age 60,  was born at the very early end.  Obama, born in 1961, was born at the later end.  The political world isn’t done with us Baby Boomers yet.

As much as I’d like to think that a black President would strike a blow against US arrogance and neocolonialism, people like Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and Clarence Thomas lead me to avoid making blanket assumptions based on skin color.  And Obama’s stated positions, such as they are, don’t vary substantially from Clinton’s.  So why choose Pepsi over Coke?

As I noted in my previous blog (Tastes Great, Less Filling) I think Obama is a blank slate upon which many people are projecting their hopes and beliefs.  These are positive hopes and beliefs, and maybe, just maybe, when reflected onto the charismatic Obama they will become more than the sum of their parts and help propel our country up from the depths to which it has sunk.  Obama has the capacity to inspire and to lead, which is more than you can say for Hilary Clinton, who at worst is calculating and mean and at best is a competent CEO.

I must say, it is a pleasure to listen to a candidate who has the capacity to put two sentences together without making the listener either gag or fall asleep.  Obama has the chance to appeal to America’s better nature across demographic and ideological categories and win, while Clinton, with her limited base, unpleasant personality, and heavy baggage, does not.

I wish there was a Democrat still standing with some genuine nutritional content but I’m thirsty and I have to drink what’s out there.  I can’t watch America drink the poisoned koolaid anymore.  I cannot.

the revolution will not be televised

If a presidential candidate speaks and the media dos not acknowledge his existence, is he really running?

During the past weeks, Dennis Kucinich, a legitimate Presidential candidate, has been excluded from the democratic process. Every major media outlet has forbid him to participate in debates.  The state of Texas is not printing his name on their ballots.  From reading the Oregonian, our local paper, it would be impossible to discern that he is running at all, since the paper failed to list his vote tallies in New Hampshire and Michigan.  (Republican candidate Fred Thompson, who garnered less than one percent in either contest, made the listing).  After careful sleuthing, I discovered that Kucinich won 4% of the Michigan vote.  Such a tally hardly makes for front runner status, but it is not insignificant.

Dennis Kucinich is actually more experienced in elective office than either Clinton or Obama.  He gives voice to a segment of opinion that has otherwise been shut out of the political process.  He is the only candidate that opposed the invasion of Iraq from the beginning, the only one to vote against the Patriot Act.  He is the only candidate to oppose NAFTA, to seriously address gloal warming, to support universal single-payer health care.

My initial impulse is to believe that Dennis’ voice is being suppressed because of the subversive nature of his views.  Obama may purport to be the candidate of “change”, but while his version of change is amorphous and focus-tested, Kucinich’s proposals are courageous, clear, and entail a drastic departure from business as usual under the Bush administration.  They are what used to be known as liberal Democratic views.  Dennis Kucinich is the conscience of the Democratic party.

But the reality may be even sadder.  I can’t help but suspect that Kucinich is being ignored because he doesn’t fit conveniently into a media narrative.  He’s short and not particularly attractive.  He’s not black.  He’s not a woman.  His passionately felt and carefully articulated positions can’t be condensed into sound bites.  In a world where candidates are marketed like soft drinks, Kucinich is difficult to package.

Politicians ultimately rise and fall on public support and that support does depend on their public relations skills as well as their intellect and integrity.  What is disturbing here is that the media have outstepped their traditional role of providing objective infomation to the public.  They have taken the decision-making process into their own hands.  By denying the public their opportunity to make a fully informed decision they are making a travesty of our supposedly democratic elections.

Since our democratic process has sunk to the level of show business, perhaps it is only fitting that the quote that keeps coming to my mind as I watch the self-congratulatory blather that passes for debate in the 2008 elections is one from Revenge of the Sith.  The Republic’s Senate cedes power to the evil Empire:

“This is how democracy dies, to a roomful of applause.”

tastes great, less filling

It amazes me how statements coined by someone–media pundits, campaign managers–can end up repeated in an endless echo chamber until they attain the unquestionable aura of truth.  This has certainly happened with Clinton and Obama and their supposed battle between experience and change.

