Vouch Across America / 01-28-12

Starting in 2014, as per the health care legislation enacted in 2010, help with insurance costs is coming your way.

Yep, in two years, the government will assist you financially, if necessary, through tax credits, in obtaining health insurance. If you make less than four times the federal poverty level (presently $22,350 for a family of four), that is. Cash money, direct from the evil, wasteful, God-hating federal government; cash money to help you not die.

Joking is fun. So is seriousness: I'm genuinely excited for the program to start. The uninsured are a serious financial drain on our health care system; too many bankruptcies are caused by escalating health care bills; people ought to be able to get medical care no matter their financial situation, just as a matter of principle, otherwise, what kind of society are we trying to run?

But once the government gets involved in keeping us healthy, where do we go from there? I'd like to dream, just for an evening, of a land where even more basic needs are guaranteed.

I'd like to dream of a similar voucher program that ensures every citizen has a roof over his or her head and enough to eat every night. Yes, every American, housed and fed, with a significant helping hand from the United States Treasury.

After all, if we're going to require everyone to participate in the pool of doctor's patients, doesn't it make even more sense to require everyone to have housing? Or food? Those needs are more basic than paying for pills and prevention.

Imagine with me, John Lennon-style, a nation where the poor receive a monthly government check for x dollars to defray housing costs, another check for x dollars to cover food expenses, and a third one to help purchase health insurance.

Imagine that the check for housing can only be used for housing, and so forth. Imagine that the smaller your AGI, the bigger the check. Imagine that these vouchers extend all the way to households making $100,000 annually, and that they're adjusted for the county in which you live. (Two grand's not going as far in San Jose as it is in Tuscaloosa.)

Imagine a middle-class family of four that makes $80,000 and receives, each year, $1,500 for housing, $500 for food and $4,000 for health insurance assistance.

Guess what happens when $6,000 of that family's basic needs are met in advance of all other costs? It's not hard to see that such a family avoids debt better, invests more, saves more, spends more.

And yes, there would be guidelines on how the assistance would be spent. It wouldn't be possible for a degenerate gambler to cash the housing check at a MoneyTree and blow it all on Powerball tickets. The food check would apply fully toward purchases at grocery stores but only count halfway at fast "food" joints. Fraud would be prosecuted. It could work.

I dream.

Well, maybe you're of the opinion that the rich don't deserve the "punishment" of paying for the poor and the middle class's basic needs. OK, I can respect that. I just don't agree with it. The way I see it, everyone benefits from a strong middle class, a decrease in homelessness, a more just health care system. And even if it costs the ultra-rich some extra disposable income every year, I'm prepared to defend this version of Robin Hoodness as extremely moral... on a national scale.

No, some poor dude should not be allowed to break into some rich dude's home and help himself to a few thousand dollars. But when we're talking about making sure that our poorest citizens -- those who are stuck in dead-end minimum-wage jobs, or (heaven forbid) choose to teach for a living -- have enough to feed their kids without maxing out their credit cards, then yes, I fully support an aggressive redistribution of cash money. (I like saying "cash money." Cash money. MONEY MONEY MONEY)

I will make no apologies for my fervent desire to implement a truly progressive tax system, my waking dream to see us return to the rates we had in the 1950s, with a top tax bracket at 90 percent, the upper middle class paying half their income in taxes, and Americans everywhere being helped by their government, not hindered by it.

Or, Mitt Romney can continue to pay less than me in taxes, that's fine too. Whatever. That's sustainable, ethical and desirable. Let's keep doing it that way. Yeah.

What This Nation Needs Right Now / 8-13-11

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is more Rick Perry.

Katy's dad formally announced he's running for President this morning, joining a crowded field of one principled libertarian, one billionaire who's never held office, one serial marriagist, two Mormons (ed. note: unlike most right-wing evangelicals, I have no personal issues with the LDS faith), one wild-eyed homophobe, and lastly, whatever Tim Pawlenty's handlers want him to be this week. Plus maybe Sarah "There Is No I In Quit" Palin. If we're lucky.

