Letters

Dear OB Rag,

As a registered nurse I’m in favor of any reform plan that makes health care more accessible to people who currently don’t have access. The reform bill passed by the House of Representatives yesterday will give access to many Americans who currently do not have access so I have to congratulate them on taking a step forward.

However, for some reason they felt it was wrong to give the states the right to have their own systems, in other words, mandating that all states do exactly what the federal government says is the correct way to reform health care. The current bill removed the Kucinich Amendment, which would have guaranteed states the right to implement their own health care plans as long as it meets the minimum health care standards of the national plan.

Why would the House of Representatives pass a bill that limits states from doing something on their own that might be better? Perhaps there was another force acting on the members of the house? Perhaps the insurance companies would prefer that other options not be available?

I hope that when the final legislation gets through the Senate some form of states’ rights protection will exist.

Hugh Moore
Co-Chair, San Diego County Green Party

Reply

An injury to one is an injury to all!

Not only must we block the Stupak-Pitts attack on women’s reproductive freedom, it is

High Time to Repeal the Hyde Amendment!

The abomination of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of our (federal) public funds for exercise of a constitutionally protected (and morally inalienable) right must end. The Hyde Amendment has always been an attack focused directly upon working class and poor women (and families). It is a form of class warfare. It has never had any significant effect upon wealthy women and families.

The long existing Hyde Amendment is not well known or understood by the majority of the people. Now, with public attention directed not only to the threat of Stupakification but to the Hyde Amendment as well, is the ideal time to push back for human rights and freedom.

Don’t Mourn! Organize!

Please forward this call widely on progressive email lists and blogs.

— Monty Reed Kroopkin
Movement for a Democratic Society-San Diego

Reply

This open letter is well worth reading. While I remain a member of SMART and of Reform221 http://reformseiulocal221.blogspot.com/ and continue to work for democratic reform of SEIU, I fully appreciate the point of view Paul Krehbiel is expressing. — MK

———- Forwarded Message ———-
From: “Paul Krehbiel”
To: “Paul Krehbiel”
Subject: Re: Leaving SEIU
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:36:38 -0800

Dear Friends,

Everyone feel free to circulate and post this letter as you see fit.

Thank you.

Paul Krehbiel

Leaving SEIU and

Joining NUHW

An Open Letter to my SEIU friends, former co-workers, and all SEIU members and staff:

By Paul Krehbiel November 17, 2009

As a former staff worker for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 660 (now 721) in Los Angeles from 1998 – 2007, I am appalled by the degeneration of SEIU under the direction of President Andy Stern. While Local 660 had its share of problems, it had been in many respects a vibrant union. I was committed to Local 660 and its members and worked hard to build a strong, democratic, member-empowered union. But I can no longer remain silent about the degeneration I see, not only in Local 721, but also in many other SEIU units that Stern and his agents have taken over.

While on staff at Local 660, I worked as a Lead Field Representative/ Organizer, an Acting Director, and Chief Negotiator for over 5,000 Los Angeles County Registered Nurses. I was an organizer of a successful worksite campaign to get Los Angeles County to comply with California’s statewide 2004 nurse-to-patient ratio law, helped lead campaigns to build Stewards Councils in the County’s two largest hospitals, and I received commendations from SEIU leaders and members during my first six years on staff. I did my union work at Local 660 the same way I did it when I first joined the labor movement in 1968 while employed as a union auto parts worker in Buffalo. Then, I was won to trade unionism based on democratic rights for members, freedom of speech, and a belief that the goal of union members was to protect and support each other, and advance the interests of all working people. I became a full-time union representative in 1985 and I have never given up the beliefs I had in 1968.

Members Needs Ignored and Rights Given Away

By 2004-2005, I saw Local 660 changing from an organization that had allowed considerable local control and member involvement into an organization that dampened freedom of speech, weakened internal democracy, reduced meaningful member involvement, made secret deals with employers that harmed members’ interests, and isolated and punished those members and staff who disagreed with these negative changes.

