That was not a bunch of snake-handling hillbillies in the sweat lodge in Sedona Arizona. That was a group of well-heeled business and professional people seeking spiritual rebirth from a charismatic new-age guru named James Arthur Ray. They had paid over $9,600 each to be packed into an unlit tent-like structure covered with blankets and plastic and heated with fiery rocks in the hot Arizona desert.
A spiritual ceremony was conducted. Ray sat by the tent-flap door, which remained sealed except for pauses when additional rocks, which had been heated in an outdoor fire, were brought in. The heat became overwhelming. About 90 minutes into the ceremony, someone yelled in the darkness that a woman had passed-out. Dr. Beverley Bunn, 43, an orthodontist from Texas, who struggled to remain conscious in the sweat lodge, said that “there were people throwing-up everywhere.” Some of the people throwing-up had just completed a 36-hour “vision quest” in which they fasted alone in the desert.
By the end of the ordeal, emergency crews had taken 21 people to hospitals. Three died.
Mr. Ray’s company, James Ray International, made $9.4 million in 2008 from weekend seminars, videos, and books, including the 2008 best-seller: “Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want.”
Participants at the sweat lodge retreats described a game in which Mr. Ray wore white robes and played God, ordering some participants to commit mock suicide. It reminded me of the late protestant minister Jim Jones who took his congregation to Guyana and had them commit mass suicide by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.
What is it about these charismatic spiritual leaders that they are able to motivate people to acts of insanity? Marshall Applewhite was able to convince 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult to commit suicide in order to join-up with a spacecraft which he said was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. David Koresh suceeded in persuading members of the Branch Davidian sect that he was the Son of God and that they should allow their wives and daughters to have sex with him. What is it?
Many if not most people are fragile and insecure, seeking answers to the big questions about how to be happy, assertive, serene, and successful. They are easy prey for the brash, daring few people who attract followers through the strength of their magnetic personalities. I do not know what it is that makes so many people self-doubting while a small number of others are supremely self-assured.
It is likely that those highly attractive, self-confident people learn as they grow-up that they have the power to influence people. I have known a few such people in my life, and have seen that many of them use their powerful personalities to manipulate others. They are often good public speakers and are drawn to occupations such as religious leaders or self-help gurus. Their gift for oratory is mistaken as knowledge of the truth. Many televangelists are great speakers, but if you listen closely, much of what they say is gibberish.
These charismatic types also learn early-on that they can parlay their personalities into wealth and power. James Arthur Ray has been able to earn millions of dollars encouraging people to do bizarre acts like suffer in packed, unlit furnaces in the desert. Televangelists, whose sole claim to spiritual prominence is the ability to glibly string words and sentences together, are able to gain fabulous wealth by encouraging watchers to contribute “seed” money which they assure their sheep-like listeners will be repaid a hundredfold by God. You can be sure it never is.
We have an aching need for answers, but too often the people who are most willing to supply those answers are smooth-talking, charismatic, money-hungry con-men whose answers empty our wallets and our souls.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Health Insurance Industry Report
When the health insurance executives met with President Obama earlier this year to assure him that they were going to take steps to lower health care costs, I warned that they were lying. Shortly after the meeting, they backed-out of their commitments and began preparing television ads attacking health care reform. Now they have come-out with a report prepared by flunkies which claims that health care reform as envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee bill will actually raise premiums for most Americans. Richard Kirsch of Health Care for America Now responded to the report, saying: "The idea that the insurance industry would complain about high premiums is like the Yankees complaining that they're hitting too many home runs. It's totally preposterous."
Senate Finance Committee spokesman Scott Mulhauser called the report "a health insurance company hatchet job -- plain and simple." The report has been ripped to shreds by experts. It deliberately ignores all of the provisions of the bill that will bring large savings to health care recipients. It ignores the proposed subsidies that would help millions of people to buy their own insurance. Jonathan Gruber, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the health care program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, says that the Finance Committee plan will not raise premiums but will substantially lower the cost of health insurance.
The obvious purpose of the report is for the insurance industry to make a nasty threat to raise premiums if Congress reduces Medicare payments to hospitals and compels insurance companies to cover people who are ill or who have prior medical conditions. The answer to such a threat is to enact a public option.
