Winning Progressive

For this weekend’s reading list, we have an inspiring endorsement of President Obama by LGBT magazine The Advocate, an investigation of Mitt Romney’s off-shore tax havens, an account of the history of the GOP voter fraud charade, an evaluation of how health care reform will save money for state and local governments, and a nuanced take on President Obama’s national security policies.

In Obama We Trust - An inspiring endorsement of President Obama by The Advocate – the oldest continuously published LGBT magazine in the US – which has not endorsed a Presidential candidate in decades.

Where the Money Lives – an in-depth investigation of the off-shore accounts in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Switzerland, and other countries where Mitt Romney stashes his fortune.

The Dog That Voted and Other Election Fraud Yarns – an interesting overview of the GOP’s decade long effort to gin up fake voter fraud controversies in order to enact laws that are intended to suppress the vote of Democratic-leaning groups.

The Impact of Health Insurance Reform on State and Local Governments - a study finding that health care reform would save state and local governments billions of dollars per year by reducing spending related to uncompensated care

Obama and Terror: The Hovering Question – a  nuanced evaluation of the Obama Administration’s record on national security, civil liberties, and the rule of law, which concludes that President Obama has notably “steered clear of the politics of fear,” but unfortunately, has also too often “steered clear of the politics of defending our ideals” on national security issues.

(By Joanne Boyer, cross-posted at Wisdom Voices)

There are few people today – in any walk of life – who have the courage and wisdom of Wendell Potter. Potter’s determined passion to help educate the American public and help them understand the “deadly spin” of the for-profit health insurance industry serves as a centering force in a world that appears to be turned upside down no matter where one looks.

Potter, a former public relations executive with CIGNA, reached deep within his soul about five years ago after a life-changing event and became determined his legacy would carry far more than the words “retired health insurance executive.” Few have understood – or participated first hand – in the intentional deceit by the health insurance companies of how the for-profit health care system functions. Potter will be the first to tell you how he helped to malign Michael Moore and his movie Sicko. How things have changed. Today, the two share the podium at conferences discussing the horrifically broken U.S. health care system.

In his book Deadly Spin (see summary below), Potter provides not just an exposé of health insurers but a stark warning that corporate spin is distorting our democracy. But yet it is more than just his knowledge and “insider’s understanding” of this industry that make Potter such a force in the debate that will continue for years on how to reform a health care system that is rigged to work for corporate interests rather than people.

It is that quiet sense of speaking truth to power; the inner knowledge that he possesses that helping people is what matters in life. No screaming from a pulpit, no finger-pointing in anyone’s face. Rather a calm resolve that comes only from an inner peace that moves one forward through immeasurable odds. He remains a beacon of hope in 21^st century America that we may once again “turn our hearts” to something of value – something that is not measured in dollars and cents.

We at Wisdom Voices are honored to have had the opportunity to have talked one-on-one with Wendell Potter on a recent visit to Minneapolis, a week before the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act. As our July Progressive Profile, we have decided to let his own words do the talking. And we strongly encourage readers to get a copy of Deadly Spin and make it mandatory reading for anyone who treasures our American heritage.

For more of the facts of who Wendell Potter is, we invite you visit his web site. Our goal is to provide more of the “why” Wendell Potter pursues the tireless and thankless job of trying to make health care work for people and not corporations. In the truest tradition of providing today’s “wisdom voices”, we present Wendell Potter – in his own words.

On why he decided to have a change of heart/soul on what he was called to do with his professional life:

“I think a lot had to do with the fact that I was born to a working class family in the southern Appalachians. I was fortunate enough to get a good education and I wanted to be a journalist. I was trained to be someone who wanted to try to write in ways that revealed truth and provided people with information that would help them understand things better. I think had it not been for that, I probably would not have done what I ultimately did.

“I left my journalism career and got into public relations more than 35 years ago, and I ultimately wound up in the health insurance industry. I had a very successful PR career, but I still had that training as a journalist and I still knew where I came from.