This was part of the program that Stern developed for the entire union: to make large and unnecessary concessions to employers in return for the easy sign-up of more dues-paying members, and without real member involvement or approval. As his program was being implemented in Local 660, here are some of the things I witnessed. During contract negotiations, I and other negotiators were told by top officials of Local 660, such as Annelle Grajeda (then General Manager of Local 660) to end negotiations before we could mount a campaign to achieve the most important issues that the members wanted resolved, such as improvements in staffing for nurses. The goal, I was told, was not to upset management. I asked, “What about management upsetting our members?” I received no response.

I was informed in January 2004 that top Local 660 officials made a secret deal with the management of Los Angeles County to exempt the County indefinitely from meeting the new state law spelling out nurse-to-patient ratios. This new law set the legal ratio for 2004 at one 1icensed nurse for six patients, and one less patient per nurse for the next two years. In Los Angeles County, one licensed nurse had 10, 15, and even 20 patients. I saw stressed-out nurses in tears because they were worried about whether they gave adequate care to all their patients since they were assigned so many that they could not spend enough time with them. When I tried to help the nurses get management to abide by the new staffing law, I was told by top Local 660 officials to stop my activities immediately or face possible discipline.

I also saw top Local 660 officials come into LAC+USC Medical Center, where I was a union representative, and tell workers that certain elected stewards (excellent stewards who organized to protect workers rights and resist the Stern program) were bad stewards and should not be supported. I was upset and angered seeing SEIU erode the power and wellbeing of members and stewards and pit members against each other. Members became increasingly angry and alienated from SEIU.

Members Weakened Before Mega-Merger

Early in 2005, SEIU Local 660 staff was directed to spend most of our time signing up members to attend a “Convention” to take place on October 15, 2005. The goal of the “Convention” was to “make us a stronger and more effective union.” We were given weekly sign-up “goals” that were so high that we had little time to work with stewards and members to address their issues on the job. This combined with the routine neglect, dropping grievances, and making secret deals that hurt the members, resulted in a bigger disconnect between the top officials and the membership, making it even harder to meet our “goal” – which was 5,000 attendees. When the “Convention” took place, less than 800 people showed up and that counted a member and their whole family. There were no elected delegates, no elections, and no previously prepared proposals to be discussed and debated by members.

The “Convention” was really a very expensive three-hour rally – with high-tech light shows, live music, and chanting, costing the local $1 million, which was paid out of members’ dues dollars. Perhaps 15-20 minutes was devoted to “passing” several vaguely worded “motions” about making our union bigger and stronger, but there were no details, and no discussion on the “motions.” A union official asked the crowd if they agreed with building a stronger union, and the cheers and clapping from the crowd was interpreted as affirmation – all the “motions” passed. Charades like this are touted by Stern and other SEIU officials as evidence that SEIU is a “democratic” union. The “motions” that were “passed” then served as a “democratic mandate” to merge Local 660 with other SEIU locals in Southern California, and strip previously held rights from the members. It also gave Stern’s agents a way to identify those members who would go along with the Stern program without question – a number were bribed with paid-time off to do union work, free trips, promises of union positions, and other benefits. The staunchest Stern supporters were appointed to union positions in the new Local 721. This “Convention” also served as a way to identify those members who didn’t enthusiastically endorse this dog and pony show, in order to isolate and punish them, especially if they expressed disagreement.

Activists Retaliated Against and Removed

In November and December of 2005, I and other staff members asked for and held meetings with top Local 660 officials to alert them to the improper and possible illegal behavior of a Local 660 director who counseled female staff members to wear low-cut blouses and very short skirts to get things from male managers. This was done in a New Employee Orientation, and individually. One young woman staff member who attended the New Employee Orientation came to me afterwards nearly in tears and asked if wearing revealing clothing was a job requirement at SEIU. I was outraged, and told her absolutely not. Our staff union, United Union Representatives of Los Angeles, held two meetings to discuss this, and 15 staff members wrote statements about improper behavior by this director. I was the spokesperson for the group in meetings with top Local 660 officials, and we demanded an immediate end to such a practice, and that the director be removed. We also stated our concerns about the other harmful practices mentioned above and in the written statements by staff. I was immediately targeted for termination. I was given a Performance Evaluation that was marked Unsatisfactory in nearly every category of work by a young, inexperienced director who just prior to this had called me sometimes almost weekly to get my advice on how best to handle a wide array of union problems. Due to the increasing pressure placed on me, I went out on sick leave in 2006, and felt then that I could no longer work for a union that had sunk to such a disgraceful level of corruption, degradation, and sell-out practices. Members and staff kept me informed about developments in Local 660, and Local 721 after it was formed.