The behavior of the health insurance industry during this fight over reform has been an example of American business at its most reprehensible. It is worse even than the behavior of the oil, pharmaceutical, and other miscreant industries. I previously quoted the figure of 18,000 people who die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, because of the policies of the health insurance industry, the figure for those who die each year because of lack of health insurance has risen to 45,000. That is a national disgrace. The argument is no longer political. It is moral.
Wendell Potter, a former insurance company executive turned whistle-blower, said the report is aimed to shape reform "for their (insurance companies’) benefit and the benefit of Wall Street shareholders, more than Americans. This is a desperation move on the part of the insurance industry, because analysts are now somewhat concerned ... that the bill may not be absolutely everything that the industry wants”
The bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee is designed to lower, not raise, health insurance premiums. Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the bill will reduce the national deficit by more than $80 billion over the next decade, provide insurance to an additional 29 million people, and extend coverage to 94 percent of the country's non-elderly population.
The Senate Finance Committee bill is highly imperfect. It does not contain a public option. It weakens the mandate that individuals carry health insurance. That is not the end of the matter, however. That bill is likely to be combined with a bill that does have a public option. The individual mandate will probably be strengthened in a combined bill. If the public option is not in the final Senate bill, it will be in the final bill coming out of the Senate-House Conference. It will then be voted on by both the Senate and the House. If the Senate Republicans filibuster the final vote, the Democrats have the option of treating the legislation as budget reconciliation legislation requiring only 51 votes for passage.
Senate Finance Committee spokesman Scott Mulhauser called the report "a health insurance company hatchet job -- plain and simple." The report has been ripped to shreds by experts. It deliberately ignores all of the provisions of the bill that will bring large savings to health care recipients. It ignores the proposed subsidies that would help millions of people to buy their own insurance. Jonathan Gruber, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the health care program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, says that the Finance Committee plan will not raise premiums but will substantially lower the cost of health insurance.
The obvious purpose of the report is for the insurance industry to make a nasty threat to raise premiums if Congress reduces Medicare payments to hospitals and compels insurance companies to cover people who are ill or who have prior medical conditions. The answer to such a threat is to enact a public option.
The behavior of the health insurance industry during this fight over reform has been an example of American business at its most reprehensible. It is worse even than the behavior of the oil, pharmaceutical, and other miscreant industries. I previously quoted the figure of 18,000 people who die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, because of the policies of the health insurance industry, the figure for those who die each year because of lack of health insurance has risen to 45,000. That is a national disgrace. The argument is no longer political. It is moral.
Wendell Potter, a former insurance company executive turned whistle-blower, said the report is aimed to shape reform "for their (insurance companies’) benefit and the benefit of Wall Street shareholders, more than Americans. This is a desperation move on the part of the insurance industry, because analysts are now somewhat concerned ... that the bill may not be absolutely everything that the industry wants”
The bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee is designed to lower, not raise, health insurance premiums. Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the bill will reduce the national deficit by more than $80 billion over the next decade, provide insurance to an additional 29 million people, and extend coverage to 94 percent of the country's non-elderly population.
The Senate Finance Committee bill is highly imperfect. It does not contain a public option. It weakens the mandate that individuals carry health insurance. That is not the end of the matter, however. That bill is likely to be combined with a bill that does have a public option. The individual mandate will probably be strengthened in a combined bill. If the public option is not in the final Senate bill, it will be in the final bill coming out of the Senate-House Conference. It will then be voted on by both the Senate and the House. If the Senate Republicans filibuster the final vote, the Democrats have the option of treating the legislation as budget reconciliation legislation requiring only 51 votes for passage.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The Life of the Mind
People have often told me that I should not just sit around reading books. I should get out. My former wife used to criticize me for not having any outside activities. She said that I needed to get a life. I told her that I had a life of the mind. She would stare at me in mute incomprehension.
When you immerse yourself in books, you go through a door into a different world. It not only gives a kind of pleasure, it gives life. I cannot say that reading has brought me great happiness. By chemistry and disposition I am a less than cheerful person. I would like to be happier, but I would not give up reading to gain that end. Perhaps reading has deepened my melancholy. Profound research into the absence of God and the meaninglessness of life has not cheered my soul. But knowledge is its own reward.
Stanley Fish, a college professor, literary critic, and columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote a column on the question of whether the humanities do anything to help humanity. His conclusion was--no. He said: “To the question ‘of what use are the humanities?’ the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said ….diminishes the object of its supposed praise.”
