(CNA joining the AFL-CIO over the SEIU or staying unaffiliated is a big deal. – promoted by juls)

Synergy = Momentum!  Yesterday the 75,000 members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee joined the AFL-CIO.  No big deal you think?  Wrong.  The 325,000 RNs now consolidated in the labor movement have become a corps of committed activists for guaranteed healthcare on  the single-payer model.  Don’t underestimate them-especially as SiCKO continues to roil the national debate over healthcare.

Cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED Healthcare.

It’s been a long time coming:

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the 75,000-member nurses’ union, said that after a century as an independent union, the nurses joined the AFL-CIO because of what they see as unprecedented momentum for comprehensive health-care reform. She said her union opposed any reforms that would leave private insurers as the system’s gatekeepers and chose the AFL-CIO because of its vote this year to support a single-payer system under which one entity would finance all health care.

“You can’t achieve a national health care system without the labor movement. It’s never happened in any country,” said DeMoro, whose union has members outside California through its national group, the National Nurses Organizing Committee. The move gives the AFL-CIO 325,000 registered nurses as members.

Don’t underestimate that.  The voice of America’s working people is joining the fight for the single-payer model of healthcare.  This means millions of activists for single-payer, it means that politicians on the payroll of the insurance industry will know they’re crosswise with working people, it means that the single-payer solution moves into the mainstream as the only proposal that has a solid constituency pushing for it.  Even Mitt Romney, by contrast, seems to be running from his Massachusetts mess.  Read the AFL-CIO blog here.

The timing could not be better, as SiCKO continues its amazing impact on the American psyche-before it’s even being released.  Is there another movie that’s had a greater impact a month before it debuts?

Conservatives are in a t-i-z-z-y.  (My favorite line, from a right-wing activist in this article: “what is sicko about both the California Nurses Association statement and the Michael Moore movie is the low level of understanding of our health care system that both reveal.”  So bitter.)

Google news finds 3,126 articles already written.  Keywords there include “Moore fever,” “rock star,” “revolutionary,” and “hottest ticket in Cannes.”

The New York Times declares that SiCKO has already given us a new set of talking points for healthcare…and quotes economist Uwe Reinhardt saying, “My point is we are on the verge of a populist reaction to the health system. The American people are on the point of being fed up.”

Just what this social movement needed!

PS–SiCKO movie posters here.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee.  You can help the fight by sharing your story about surviving the healthcare industry [http://www.guarantee….]

(oops. Feel free to disagree, I know this one is contentious. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

The health care debate seems to be very troubling for a lot of people, and that’s understandable. And, hey!, it’s a big issue.  So, for now on, I (or somebody else) will be doing a Health Care Tuesday Post.  I know, I know, it’s no Freaky Friday or Manic Monday, but Health Care Tuesdays are what I have to offer…so go with it.  I’ll try to get these up every Tuesday around noon, but well, timeliness isn’t necessarily my best quality.  But they will be up on Tuesdays!

First, I think it’s great that people are talking about health care solutions.  That is an important first step that we all have to take.  You know, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.  And so with us, here in California and the nation.  We must admit that we have a problem with our health care system before we can truly fix it.  And so, props go out to the Speaker of the Assembly, the Senate Majority Leader, and yes, the Governator for at least talking about the issues.  While they may not have all the answers, they have nudged us along on the important road to those answers. So…thanks.

Flip it!

But, what does it mean that our health care system is broken. Well, let’s look at Ezra Klein’s Health of Nations series. First of all, if you haven’t read those posts, do yourself a favor, and read them. But, a quick comparison to other industrialized nations, and you’ll see the problem.  Here is just one quick metric: number of years of life lost per 100,000years.  Ezra’s source is in French, so I’m just trusting him. WHO Data and OECD Data (XLS) also went into this table.