Democracy Subverted and Scrapped

In 2006-07, Stern initiated the campaign to merge Local 660 with six other locals to form Local 721, one of many such mega-mergers happening across the country. After working to undermine and weaken the strength of organized workers on the job, SEIU told members that the only solution to their problems was to unite with other locals to make a bigger local. However, there were few or no details on how the new union would function, or what rights members would have. Committees of active members were set up to “advise” the leaders, giving the impression that member involvement was valued. But, since the majority of members were so alienated and disconnected from the union, most paid little attention to SEIU mailings and announcements. And those members who did participate had no vote on any of the ideas; the top officials made all the final decisions. I’d seen this ruse when I worked at Local 660. Now conditions were ripe for a merger election. Ballots were mailed to the members, and SEIU then contacted the unquestioning Stern supporters who were reminded to vote “yes” for the merger. The turnout was tiny, so it was no surprise when a majority who cast ballots “voted” for the merger. SEIU then announced that the members decided in a “democratic” vote to merge their union with others. This was another charade, not real democracy.

Then, Stern and Grajeda, using business reorganization law and a weakened SEIU Constitution and By-Laws, arbitrarily removed all the elected officers and elected Executive Board members of Local 660 and the other merged locals, and Stern appointed Grajeda president of the new Local 721. Then, Stern and Grajeda kept members in the dark on important issues, made more decisions without meaningful member involvement or vote, stopped holding membership meetings, and weakened or dismantled existing steward and other member structures. While this was happening, 19 staff members, including myself, were fired. We all had worked to build member-power on the job, and many had attended the “whistle-blower” meetings mentioned above. Stern and Grajeda used this same business reorganization law as their legal cover since there was no just cause for terminating any of us. Stern and Grajeda then put the rest of the staff on probation for a year, even staff members with 15 and 20 years experience. The message was clear to staff: you will support our program 100% or you will be fired too. Stern and Grajeda were cleansing the staff to stop us from helping members stop the destruction of their union. I knew that many staff were very unhappy and did not agree with the Stern program, but they kept quiet for fear of being fired.

Under Stern, “Bigger” Means Weaker

Stern brags that SEIU has 2 million members, which makes it “bigger and stronger” than practically all other unions. He uses this line to try to keep the members he has (increasing numbers of members want out), and to try to get others to vote to join SEIU. (Stern’s thirst for more dues dollars appears unquenchable, and he’ll misinform and lie to fool workers into joining a group that is now isolated by most of the rest of the labor movement.) But what could those 2 million SEIU members do for workers in any given location? Nothing under Stern’s regime, because he has taken away their rights too and kept them in the dark about what’s really going on in the union. Stern and his agents lie to the members, and tell them that SEIU is fighting for the best possible contract for them, while at that very moment SEIU is giving away hard-won benefits behind the members’ backs. When I worked for SEIU Local 660 as it was preparing to become part of Stern’s Local 721, I felt like I was working in a mental hospital where paranoid and dictatorial schizophrenics were in charge.

Many members and staff expressed to me similar views. I heard many Local 721 members complain that they felt weaker after the merger, while Local 721 was announcing that is was “bigger,” “stronger,” and “more united” than ever. One member told me he felt like he was in the “Twilight Zone.” SEIU methodically works to weaken or dismantle every lever of real member power, and then tells people they are stronger. Nothing is done to help the stewards, so members are told if they have a grievance to call an 800 number to a remote “call center.” Members have told me that when they phone the “call” center, they either get a taped message and no return call, or usually someone who does not know how to help them but says they will get back to them, but doesn’t. Members have said they have not seen a rep in months, and those members who do see one are usually told by the rep that they cannot help them. How is it better to be a member of a corrupt ineffective union with a large but powerless membership, whose leaders sell out the members? I would rather be in a smaller union of fully informed and empowered members who can really stand up and fight to protect and advance their interests, as they see them, and have the full backing of their union leaders.