I agree.
I have spent much of my life reading. It has given me knowledge of literature, history, philosophy, theology, psychology and other fields of learning. I do not have a brilliant mind. What I have that the average person does not have is a passion for learning. Since I graduated from college I have never stopped reading books. I am not a fast reader, but I am a constant reader. I am an autodidact, a self-educated person. I spent most of my high school years studying the parabolas of girls’ chests and most of my college education studying the trajectories of basketballs. When I graduated, I realized that I did not know very much. For some reason, I wanted to learn, so that is when I started reading in earnest.
Many years ago I wanted to understand the reason why civilizations, nations, and cultures developed the way they did. I decided to read history and other subjects in the humanities. I read many multi-volume books on the history of civilization. After a lifetime of reading, I still do not have the answers. But I do have some ideas, and I can converse about them. I have tried to learn about subjects beyond literature, history, philosophy, and theology; subjects like music, art, and science. I have only a layman’s knowledge of these fields, but I probably know far more than most people. As I’ve gotten older I find that I love listening to beautiful classical music. I also love reading books about art and looking up artists’ works on the computer. Almost every day I choose an artist and search for him or her online.
I discovered early in my marriage that my wife did not appreciate it if I went into the bedroom in the evening and started reading. She wanted me to watch television with her. This bothered me and probably contributed to the eventual downfall of our marriage. I looked upon the watching of television as a waste of time and a non-social event. We sat and stared blankly at the screen without engaging in any conversation. The material on television was pathetic. I hated watching, but felt that it was the only way to appease my wife. When children came along, they wanted their daddy to play with them. I loved playing with my children but it was impossible to read after coming home from work. In addition, my work was demanding and I often did not get home until later. By the time I got home I would be tired, too tired to read.
I started getting up very early in the morning. I discovered that if I arose around 5:30 a.m. I would be able to read for several hours without interference. Moreover, I would be awake and alert. I could read and understand the more difficult books without developing that sleepiness that accompanies most attempts to read recondite material.
Each morning I would get up and go make coffee. I would sit and luxuriate over the coffee while I began reading some book of history, philosophy, theology, literature or such. Sometimes I could not understand a word of what I was reading, but I did not give up. I would read and reread pages until I began to comprehend what the writer was saying. As I read more and more books, I understood more and more.
Sometimes I would be struck by what I was reading. Some writer would connect with my mind so deeply that chills would run down my spine. I have had the same experience with music and art. When I first saw Velazquez’s “Waterseller of Seville,” I was deeply moved and tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t comprehend the genius it must have taken to paint such a masterpiece! I have had the same experience when hearing some pieces of music. I felt a deep thrill when I first heard the slow movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. This has happened many times.
I would have liked to have had a consistently happy life. But I realize that for some people, like me, happiness consists of fleeting moments. Sometimes it is just time with my children and grandchildren, time with my sweet Julie, a great book, a beautiful day, beautiful scenery, magnificent music, wonderful art, a glorious poem, or a penetrating thought. It is through such things that I have experienced much of the happiness in my life.
When you immerse yourself in books, you go through a door into a different world. It not only gives a kind of pleasure, it gives life. I cannot say that reading has brought me great happiness. By chemistry and disposition I am a less than cheerful person. I would like to be happier, but I would not give up reading to gain that end. Perhaps reading has deepened my melancholy. Profound research into the absence of God and the meaninglessness of life has not cheered my soul. But knowledge is its own reward.
Stanley Fish, a college professor, literary critic, and columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote a column on the question of whether the humanities do anything to help humanity. His conclusion was--no. He said: “To the question ‘of what use are the humanities?’ the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said ….diminishes the object of its supposed praise.”
I agree.
I have spent much of my life reading. It has given me knowledge of literature, history, philosophy, theology, psychology and other fields of learning. I do not have a brilliant mind. What I have that the average person does not have is a passion for learning. Since I graduated from college I have never stopped reading books. I am not a fast reader, but I am a constant reader. I am an autodidact, a self-educated person. I spent most of my high school years studying the parabolas of girls’ chests and most of my college education studying the trajectories of basketballs. When I graduated, I realized that I did not know very much. For some reason, I wanted to learn, so that is when I started reading in earnest.