So, clearly we are spending money without getting anything in return. These additional expenses can be attributed to several different causes, and attribution of fractions to these causes is beyond the scope of this post.  But the # 1 expense that we are paying that these other industrialized nations are not is clear: insurance company expenses and profits. Over thirty cents of every dollar spent on health care goes to administration and profits for these massive corporations.  You know, it’s important that Wellpoint make its numbers or the Street will punish them.

How messed up is that? It’s like boxing Mike Tyson (the 1980s Mike Tyson, not the sad crying 2001 Mike Tyson) with your shoelaces tied together. Just when we get a punch in against illness, the insurance companies want their third.  The infant mortality rate is the highest of any industrialized nation, and Wellpoint is concerned about what the Street will do if they don’t keep on rescinding coverage for those with the audacity to actually use their insurance by getting sick. 

But here’s the political problem with ArnoldCare, FabianCare, or really any non-single payer program, if we expand health insurance instead of health care, we will be further lining the pockets of these corporations who already have a major lobbying presence in DC and in Sacramento.  We have now given the bunker buster bomb to the rogue nuclear state just to make sure that no real progressive change can ever happen.  Look, as the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in response to a question I asked about ArnoldCare when originally proposed: “The problem is that the insurance industry is the enemy of most everything we do today. “ This would be granting even more power to the already destructive insurance industry.

So, let’s just posit that some FabianCare type program works. And looking over the program details, I think that there will be some improvement, at least in terms of gross numbers of uninsureds. I’m not ripping on the Speaker here, he’s trying to get what he thinks is the best available program passed given the political constraints. So, the program works and we cut down the number of uninsureds to say, 1 million people in the state. I think we can all grant that would be a really good result given the metric of # of uninsureds.  So, who are those uninsured people now? Good question, but do you think they have very good lobbyists in Sacramento? Probably not, b/c they are the last 1 million, right?  How are we going to go that last mile? The critical mile, if we have now bolstered the economic situation of the insurance companies, giving them additional resources to fight against single payer.  So, say we get a Dem. governor, are we really going to be able to get SB 840 passed when the InsCo lobbyists actually get to worrying about it? I mean, now they are just letting it go b/c they know they have Arnold to veto, do you think they would be so ambivalent given a Dem Governor? 

So, back to the titular question: when is good enough, just not good enough? Now. I appreciate the efforts of those who are working on insurance based solutions, but mustn’t we also realize that implementing these plans might be a huge boon for the exact reason for our health care crisis: the health insurance industry?  Wouldn’t this actually slow the implementation of the only plan that actually works: single payer.  Look, single payer isn’t perfect, but until resource scarcity is a thing of the past (you know on the 12th of Never), it is the only feasible solution.

I know that some people will disagree with me, and I surely appreciate that.  I suppose having overpriced health insurance is better than flying with no net.  That is a scary thing (and it’s something that I’m staring down the barrel of), but deals which only prop up the insurance industry as they continue to raid our health care system will not truly solve the problems that we are facing.

So, over the next few weeks, I’ll address several major issues in the arguments for and against single payer guaranteed healthcare.  Next week (probably): The Myth of Moral Hazard.

Update: a funny tidbit from an interview with the authors (h/t TPM)–Duke thinks he’s going to be pardoned:

Just when you thought you couldn’t be any more disgusted by Duke Cunningham, the two reporters who brought him down write a book that brings you this:

…even Wilkes drew a line on what he would do for the congressman. For one thing, Wilkes was totally disgusted by the hot tub Cunningham put on the boat’s deck during the autumn and winter. What repelled Wilkes — and others invited to the parties — was both the water Cunningham put in the hot tub and the congressman’s penchant for using it while naked, even if everybody else at the party was clothed. Cunningham used water siphoned directly from the polluted Potomac River and never changed it out during the season. “Wilkes thought it was unbelievably dirty and joked if you got in there it would leave a dark water line on your chest,” said one person familiar with the parties. “The water was so gross that very few people were willing to get into the hot tub other than Duke and his paramour.” That was a reference to Cunningham’s most frequently seen girlfriend, a flight attendant who lived in Maryland.