To make matters worse, shortly after the merger and Stern’s appointment of Grajeda as the new president of Local 721, she was the subject of several articles in the Los Angeles Times which revealed alleged improper practices by her that resulted in her former boyfriend, former Local 660 president Alejandro Stephens, receiving unauthorized and improper payments. (Another Stern appointed president, at Local 6434, also based in Los Angeles, was Tyrone Freeman, whom the Times reported improperly took over $1 million from that local’s dues dollars.) When the expose of Grajeda stirred up Local 721 members, Stern promoted Grajeda to become the special assistant to Anna Berger, SEIU’s national Secretary-Treasurer in Washington, D. C. There is growing alarm among SEIU members that Grajeda would be sent to work in the financial office of the entire union. It should be no surprise that a man such as Stern, who puts little value on morals or principles and who lies and sells out his own members, has appointed people like himself to positions of power and authority. There is an old saying: “A fish rots from the head down.” This is destroying the union.

For those members who do try to get involved, they are expected to be absolutely loyal to Stern and his agents without question, and to carry out every order, no matter how bizarre or harmful to others. Infringements on the rights or interests of others are justified because it’s for the “cause,” some mysterious alleged higher purpose. History is littered with terrible abuses and crimes against others because it was for a “cause.” The real cause should be to give members their voice, skills, and power to protect and advance their interests. The only member involvement Stern and his agents want is from members who are willing to be good foot soldiers in Stern’s army, to carry out Stern’s program. Members who try to get involved as real union members, with democratic rights and their own voices, are frozen out, removed from their elected positions as stewards or bargaining committee members, and retaliated against if they persist in demanding their rights. SEIU members need a real union, not another boss.

NUHW: Real Member Power and Protection

I watched with increasing alarm the growing number of corrupt, destructive and sell-out practices by Stern’s SEIU in 2007 and 2008. The arbitrary removal of elected SEIU stewards, the physical attacks by SEIU on the Labor Notes Conference in Dearborn which I witnessed first-hand and which caused one death and one worker being sent to the hospital, the splitting and raiding of UNITE-HERE, the attacks on the Teachers Union in Puerto Rico and more have caused so much harm to so many.

In January 2009, Stern arbitrarily removed the elected leaders of United Healthcare Workers – West, a 150,000-member union within SEIU, and placed it under appointed Trustees who have given away wage and benefit gains of UHW-W members in just a few months. Kaiser workers, for example, are rightfully infuriated at the SEIU-UHW Trustees who agreed with Kaiser management’s demand for cutbacks in workers’ pensions. Stern’s anti-labor practices are a disgrace, and a blot on the labor movement.

Fortunately, scores of unions have criticized Stern, some in scathing terms. AFSCME president Gerald McEntee charged SEIU with “piracy,” and Operating Engineers called Stern the “Darth Vader of the labor movement.” Even those unions that Stern got to leave the AFL-CIO with him to join his Change to Win group, are protesting Stern’s anti-labor practices, and Change to Win is now unraveling.

The day after the Trustees took over UHW-W, those former leaders and members formed the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), based on internal union democracy, member empowerment, freedom of speech, the right to vote on NUHW leaders and their contracts – rights that are being eroded and eliminated in SEIU. Almost the entire elected leadership and staff of the old UHW-W left SEIU to build NUHW. Within the first 6 weeks, 100,000 members of the old UHW — the vast majority, signed petitions saying they wanted to leave SEIU and join NUHW. However, SEIU has filed scores of frivolous charges with the National labor Relations Board in an effort to stop these elections. SEIU is afraid to allow its members a free choice of unions.