“I went back to visit my family in Tennessee 5 years ago and I read about something called the Health Care Expedition that was being held not too far from where I grew up. I had never heard of anything like this before. There were articles that people would be traveling from hundreds of miles away – from Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia. It was being held at the Wise County (Virginia) Fair Grounds. So I was very curious and decided to go check it out. When I got there I saw something I never expected to see

“I saw people lined up by the thousands at this three-day event trying to get care that was being provided free. That morning, people were soaking wet because it had been raining. They were lined up to get care that was being provided in barns, and then it hit me. I realized that those people could have been my neighbors, people I had grown up with, people I had shared cultural roots with. I realized that what I was doing for a living, in some way, was making it necessary for those people to have to resort to those lengths in order to receive care.

“I made a commitment that day that I would figure out some other way to make a living and ultimately did. That was an eye opener for me. Had I not been from that region, had I not gone back home at that time, had I not been curious enough to check it (the health exposition) out. There were many things that impacted me. It was a reminder as I began to think more of my life. I realized that what I was doing was in many ways the opposite of what I was trying to do in my first career (journalism). Then, I was trying to educate and enlighten and inform people. Now, more often than not, I was trying to obscure and misdirect the truth. I became so utterly ashamed of what I had become that I ultimately walked away from that job a few months later.”

On why others within the industry chose not to follow Potter’s path:

“We get stuck. We have tuition payments, car payments, and house payments. We have a lifestyle we’ve grown accustomed to. Our egos (and sense of who we are) are wrapped up in what we do. It’s hard to walk away from that. People think it’s impossible to walk away from that. I realized that it was not.

“It’s been a blessing. I don’t make near as much money, but I can’t think of any measure in which this has not been a blessing. I’ve met some of the most wonderful people since I’ve been away from that industry and have had experiences I would never have had. I’ve been stretched in ways I couldn’t imagine. I was never one who wanted to speak in front of an audience or to go in front of a camera. But I’ve overcome that. It was necessary if I was going to be doing what I was going to be doing. I had to walk through my fears.

“I keep a gratitude journal and that is so helpful for me to have reminders of just how much joy I have in my life. That keeps me centered. I’m just so grateful to be doing what I’m doing. As I was contemplating making this decision, I was thinking about my own legacy – what I would want my legacy to be when I’m no longer on this earth. I realized that I sure didn’t want it to be ‘a retired insurance company executive’. I knew that I had some things that I thought I could and should do, that if I didn’t do, I would regret on my death bed.”

On the Supreme Court:

“Ultimately, there are certain things beyond my control. I can’t control what the Supreme Court is going to do. I have to look at that with detachment. I can’t control that. That’s just the reality I have to accept. And we have to work with reality. Once we know what the Supreme Court is going to do, then we can develop a strategy of how to go forward.

“It will be a decision and we will have to figure out what happens next. What I do think and hope is that advocates for single payer and universal coverage and advocates for meaningful health care reform will start to think more strategically and cohesively. I’ve observed that a lot of advocates don’t see eye-to-eye on how things should be, which result in tensions and resentments; and that’s not healthy, it’s counterproductive.

“What I would like to do is hopefully become someone who can help build bridges in the advocacy world. To get people to see that we share common goals; we may see the paths as being different on how to get to the ultimate ideal/objective, but if we don’t start working together.

On what keeps him hopeful:

“You have to look at this fight and know that we’re in for the long haul and we can’t expect instant gratification. We have to know that it takes time for significant change particularly when you’re fighting entrenched special interests. It took a long time to get the Civil Rights Act passed, to get Medicare passed. But, on the other hand, we’re seeing things today that may be able to be changed more rapidly than they have been in the past. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to be an easy slog to get to universal coverage, because it’s not. It’s going to take time. But it’s a possibility and unless we keep the faith, keep going despite discouragement, then the other side wins.”

On Deadly Spin:

“I call it ‘invisible persuasion’ and I’m hoping the book sheds some light on this and makes it more visible to people so they know how it’s done and how corporate spin has shaped the health care debate.