Perry's announcement comes with a negative amount of surprise. His entrance was long rumored, and he did so officially Saturday morning. Welcome to the party, Governor.

(Rejected material, on account of it being too easy:

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is another Texas governor who wears his supposed religion on his sleeve.)

Real material:

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can create jobs. Texas' unemployment rate was a shiny 4.2 percent when Perry took office in 2000. It was still 4.4 in early 2008. Now it's 8.4, and it's been hangin' in the 8's since. Sure sounds like a guy who can transcend macroeconomic trends and can put people to work regardless.

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can lead us out of perilous debt. Like in Texas. With GOP control of every branch of government and the courts, he implemented the kind of fiscally sound ideas that... oh... they're going to fall short by $27 billion in the next two years. Proportionally, that's a larger deficit than California.

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can fix health care. His solution in Texas has been clean and cheap: stop letting people get coverage at all. One in four Texans goes without health insurance, compared to one in six nationally. That's because 550,000 jobs in Texas are minimum wage and come without pesky "benefits" like insurance. In fact, Texas leads the nation, tied with Mississippi, in jobs that pay the minimum or lower, and those kinds of jobs have doubled since 2008.

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can pray.

Well, that can't work any worse that what he's tried so far.

Patriot Facts / 6-23-11

My cat is fluffy.

(They teach you how to write compelling lead sentences, called "ledes," at journalism school. I think I slept in that day.)

So fluffy, sometimes we call him "Floofy." And by we, I mean someone in our household made it up as a clever nickname, and it caught on, because cute, and now the cat gets called that nickname more often than his totally awesome given name, a name which someone brilliant in our household pulled out of thin air, but we'll get to that part in due time, within some other hideously constructed run-on sentence.

Fear not. This is not a post about my cat.

So my five-year-old and I walk out the front door the other day, and there's the cat, rolling around in the front yard. The boy walks over to pet the cat on the belly. Those two get along great. It's sweet.

Fear not. This is not a post about my five-year-old.

But the five-year-old DOES say, mid-stroke, "He's so floofy."

Me: "He is. Imagine this, though, Alex -- the other day, I petted a cat that was EVEN softer than Sherlock."

(Which is, again, such a boss name for a cat. Seriously. Props to whoever came up with that. Kudos.)

Alex: *jaw drops open*

Me: "S'true."

Alex: *exaggeratedly pained expression*

Alex: "Dad, why are you being mean to Floofy?"

Suspend all remaining fear. This is a post about patriotism. Because having a discussion about what's wrong with America is too often like trying to explain to a small child that his pet can be outdone in some facet by another pet.

Me: "Well, in Sweden, their infant mortality rate --"

Patriot blinded by jingosim: "Socialists."

Me: "The thing is, our education administrators could take a cue from --"

PBJ: "We're the best."

Me: "Mounting deficits in Greece could wreck that nation's economy --"

PBJ: "Can't happen here."

Me: "Health insurance is guaranteed by the Canadian governm --"

PBJ: "Pussies."

Me: "Heart disease is lower in countries that outlaw chemicals in food and --"

PBJ: "McNuggets kick ass. 20 for $4.99, dude."

Facts. I got 'em. (Pardon the lack of links. Mostly trusting wikipedia here anyway.)

The U.N. lists 33 countries ahead of the U.S. in infant mortality rate. Singapore, Slovenia, Israel, New Caledonia all come out with better results.

Results of worldwide testing in math, reading and science in 2010 reveal U.S. students to be "average" among the 70 nations who participated.

The CIA's factbook for 2011 estimates that 49 countries have a higher life expectancy at birth than the United States. Jordan is one of those 49. Bosnia too.

We spend between 5 and 10 percent each year, as a government, on interest stemming from our national debt. (Just the interest, mind you.) This is in part because our national debt represents about 60 percent of our GDP. You know how much Russia's national debt is, relative to their GDP? Less than 10 percent. Huh. Wonder if that'll ever matter.

I love my country. But can we just admit already that as Americans, we could learn A LOT from how the rest of the world conducts its business? Can we just get over ourselves, face our deficiencies, and actually begin to address them?