There are some in SEIU local unions across the country who want to reform it. I wish them the best of luck. But Stern has centralized so much power into his own hands that I believe it will be very, very hard. The leaders and members of the old UHW-W tried to reform SEIU, and they all were summarily removed from their offices.

I was ecstatic when I heard about the formation of NUHW. I joined NUHW that day, and I’m glad I did. Join with tens of thousands of other workers by joining NUHW to win back basic democratic union rights, and to protect and advance good wages, benefits, and working conditions. NUHW has a solid core of volunteers who are seasoned and excellent union organizers and representatives, and NUHW is successfully challenging SEIU, whose budget and staff are many, many times larger. Yet, NUHW has won a majority of the few elections that have taken place. Building NUHW is a fight for our dignity and respect. It is also a struggle for the future of the labor movement. Do we want a labor movement that is run by the members and the leaders we elect and trust, or a despot like Andy Stern? NUHW welcomes donations to help this work. Go on-line to: donations@fundforuniondemocracy.org, or send a contribution to: The Fund for Union Democracy, 465 California St. (Ste. 1600), San Francisco, CA 94104. All donations will go toward building NUHW.

Contact NUHW.org for more information

Reply

this jsu over the AP “wire” (I’m SO old fashioned in my media language sometimes!) and thought OB Raggers wuld be inerested, disgusted, something. the irony of these evangelicals who have been affirming that if it’s what theb Bble says, it’s what’s true turning around to say that if it sounds “librerl” sme professor or social workers with a “libreal agenda” put it in there and it’s not what God really said…oh the irony. so this is where Phylis Chafly’s son wound up. thus far.

Blessed are conservative in Bible translation
A new online project seeks to purge liberal views from the scriptures
The Associated Press
updated 2:37 a.m. PT, Fri., Dec . 4, 2009
CHARLESTON, West Virginia – The Gospel of Luke records that, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus showed his boundless mercy by praying for his killers this way: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Not so fast, say contributors to the Conservative Bible Project.

The project, an online effort to create a Bible suitable for contemporary conservative sensibilities, claims Jesus’ quote is a disputed addition abetted by liberal biblical scholars, even if it appears in some form in almost every translation of the Bible.

The project’s authors argue that contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views and ahistorical passages into the Bible, turning Jesus into little more than a well-meaning social worker with a store of watered-down platitudes.

“Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it’s professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible,” said Andy Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, the project’s online home.

‘Reworking scripture’
Experts who have devoted their careers to unraveling the ancient texts of the Scriptures, many in long-extinct languages, are predictably skeptical about a project by amateur translators.

“This is not making scripture understandable to people today, it’s reworking scripture to support a particular political or social agenda,” said Timothy Paul Jones, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, who calls himself a theological conservative.

Religious publishers already provide an alphabet soup of Bible translations for a range of theological outlooks, from the King James Version to the Revised Standard Version and beyond. The most widely used traditional translations were overseen by scholars who are considered the best minds in conservative Christianity.

“The phrase ‘theological conservative’ does not mean that someone is politically conservative,” said Schlafly, who lives in Far Hills, New Jersey.

This liberal slanting, Schlafly argues, ranges from changing gendered language — Jesus calling his disciples to be “fishers of people” rather than “fishers of men” — to more subtle choices, like the 2001 English Standard Version of the Bible, which uses “comrade” and “laborer” more often than the conservative-friendly “volunteer.”

Contributors to the project aren’t arguing on ideological grounds alone. The discussion forum on the site is full of discourse on Greek grammar, along with arguments long familiar to Biblical scholars about the history of certain passages.

Take the famous passage from Luke: the Conservative Bible Project omits it not only because it’s “a favorite of liberals,” but because there’s some dispute over its authenticity, based on the manuscripts it appears in.

Ancient debate
Jones, the professor, said while some early Greek manuscripts omit Jesus’ words, others include them.

“There are so many factors to consider when looking at that, but here it gets boiled down to ‘liberals put it in,'” he said. “You’ve got people who are doing this who have probably never looked at an actual ancient manuscript.”

In some ways, the Conservative Bible Project reflects an ancient debate over Scripture. The Bible as it’s known today more or less took final shape in the 4th century after hundreds of years of debate over which books were canonical.