“In the book, I try to give people tools how to be wise to manipulation and what to look out for. People should know that most of the advertising being done (to discourage health care reform) and the organizations that are sponsoring them are in many cases just front groups for the insurance industry. It’s been estimated that $250M has been spent trying to discredit the health care law. When you get that kind of spending, it’s no wonder people don’t know what’s in the law. This is done purposely. In this book, I try to explain why that happens and where that money comes from and how all of us are susceptible to this type of persuasion.”

On his advice to the public:

“Be skeptical about what you hear. Know that almost everyone you hear expressing a point of view has an agenda. Don’t outsource your thinking to TV commentators. Take the time to try and educate yourself.

“If you don’t know what’s in the Affordable Care Act, try to educate yourself. There are more reliable places to get information. For example, Consumer Reports provides factual information on the ACA. One of the key ways why the special interests are so successful is they know we outsource our thinking – we are so willing to let others think for us…and we’re so gullible.

“We all lead busy lives, but educating yourself is important. Think beyond yourself. Think about your children and the kind of world we’re creating for them. It’s important to spend a little time to get informed before you pull a voting lever.”

Deadly Spin: Attacking the Corporate Strategy To Keep Us Ignorant

Did you ever wonder about why and how the general public stays so ill-informed on what is really in the Affordable Care Act or just how and why we remain the only industrialized nation in the world with a for-profit insurance company?

Wendell Potter explains it all in his book Deadly Spin. From clandestine meetings carefully organized to leave no paper trail to creating third party front groups, Potter lets the reader in on the dirty secrets most big corporations would rather have the masses be in the dark about because the stakes are high and the profits even higher.

“I wrote the book because I wanted people to have a better understanding of just how the special interests are able to manipulate public opinion and how the vast majorities of people just don’t have a clue,” said Potter. “And how effective it is to get people to think, act and vote against their own self-interests…and how corporate interests are capable of influencing public policy through public opinion.”

Michael Moore, at one point an adversary of Potter’s, sums up the book best: “You’re the Daniel Ellsberg of corporate America. I mean, what that man did during Vietnam helped to end that war…. People should read this book. The whole book lays it right out there about how the health insurance companies had bamboozled this country and lied, just outright lied about things.”

For information on how to order the book, click here.

(By NCrissie B)

Yesterday we parsed the legal issues of the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, and how each judge voted on each issue. Today we look at what the decision will likely mean, in terms of precedent, policy, and politics.

Precedent Winners and Losers

Since the Court’s decision was released, there have been both concerns and celebrations about whether Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion set “conservative traps” for future cases. We’ll discuss the political issues below, but the legal argument for a “conservative trap” presumes the ACA fell within Commerce Clause precedent, thus this decision “narrowed” Congress’ authority to regulate commerce.

I disagree. There are reasonable arguments for why health care presents a unique case for Congress to require people to buy health insurance. Yet this fact remains: there was no Supreme Court precedent reading the Commerce Clause as giving Congress authority to compel demand for a private good or service. The Court has long held that Congress can regulate the supply of goods and services, from production to distribution to marketing to whether some businesses can refuse some customers. Chief Justice Roberts’ holding did not “narrow” those precedents. He and the dissenters refused to extend that Commerce Clause regulatory power to demand, holding that Congress cannot make it illegal to not buy a private good or service. (Note: In a separate opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas would have narrowed Congress’ regulatory power under the Commerce Clause. His lone opinion is not binding.)

Instead, Chief Justice Roberts and the majority held the ACA can be read not as compelling demand, but rather as using the tax code to induce demand, an authority the Court has long recognized in the Taxing and Spending Clause. Congress could not order people to buy health insurance under penalty of criminal prosecution, but Congress could (and did) make health insurance more attractive by offering premium subsidies for median- and lower-income Americans, as well as by imposing a “shared responsibility payment” – a tax – on people who could afford insurance but refuse to buy it.

