Actions to take now: Freeze foreclosures; raise minimum wage; extend Medicare to all

[seafan]

Immediate steps should be taken to ensure that people can stay in their homes.


1. Immediate freeze on foreclosures.


2. Raise the minimum wage, so people can keep up with their mortgages.


3. Extend Medicare coverage to all. This is perhaps the single most effective and long-lasting supportive action to help Americans stay in their homes.

Why?

The number one reason that people lose their homes is catastrophic medical expense, followed by loss of a job and divorce/loss of a wage earner in the home, as both follow as dire consequences.

(T)he cost of universal health care would be at least $34-$69 billion, plus whatever costs are associated with covering out-of-pocket expenses and uncompensated care for the uninsured. Specific solutions may entail additional expenses as well, depending on their design parameters.

Link to pdf

Somehow, the $34-$69 billion dollar price for universal single payer health coverage for all Americans sounds like a GREAT DEAL when compared with the $700 BILLION that Paulson wants, to bail out his and Bush's Wall Street buddies.


The only way to address this economic catastrophe unleashed by Bush and his cronies will be to focus economic support from THE BOTTOM UP and NOT the top down. The obscenely wealthy robbers of Wall Street should pay for their failures.



Bailout plan rejected in House in 228-205 vote

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: September 29, 2008: 3:17 PM ET

.....Republican leaders who had pushed their reluctant members for the bill blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying that her speech during the floor debate drove away about a dozen Republicans they thought they could get to support the measure.

"I do believe we could have gotten there today if it had not been for this partisan speech the speaker gave on the floor of the House," said Boehner.

.....

Speaking to reporters, Pelosi said that both Democratic and Republican leaders had pledged to get more than half their members to support the package and that only the Democrats had lived up to that promise.

"The legislation may have failed, the crisis is still with us," she said.

Earlier, speaking on the House floor, Pelosi said "$700 billion a staggering number, but only a part of the cost of the failed Bush economic policies - policies that were built on budget recklessness ... combined with an anything goes economic policy, have taken us to where we are today."

Cry us a river, Boehner.



Bush very disappointed by House vote on bailout, will meet with team to discuss next steps

Associated Press
2:29 PM EDT, September 29, 2008

[Cleita]

1. You are on the right track and for us senior

citizens, whose retirement income investments will probably be wiped out, increase Social Security to an amount we can live on.

[TxBlue]

2. Freeze Foreclosures and Get Jobs for US

Not everybody is sick but that's nice but not going to help immediately.

Job creation, freeze foreclosures and renegotiate mtgs, and send money to taxpayers.

[Selatius]

3. I do not think the gov't is equipped to freeze all foreclosures in all 50 states, but

I would add to the minimum wage provision the passage of the Employee Free-Choice Act. It makes it easier to form labor unions, which can then bargain for better pay and benefits beyond the simple minimum wage. Labor unions are why manufacturing jobs paid so well. They need to be brought into the service sector now, which is still largely un-unionized. Companies like Wal-Mart need a labor union.

[Greyhound]

4. It would be a start. Unfortunately no one in Congress (with a few exceptions) is thinking

about us at all. They're too busy taking urgent calls from campaign contributors and trying think of some way to package another "no billionaire left behind" bill.

[Trillo]

5. That's a good short list.

I'd pick a point though about the costs of single-payer universal healthcare such as H.R. 676. If one looks at private expenditures for healthcare, and includes it in the same worksheet, all indications are that there would be a NET decrease in costs. Currently, there are a lot of private expenses for medical care that aren't on the govt budget, those would get transferred (or displaced) to government.

[El Pinko]

6. No freezes on mortgages - let people who didn't buy the bubble snap up the homes cheap.

I'm all for a rise in the minimum wage, but that won't help with mortgages, because people on minimum wage do not have mortgages - they pay rent or live in an old car.