The debate flared up again during the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther fruitlessly yearned to cut the Book of James because of its fairly explicit contradiction of his belief that salvation could be attained by faith alone.

“People have always done this with the Bible,” said Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University. “Virtually everyone in a mainstream Protestant or Roman Catholic church in the United States is reading a doctored version of the Bible.”

Jenkins is referring to the Revised Common Lectionary, a selection of biblical texts read in worship services that amounts to about a third of the full text.

‘Every translator is a traitor’
Schlafly’s project is distinctive, though, because non-experts collaborate Wiki-style on the Internet to produce their version.

“The best of the public is better than a group of experts,” said Schlafly, whose mother, Phyllis, is a longtime conservative activist known for her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

Jones says the project is a misguided effort to read contemporary politics back into the text.

“Ironically, there’s a long tradition of the liberal twisting of scripture,” Jones said. “Scholars have rightly deemed those translations illegitimate, and this conservative Bible is every bit as illegitimate.”

The Bible’s roots in a dizzying variety of ancient manuscripts require a lifetime of dedication to master, said the Rev. Frank Matera, a professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and a former president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America.

“There’s a little Italian proverb, ‘Every translator is a traitor,'” Matera said. “Most Bible translations are usually done by a group of scholars, precisely so they can balance out each other. It’s not something that everybody can do.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34270487/ns/us_news-faith/?GT1=43001

Reply

Stop whining about the fire rings. Build a bond fire instead. Thats what we use to do in the 60’s.

Reply

DemocracyNow! report on Obama’s first year of foreign policy, terrorism and security policy…

We still can’t get DemocracyNow! TV here in San Diego, except on the internet. But maybe we can have a local discussion about the piece they ran on January 6, on an overview of the first year of President Obama’s foreign policy and “national security” policy.

Amy Goodman and Anjali Kamat did an extended interview with award winning journalist Allan Nairn. We won’t see this kind of TV journalism on CBS or CNN!

“I think Obama should be remembered as a great man because of the blow he struck against white racism,” Nairn says. “But once he became president…Obama became a murderer and a terrorist, because the US has a machine that spans the globe, that has the capacity to kill, and Obama has kept it set on kill. He could have flipped the switch and turned it off…but he chose not to do so.”

The full interview (both video and transcript) is online at

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/6/obama_has_kept_the_machine_set

Reply

7pm» Amnesty International UCSD Screening of “The Response”, about treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and Panel Discussion (1/30)

Amnesty International UCSD is hosting a film screening of “The Response,” a courtroom drama based on the actual transcripts of the Guantanamo Bay Military Tribunals at 7pm on Thursday, 28 January 2010 in the East Price Center Ballroom.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion that features the Policy Director for Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Human Rights at Amnesty International USA, Mr. Tom Parker, Law Professor at Thomas Jefferson Law School, Author of Cowboy Republic, and former President of the National Lawyers Guild, Prof. Marjorie Cohn, and former Marine Corporal, Co-Founder of Veterans for ReThinking Afghanistan, and Larry King Live Guest Debater, Mr. Jake Diliberto.

The “War On Terror” does not justify violations of international human rights law. Amnesty International’s Counter Terror With Justice Campaign works to stop torture and ill-treatment; close Guantanamo the right way–with detainees either tried fairly in U.S. federal courts or released; end illegal detentions at Bagram and other U.S. facilities; stop rendition; and ensure that human rights abuses are investigated and prosecuted.

For more information, find Amnesty International UCSD on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=146558041502&ref=ts.

“By Any Means Necessary: America’s Tactics in the War on Terror”
Where: University of California San Diego, East Price Center Ballroom
When: 7pm on Thursday, 28 January 2010
Description: Screening of “The Response”, a film about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; and Panel Discussion about the controversial methods used in the War on Terror
The event is free

Reply

Does anyone know what’s happening on the corner of Sunset Cliffs & Santa Cruz?
2 Police cars, Security and looks like Bands are setting up!
curious, hate to miss a good OB party that looks like it might get out of control!