What precisely \constitutes Hilary Clinton’s vaunted experience?  She is a lawyer and a one term Senator.   Her major career has been as a political wife.  She is intelligent, politically well-connected and politically astute .  But Barack Obama, while not rating ultra high on the experience meter , actually has more experience in elective office than Clinton.  The candidates with the most experience were dismissed immediately by the media as “minor candidates” (Kucinich, Biden, Dodd, and Richardson).

What about change?  Its a cliche that change is a constant of life.  Since George W. Bush cannot run again, by definition the next president will be a “change”.  If a Democrat is elected–any Democrat–the change will be greater.  On the other hand, neither Clinton or Obama appear to have the vision or the courage to initiate the drastic changes of attitude and method  that are necessary to reverse the destructive freefall caused by the Bush administration.  Neither of them are talking seriously about global warming, withdrawal from Iraq, our failure to truly deal with the root causes of terrorism, the fact our government practices torture and continues to hold thousands of prisoners without just cause, the erosion of our constitutional rights, the destruction of America’s international standing, the absolute collapse of our health care system…in short almost anything that truly matters. 

Instead we hear endless blather about Obama’s blackness and Clinton’s femaleness.  If we’d truly gotten beyond racism and sexism we’d be judging these candidates by the depth or their minds and the  content of their character, not the color of their skin or the shape of their genitals.  And we get these meaningless buzzwords, these false choices.   Experience. Change.  The whole empty spectacle reminds me of an ad for a soft drink.  There’s not much truly to say about sugar water so advertising copywriters earn millions coming up with slogans people can read their desires into.  Remember “coke is it”? Or “the real thing”?  It, or the thing, could be a crowd of good friends, a sunny day on the beach, a beautiful muscular body, hipness, coolness, true love.  It can be anything you want it to be, as long as it distracts you from the fact that what it really is is sugar water.  People are reading into Obama, that bubbly blank slate of a candidate who promises “change you can believe in” any kind of change that they themselves believe in, whether that be withdrawal from Iraq, saving salmon, or ending hunger.  They are reading into him their own values, their own passions.  Rarely does anyone check and see if his votes or position papers actually agree.

As for Clinton, she projects an image of experience, her hair never out of place, her apparel feminine but businesslike, her opinions\ focus-tested.  She speaks glibly; the problem is that, like Obama, she isn’t saying anything.

Yet so rarely does anyone look beyond these carefully calibrated images.

Fortunately for the Democrats, the Republican party seems truly split between a slate of truly repulsive candidates. Given continued war and economic collapse they may defeat themselves quite easily.  But it sure would be nice if the Democratic party could offer a more substantive alternative than sugar water.

    

Vilsack who?

I read in the newspaper over the weekend that John Vilsack withdrew from the Democratic ‘08 presidential race.  This disturbed me for two reasons.  First, he sounded like an interesting and intelligent guy who just might have made a good president.  But second and most disturbing, I didn’t even know he was running.

You’ve got to realize, I am a political junkie.  I grew up in the Washington DC area.  I read the paper (yeah, I know its the Oregonian) every day and several news magazines per month, plus checking in on my Yahoo page several times a day to make sure the world hasn’t collapsed in the interim.

But I’d never heard of this guy, the former governor of Vermont.  And even though I think six or so candidates still remain in the race, I’d be hard-pressed to tell you who they are, other than Dennis Kucinich, and of course, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.

A year before the first primary votes are cast, the media (I won’t even restrict this to the “mainstream media”) are determined to turn this into a horse race. They’ve chosen their two horses and come hell or high water, they’re not even going to let us see the rest of the pack.  Problem is, they’ve picked the wrong horses.

Hilary and Barack both have their exciting credentials of difference (woman and black).  Underneath these surface details they are remarkably alike:  centrists who speak in measured, shrewd platitudes and are experts as self-promotion and as a result, raising money.  Given the choice, I’d go with Obama, who at least didn’t vote to authorize the Iraq war (not that he was in the position to authorize it or not at the time) and has a pleasanter personality than the thoroughly repellent Hilary.  But while intelligent and well-spoken, he’s inexperienced and untested, and I fear he will collapse under the pressure of immense public scrutiny and expectations.