Or will countless reports that highlight our warts continue to get swept under the suicidal banner of "No need to worry about that, we're the best"? I faintly hope not.

I, Republican / 2-4-11

If your mind is sarcasm intolerant, you're relatively safe, for a little while.

At least for the next two posts. I went to this place called gop.com, looked up some of their positions on current issues, and came away with the stuff I most agreed with. Next up, later this weekend, I'll tackle the official 2008 platform, with all its tasteful verbiage on gun control, abortion, same-sex marriage, and other vanilla-flavored topics. Fun!

But as an appetizer to that entree (am I secretly hungry? What's the deal with all the food references?), this is the stuff from the party's website that I can support. (That I can stomach! Hee hee.)

Anyway, consider it an early Valentine to modern conservatism. Well, maybe an only Valentine.

No joke is taking place in this paragraph.

Ground rules and pertinent information: I lifted all wording straight from here, which now rests in my browser history, a fact that is of no interest to you, but rather serves as a personal reminder to go purge that visit later on.

(Done with the humor. Onward and upward.)

"A full commitment to America's Armed Forces, to ensure they are modern, agile and adaptable to the unpredictable range of challenges in the years ahead." Obviously. Without some semblance of national security, it's silly to quibble about prescription drug reimbursement programs for uninsured senior citizens.

"We oppose government-run health care." So do I. I fully endorse government-run health insurance, but competition is the lifeblood of any marketplace, including the medical one. This is a good mantra.

"We support an 'all of the above' approach that includes the production of nuclear power, clean coal, natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, as well as offshore drilling in an environmentally responsible way." For now, this strategy is wholly sensical. The only way to transition out of dependence on dirty energy sources is to start getting our fuel from everywhere we can right now until it becomes possible to get all of it cleanly. (Whenever that is.) So yeah, more nuke plants. Please. A thousand of them ASAP -- as long as they are well regulated, well maintained, and well funded.

"We believe in the importance of sensible business regulations" (love that word, "sensible," so malleable, so subjective) "that promote confidence in our economy among consumer, entrepreneurs and businesses alike." Nice to see the R-word in there. Thank you 2008. No, that doesn't count as snark.

"Republicans believe a judge's role is to interpret the law, not make law from the bench." That's good. I believe the same way, pretty much because I have no choice. The Constitution demands separation of powers. Congress makes the laws. Courts rule on those laws' legality or lack thereof. That's how it works, and when we don't like the result, we don't get to whine -- when a federal judge interprets the Constitution in a way that displeases us, that's kind of his or her job. And as long as that judge doesn't legislate, all is well with the system.

Well that didn't kill me. Maybe the next post will.

Love ya Ronnie!

xoxoxoxo

Linkage / 3-22-10

All you get here are links. Some of my favorites from the HCR debate, in random order. Click on some. They generally are related to the title of their link. So trust me: you won't be redirected to any porn sites, offshore casinos, or mature swingin' adult dating services. (All together now: "Not That There's Anything Wrong With That.")

You might land in a place that makes you better informed, or just makes you cringe.

Table of Contents

There Will Be Blood

State is broke; so's the system

Shout! Shout! Let it all out!

Attention: Deficit Disorder

Ick

Play-by-Play, Sunday night

Kids don't need insurance! They have Medicaid!

Who you callin' unconstitutitutitutional?

Polling Place

Man Date

Recap

Feeeelings / 3-22-10

No facts here. Go to the other post for actual content. This is just a list of emotions I've gone through in the past 36 hours.

Relief: Upon figuring out Sunday afternoon that Pelosi had the votes to pass the bill, I let out a deep sigh and waited for the moment.

Excitement: Knowing that history was in the making, I got a little tingly following the news, checking my phone every 15 minutes to see if the vote had been tallied yet.

Energy: As befits the moment after a political victory. Hasn't been a stellar winter for my side of the aisle.

Dread: What if the bill has some really really sucky yucky stuff inside of it? What if this great legislative victory is bad for the country? Bad for me? Bad for my kids?