Previous quote continued:

One of these parties started at the Capital Grille with Cunningham ordering his usual filet mignon — very well done — with iceberg lettuce salad and White Oak. Wilkes used the dinner to update Cunningham on the appropriations he wanted. Cunningham then took the whole group back to the boat where they drank more wine, sitting on white leather sofas while Cunningham told more war stories. Cunningham then took his clothes off and invited all to join him in the polluted hot tub that was hidden from the neighbors by a white tarp. There were no takers.

H/T to TPMMuckraker via dkos.

Two slight digressions: (1) very-well-done is a desecration of filet mignon, (2) the first and only review of it on Amazon is incredibly annoying in that it tries to make this a problem “that pervades both sides of the aisle (Republican and Democrat).” Yes, the Dukestir, you know he was practically a Democrat…or something. Somebody already rated it not helpful (pile on if you have an account), let’s hope we get some better ones up to replace it.

The publisher’s summary:

Duke Cunningham was an All-American success story. The Midwestern boy who went off to war, became a hero, and rode his fame into Congress even bragged that Tom Cruise played him in a popular movie. But the fall of this “Top Gun” was almost as epic and just as cinematic. Today he sits in prison, branded as the most corrupt member of Congress in U.S. history.

Hmm, except I’d actually like to get in a hot tub with Tom Cruise (“Top Gun”-era/pre-crazy Tom that is).

As I mentioned, the book is by the two San Diego Union-Tribune (Copley News) reporters who broke many of the Dukestir stories and brought about his downfall:

The authors were on the team that won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Jerry Kammer has been a correspondent for Copley News Service since 2002. Marcus Stern has been in Copley’s Washington Bureau for twenty-two years. Dean Calbreath has been a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune for more than eight years. George E. Condon Jr. has been Washington bureau chief for Copley since 1984. Stern, Calbreath, and Kammer all received the George Polk award. Stern and Kammer also share the Edgar Poe award.

While I can’t praise them enough for that, I wish they’d get busy on any number of other San Diego area Republicans. Heaven knows there is no shortage of material for them to work with around here. I’m actually quite disappointed that they haven’t kept this going. Let’s hope that now they’ve finished this book they can get back to work (of course then there’s the book tour…sigh…)

Look at what I found in today’s OC Register! In case you missed it, the Orange County Grand Jury has recommended that seven Orange County cities should follow the OC Sheriff Department’s lead in conducting immigration checks in their city jails. And yes, this is for real.

All of Orange County’s large cities should follow the sheriff’s department lead and train officers to do immigration checks in their jails, a grand jury said today.

In a report on Sheriff Mike Carona’s new program that partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the panel said the cities of Anaheim, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Orange, Fullerton and Garden Grove should have similar plans.

Carona won approval for his plan from the Board of Supervisors in March, although many civil rights groups were opposed to it because they feared it would lead to racial profiling.

Under an agreement with ICE, 14 deputies were trained to check the immigration status of inmates using federal databases. The plan also allows deputies to create a file on a foreign national and notify federal authorities that the inmate should be detained and possibly deported.

So what’s so bad about this? What’s so good about this? What’s the big deal about this? Follow me after the flip for more on this…

So why not do this? It will get dangerous criminals off our streets and back in their home countries! Why allow these thuggish illegal aliens to suck up any more taxpayer dollars while sitting in our comfortable jails? Why not just send the dirty criminals back to where they belong?

But why do this? Most of those immigrants in jail are incarcerated for rather minor crimes, like tagging a fire hydrant or riding a bicycle on the wrong side of the street. Does that merit being separated from one’s family indefinitely? Does a parking violation merit losing one’s job and one’s livelihood? These are poor, desperate workers trying to survive. Do they really deserve this draconian measure?