Many years ago I wanted to understand the reason why civilizations, nations, and cultures developed the way they did. I decided to read history and other subjects in the humanities. I read many multi-volume books on the history of civilization. After a lifetime of reading, I still do not have the answers. But I do have some ideas, and I can converse about them. I have tried to learn about subjects beyond literature, history, philosophy, and theology; subjects like music, art, and science. I have only a layman’s knowledge of these fields, but I probably know far more than most people. As I’ve gotten older I find that I love listening to beautiful classical music. I also love reading books about art and looking up artists’ works on the computer. Almost every day I choose an artist and search for him or her online.
I discovered early in my marriage that my wife did not appreciate it if I went into the bedroom in the evening and started reading. She wanted me to watch television with her. This bothered me and probably contributed to the eventual downfall of our marriage. I looked upon the watching of television as a waste of time and a non-social event. We sat and stared blankly at the screen without engaging in any conversation. The material on television was pathetic. I hated watching, but felt that it was the only way to appease my wife. When children came along, they wanted their daddy to play with them. I loved playing with my children but it was impossible to read after coming home from work. In addition, my work was demanding and I often did not get home until later. By the time I got home I would be tired, too tired to read.
I started getting up very early in the morning. I discovered that if I arose around 5:30 a.m. I would be able to read for several hours without interference. Moreover, I would be awake and alert. I could read and understand the more difficult books without developing that sleepiness that accompanies most attempts to read recondite material.
Each morning I would get up and go make coffee. I would sit and luxuriate over the coffee while I began reading some book of history, philosophy, theology, literature or such. Sometimes I could not understand a word of what I was reading, but I did not give up. I would read and reread pages until I began to comprehend what the writer was saying. As I read more and more books, I understood more and more.
Sometimes I would be struck by what I was reading. Some writer would connect with my mind so deeply that chills would run down my spine. I have had the same experience with music and art. When I first saw Velazquez’s “Waterseller of Seville,” I was deeply moved and tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t comprehend the genius it must have taken to paint such a masterpiece! I have had the same experience when hearing some pieces of music. I felt a deep thrill when I first heard the slow movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. This has happened many times.
I would have liked to have had a consistently happy life. But I realize that for some people, like me, happiness consists of fleeting moments. Sometimes it is just time with my children and grandchildren, time with my sweet Julie, a great book, a beautiful day, beautiful scenery, magnificent music, wonderful art, a glorious poem, or a penetrating thought. It is through such things that I have experienced much of the happiness in my life.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Phony Ads Against the Public Option
The television ads show a Canadian woman who claims to have had a brain tumor. She was told she would have to wait six months for treatment in Canada. She says that if she had waited for treatment in Canada she would have died. She mortgaged her home to pay for surgery at the Mayo Clinic in the United States. She then goes on to condemn the Canadian health care system, and implies that the Obama health care reform will lead to a Canadian style health care system. This ad is pure dishonest garbage. It is an example of the depths to which the despicable American health insurance industry is willing to stoop to try and defeat health care reform and a public option. Doesn’t is bother anybody that the whole case of the health insurance industry against health care reform has been built on lies?
The truth is that the woman, Shona Holmes, did not have a brain tumor. There was no emergency that required prompt surgery to save her life. According to the Mayo Clinic, the woman had a “Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland." Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not tumors; they are slow-growing benign cysts. The chair of neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., stated that such a cyst "is not typically life-threatening." Neurosurgeons in Montreal and Toronto described Holmes’ claims as exaggerated and stated that her condition was not a medical emergency. She certainly could have waited six months to have the cyst removed. I do not know why she came to the U.S. for treatment or if she was paid to make the fraudulent commercial.
People throughout Canada are outraged by this phony commercial criticizing Canadian health care. The Toronto Star published a letter to the editor from an Ontario resident who had a real brain tumor and who described the care she received in the Canadian health care system as being of "exceptional quality." Her letter concluded with the comment: "I know our health care system works and if Holmes didn't have a problem with her physician what exactly are her motives for taking part in this media spectacle?"
Aside from being untruthful and misleading, the commercial by Shona Holmes is irrelevant. President Obama’s health care reform plan does not envision a Canadian health care system. While many of us would prefer a single-payer system such as they have in Canada, that is not what the President and the Democrats in Congress are offering. They are proposing a plan which, along with a number of major reforms in the current system, offers a governmental form of health insurance as just one option among many. There will still be plenty of private insurance plans to choose from. If the public option drives private insurance options out of business, it will be because they have failed to offer something better.