Reply

Diary of a Wimpy Health Care Bill

By Rose Ann DeMoro
Executive Director, National Nurses United, AFL-CIO and California Nurses
Association and member of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO

Posted: March 23, 2010 08:07 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/diary-of-a-wimpy-healthca_b_510706.html

Passage of President Obama’s healthcare bill proves that Congress can
enact comprehensive social legislation in the face of virulent rightwing
opposition. Now that we have an insurance bill, can we move on to
healthcare reform?

As an organization of registered nurses, we have an obligation to provide
an honest assessment, as nurses must do every hour of every day. The
legislation fails to deliver on the promise of a single standard of
excellence in care for all and instead makes piecemeal adjustments to the
current privatized, for-profit healthcare behemoth.

When all the boasts fade, comparing the bill to Social Security and
Medicare, probably intended to mollify liberal supporters following
repeated concessions to the healthcare industry and conservative
Democrats, a sobering reality will probably set in.

What the bill does provide

-Expansion of government-funded Medicaid to cover 16 million additional
low income people, though the program remains significantly under funded.
This limits access to its enrollees as its reimbursement rates are lower
than either Medicare or private insurance, with the result some providers
find it impossible to participate. Though the federal government will
provide additional subsidies to states, those expire in 2016, leaving the
program a top target to budget cutting governors and legislatures.

-Increased funding for community health centers, thanks to an amendment by
Sen. Bernie Sanders, that will open their doors to nearly double their
current patient volume.

-Reducing but not eliminating the infamous “donut hole” gap in
prescription drug coverage for which Medicare enrollees have to pay the
costs fully out of pocket.

-Insurance regulations covering members’ dependent children until age 26,
and new restrictions on limits on annual and lifetime on lifetime
insurance coverage, and exclusion of policies for children with
pre-existing conditions.

-Permission for individual states — though weakened from the version
sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich — to waive some federal regulations to
adopt innovative state programs like an expanded Medicare.

All of these reforms could, and should, have been enacted on their own
without the poison pills that accompanied them.

Where the bill falls short

-The mandate forcing people without coverage to buy insurance. Coupled
with the subsidies for other moderate income working people not eligible
for Medicare or Medicaid, the result is a gift worth hundreds of billions
of dollars to reward the very insurance industry that created the present
crisis through price gouging, care denials, and other abuses.

-Inadequate healthcare cost controls for individuals and families.

1. Insurance premiums will continue to climb. Proponents touted a “robust”
public option to keep the insurers “honest,” but that proposal was
scuttled. After Anthem Blue Cross of California announced 39 percent
premium hikes, the administration promised to crack down with a federal
rate insurance authority, an idea also dropped from the bill.

2. There is no standard benefits package, only a circumspect reference
that benefits should be “comparable to” current employer provided plans.

3. An illusory limit on out-of-pocket medical expenses. But even in the
regulated state exchanges, insurers remain in control of what they offer
and what will be a covered service. Insurers are likely to design plans to
attract healthier customers, and many enrollees will likely find the
federal guarantees do not protect them for medical treatments they
actually need.

-No meaningful restrictions on claims denials insurers don’t want to pay
for. Proponents cite a review process on denials, but the “internal review
process” remains in the hands of the insurers, and the “external” review
will be up to the states, many of which have systems now in place that are
dominated by the insurance industry with little enforcement mechanism.

-Significant loopholes in the much touted insurance reforms:

1. Provisions permitting insurers and companies to more than double
charges to employees who fail “wellness” programs because they have
diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol readings, or other medical
conditions.

2. Permitting insurers to sell policies “across state lines”, exempting
patient protections passed in other states. Insurers will likely set up in
the least regulated states in a race to the bottom threatening public
protections won by consumers in various states.

3. Allowing insurers to charge three times more based on age plus more for
certain conditions, and continue to use marketing techniques to
cherry-pick healthier, less costly enrollees.

4. Insurers may continue to rescind policies, drop coverage, for “fraud or
intentional misrepresentation” — the main pretext insurance companies now
use.