Impatience: With those who interjected abortion into the debate. (Newsflash: Ending a pregnancy is a medical procedure. A legal one. Its elective nature may vary. It may be highly objectionable in certain cases. Call it what you want, it still falls under the umbrella of health care.)

Shame: For letting myself be duped into believing the bill was virulently anti-business. It's not. Go to the other post for details. For letting myself believe the individual mandate would be an unfair hardship. It's not set up that way. For listening to people tell me this bill wasn't liberal enough. Hey. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Somebody said that once.

Impatience Renewed: With how easily people accept the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine. At least when we Dems are lied to by our politicians, we know it and roll with it, or we rebel and turn on them mercilessly.

Shame, Part Deux: For not having blogged in two months. (There are extenuating circumstances, but to all my countless fans - 11 - all over the world, I'm truly sorry. And not Tiger Woods sorry. Sorry sorry.)

Relief, Part Deux: That my kids, both of whom have a better than even chance of inheriting my very serious heart condition, will be able to obtain coverage if they need it, and can stay on the family plan until age 26.

Relief, Part C: That should my wife, for some glopfaloobaloogurglespurk reason, lose her job or her coverage, then my family will still be able to get us some 'surance.

Pride: In my country, which could now start to pull itself, one piece of legislation at a time, from the clutches of crippling health care costs. Much work remains to be done, but the end result, whatever it is, would have been impossible without this step.

Thankfulness: Without a D President and a D Congress, this doesn't happen. Thanks voters.

Sheepishness: That I don't know everything that's in the bill, that I can only recite about half of it off the top of my head, and that I'm pretending to be some sort of expert on it.

Hope: Self-explanatory.

To Our Health / 3-22-10

We have a health care reform bill. After 14 months of partisan yelling, obfuscation, delay, dishonesty, and malodorous behavior all around.

And that was just from the "journalists."

Seriously, has there ever been a topic as misreported as this one? Willfully or not, the debate raging since Obama's inauguration has seemingly consisted of "I don't want no Urpeein' socialized med'cine, you stupid America-hating Marxist idjits!" vs. "Why do you ignorant loud-mouthed racists despise our children?"

I may not be as old as the Republic, or even as the Watergate scandal, but I know a piss-poor job of collective journalism when I see one.

If I want panicked shrieking about how a mandate to buy insurance will void the Constitution and bankrupt our children, I can get that at any number of panicked shrieking-filled websites. or "news" programs. (Shrieking at phood4thot is subject to federal guidelines of no more than 10 percent panic, 80 percent outrage and 10 percent just-for-the-hell-of-it.)

If I want to hear two spinmeisters distort the intent and wording of a bill, as if it didn't really matter who was right, there are innumerable forums for that. If I want to read a poll about how Americans feel about an issue, pollster.com, gallup.com and fivethirtyeight.com are great destinations.

But now, as I said, we have an actual bill. And there are provisions inside of it. Where has that been, and maybe can we talk about that, no?

(Spoiler alert: the HCR bill contains no death panels, forced assisted-suicide, mandatory abortions, expansion of medical marijuana limits, or random mass sterilizations. As of yet.)

Snarky section complete. Informative section begins. The stuff that sits below, I compiled it from a few sources across the web, from newspapers scattered across the country, from editors who bothered to print a synopsis of the actual contents of the actual bill. There is no commentary attached for the following 13 paragraphs. (Pontification and soapboxery ensue shortly thereafter.)

The Mandate: Kicks in in 2014, when all citizens will be required to have health insurance, or pay additional tax of $95 at first, rising to $695 or 2.5 percent of income, by 2016. Some poor persons exempt.

The Subsidies: Starting in 2014 as well, for individual buyers. Households earning up to $88,200 for a family of four can qualify; the lower the income, the higher the subsidy.

The Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurers are immediately barred from declining coverage to minors based on pre-existing illnesses. The same provision applies to adults beginning in 2014.

