An object lesson in how government 'works' these days?

[mojowork_n]

This past Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Crossroads" section had a brief editorial from the CEO's of Aurora Healthcare and Bucyrus International on an (overlooked?) spillover from the recent state budget fight.

Available Medicaid Fed Funds not budgeted for Wisconsin hospitals

If you follow the link and read through the argument "State officials left $400 million in federal money on the table when they passed the new budget bill - money that would help pay for health care for the poor while easing a significant burden on Wisconsin businesses.", the authors suggest "opponents of the hospital assessment have wrongly labeled it a tax on the sick."

The whole point of "Title XIX of the federal Social Security Act, enacted in 1965, {is to} establish an entitlement program that pays for health services provided to certain groups of low-income persons..." The two CEO's seem to support that goal strongly, and averred, "...the $400 million that was left on the table included $165 million that would have flowed to southeastern Wisconsin - money to help support the "safety net" hospitals in the Milwaukee area that care for many people enrolled in Medicaid. Without meaningful Medicaid payment increases, these hospitals are at great risk..."

I tried to Google up some more info on the decision-making process, and the background info:

Inter-Governmental Transfers

Informational PDF on this topic from Madison

Wisconsin Hospital Association Speaks

From Five Years Ago, the perspective of the Urban Institute

The Urban Institute


Mostly, I had absolutely no clue how 'FREE FED MONEY for Health Care' = "a tax on the sick" , until I got to the bottom of the Wisconsin Hospital Association newsletter, reading a couple of paragraphs on a completely unrelated issue:

"...Prescription drugs qualify as medical expenses under Code Section 213(d) only if they are "legally procured." IRS Publication 502 states, "In general, you cannot include in your medical expenses the cost of a prescribed drug brought in (or ordered shipped) from another country, because you can only include the cost of a drug that was imported legally... The FDA’s position is that virtually all drugs imported to the U.S. from Canada by or for individual U.S. consumers violates U.S. law."

Could it be that these two very high-profile local CEO's are in support of *Governor Doyle and Democrats* in the state legislature (not to mention "an entitlement program" for the poor)... because The Fix is in, in Washington?

Add them up, and all those gi-normous satchels of greasy lobbying dollars, invested so wisely by the big pharmaceutical outfits, to purchase the support of politicians from both parties (no doubt), has left nothing for the hospitals to work with, or the employers who are currently funding the private insurance programs that support them?

This link seems to include the source for the "tax on the sick" quote:

Junior Muckrakers' from Madison Write:

If anyone else has any alternative theories, or more info, I'd really be curious to find out more about what's behind this curious (?) alliance. Maybe someone should take the time and effort to invite Mssrs. Turkal and Sullivan to the next "impeach George and Dick" local D.U. pow-wow?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

1. I don't find the alliance curious at all...

A lot of companies are waking up to the fact that our healthcare system unfairly taxes those with insurance to pay the healthcare costs of those without. I'm not blaming the uninsured, mind you, just pointing out that if we had (...what's the phrase?) UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE companines like Bucyrus would be paying a hell of a lot less for their healthcare and hospitals would be able to slash their administrative costs because they wouldn't be haggling with two dozen different insurance carriers.

In the J-S today (November 14) was an article about how Wal-Mart is beefing up its insurance benefits for employees. Now one of things that has held back the corporate support for universal healthcare is the fact the Wal-Mart (the largest private employer on the face of the earth) doesn't provide healthcare. Now that it does, Wal-Mart has a vested interest in keeping costs low. Once you get Wal-Mart and General Motors and Exxon and General Electric pushing in the same direction, we might actually see some change.

[mojowork_n]

3. I completely agree that it makes sense.

Economic self-interest is about as powerful a motivator as you can get. It's really encouraging to see government and business in agreement on the need to find funding sources for hospitals and health care.

What I was wondering was who, on the other side of the spectrum, is still fighting this. All those Republicans in the state legislature who were against it had to be fronting for somebody. Fighting an "additional tax burden on the sick" was not the driving force for the opposition. It probably had more to do with those same wonderful folks who brought us the Medicaid Prescription Drug Benefit program.

From what I could find, some reasonable Democrats may have had sincere doubts about how reliable (and useful) the support would be. The Bush administration wouldn't be who you'd think of first, when it comes to finding funding sources for hospitals in poor neighborhoods. But those Democrats probably weren't the people who stood up to kill the plan, in the legislature.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. Movement Conservatives

They don't want any government solution to work. They oppose health care for children because it is the "camel's nose under the tent." If we can effectively insure poor and middle class children, then we can effectively insure poor and middle class adults. And if that works, we can insure everybody. Conservatives would frankly rather that people die of preventable diseases than have a government solution to the problem.

Perhaps we should start with universal mental health care, because these people are totally insane.

[mojowork_n]

5. Weapons of Mass Distraction

I love the concept -- "Universal Mental Health Care" (offering deep discounts and actual cash bonuses to regular listeners of the Mark Belling's, Sean Hannity's, Jay Weber's of the world, for starters), but I don't think the cure for that type of mass insanity can even begin until the root cause is addressed.

