Hangin' with the Tea-Baggers

"Absolute chaos"; doctors as "slaves" if we reform health care.

The "moral values" of fat industry profits and Big Insurance salaries.

I couldn't make this stuff up, but that's some insight among the audacious claims from the panelists and crowd at the Albuquerque Tea-Baggers "Health Care Town Hall" on Wednesday evening at CNM's Smith Brasher Hall.

Yes, it's come to this: 50-60 working class-looking folks and 5 wealthy specialty docs and business consultants, sitting in a government building spewing hatred toward "the government" and lies about health reform.

There were no family medicine docs or health systems experts on the panel, of course, but the crowd didn't seem to mind the irony of being told how to work against their own economic interests to preserve our broken health system status quo that rations access to essential medical care by arbitrary social categories like employment, income, race and ethnicity.

Care to tell the Alb. Tea-Party what you think about this? http://albuquerqueteaparty.com/

By the way, they spent much time lamenting their "small crowd", lack of youth activists and inadequate media attention, but that's where the similarities to Progressive reformers ended on Weds. night.

Fear about health care access "as a human right" dominated the many tearful comments by a majority of elderly, overweight, white folks, some with limps. All with health insurance or Medicare, I presume.

Is US Labor propping up Big Insurance...again?

What a sad irony, an "historic mistake", but that's the $64 million question as US Labor opposes any taxation of employment-based health insurance benes in the current health reform debate.

The drive to continue excluding employer-based health insurance from taxes actually subsidizes our current corporate health coverage scheme and empowers Big Insurance profits and a non-system of care that is rationed by employment status. Is this what we really want out of health reform?

While perhaps historically correct, tying health insurance benes to employment may now be, ironically, the nail in the coffin of a real Public Health Plan - something that Labor also says it wants.

Can we have both a strong Public Plan and subsidized employment-based health insurance, or are they logically incompatible? A new Center for Budget and Policy Priorities report says we can, but only under certain conditions. Labor should listen, this time.

If not, we’re all in trouble.

And I mean ALL of us - not just those of us lucky enough to have union jobs . We’ll fail to reform health care in the US if we compromise away a strong universal public plan so that Big Insurance can get more tax-payer windfalls for the dwindling numbers of amply-employed but still painfully underserved by Big Insurance.

This time, the failure may be stamped with the Union Label unless we tax the health care rationers and the employers who feed them. Or we can kiss guaranteed, affordable care for all, goodbye. That appears to be our choice now.

It's time for a full-court press to detach health insurance from employment in the face of a changed economy.

Please consider these Health Econ & Labor History basics before screaming at me for Labor heresy:

1. Our current employment-based system of health insurance is considered by most health and labor economists to be a “historic mistake” – one that is not working for most of us, even those who are insured. It rations care by class, race and income level and offers the poorest quality of care in the industrialized world for those it miraculously "serves", and makes a huge profit for shareholders while doing so.

2. US Labor pushed for employment-based health insurance after WWII , and employers agreed in order to enable a healthy, productive industrialized workforce amidst labor shortages.

3. Our economy is no longer industrial nor is labor in short supply, and it ain’t gonna be any time soon, at least not in poor or diverse states like NM. This is not necessarily a bad thing in a pluralistic society; in fact, it’s considered a good thing by many. Either way, it’s what we got.

4. Insurers and other administrators have driven health care costs uncontrollably high, despite their consistent exclusion from taxation when offered through employment contracts.

5. As a result of the above four points, demand for a Public Health Plan for all of us has finally emerged in the US – the only industrialized country to NOT consider health care a basic human right in this way - to produce affordable, universal access to health care, backed by the government because that's what they're there for and do best. (Just ask your local government Fire Fighter.)

6. A functional and universal Public Health Plan requires demand, among other basics, to regulate costs and access. When Big Insurance is subsidized by being excluded from routine taxation like that of other employment benefits, it will drain demand away from a Public Health Plan and cause it to fail.

7. Spineless ConservaDems in Congress want a Devil’s Deal in health reform to appease their corporate backers, so we may get EITHER continued subsidies for Big Insurance via untaxed employment health benefit rations OR a strong Public Health Plan for all of us.

This health care fight is about our social values, and about making choices for the change we need.

Here’s our first big one…will Labor side with people or corporations in health reform? We can’t have both this time, in this economy and with our people getting expensively, unjustly sicker.

When will we stop making historic mistakes in US health care and finally enact a Public Health Plan that puts Big insurance on the sidelines where they belong... and puts Labor on the side of all workers?