The Taxes: Beginning in 2012, households earning more than $250,000 a year (the cutoff is $200,000 for single taxpayers) will pay 0.9 percent higher Medicare payroll tax and a 3.8 percent tax on investment income (dividends plus interest). Then in 2018, the fanciest insurance policies get hit with a 40 percent tax. Indoor tanning salons face a 10 percent tax. The insurance companies pay a joint $8 billion annual fee, starting in 2014.

The Small Business Owner: Receives tax breaks starting this year for offering health insurance. Again in 2014, employers with more than 50 workers may be, in certain cirumstances, penalized up to $2,000 per full-time worker if they fail to offer affordable health insurance and the worker receives government subsidies. No employer mandate. There are more details here, but very small businesses will not be penalized in any way, they only gain incentives and subsisdies should they choose to offer health insurance.

Medicare cuts: Some providers' payments will be cut; Medicare Advantage will receive less funding. (Obama is not fond of that Bush-era program, which he says is too advantageous to the pharmaceutical corporations.) On the other hand, prescription drug coverage will be expanded by closing the "doughnut hole," a gap in benefits that prevents discounts on certain drugs.

More Medicaid: As of 2014, Medicaid will be open to everyone earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $29,300 for a family of four. Primary-care physicians treating Medicaid patients will see higher reimbursement rates, starting in 2013.

The exchange: People without employer coverage will be allowed to shop for insurance from a wider selection. Begins in 2014.

High-risk pool: Gets going in 2010. The government will set up a high-risk insurance pool for those who have a pre-existing health condition and have been uninsured for at least six months. The buy-in cost would be limited to $5,950 per individual.

Older kids: As soon as this year, but possibly next, dependent children up to age 26 must be allowed to continue coverage on Mom and/or Dad's policy.

Lifetime limits: Kicks off later this year. Insurers will no longer be permitted to limit the amount of coverage granted you in your lifetime.

Revenue: Also this year, insurance plans must pay at least 80 percent of their revenue in benefits or choose to give rebates to customers starting next year.

Other: Boosts experimental medical programs, require standardization of insurance forms, calls for higher payments for preventive care. A brand-new commission is created to review the administration of Medicare. Long-term care savings program is established. Some medical devices begin to be taxed in 2013.

(Soapbox in 3, 2, 1...)

I did not remove any significant items from that list. I didn't add anything. What you see is what you get.

No wonder the opposition won the messaging battle on this one. "No Gov't Takeover!" or "NObamacare" is catchy and easily reported, espeically when contrasted with "2.5 of taxable income, but technically, not until 2016" or "Only a $695 fine!" or even "Medicaid to 133 percent of poverty level just in four years!"

There's work involved in understanding this bill. Nancy Pelosi got herself into some hot water earlier this month when she was quoted as saying "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." No, she really said that. But how about some context. Here is what she had just finished stating:

"You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."

How dare she! To imply that opponents have drowned the issue in half-truths! To imply it's hard to get people to understand the bill because the coverage of it has been, to quote myself, piss-poor... the gall, I mean THE GALL of that uppity broad! (Yes, yes, the sarcasm's out of control again, I don't apologize.)

To sharpen my point: Of course people are opposed in principle to more government messing with their health care. We're Americans, after all. Of course the mandate is controversial. Nobody likes being forced to buy something. Of course the taxes will infuriate some rich people with connections and megaphones. We don't deal well with the idea of more taxes and more bureaucracy. Of course there's a risk of running up the deficit, despite the CBO's claims that the legislation is deficit neutral.

But ALL that good stuff in the bill. The subsidies for desperate families. The deliverance from insurance companies' repeated denials of coverage. The protections for kids and mom-and-pop businesses. Once all that info gets out there, conservatives had better hope independents forget how vehemently the right wing fought this incremental victory for common sense.

Take 5 / 12-07-09

(First things first: Apologies to Dave Brubeck for the headline.)

Here are five quick takes on the three topics that are legal to discuss on this blog. By the way, that holy trinity is comprised of politics, sports and spirituality. In case you hadn't noticed.