One of the most disgusting things about the effort by the health insurance industry to defeat health care reform is their constant false claim that health care in Canada is slow, inefficient, and ineffective. In fact, health care in Canada is outstanding, and the people of Canada are very pleased with it. It is significantly better than health care in The United States.
A recent Canadian Press Harris-Decima Survey shows that 82 percent of Canadians are quite pleased with their health care and believe that their system is far better than American health care. The same is true of European countries with universal health care. According to an August 2009 Gallup Survey, 79 percent of people in European countries with universal health care are very satisfied with their high quality health care. The claim that Europeans are dissatisfied with their systems because of long waits for treatment is a lot of baloney.
The truth is that the woman, Shona Holmes, did not have a brain tumor. There was no emergency that required prompt surgery to save her life. According to the Mayo Clinic, the woman had a “Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland." Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not tumors; they are slow-growing benign cysts. The chair of neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., stated that such a cyst "is not typically life-threatening." Neurosurgeons in Montreal and Toronto described Holmes’ claims as exaggerated and stated that her condition was not a medical emergency. She certainly could have waited six months to have the cyst removed. I do not know why she came to the U.S. for treatment or if she was paid to make the fraudulent commercial.
People throughout Canada are outraged by this phony commercial criticizing Canadian health care. The Toronto Star published a letter to the editor from an Ontario resident who had a real brain tumor and who described the care she received in the Canadian health care system as being of "exceptional quality." Her letter concluded with the comment: "I know our health care system works and if Holmes didn't have a problem with her physician what exactly are her motives for taking part in this media spectacle?"
Aside from being untruthful and misleading, the commercial by Shona Holmes is irrelevant. President Obama’s health care reform plan does not envision a Canadian health care system. While many of us would prefer a single-payer system such as they have in Canada, that is not what the President and the Democrats in Congress are offering. They are proposing a plan which, along with a number of major reforms in the current system, offers a governmental form of health insurance as just one option among many. There will still be plenty of private insurance plans to choose from. If the public option drives private insurance options out of business, it will be because they have failed to offer something better.
One of the most disgusting things about the effort by the health insurance industry to defeat health care reform is their constant false claim that health care in Canada is slow, inefficient, and ineffective. In fact, health care in Canada is outstanding, and the people of Canada are very pleased with it. It is significantly better than health care in The United States.
A recent Canadian Press Harris-Decima Survey shows that 82 percent of Canadians are quite pleased with their health care and believe that their system is far better than American health care. The same is true of European countries with universal health care. According to an August 2009 Gallup Survey, 79 percent of people in European countries with universal health care are very satisfied with their high quality health care. The claim that Europeans are dissatisfied with their systems because of long waits for treatment is a lot of baloney.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Happy With Health Insurance?
One hears repeatedly that 85 percent of Americans are “happy” with their health insurance. So why do we need health insurance reform? Well, the 85 percent figure is a phony, misleading statistic. It does not mean that 85 percent of all Americans are delighted with their health insurance and that a disgruntled 15 percent of the American people are the only ones who want to change our health insurance laws; far from it.
In the first place, the pollsters questioned only people covered by health insurance. The 85 percent of people who are happy does not include the 47 million people who have no health insurance. Those people certainly are not “happy” with their health insurance. Moreover, 15 percent of the people who have health insurance are not “happy” with their coverage. In addition, all of the polls giving the 85 percent figure include people on Medicare, Medicaid, and other government-run plans. According to Gallup, approximately 22-33 percent of the respondents in the polls are on Medicare or Medicaid. Of course those people are satisfied with their health insurance. The Census Bureau tells us that in 2008, only 66.7 percent of the people polled had private health insurance--and that number is going down rapidly because thousands of businesses are dropping it as a benefit of employment.
So it is not 85 percent of all Americans that are happy with their private health insurance. Do the math. When you subtract all of the people who are unhappy with their private health insurance, all of the people who have no insurance, and all of the people on Medicare etc., you come out with about 18 percent of Americans who are happy with their private health insurance. That is a long way from the dishonest figure of 85 percent.