The “shared responsibility payment” prescribed in the ACA will not be more than the cost of health insurance, and it may be less depending on one’s income and other factors. As Chief Justice Roberts noted, some families may decide their best economic course is to forgo insurance and pay the tax. If they stay healthy, that may be indeed be their best choice. But if they get seriously injured or suddenly ill, the insurance they buy might not cover costs incurred before they bought the policy, and they may find that paying the tax rather than having insurance wasn’t so smart after all. If they can’t pay those pre-insurance costs, losses incurred by the hospital and other health care providers will be offset, in part, by the “shared responsibility payment” the uninsured person had been paying.

Here are my winners and losers, in terms of legal precedent:

• Winners: Congress, Supreme Court, Nudgers, Voters – Congress won, as the Court recognized that the ACA fell within long-standing constitutional precedent. The Supreme Court did not interpose themselves as a super-legislature, and issued a reasoned opinion. Nudge advocates won, as the Court reaffirmed Congress’ authority to use the tax code to encourage socially beneficial behavior and discourage socially harmful behavior. And voters won. Chief Justice Roberts and the majority held that, so long as Congress and the president do not transgress the Constitution, elections and their consequences must be respected.
• Losers: Paul Ryan, Republicans – The surprising losers are Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Republicans, whose Medicare ‘reform’ plan would have given vouchers to seniors and required them to buy their own health insurance. Unless the plan is rewritten to make private insurance an option and/or include a tax penalty for seniors who don’t buy insurance, I don’t see how it would survive Court scrutiny under this precedent.

Policy Winners and Losers

In terms of policy, the outcomes are a little clearer:

• Winners: – As Paul Krugman and many others noted, the big winners Thursday were most Americans who need health insurance. Once the exchanges and Medicaid expansion are fully implemented, almost all Americans will be able to get health insurance through their employers, or individually in a better-regulated market, or through federal or state programs. While the ACA is not a perfect bill, it is a huge step forward.
• Losers: – Yet not everyone will benefit immediately. Many Republican-led states may refuse to implement the Medicaid expansion, at least until they and voters no longer associate it with President Obama and Democrats, denying affordable care tens of thousands of low-income Americans. While Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) and some other Republican governors have declared they will not implement state insurance exchanges, that is less troublesome. Under the ACA, if a state refuses to create a health insurance exchange, the federal government will create it instead.

Political Winners & Losers

Although pundits and other prognosticators began weighing in on this within seconds after the decision was released, I left it for last. While elections are important, we progressives cannot forget that government must be about something more than who wins the next election. The ACA is a legislative landmark, and a huge step toward ensuring universal access to health care in the U.S.

But there’s also some self-interest involved. I didn’t make a prediction about the Court’s ruling on the ACA, because my experience has been that Court decisions are not very predictable. Likewise with the political responses to Court decisions.

Those on the right have been dancing with joy over Chief Justice Roberts “declaring ObamaCare a tax,” even as some of them say that must have happened in an epileptic fit. In the RedState article linked above, Erick Erickson claimed the Supreme Court “just handed Mitt Romney the White House,” by firing up a dormant Tea Party while lulling progressives into a false sense of security. I wouldn’t measure the drapes yet.

While studying Go in Okinawa, I once asked my sensei if I’d just made a good move. He replied: “Good move, bad move, all is next move.” And here as well.

If President Obama, Democratic candidates, and we activists use this decision as a springboard to discuss the many positive (and popular!) elements of the Affordable Care Act, this becomes a win-win. We should emphasize that the Supreme Court found the ACA is a kind of solution, authorized by an enumerated power, that our federal government has used and our courts have upheld for two centuries.

And we should emphasize that – contrary to spin from Republicans and some on the Professional Left – the Supreme Court did not rule that health insurance premiums are taxes paid to a private corporation. Instead, the Court said people can refuse to buy health insurance, but they can’t be freeloaders. They owe a “shared participation payment,” a tax to offset the inevitable costs when they need health care and haven’t prepared to pay for it. That is called “personal responsibility.”