I. Health care reform

A bill reforming health care will clear the Senate. Sometime this month or next. It may or may not be a good bill. What's a good bill, you ask? Something that addresses the unethical number of uninsured Americans and something that provides for an avenue for certain folks to purchase government-issued health insurance in certain states; in other words, something that brings down long-term costs to society by accomplishing those two goals.

A great bill would be Medicare For Everyone. That's not on the table, sadly. But with incremental progress, we can get there, and this bill would appear to represent incremental progress in that direction. Just because it doesn't go far enough doesn't make it a bad bill, just a placeholder.

The opposition will not muster the 41 votes necessary to filibuster the bill, whatever form it takes. Filibustering, for the political novices out there, is the act of NOT ending debate on a bill. Debate must end, by a 60-40 or greater vote, for a piece of legislation to be considered for passage. (Even more parenthetically, it is FALSE and UNTRUE and INACCURATE that a bill must receive 60 votes to clear the Senate and head to President Obama's desk. It only needs a simple majority of 51 votes, or failing that, 50 plus Vice President Biden's.) So a very determined group of 40 or more Senators can keep legislation from ever COMING to a vote by filibustering it, but it takes 51 to vote it down once it clears that hurdle. Yes, I'm done with caps lock for a few paragraphs.

In short, not that I have any brevity-ability whatsoever, too many individual Democrats have too much to lose, and by "too much" I mean any position of privilege or leadership or committee chairmanship, by filibustering a bill brought to the floor by their own party. A number of D's may elect to vote against the bill after it clears the filibuster, but they will not commit political suicide by snubbing their self-interested noses at the party leaders. And if one of them does (yes, I'm glaring at you, Joe L.), Obama will pick off one of the Maine Republicans to break ranks.

II. TARP refund

Apparently, of the approximately $97,245 quopthrillion earmarked last year for the bailing out of financial institutions, the government will receive a refund of $200 billion. (Yes, the first figure is a slight slight slight tiny little tiny exaggeration. The second number is accuratish. Truthy, even.)

Early speculation had Obama laundering that money into a jobs bill. Because there seems to be a rumor out there that unemployment is high. Well, BHO said today he's gonna use a chunk of it to pay down the projected budget deficit instead.

This move is either shrewd, concessionary (not an actual word), morally responsible, or a combination of all three. (Always my favorite. The large supreme sans olives.)

Shrewd because it appeals to independents for whom the mounting deficit is alarming. Concessionary because Republicans have hypocritically been clamoring for excess funds to be applied to the gaping budget hole. (This despite the fact that their presidents practically invented the deficit.) And morally responsible because a good way to screw our kids and grandkids over is to leave them with a crippling national debt. We should be teaching them loads and loads of Mandarin, by the way. Just in case.

All three of the above, in 40-25-35 proportions, seems about right.

III. Merriners ad newe thurd basemen

Seeattle whill sine thurd basemen Chone (prunounced "Schawn") Figgins tuah 4-yeer, $36-miliun kontrakt tudde'.

Two out of the last 20 words are spelled right... Yes, Mr. Figgins spells his name so it'll rhyme with scone, just not the way you're necessarily used to saying "scone" unless you're from London, Manchester, Sydney, or North Uppitycrust. Parents are interesting people sometimes.

Anyway. Figgins is awesome. Ichiro-lite with the bat, only with more walks, and a good defender to boot. The M's will annoy their way to many wins this season with those two dudes at the top of the lineup. I look forward to many 32-pitch first innings from the opposing pitcher. Hee hee.

IV. Tiger

Newsflash: Tiger Woods has a penis.

V. Copin' Hagglin'

(One of my best/worst recent puns. Admire it.)

Obama hosted Al Gore in the Oval Office as worldwide climate change talks in Denmark began. Other than providing Fox "News" with a chance to put two of their favorite villians (where was Hillary!?) in the same picture without having to use Photoshop, the meeting was uneventful... except to remind us that for all of Obama's compromising with Republicans, he is committed to addressing climate change from an orthodoxically liberal point of view.