Which leaves us where?  My heart remains with Dennis Kucinich, who speaks the truth passionately and consistently. But he’s destined to remain a fringe candidate, precisely because he’s so blunt and sincere and passionate, plus being short, funny looking and a vegan. The sad fact is the Democrats need someone more telegenic.

Perhaps the right candidate is out there already but we the public are never going to know it as long as we are restricted to the Clinton/Obama false dichotomy.  the Presidential race is dominated by money and powerful interests, that’s an unfortunate fact.  But can’t be be granted at least the opportunity to hear what the other candidates have to say?  Can’t we at least know who they are?

hope springs eternal

I’m an optimist by nature.  I can’t help but always think that change is at hand.  After the November elections, when the Democrats took control of Congress, I was certain they would finally take action against the war in Iraq.  When, after Bush’s inane surge proposal, even Republicans started making angry noises, I figured Bush’s day of reckoning had finally arrived.

Granted, the nonbinding resolutions proposed by both parties were by definition weak.  But I figured they would constitute an embarrassing, bipartisan rebuke to the Bush Administration, and when Bush ignored the resolution (as he surely would) it would pave the way for stronger action, like actually witholding funds.

apparently even this little act of resistance was too much to hope for.  The Republicans have–for the moment–stopped all Congressional debate on Iraq.  Republicans like our Sentator Gordon Smith, who just last week were making impassioned outcries against the war, have now backpedaled.  And the Democrats, as usual, aren’t being nearly as aggressive as they need to be.  As for a Depublican like Lieberman…well, don’t make me sick.

What’s the cause for all this hesitation?  Apparently it’s fear of “not supporting the troops”.  After the unfair derision heaped on them by some (really, not many) people during the Vietnam war, our troops have become an untouchable icon.

Please.  Soldiers  are just people–no better or worse than the rest of us–people who joined the military service for many reasons, be it an idealistic desire to serve their country, a desire for a more disciplined way of life, a way of earning money for college, an outlet for excess testosterone that isn’t satisfied by video games.  Whatever.  In most of these people war has brought out the most brave and honorable elements of their character.  In others it has served to accentuate a latent sadism, leading to incidents like Haditha and Abu Gharaib.

We don’t need to elevate our military forces to sainthood, but we must respect the fact that while the rest of us go about our daily business, these folks are risking their lives.

If we truly “support” the troops, we owe it to them not to put them in harm’s way without damn good reason.  Right now soldiers are dying for a war that was started for fallacious reasons and that almost everybody admits is a mistake and a failure. They are inadequately equipped, sent for repeated tours of duty, and neglected once they return home.

The best way to “support the troops” is to bring them home.  As long as Congress continues to fund the war, and as long as us citizens allow them to do it, we are enablers of the Bush Administrations crash course towards destruction.

I’m beginning to think that most members of Congress are so tied into the status quo, that, no matter their bleatings,  they don’t want to risk rocking the boat too much, and what their constituents think is hardly as important as the desireso of their major contributors and lobbyists.

However–troops out there–there IS another alternative.  If no one is supporting you, you can support yourselves.  Why don’t you refuse to risk your lives one more day in this idiotic war?

Wars will cease when men refuse to fight.

Of course, if Congress continues to waffle and wiggle and be generally useless

Whatever motivates an individual member of the armed services, they are risking their lives when we send them to war. Currently they are risking their lives

the supreme idiot’s big day

Usually State of the Union addresses remind me of the Super Bowl.  They both take place in the dead of winter and are predictable, bland, and boring.  Our idiot-in-chief, however, continues to defy his low expectations. Because of my son’s music lesson I missed the domestic part of his speech, which, upon reading, seemed vague but inoffensive.  But I arrived just in time for his 45 minute ramble on Iraq, which was a remarkable exercise in incoherent paranoid fantasy.

Bush cast the conflict in Iraq as the opening salvo in an epic battle between good (America) and evil (variously identified as Al Quaeda, Shia terrorists, Sunni terrorists, and Hezbollah).  Americans, and those who support their cause, are on the side of hope and freedom.  The terrorists on the other hand, drink blood and eat their own babies.  Should we withdraw from Iraq, the forces of evil will triumph and unspeakable horrors ensue.  And as for the hapless Iraqi Maliki , who  isn’t turning out to be as malleable a puppet as the necons hoped?  They’re Shias, (presumably not of the terrorist kind), who replaced Saddam Hussein (a secular Sunni dictator, but of the terrorist kind).  Bush let him know that he’d better “understand” the terms of the epic battle.  Or else.