If progressive Democrats make the right “next moves,” this landmark Supreme Court decision on this landmark Democratic achievement will become a political win-win. It’s your move….

(Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com))

 (By Fay Paxton, cross-posted at The Pragmatic Pundit)

“My name is Ronald Reagan. I have been asked to talk on the several subjects that have to do with the problems of the day. . . .

And what was this frightful threat that Reagan perceived as “imminent”?  Medicare.

It was the Truman Administration that began advocating medical care for the aged after a call for universal health care for all Americans was met with intense opposition.  After a bill was introduced in Congress to create a Medicare program, the AMA immediately announced its opposition and worked tirelessly and successfully to prevent any such program from advancing in the Congress.

By 1960 a scaled-back bill was introduced in an effort to lessen resistance to the idea of government-provided health insurance coverage.  It proposed to cover the costs of hospital and nursing home care, but not surgical costs or out-patient physicians’ services.  The scaled-back version,  “limited to the welfare population” became law. It is what we now call Medicaid.

With the election of President Kennedy came a renewed effort to introduce Medicare.  The American Medical Association launched an extensive and well financed campaign against its enactment, with advertisements in newspapers. on radio and television spots, all deploying the usual cries of “socialism,” and the specter of federal bureaucrats in “the examination room.”

Under the banner of “Operation Hometown” the AMA propagandize through use of medical societies, speeches, news releases, articles and pamphlets on the dangers of “socialized medicine.”  Then there was “Operation Coffeecup”, a series of coffee-klatches hosted by the members of the Woman’s Auxiliary. The get-togethers were depicted as spontaneous, grassroot events.  Enter, Ronald Reagan.

At these clandestine gatherings, women received instructions on how to lobby against Medicare, launched a letter-writing campaign and listened to a recording called, “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine.”

Reagan’s involvement was revealed in an article by Drew Pearson in his Washington Merry-Go-Round column entitled,  “Star vs. JFK,”:

Ronald Reagan of Hollywood has pitted his mellifluous voice against President Kennedy in the battle for medical aid for the elderly. As a result it looks as if the old folks would lose out. He has caused such a deluge of mail to swamp Congress that Congressmen want to postpone action on the medical bill until 1962. What they don’t know, of course, is that Ron Reagan is behind the mail; also that the American Medical Association is paying for it.

Reagan is the handsome TV star for General Electric . . . Just how this background qualifies him as an expert on medical care for the elderly remains a mystery. Nevertheless, thanks to a deal with the AMA, and the acquiescence of General Electric, Ronald may be able to out-influence the President of the United States with Congress.

Reagan and Conservatives preferred a state-level welfare program for the needy. They were against pending legislation that offered health care coverage to Social Security beneficiaries, favoring legislation that paid the medical bills of those on welfare, or those who could qualify as indigent given their medical expenses.

What irony, that Conservatives were in favor of welfare, while Democrats preferred the pro-work expansion tied to Social Security.   Why this strange role reversal?  Because Conservatives reasoned that covering the truly needy would limit the size of the program and the stigma of  “poverty” would tamp down participation demands from middle class and upper class citizens.  Afterall, who would want an association with a program meant for the poor and aged?  It was a trade-off…a little more welfare for a lot less government.

While he would later deny it, Ronald Reagan was at the forefront of the argument against Medicare with many of the same arguments we hear today:

“The doctor begins to lose freedom. . . . First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally di­vided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can’t live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it’s only a short step to dictating where he will go. . . . From here it’s a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won’t decide, when he’s in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.”

Government control of medicine was never what Medicare was about. It is a system for financing the costs of medical care that has nothing to do with medical practices. But then as now, this threat was the reliable boogeyman.