To clarify that hideous sentence, he might ditch the public option, he might work a bunch of tax cuts into a stimulus bill, he might drag his feet on closing the Guantanamo prison, but he's holding the line on climate change. 17 percent cuts in CO2 by 2020 is his short-term goal; that climbs to 83 percent cuts by 2050. This is another reason he has a chance to be the most important/successful President in recent history.

P.S. I had fun with some of the links. Enjoy. Also, I'll try to not go a month between posts again. But no guarantees.

Ten Free Predictions / 9-22-09

No charge.

Events are predicted in order of occurrence, with numbers reversed because I'm a bit of a weirdo.

10. Health care reform will pass, without a public health insurance option, but with a mechanism to activate government insurance if certain conditions are met.

9. You or your significant other or one of your siblings will get H1N1. You/He/She will spend a day in bed then be fine.

8. The Seahawks will finish the year 8-8, "tied" with the 49ers atop the NFC West, except San Fran will win the division lamely on a tie-breaker.

7. A major cell phone provider will fail and be gobbled up by a competitor by early 2011. (I'm looking right at you, Sprint. And glancing sideways at you, T-Mobile. And wishing it were you, Verizon. Bite me, at&t.)

6. The Dow Jones will reach and surpass its former closing-bell peak of 14,164.53 sometime in the fall of 2011.

5. The Mariners will reach the 2011 World Series. No further details provided at this time.

4. Barack Hussein Obama will coast to re-election as President of the United States of America. Coast, I tell you. Reverse Reagan '84 style.

3. The Republican Party will split in half sometime in or after 2013. A chain reaction will ensue, culminating in the split of the Democratic Party and the emergence of the Green Party as a non-negligible political force. Five parties are in our future. Don't try and stop it.

2. A major terrorist attack on par with or exceeding the carnage of 9/11 will take place on American soil in the teen years of this century. Tragically, we may have to get used to one of these per decade, as our government continues to do nowhere near enough to stem the tide of anti-Americanism.

1. Some time after 2030, retired government officials, prominent scholars and brilliant political scientists will converge on Philadelphia for a Constitutional Convention during which they will update the Constitution to ensure its survival in an age quite different than 1787.

Obamacare? Puh-leeze / 9-06-09

Just so we're clear.

The Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives are not interested in becoming your doctors. They're not medical professionals. Presently, they're sanitation engineers. Yes, I mean janitors and garbagemen and women. Seriously, what do you think they've been doing for the past seven months? Every piece of legislation from the legislators, every piece of leadership from the executives, all their efforts have been directed to cleaning up the piles and piles and piles of malodiferous dung left behind from years of reckless Republican rule.

They don't have time to run your HMO. They don't have time to manage your medical care, so they're not even going to try. (And give the death panels a rest, unless you work for FOX "News" and you have a responsibility to your employer to undermine the administration.) No, all our elected officials want to do, besides get re-elected and receive fellatio from ladies and gentlemen of varying levels of attractiveness, is find a way to keep your escalating health care COSTS from causing even more of you to slip into bankruptcy. That's why all the talk of government-run health care is a giant scare tactic. Democrats are interested in establishing a government-run health INSURANCE plan. No care. Just insurance. You know, to prevent companies from gouging you, not that they ever would, not when all their shareholders demand is that fewer and fewer claims be honored and that profits continue to escalate. (Did you catch the sarcasm, or was it too obvious?)

That's what is meant by the term "public option." An option to buy insurance from the government. It's not a green light for something like "Obamacare" in which the President might dedicate an afternoon to making house calls, or reviewing your pre-existing conditions, or arranging appointments for you to see a doctor in Anchorage three months from now for that odd-hued boil on your behind.

Obama, The Great Redistributor, is aiming to give your real financial relief in the one spot of your budget that needs it the most; the public option is a gratuitous naked effort to redistribute wealth from insurance company profits to your wallet. You can say no if that sounds awful.

(Hey, incidentally, the term "Obamacare" needs some work, my reactionary conservative nutjob friends. You used "Hillarycare" in '93. That worked. But it was lame then and now just sounds unimaginative when it plops from your lips today. Try harder.)

