December 15, 2017--John McCain's Thumbs Up

Many admired John McCain, recently diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, when he appeared on the Senate floor past midnight in late September to vote thumbs down, literally thumbs down, on the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare.

Many were looking forward to a repeat performance next week when the Senate appears set to vote on one of the most regressive budget-busting tax-cut bills in modern legislative history.

Alas, McCain has indicated he will vote for it. Actually, try physically to vote for it if the wicked side effects of radiation and chemo therapy will allow him to do so. 

If he cannot make it to the Senate, the Republicans will have an even smaller margin to pass it. Thus, if Susan Collins of my beloved Maine comes to her senses and changes her mind and votes against the bill, it has a chance of being defeated. 

I have been wondering, why McCain, at times a legitimate maverick, was or is set to vote for it, considering how much he despises Donald Trump. I came to the one obvious conclusion--he and his family would be enormous beneficiaries of the GOP bill.

It would be kind to him and especially his heiress wife who own no fewer that eight homes (remember how that was revealed during the 2008 presidential election?) since this bill is quite friendly to people with large real estate holdings.

More than that, with his and his wife's net worth topping $100 million (she inherited a fortune in beer distributorships) by doubling the current $11million one can pass along tax free--John and Cindy McCain's heirs will net at least $11 million more than they would at present

Not the kind of political legacy I would imagine he seeks. But I guess when it gets right down to it, money is money. 

May 4, 2017--Life Itself Is a Pre-Existing Condition

The current debate about healthcare among Republicans has come down to how the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus and the so-called moderates disagree about how to deal with preexisting medical conditions--

As House of Representatives leadership scrounges around for votes to repeal and replace Obamacare, the debate focuses on how insurance should work for people who have health issues?

The moderates are concerned that tens of millions currently covered will lose their ability to purchase insurance since individual states can opt out of the requirement to offer coverage to Americans who have, say, cancer or heart disease or can charge many times what equivalent polices cost for individuals who do not have preconditions.

Though there would be some subsidies for low-income people these would be inadequate since the GOP version of healthcare insurance is in essence more free-market, for profit in structure than redistibutional. This means the legislation they are pushing is about two things--first, cutting government costs and, more important to Republicans, conservative or moderate, to repeal the taxes high earners are required to pay to help offset some of the overall cost of the Affordable Care Act.

This would mean that if you have a precondition you either have to come up with the cash to buy insurance or go without it. In a market-driven Darwinian world, c'est la vie.

Talking about this over breakfast yesterday, Rona said that everyone older than 50 has one or more preconditions just from having lived that long.

She meant it as a quip since it is not literally true; but, when we went down the list of our family and friends to see how many have one or more preconditions, we found that this is true for almost everyone we know.

Including the two of us! If we had to, neither one of us would be able to secure much less pay for health insurance.

From TermLife's Website below is a very partial list of preconditions that would be disqualifying if Obamacare were replaced by what is apparently about to be approved by Republicans in the House of Representatives.

At least a third of Americans have preexisting conditions that would not allow them to buy insurance or it would be beyond their means to afford if we move back to a market approach.

Everyone has stories about people being denied coverage. Here are two from Wednesday's New York Times--

Larisa Thomason, of New Market, Ala., remembers how her husband got a letter from Humana informing him that his policy would not cover cancer care because a colonoscopy had turned up several benign polyps.

Also, an insurer in Washington refused to cover any treatment to Alice Thompson's reproductive system because a doctor had written in her remedial record that she should have a hysterectomy to eliminate powerful menstrual periods.

This is a glimpse of the future of health care if Republicans in Congress and the White House have their way.

ACID REFLUX (GERD)

ADDISON’S DISEASE

ALCOHOL ABUSE AND RECOVERY

AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS (ALS)

ANEMIA

ANEURYSM

ANGINA PECTORIS

ANGIOPLASTY

ANOREXIA

ANXIETY

AORTIC ANEURYSM

ARRHYTHMIA

ARTHRITIS

ASTHMA

ATRIAL FIBRILLATION

ATRIAL FLUTTER

ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD)

AUTISM

B

BARIATRIC SURGERY

BASAL CELL CARCINOMA

BERGER’S DISEASE

BENIGN PROSTATIC HYPERTORPHY

BIPOLAR DISORDER

BLOOD CLOT

BLOOD PRESSURE

BRADYARRHYTHMIAS

BREAST CANCER

BRONCHIECTASIS

BRONCHITIS (CHRONIC)

BULIMIA

BUNDLE BRANCH BLOCK

C

CANCER

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

CELIAC DISEASE

CEREBRAL ANEURYSM

CEREBRAL EMBOLISM

CEREBRAL PALSY

CEREBRAL THROMBOSIS

CHARCOT MARIE TOOTH DISEASE

CHOLESTEROL

CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE (COPD)

CHOLITIS (ULCERATIVE)

CLAUDICATION

COLON CANCER

COLON POLYPS

CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE (CHF)

CORONARY BYPASS 

CROHN’S DISEASE

November 22, 2016--Obama's Legacy

Nary a day goes by when there isn't talk about Obama's legacy.

In this weekend's New York Times Sunday Review section for example, in addition to a number of passing references, there is Julian Zelizer's article, "Wrecking Obama's Legacy."

Enough.

Obama himself is so involved with polishing his historical reputation--not wanting his legacy to be only about his being the first African-American president--that the rest of us should leave it at that.  Leave it to him rather than feel that we progressives have a responsibility to protect his reputation and to resist soon-to-be-seen efforts to chip away at his accomplishments. Obamacare, for example which is slated by Donald Trump to be "repealed and replaced."

Good luck with that.

We can see how well this legacy protection is working. During the recent race for the White House Obama spent a lot of time appearing before black audiences in the Carolinas in an effort to explicitly encourage them to vote for Hillary Clinton in order to protect his legacy.

African-American turnout, as it turned out, was much less than projected. Perhaps because his self-serving appeal turned off even black voters.

When campaigning, he didn't just say that Clinton had many programs that would benefit people of color or that she would do a better job than Trump of keeping America safe. What he in effect said was think of a vote for Hillary as a vote for his legacy. His legacy as an African-American president, as if it were disconnected from concerns about America's future.

Imagine the understandable firestorm if a white president toward the end of his term beseeched supporters to vote for his successor because she is white.

Additionally,  it is not up to the liberal media or the rest of us to focus on what Obama accomplished and to feel compelled to promote it. We should be thinking about what's good for America going forward. Especially how to keep Trump from making things worse. Potentially much worse.

If Obama was so concerned about his legacy perhaps when he had majorities in both houses of Congress he would not have traded away the single-payer health care option without a fight or without getting anything in exchange. Now, because of its inherent flaws (not just because of Trump and Paul Ryan) it is collapsing of its own weight.

If he was so concerned about his legacy perhaps Obama would not have contributed to messes with Russia and in Libya, Egypt, and Syria among other places in the Middle East. Maybe we wouldn't have helped catalyze the rise of ISIS.

These among other things will be at the heart of how history will regard him. Thus I understand why he would be concerned.

This is not to say that there are not real accomplishments to be tallied--Obamacare is in fact a step toward wider coverage; we didn't get suckered into further entanglements in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or in various direct and surrogate ways with China. Then, he made some significant gains in climate and environment policy as well as with energy diversification and self-sufficiency. And, of course, he did many good things to help stabilize and rebuild the nearly collapsed economy he inherited.

But again, none of us should spend one more minute thinking about much less defending Obama's legacy. He has two months to go and we are facing at least four years of Trump and that deserves his and our full attention.