If 85 percent of Americans were “happy” with health insurance, you can be sure that there would be no support for enactment of health insurance reform with a public option. But a new study by SurveyUSA finds that the public supports enactment of a public option by 77 percent. In a June 2009 survey, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 76 percent of those questioned favored a public option. Why such high percentages if 85 percent are happy with their health insurance? Why such high percentages if the controversy over health care reform has supposedly destroyed President Obama’s approval ratings?
According to a new CBS News/New York Times poll out September 24, 2009, President Obama’s approval rating is 56 percent. An October 1, 2009, Gallup Poll gives the President a 54 percent approval rating. By my arithmetic, that is a majority. When you consider the fact that he was elected with only 52 percent, and when you consider the hammering he has taken from the health insurance industry, the Republicans in Congress, Fox News fanatics, talk radio morons, town hall screamers, and tea party lunatics, he is still doing pretty well.
Compare the President’s approval rating to the ratings given to House Minority Gasbag John Boehner, Senate Minority Claghorn, Mitch McConnell, and the Republicans in Congress. According to a September Harris Poll, Boehner and McConnell each received an 18 percent approval rating. The Republicans in Congress got a 27 percent approval rating, while 70 percent disapproved. In a September CBS News/New York Times Poll, the Republicans in Congress received a 30 percent approval rating.
It is, of course, no surprise that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the Republicans in Congress. The Republicans are fighting on the side of health insurance companies to deny Americans any health care reform at all. The public knows that President Obama is trying to do something to improve health insurance and health care in America. They know that the Republicans are doing nothing.
In the first place, the pollsters questioned only people covered by health insurance. The 85 percent of people who are happy does not include the 47 million people who have no health insurance. Those people certainly are not “happy” with their health insurance. Moreover, 15 percent of the people who have health insurance are not “happy” with their coverage. In addition, all of the polls giving the 85 percent figure include people on Medicare, Medicaid, and other government-run plans. According to Gallup, approximately 22-33 percent of the respondents in the polls are on Medicare or Medicaid. Of course those people are satisfied with their health insurance. The Census Bureau tells us that in 2008, only 66.7 percent of the people polled had private health insurance--and that number is going down rapidly because thousands of businesses are dropping it as a benefit of employment.
So it is not 85 percent of all Americans that are happy with their private health insurance. Do the math. When you subtract all of the people who are unhappy with their private health insurance, all of the people who have no insurance, and all of the people on Medicare etc., you come out with about 18 percent of Americans who are happy with their private health insurance. That is a long way from the dishonest figure of 85 percent.
If 85 percent of Americans were “happy” with health insurance, you can be sure that there would be no support for enactment of health insurance reform with a public option. But a new study by SurveyUSA finds that the public supports enactment of a public option by 77 percent. In a June 2009 survey, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 76 percent of those questioned favored a public option. Why such high percentages if 85 percent are happy with their health insurance? Why such high percentages if the controversy over health care reform has supposedly destroyed President Obama’s approval ratings?
According to a new CBS News/New York Times poll out September 24, 2009, President Obama’s approval rating is 56 percent. An October 1, 2009, Gallup Poll gives the President a 54 percent approval rating. By my arithmetic, that is a majority. When you consider the fact that he was elected with only 52 percent, and when you consider the hammering he has taken from the health insurance industry, the Republicans in Congress, Fox News fanatics, talk radio morons, town hall screamers, and tea party lunatics, he is still doing pretty well.
Compare the President’s approval rating to the ratings given to House Minority Gasbag John Boehner, Senate Minority Claghorn, Mitch McConnell, and the Republicans in Congress. According to a September Harris Poll, Boehner and McConnell each received an 18 percent approval rating. The Republicans in Congress got a 27 percent approval rating, while 70 percent disapproved. In a September CBS News/New York Times Poll, the Republicans in Congress received a 30 percent approval rating.
It is, of course, no surprise that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the Republicans in Congress. The Republicans are fighting on the side of health insurance companies to deny Americans any health care reform at all. The public knows that President Obama is trying to do something to improve health insurance and health care in America. They know that the Republicans are doing nothing.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Why Tax The Rich?
Conservatives such as George Will complain that it is a reflex action by liberals in Congress to soak the rich in order to pay for health care reform. They point-out that the top 1 percent of income earners in America pays 45 percent of the income taxes. Conservatives claim that Congress is engaged in a Robin Hood form of class warfare which was never authorized by the constitution. They want to retain the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and prevent surcharges on the rich to pay for health care reform.