Anyway, to explain my point further, I snagged the upcoming paragraph from Politico, where the writing is clearer, conciser and generally less juvenile than on my blog.

The White House line has been: “We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition. There are lots of different ways to get there.” But now [Obama's] going to step on the gas a little harder. One top official gave this formulation: “He has consistently said that he thinks the public option is an important way to make sure that there is both cost and competition control. He’s also said consistently that if someone can show him a better way or another way to get there, he’d be happy to look at it. But he’s never committed to going with another way. He’s always said he’d be happy to look at any proposal that gets to these goals, but that he thinks this is probably the best better way to do it.”

As you can glean from those words, Obama is set to deliver a major speech soon on this issue. Wednesday, actually. Pay attention.

Wal-Martal Kombat / 6-30-09

My personal boycott of Wal-Mart is in serious jeopardy.

Like any good bleeding-heart, latte-sipping, hybrid-driving, capitalism-hating, Mao-worshipping liberal, I've been properly appalled at the way Wal-Mart treats its workers and expands its empire. The anecdotal evidence is staggering: stories of crews being locked in the store all night with no exiting permitted, employees' hours being managed to prevent them from qualifying for health care benefits, oh so many harassment claims, driving locally owned mom-and-pops out of business while requesting special tax breaks from the municipality it infects... all that stuff is googlable. (New word? Someone before me has surely invented it. I should do a search...)

Well, my mortal enemy has struck back. Negotiations with the Obama White House on health care issues have led to this: The company just declared it FAVORS requiring employers to extend medical insurance to employees.

Yeah, yeah, you're probably thinking, "Wait now, aren't businesses of a certain size ALREADY required to do so?" They are not.

Well then, how do I know the mandate is a good idea? One very big clue, a quote I lifted from the Wall Street Journal:

"The National Retail Federation, the industry's main lobby, said it was 'flabbergasted' by Wal-Mart's move. 'We have been one of the foremost opponents to employer mandate,' said Neil Trautwein, vice president with the Washington-based trade group. 'We are surprised and disappointed by Wal-Mart's choice to embrace an employer mandate in exchange for a promise of cost savings.'
Mr. Trautwein said an employer mandate is 'the single most destructive thing you could do to the health-care system shy of a single-payer system.' "

If Mr. Trautwein says an employer mandate is a terrible, horrible, catastrophic idea, I am excited to see it come to fruition. The sooner, the better, I say.

More from the WSJ:

"As the White House and Congress began floating proposals, Wal-Mart felt it needed to shape the debate, said Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of corporate affairs and government relations.
'As a company, we believe the present health-care system is unsustainable and making the country's businesses less competitive in the global economy,' said Mr. Dach."

Translation: Wal-Mart recognized that it risked being shut out of negotiations and could be stuck with a system far scarier, to it, than a simple employer mandate. I'll stay tuned to the rest of this story. Maybe I'll even lose an enemy. Or Wal-Mart will try and game the system, and I can keep hatin' on 'em. Oooh, win-win for me!

Don't get sick / 6-5-09

If you were planning on breaking both your legs, replacing a kidney, or having a couple-three rounds of brain surgery for fun this summer, you might want to rethink things.

Insurmountable medical bills were a factor in 62 percent of bankruptcies last year (meaning 2007). This according to a study in the American Journal of Medicine.

Well, we gotta start gettin some health insurance to these poor saps, then, huh? Well... 75 percent of the newly bankrupt actually HAD medical coverage.

Oh.

And here I was thinking that layoffs and the recessionaryismentation-ness of the economy were to blame. And all the suckers who bought $800,000 homes on $40k jobs. For sure, those things play their role, but it's the medical bills that push people over the edge, it appears.

The data is for 2007, as I said. Which leads some to conclude that the 2008 numbers will be even more striking.

Possibly, health care reform is the biggest challenge we face today. Bigger than terrorism... bigger than Social Security's coming insolvency, bigger than climate change, even. (All that's going to do is displace a billion people and de-stabilize the poor countries of the world and raise sea levels and mess with the food supply. OK, so maybe they're tied.)