MEDICARE FOR ALL: A HILL TO DIE ON

 A HILL TO DIE ON

Do not be surprised if the Republican leadership throws Donald Trump under the bus and enacts the 25^th Amendment, then blames Trump alone for the failure of the Iran War, subsequent rise in inflation, and the collapse of health care—all in the hope of salvaging their control of power. Trump is an easy target because he is guilty as charged. But We The People know the Republican leaders are complicit. This makes the midterm elections look very good for the Democrats. But Democrats are excellent at losing elections. They could use a positive campaign issue instead of always yelling about what the other side is doing wrong.

They need a hill to die on.

Health care is a major issue in this country. We have arguably the best health care in the world, if you can afford it. Even after the Affordable Care Act became law, insurance premiums with high co-pays and deductibles were the norm. If you are wealthy, cost doesn’t matter. But most Americans struggle to make their premiums and to pay their medical bills. The solution of taking out a loan to cover medical costs is no solution at all. By all global measurements, factoring in per person cost and healthcare outcomes, the United States ranks at or near the bottom among industrialized nations. I have seen an overall rank as low as 69^th in the world. Most surveys I have seen place us nearer to 37, which is still shameful for the richest country in the history of the world.

What’s different about all the other countries? They have universal healthcare. Everyone has access to equal treatment. There are problems, certainly, country by country, but the point is that healthcare is much more readily available, and democratic, elsewhere. We need Medicare for All.

But how? It should be simple. Consider. The average annual income for a family of four in the US is $106,000. I personally don’t know anyone in that bracket, but it takes a huge number of people making a whole lot less just to bring the average down from the billionaires and trillionaires. The average cost of insurance premiums for a family of four is between $18 and $27 grand. Even at the lower number, that’s 16% of that average income. Remember, there are a great many people making less than $106K who still have to pay that much in insurance premiums. I am not a math genius, but even I can see that killing private insurance and increasing the Medicare payroll tax from 3%, where it is now, to 8 or 9, or even 10% across the board, would save everybody money in the long run while at the same time providing better care for anyone who needs it.

It’s not like there are no models out there. Yes, the health insurance companies will balk, but how good are they at helping Americans? Maybe it’s time for them to go.

Remember, to whom much is given, much is expected. It also might be worth remembering that it takes a mighty work/consumer force to keep the wealthy afloat. But getting Congress to do anything close to this will take a long, long time and a great many down ballot changes. Still, for anyone who believes in helping our fellow citizens realize a better life, this is a hill worth dying on.

Liberty Rusting, and a New Slogan

LIBERTY RUSTING AND A NEW SLOGAN

Okay, I know what I said about changing focus. I failed. I was watching a documentary about Franklin Delano Roosevelt who, despite his human frailties, or perhaps because of them, came to understand that the role of government was not to promote the rich industrialists of America but to protect the American people from the greedy practices of those same industrialists. It reminded me of something I heard a few weeks ago, and I am paraphrasing, that Donald Trump's presidency is as consequential as FDR’s, but for the opposite reasons. Both men used the power of the executive to establish policy, but FDR did it to help the working class and to provide moral leadership, while Trump has done it to line his own pockets and dismantle as much of the past 95 years of progress on all fronts of human rights possible.

Commentators and pundits have voiced their impression that Trump wants to turn the clock back to 1950 or 1930, or perhaps 1890 at the height of the Gilded Age when robber barons made buckets of money at the expense of an unprotected workforce. I personally think he would like to push even farther back, to 1830, the era of his favorite president, Andrew Jackson. Jackson expanded cronyism with the “Spoils System,” giving jobs to personal favorites and supporters over-qualified applicants. Jackson pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress, codifying American policy to shove all Native Americans out of the way of white Euro-American progress. Jackson owned 200 slaves.

Trump would whitewash our past, deny it existed. He does not want to learn from history, he wants to rewrite it in his own image, the same image he keeps plastering across the country. Through understanding our history, we learn from our mistakes and grow to do better. Donald Trump wants us stagnant and uneducated. An ignorant people are easier to control, to lie to, to fool, to rob. But ignorance is curable. Stupidity, which our current president exhibits in abundance, is not. This is not the America I know and love. It is not the America that says, “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I was only two years old when my family sailed by those words on the way to Ellis Island. It is not the America for which Martin Luther King had a dream. It is not the country FDR envisioned when he said, “In our democracy officers of the government are the servants, and never the masters of the people.” But it could be.

We must not lose heart. We must push back against the threats facing our grand experiment. We cannot be complacent. We were always sputtering and trying and slipping, but we were always moving forward. That is the country I love, and it is up to all of us to reclaim her. So I wrote a poem, just four lines. I offer it, particularly the last line, as a new slogan for the American people. And pardon the language, please!

            Liberty Rusting

    We talk and talk and don’t do shit.

    Democrats, Republicans, I’m tired of it.

    You’re off the rails, you’re off the tracks.

    I love my country! I want her back! 

Trump's Real Game With Iran

 

All apologies. I had decided to steer away from bigger issues and focus on my own, more personal stuff, like poetry and the upcoming graduation of my first grandchild from high school. I even submitted three poems to a local writer’s club and won a prize! Validation feels good.

And yet, America remains under siege, deeply divided, and over-extended, and no one with any real power seems able or willing to do anything about it. Congress is ineffectual, the Supreme Court is questionable, and POTUS is downright shameful.

Since February 28, We The People have watched virtually helplessly as the United States of Trump launched a “pre-emptive strike” against Iran, in cooperation with Israel. The one immediate and ongoing consequence was and is the crippling of one-fifth the world economy because Iran discovered it could close the Strait of Hormuz and hold all ships transiting through the Strait hostage. I labored under the false impression that Trump did not realize this would happen. I have changed my mind.

In considering military actions, we employ scenario builders. Their job is to consider outcome. They look for probable responses, including those off the battlefield. Every President who considered military action against Iran was warned that Iran could close the Strait. Trump was no different. The closure was not a surprise. I now believe it was exactly what Trump wanted.

Reverse engineering, or following the money, I think Trump fully understood that attacking Iran would close the Strait, and that closure would drive up the price of crude around the world, this means American crude would sell at the same inflated price as the rest of the world. Oil companies and investors would see massive profits, even on a short timeline. Coupled with Trump’s concerted efforts to control Venezuela oil, and his attempts to cripple green energy alternatives, it seems like the President is doubling down on a dwindling energy source for short-term gain. If so, did he collude to create this war and crisis? Is he guilty of insider trading? Has he put American soldiers in harm’s way for profit? Is he guilty of murder? Of treason?

Inquiring minds want to know.