Right now, I think that root cause is that our whole governmental system is broken. We're all of us -- "progressives", "freepers", and each and every political perspective in between -- passengers on the same, rapidly sinking ship of state.

In this case, with the health care issue, it's just easier to see the tip of the iceberg above the waterline. Follow the money trail and it's not hard to see that the people raking in all the cash -- the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies (and the whole cabal of politicians and vested system overlords that directly benefit from their control of health care) have sold out the rest of us.

It *is* clearly insane to have so few benefit so much from the misery of so many.

But as loony and deluded as their arguments (and reptile-brain, fear-based, knee-jerk voting patterns and prejudices) may be, the "movement conservatives" really are victims, too, just like the rest of us.

Whichever end of the ideological divide you're talking about, the root cause of our collective malaise is that the American Body Politic is like a perpetual motion machine spinning out of control, but disengaged from doing any actual, useful work.

At periodic (and regularly controlled?) intervals, the direction of the spin is from right to left, until it mysteriously reverses itself to go left to right... Either way, enormous quantities of energy are produced, which helps to keep the focus on symptoms, side effects, and related tangents, not on what's really wrong with the system...

I'm running out of time, here -- sorry... but the beginning of this essay (cut and pasted, below, with the link it's from) is what I'm talking about... I think I actually disagree with the writer's conclusion, but the road he's going down is worth a look.


The Grand Delusion
By JOEL S. HIRSCHHORN

With an endless, futile and costly Iraq war, a stinking economy and most Americans seeing the country on the wrong track, the greatest national group delusion is that electing Democrats in 2008 is what the country needs.

Keith Olbermann was praised when he called the Bush presidency a criminal conspiracy. That missed the larger truth. The whole two-party political system is a criminal conspiracy hiding behind illusion induced delusion.

Virtually everything that Bush correctly gets condemnation for could have been prevented or negated by Democrats, if they had had courage, conviction and commitment to maintaining the rule of law and obedience to the Constitution. Bush grabbed power from the feeble and corrupt hands of Democrats. Democrats have failed the vast majority of Americans. So why would sensible people think that giving Democrats more power is a good idea? They certainly have done little to merit respect for their recent congressional actions, or inaction when it comes to impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

One of the core reasons the two-party stranglehold on our political system persists is that whenever one party uses its power to an extreme degree it sets the conditions for the other party--its partner in the conspiracy--to take over. Then the other takes its turn in wielding excessive power. Most Americans--at least those that vote--seem incapable of understanding that the Democrats and Republicans are two teams in the same league, serving the same cabal running the corporatist plutocracy. By keeping people focused on rooting for one team or the other, the behind-the-scenes rulers ensure their invisibility and power.

The genius of the plutocrats is to create the illusion of important differences between the two parties, and the illusion of political choice in elections. In truth, the partner parties compete superficially and dishonestly to entertain the electorate, to maintain the aura of a democracy. Illusion creates the delusion of Americans that voting in elections will deliver political reforms, despite a long history of politicians lying in campaigns about reforms, new directions and bold new policies. The rulers need power shifting between the teams to maintain popular trust in the political system. Voting manifests that trust--as if changing people will fix the system. It doesn't.

So voters become co-conspirators in the grand political criminal conspiracy. Those who vote for Democrats or Republicans perpetuate the corrupt, dishonest and elitist plutocracy that preferentially serves the interests of the Upper Class and a multitude of special interests--some aligned with the Republicans and some with the Democrats. Voting only encourages worthless politicians and those that fund and corrupt them.

Public discontent leads to settling for less through lesser evil voting rather than bold thinking about how to reform the system to get genuine political competition and better candidates and government.

I understand why sane people would not want to vote for Republicans, based on the Bush presidency. But I cannot understand why politically engaged people think that putting Democrats in power will restore American democracy and put the welfare of non-wealthy Americans above the interests of the wealthy and the business sector. Bill Clinton's administration strongly advanced globalization and the loss of good jobs to foreign countries. Economic inequality kept rising. Trade agreements sold us out.

And in this primary season talk about reforming our health care system among Democrats never gets serious about providing universal health care independent of the insurance industry. And why should citizens be supportive of a party that favors illegal immigration--law breaking--that primarily serves business interests by keeping labor costs low?...


...Whether you're a completely clueless and distracted "movement conservative", or a sophisticated, engaged, savvy "progressive", if we're all too busy -- Oops, gotta run...

Someone else please finish that sentance for me, okay?

weblink to essay

[mojowork_n]

2. Aurora Healthcare & B.I. backing Doyle's plan... strange bedfellows?

Too late to add an edit --

This morning's Journal Sentinel Business section revealed one possible quid-pro-quo:

Doyle backs clean coal plant in Illinois

Tim Sullivan's company, Bucyrus Internation, makes mining equipment that's most often used for coal extraction. Domestic development of "clean" coal technology (including investment dollars to expand coal-to-gasoline liquifaction, to reduce foreign oil dependance) is high on their agenda.