To be fair, the Medicare program does indirectly regulate aspects of health care by the  effect of its reimbursement policies. But the same is true with private insurers. Blue Cross/Blue Shield decides it will not pay for certain medical procedures, or will only pay for a generic drug rather than a brand-name one.  These decisions affect the practice of medicine by encouraging forms of practice consistent with reimbursement policies.  So too with Medicare. But this is a far cry from the specter of an intrusive government presence in the examining room.

Republicans have a long-standing, deeply-held  antipathy for both Social Security and Medicare. Not only did Reagan advocate making Social Security voluntary in the 1964 Goldwater campaign, but argued in 1975 that Social Security should be privatized.  And we’ve all heard those before; we still hear those arguments today.

By 1980, this aspect of Reagan’s personal history had become a political liability and he denied having ever campaigned to destroy Medicare, but insisted he was trying to improve it.  Perhaps, he was just acting.

All things considered, don’t be surprised if years from now, you see little old ladies donning hats with hanging teabags, carrying signs that proclaim:  “Keep government out of my Obamacare”.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles about how Rep. Issa’s “Fast and Furious” investigation is a witch hunt, supply-side economic theory does not work in reality, the federal government will pick up the costs of health care reform’s Medicaid expansion, the importance of liberals reclaiming our nation’s historical narrative, and the benefits of the earned income tax credit.

The Truth About the Fast and Furious Scandal – a detailed investigation shows that the alleged gun walking that Rep. Darrell Issa is accusing Attorney General Eric Holder of failing to stop never actually occurred.  Instead, ATF agents say that the biggest hurdle they face in stopping gun running from Mexico is our nation’s weak gun laws.

Three New Critiques of Arthur Laffer’s Supply-Side Model Show Tax Cuts as Junk Economics – Three new studies showing that income and estate tax reductions do not lead to the economic growth that conservatives claim they will.

Federal Government Will Pick Up Nearly All Costs of Health Care Reform’s Medicaid Expansion – a study showing that the federal government would pick up 93% of the costs of the Medicaid expansion included in the Affordable Care Act.  Unfortunately, it is widely believed that after the Supreme Court limited the penalty on states that decline to go along with the Medicaid expansion that a number of states, mostly in the South, will likely decline to expand Medicaid.

Why History Matters to Liberalism – an essay arguing that it is critical to the future of liberalism that we push back against the false conservative claim that our nation was formed almost entirely on ruggedly individualistic values.

Studies Show Earned Income Tax Credit Encourages Work and Success in School and Reduces Poverty – a summary of a series of studies showing significant benefits from the earned income tax credit.

(By Mark Bridger, cross-posted at ThatMansScope)

There were two main arguments for the constitutionality of the healthcare law: The Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and the constitutional right of the Congress to levy taxes. Both of these clauses are part of Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution, which enumerates the powers of Congress. Most of the discussion preceding the decision was  about regulation of commerce, which seemed to me and, I think, many others, to be not such a good idea — both as a practical argument, given the nature of the Supreme Court, and even, perhaps, as an unhealthy extension of the powers of Congress.

The Obama administration was excoriated by many for not making the “individual mandate” an explicit tax, thus side-stepping a questionable resort to the Commerce Clause; it turns out that they were clever enough to phrase the penalty part of the mandate in terms of a tax collected on people who chose not to buy insurance. Give them credit; they had even argued precisely that point in 2010, as did, I heard, Justice Sotomayor recently.

Of course, 4 conservatives (this time Justice Kennedy as well as the usual 3) didn’t buy the argument. Justices Scalia and Alito are too firmly committed to right-wing ideology to be open to any such argument; Thomas, of course, goes with Scalia. Justice Roberts, on the other hand, quoting a beautiful phrase from a previous case (Hooper v California) wrote in the majority opinion:

Because “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, the question is whether it is “fairly possible” to interpret the mandate as imposing such a tax…”

I really like the idea that the highest court must assume, by default, that a statute is constitutional, and should always be on the lookout for a way to recognize it as such. If that is truly Roberts position, there is hope that he may turn out to be, on balance, an excellent Chief Justice. Now if only he would change his mind on Citizens United…