The epic battle isn’t ending anytime soon, either.  We will be fighting it for generations.  .

Whew!  Bush was obviously sleeping off a few too many frat parties during history class.  But he obviously found time to read some comic books.

The inconsistencies of Bush’s argument are too numerous to recount.  Does he truly believe, for instance, that the sectarian divisions tearing Iraq apart originated last year?  Does he make no distinction between secular dictators driven by power and greed, and stateless terrorists driven by religious fanaticism?  Did it ever occur to him that factions in Iraq, such as the Kurds, might be exploiting the American invasion for their own ends?  Does he consider the fact that the chaos in Iraq is increasing the power of terrorist factions in Iran and Syria?  Did it ever occur to him that power doesn’t always come out of the barrel of a gun?

Duh.  That would be expecting the guy to think, when he’s using up all his available brain cells remembering to put one foot in front of the other.

The Democratic response was on target but very measured.  To some respect,  I understand their strategy:  better to take the high road and build as broad a coalition as possible in opposition to Bush’s war policy.  Certainly Republican and military antiwar sentiment is growing, and it would be foolish to alienate these newcomers to the party.

But on the other hand, I really wish somebody–Republican or Democrat, civilian or military–would call Bush on some of his more fantastical statements. To accept his paranoid vision as remotely reality-based only validates its legitimacy.  Ultimately somebody’s going to have to say that the emperor has no clothes.  

while you were sleeping

My husband, son and I went to an antiwar march last Thursday–it’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this for over four years.  Back then we were a small minority.  But we were obviously ahead of our time, because beliefs that were once all the way out there on the unpatiriotic fringe have now become mainstream.  A group of active duty military lifficials just presented a petition to Congress demanding an immediate withdrawal of troops.  Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, a Mormon Republican, doesn’t want any more American soldiers dying to “determine the next sucessor to Muhammad”.  Even conservative stalwarts like George Will are backpedaling

Don’t get me wrong–better late than never.  I’m glad all these folks have finally seen the light.  In fact, I think our best hope of stopping this catastrophe comes from diaffected military personnel and Republicans.

But I still have to ask…where have these people been for four years?  And for that matter, where were Democrats like John Edwards, who voted for the initial war resolution and now claim to have been “misled”?  The dubious justification and inherent dangers of this war of choice were evident to me from the start.  Why weren’t they obvious to all these people who had so much more access to information?  And where was the seventy percent of the American public who now opposes the war? George W. is not exactly a brilliant persuasive demagogue.  He sounded like just as much of a blowhard idiot four years ago as he does today.

Did the trauma of September 11 totally suppress their critical faculties, putting them into a stunned coma from which they are only now emerging?  I’ve got a more cynical view, as far as the politicians and talking heads are concerned.  They just didn’t think the Iraq invasion was going to be any big deal.  It wouldn’t last that long.  Not many Americans would be killed.  It wasn’t worth the risk of criticizing the invasion and looking “unpatriotic”.  (the amount of ignorance this reflects regarding the history ot the Middle East, and our own recent history in Vietnam, is, of course, staggering).

As for the American public in general?  They didn’t want to look unpatriotic either.  Plus they just wanted to go about their regular lives and not be bothered.  Why think too much about the news when you can flick the remote and change the channel?

Well, those of us on the lonely antiwar fringe are glad to find you latecomers on our side.  But in the interim, during your four year coma, over three thousand Americans have been killed and over twenty thousand injured.  Countless Iraqis have been killed (estimates say over 35,000 last year) and their country is in shambles.  American prestige and influence has been destroyed throughout the world and that world is a lot less safe place.

You’ve got a lot of blood on your hands, guys.  While you’ve been lying their passed out, Bush and the rest of his gang have caused an awful lot of damage that we are all going to have to clean up.    So do me a favor and don’t act so disengenous.