An open letter to Sen. Bingaman about the shameful AMA and bait/switchy 'co-op" plans

Dear Sen.Bingaman's DC Staff-

Thanks for making time for our NM Alliance for Retired Americans unscheduled visit last week in DC. Our 400+ statewide and 3.5 million national members appreciate yours and Senator Bingaman's hard work for real health reform.

We want him to keep it up, and know that we're doing our part out here. Especially as the ground is getting weak with corporate interests, including the AMA, who shamefully opposed the creation of Medicare in 1965. They made a historic mistake then and they are making one now by opposing a strong Public Health Plan. Our Senator must not follow their lead and enable this mistake again...we need a strong Public Health Plan now.

I'm an epidemiologist and former NM DOH worker, but I'm now helping to lead our local NM ARA because health reform can't wait any longer. New Mexicans are dying in discriminatory patterns, and it's nearly all preventable with a sound Public Health Plan.

I've made a career of analyzing local health access and financing trends here in NM and I can tell you, first hand, that the co-op option will have no teeth to place corporate health insurance interests where they belong for the health of the people: ultimately, in a supplemental role.

We don't trust fire fighting or policing to corporations, so why should we trust them with health care gate-keeping and disease prevention/management? There is no science to back this fatal error up, just money and smoke and mirrors. International comparative health systems research bears this out time and again - the US is the biggest rationer of the poorest quality of care of all our national peers.

Please tell the Senator to be strong for our people, and we'll do the same.

Love,
Terry

The Doctor did it.

Making corporately-financed health care irrelevant requires us to accurately define our enemies - the enemies of health care access as a basic human right.

In addition to Big Insurance, Big Business and others who profit from illness and healthcare rations, one enemy especially stands out because he/she's also a needed friend and ally. Really...??

The American Medical Association opposes a public health plan because it would threaten their profits. They opposed the creation of Medicare in 1965, too. Shame, shame on them, as Medicare is the most effective public health plan of all time and is responsible for lifting our country out of unequal illness and poverty patterns, and prolonging the quantity and quality of life in the US in equitable ways. According to the NYTimes the other day,

"The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization. While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress."

You bet they are.

That's nice, but the current market-based system doesn't work for anyone who is not a doc.

Let me be more specific....our absence of a primary care infrastructure - itself a product of "private markets, as they are currently" - makes people sick, at much profit to treatment providers like medical specialists and high-end medical technology designed for over-killing (literally).

Let's be clear about who the AMA serves - it ain't primary care docs, but specialists. And they don't want the change we need in health care reform.

Nothing is simple about the politics of US health care, and our docs shouldn't be contributing to this profitable confusion. Tell the AMA (1-800-621-8335) - and Sen. Bingaman - how you feel about the status quo "private market" system that fails us all in fixable ways.

Be strong,
Terry

My new gig

Greetings from the depths of the pre-national health care reform fight, circa 2009.

Will we get the single-payer system we all need and want but are afraid to admit? Or will we have to settle for a leaky Massachusetts-like "public plan" that emboldens a bigger Corporate Takeover of Our Health Care than we have now (if that's even imaginable)?

Stay tuned...and don't believe these two options are mutually exclusive.

They'd better not be. Our movement for single-payer may depend on how (and why) to make them inclusive so as not to shatter like we did after 1993, enabling (albeit reluctantly) more pain and suffering under years of our failed Corporate Model.

Which is as unsustainable for health care as it was for credit-default swaps. The antidote to the Corporate Model, for now? A strong Public Health Plan that incents primary care and controls costs as an alternative to our healthcare credit default swaps..er, I mean system.

So, if you must moralize instead of strategize, keep an open mind for how to turn our single-payer loss this year into a stronger movement for it next time. Let's patch the cracks and fix the leaks in our own movements, get to know each other and educate ourselves (in the Freirian sense) about our need and design ideas for guaranteed health care for all - everyone in; no one out.

And pledge to make that time come very, very soon: a strong public plan will help get us there.

Yours - more truly than ever,
Terry Schleder

NM ARA ramps up for “health care reform for all”,

celebrates Older Americans Month with expanded

Field Staff & move in to AFSCME offices

Albuquerque, NM – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 1, 2009

The NM Alliance for Retired Americans kicks-off Older Americans Month with a focus on health reform, a move into the offices of Council 18 American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees (AFSCME) offices and the hiring of long-time public health advocate, Terry Schleder, as NM Field Staff. Schleder holds a Masters in Public Health degree from UNM and joins the NM ARA as their new organizer with a directive to grow the statewide Senior movement into a force for economic and health care justice in collaboration with union and community health care advocates. Nationally, the ARA represents 3.5 million members in 30 statewide chapters.