If I were making the tax laws, I would not simply repeal the Bush tax cuts. I would greatly increase taxes on the rich. Why? Because there is too much poverty, too much hunger, too much sickness, too much disparity between rich and poor here in America, the land of wealth and opportunity. I doubt that most people are aware of the enormous gap between the wealth of the top 1 percent of people in America and the rest of us. Those very wealthy people have excellent health insurance and health care. Perhaps that is why we hear so much drivel about how America has the best health care in the world. We don’t, but very wealthy Americans probably do.
What George Will and the right-wingers fail to mention is that according to the Census Bureau and a study by the Sociology Department of the University of California, as of 2004, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 42.2 percent of all privately held financial wealth in America, and the next 19 percent owned 50.3 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned 85 percent of the wealth in America! Their wealth was 190 times greater than that of the median U.S. household. The top 10 percent had 85 to 90 percent of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75 percent of non-home real estate.
Conservatives have been trying to eliminate inheritance taxes, which they call “death taxes.” According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6 percent of Americans inherit more than $100,000. Another 1.1 percent inherit $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9 percent of the people in America inherit nothing.
Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in the 21-year-period between 1983 and 2004, 42 percent of it went to the top 1 percent. A whopping 94 percent went to the top 20 percent, which of course means that the bottom 80 percent received only 6 percent of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s.
A 2007 study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the top 1 percent of income earners in America nearly quadrupled their share of the nation's income between 1979 and 2005, while their effective income tax rate dropped by 15 percent.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, income growth in America Between 1979 and 2006 was starkly uneven. Real after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent of households rose by 256 percent, or $863,000, compared to 21 percent, or $9,200, for households in the middle fifth, and 11 percent, or $1,600, for households in the bottom fifth. In 2006, the average household in the top 1 percent had an annual income of $1.2 million, up $63,000 just from the prior year.
Yes, the wealthy people in America suffered losses during the recession, but percentage-wise those losses were nothing compared to what the middle and lower income people suffered. Now that the stock market is rebounding, the rich are recouping their losses. Middle and lower income people will never recoup their losses from foreclosed homes, lost jobs, lost health insurance, and bankruptcies.
If I were making the tax laws, I would not simply repeal the Bush tax cuts. I would greatly increase taxes on the rich. Why? Because there is too much poverty, too much hunger, too much sickness, too much disparity between rich and poor here in America, the land of wealth and opportunity. I doubt that most people are aware of the enormous gap between the wealth of the top 1 percent of people in America and the rest of us. Those very wealthy people have excellent health insurance and health care. Perhaps that is why we hear so much drivel about how America has the best health care in the world. We don’t, but very wealthy Americans probably do.
What George Will and the right-wingers fail to mention is that according to the Census Bureau and a study by the Sociology Department of the University of California, as of 2004, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 42.2 percent of all privately held financial wealth in America, and the next 19 percent owned 50.3 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned 85 percent of the wealth in America! Their wealth was 190 times greater than that of the median U.S. household. The top 10 percent had 85 to 90 percent of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75 percent of non-home real estate.
Conservatives have been trying to eliminate inheritance taxes, which they call “death taxes.” According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6 percent of Americans inherit more than $100,000. Another 1.1 percent inherit $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9 percent of the people in America inherit nothing.
Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in the 21-year-period between 1983 and 2004, 42 percent of it went to the top 1 percent. A whopping 94 percent went to the top 20 percent, which of course means that the bottom 80 percent received only 6 percent of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s.
A 2007 study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the top 1 percent of income earners in America nearly quadrupled their share of the nation's income between 1979 and 2005, while their effective income tax rate dropped by 15 percent.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, income growth in America Between 1979 and 2006 was starkly uneven. Real after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent of households rose by 256 percent, or $863,000, compared to 21 percent, or $9,200, for households in the middle fifth, and 11 percent, or $1,600, for households in the bottom fifth. In 2006, the average household in the top 1 percent had an annual income of $1.2 million, up $63,000 just from the prior year.
Yes, the wealthy people in America suffered losses during the recession, but percentage-wise those losses were nothing compared to what the middle and lower income people suffered. Now that the stock market is rebounding, the rich are recouping their losses. Middle and lower income people will never recoup their losses from foreclosed homes, lost jobs, lost health insurance, and bankruptcies.
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