-Taxing health benefits for the first time. Though modified, the tax on
benefits remains, a 40 percent tax on plans whose value exceeds $10,200
for individuals or $27,500 for families. With no real checks on premium
hikes, many plans will reach that amount by the start date, 2018, rapidly.
The result will be more cost shifting from employers to workers and more
people switching to skeletal plans that leave them vulnerable to financial
ruin.

-Erosion of women’s reproductive rights, with a new executive order from
the President enshrining a deal to get the votes of anti-abortion
Democrats and a burdensome segregation of funds, that in practice will
likely mean few insurers will cover abortion and perhaps other
reproductive medical services.

-A windfall for pharmaceutical giants. Through a deal with the White
House, the administration blocked provisions to give the government more
power to negotiate drug prices and gave the name brand drug makers 12
years of marketing monopoly against competition from generic competition
on biologic drugs, including cancer treatments.

Most critically, the bill strengthens the economic and political power of
a private insurance-based system based on profit rather than patient need.

As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote after the vote “don’t believe
anyone who says Obama’s healthcare legislation marks a swing of the
pendulum back toward the Great Society and the New Deal. Obama’s health
bill is a very conservative piece of legislation, building on a Republican
(a private market approach) rather than a New Deal foundation. The New
Deal foundation would have offered Medicare to all Americans or, at the
very least, featured a public insurance option.”

Unlike Social Security and Medicare which expanded a public safety net,
this bill requires people

— in the midst of the mass unemployment and the worse economic downturn
since the Great Depression — to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket to
big private companies for a product that may or may not provide health
coverage in return.

Too many people will remain uninsured, individual and family healthcare
costs will continue to rise largely unabated and private insurers will
still be able to deny claims with little recourse for patients.

If, as the President and his supporters insist, the bill is just a start,
let’s hold them to that promise. Let’s see the same resolve and
mobilization from legislators and constituency groups who pushed through
this bill to go farther, and achieve a permanent, lasting solution to our
healthcare crisis with universal, guaranteed healthcare by expanding and
improving Medicare to cover everyone.

Leaders of the National Nurses United have raised many of these concerns
about the legislation for months. But, sadly, as the healthcare bill moved
closer to final passage, the space for genuine debate and critique of the
bill’s very real limitations was largely squeezed out.
Much of the fault lies with the far right, from the streets to the
airwaves to some legislators that steadily escalated from deliberate
misrepresentations to fear mongering to racial epithets to hints of
threatened violence against bill supporters.

For its part, the administration and its major supporters shut out
advocates of more far reaching reform, while vilifying critics on the
left.

Both trends are troubling for democracy, as is the pervasive corruption of
corporate lobbying that so clearly influenced the language of the bill.
Insurers, drug companies, and other corporate lobbyists shattered all
records for federal influence peddling and were rewarded with a bill that
largely protected their interests, along with a Supreme Court ruling that
will allow corporations, including the health care industry, to spend
unlimited sums in federal elections.

Rightwing opponents fought as hard to block this legislation as they would
have against a Medicare for all plan. As more Americans recognize the bill
does not resemble the distortions peddled by the right, and become
disappointed by their rising medical bills and ongoing fights with
insurers for needed care, there will be new opportunity to press the case
for real reform. Next time, let’s get it done right.

Distributed by:
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com

03/25/10

Reply

OB Rag,

Thanks for the positive coverage, and corrections, about Saturday’s Tour d’Diego [Heathens Take Over Ocean Beach – NOT, May 16th]. That was the 5th annual ride, a tour-de-france-style cycling “race” around the area that raises money for charity. This year the recipient charity was the MS society. The concept is based on the Tour d’Davis, an event I founded when I lived up there years ago (and still continues under new management). Those interested in riding along next year can search for “Tour d’Diego” on facebook.

Although the group called the “Heathens” sounds like our kind of people, I must take issue with their comment that the goal of the tour is to be Heathen-like, since we have never heard of them. That is particularly odd because our events are also based on Brighton Avenue. Perhaps there’s something in the water on Brighton!

Love and Boxed Wine,
Jim Heebner

Reply