With bolstered support, the NM ARA will mobilize its 300+-strong statewide constituency and affiliated organizations this month to call on our Congressional delegation to support real universal health care and fix Medicare in these ways: expand coverage for pre-retirees, eliminate the inflated costs of private Medicare Advantage programs, and fix Part D’s privatized prescription price-gouging by allowing Medicare to negotiate volume discounts directly from pharmaceutical suppliers.

Despite aggressive statewide efforts to push an insurance model of health care reform, over 20% of New Mexicans remain uninsured. And aging doesn’t save New Mexicans from our healthcare access crises: 250,000 New Mexicans age 65 and older are paying higher out-of-pocket costs for an increasingly privatized Medicare since 2003 in an insurance model of health care financing that is unsustainable and an expensive break from traditional Medicare “fee-for-service” financing.

According to the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a non-partisan group:

“Since 2003 the number and costs of private Medicare plans have increased exponentially as a result of the design of Medicare Part D and "Medicare Advantage". Unlike plans to privatize Social Security, which were debated and largely rejected by lay people and professionals alike, the privatization of Medicare is well underway and has occurred largely without public knowledge or discussion. Medicare privatization and the billions of dollars being spent to subsidize private plans threaten the future of Medicare and the health and economic security the Medicare public program has provided for America’s older and disabled people and their families.”

“Congress has an opportunity to enact health care reform legislation that can improve the quality of life for all Americans. New Mexico’s Seniors and retirees, too, have a large stake in these national health care reform efforts”, says Emil Shaw, President of NM ARA and NM AFT retiree member.

NM seniors know that you can’t talk about health reform without talking about Medicare, which established health care in the US as a human right for all Seniors and not a market commodity for the few. Look for health reform updates all month from the NM ARA website.

“We are thrilled about our move into the office space donated by AFSCME Council 18 and their support of our local and national health reform agenda. Seniors and government employees in NM understand the strength and efficiency of so-called “single-payer” systems for basic human needs like health care, education and fire or police departments. I look forward to combining my local training in public health policy with the ARA’s progressive national and statewide agenda for real health reform for all”, says Schleder.

Contact:

Emil Shaw, 505-321-4603

Terry Schleder, 505-401-1328, NMSeniors@gmail.com

Let the games begin.

The corporate takeover of health reform is underway, so get your Myth-Busting chops on and jump in the pool! Your voice will drown out Frank Luntz' memo any day.

Step 1: Spread the truth about corporate-run health care - it rations care, costs more and has ratty quality-of-care

Step 2: Write a quick Letter to the Editor about it!

Step 3: Talk about the benes of a strong public health plan, including a single-payer plan like Medicare for All

Step 4: Swallow hard when you realize that Medicare for All has been pushed off the table this year, and pledge your solidarity to a strong public plan anyway.

Step 4.5: Know that Rome wasn't built in a day and the movement for Medicare for All begins with strengthening Medicare now

Step 5: Support a strong public plan as a historic first-step in stopping the Corporate takeover of our health care system.

Our drive for single-payer depends on this first step. Lives depend on it.

Terry

Health Reform Wars Heat Up in NM, US Labor

Split tactics for health reform are taking shape once again in NM's health reform movement and the US Labor movement, with supporters of maintaining the private insurance scheme on one hand and proponents of overhauling healthcare financing toward a "single-payer" mechanism, like Medicare, on the other.

In NM, the Health Security Campaign once again introduced the Health Security Act yesterday, this time to a crowd of standing-room only supporters and reporters. NM's other health reform group, Health Action NM, does not support the HSA and instead is pushing an independent health authority bill, among others, that they say will move the debate forward toward increased access in NM.

Time will tell if their authority bill can stand up to Gov. Richardson's new idea, and if either authority structures will do what we need in NM: control costs and cover everyone NOW.

On the national scene, HR 676 - expanded Medicare for All - has been introduced and is gaining sponsorships without the support of the AFL-CIO or SEIU, who prefer a piecemeal approach that maintains a primary role for private insurers. Who knew our "progressive" unions would one day play this role? Wow. I feel old.

Diverse opinions about political strategy can be useful to social change movements. But is this parallel strategy in NM and nationally helpful to securing universal and affordable access to all, or is it a sign of disorganized non-consensual rolling-over to Big Insurance?

Maybe, if we're lucky, it's a sign of grassroots revolt from within each movement. Time will tell.