And what about those inmates who are here legally, but are unfairly targeted by this system? Is that a real problem that we will face in Orange County? Is it fair to be targeted on the basis of the color of one’s skin? Is it fair to be targeted on the basis of “looking like an illegal alien”?

What do you think about this program? Should the seven Orange County cities join the program? Should the OC Sheriff continue the program at county jail and cities that contract with the OC Sheriiffs?

Yesterday I put up a Quickie about a eminent domain reform proposal brought to the floor by Asm. Hector De La Torre linking to the “Californians for Eminent Domain Reform” website. I was going to do a whole post, but other things came up and it never happened.  But, this is a good idea, politically.

For some reason, the wingers have themselves all frenzied up over eminent domain and are prepared to spend heavily on it (see Prop 90). But that’s not even the worst part, it’s that the wingers think that eminent domain is their way to attack a number of other progressive causes (again, see Prop 90).  Follow me over the flippio for some additional background and details of the current proposal…

First, what is eminent domain? Eminent domain is the right of a government to take property.  It is generally pretty rare (only 2 homes in the Bay Area in the past decade) In the United States, the Constitution requires a fair cash value in return. To me, that seems reasonable enough.  After all, cash is fungible and if you get the proper market value, you can go buy some other comparable property.  I know, there’s sentimental value, but the wingers don’t seem to have a problem with the sentimental value attached to public lands like beaches (Trestles) or old growth forests or opens spaces, etc.  It’s pretty convenient that way for them.

Now what seems to have gotten the Right in a tizzy is the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court decision which ruled that municipalities can take land for private purposes so long as there is a rational reason for doing so. In that case, they were trying to redevelop and grow the tax base.  Seems reasonable enough to me, but the Wingers hate it. So, they pressured the legislature to give them a deal or else! Else, of course, being they will go to the ballot and do it their way.

And ELSE! is what happened.  Prop 90 lost, so now they are back.  Prop 90 had its “damage” provisions, that would be terrible for environmental and other land-use restrictions.  Zoning? Forget about it. There are a couple of “Son of Prop 90” props out in the field now, each with their own trojan horse agenda. Most of them still include some “damage” provision, but others include topics as far afield as rent control.  You see, they think eminent domain reform is a great issue for them, so they are going to try to take down as much of the other stuff that they don’t like as possible.

So, business and environmental groups lined up against Prop 90, and many of these partnerships have been transferred over to the Californians for Eminent Domain Reform.  This group includes the League of Conservation Voters, the California Small Business Association, the League of Cities, and so on.  So, why even bother with eminent domain reform, when eminent domain is rare? Well, to put it simply politics.  This issue is quite tiresome, and the Right wants to continue bludgeoning the public commons with it.  So, Asm. De La Torre (D-South Gate) has created a compromise plan (ACA 8)that would limit eminent domain, but still provide flexibility to the state and municipalities.  If ACA 8 passes the Legislature, it will appear on one of the three 2008 ballots. The plan has several main provisions outlined on their facts page. 

Protect Homeowners from Eminent Domain by prohibiting the State or any local government from using eminent domain to acquire an owner-occupied home for transfer to another private party. This provision would prohibit taking a home through eminent domain to make way for a new private development. (ACA 8)

Protect Small Businesses from Eminent Domain by:

  * Prohibiting the State and local governments from using eminent domain to acquire property where a small business is located to transfer to another private party, except as part of a comprehensive plan to eliminate blight and only after the small business owner is first given the opportunity to participate in the revitalization plan.  (ACA 8)

  * If the small business does not participate in the revitalization plan it can choose between relocating or receiving the value of the business. If the small business relocates, it will receive:
  o Fair market value of the real property (if owned by the small business).
  o All reasonable moving expenses.
  o Expenses to reestablish the business at a new location, up to $50,000.
  o Compensation for the increased cost of rent or mortgage payments for up to 3 years. (Statutory)

  *
  If the small business does not elect to relocate it will receive:
  o Fair market value of the real property (if owned by the small business).
  o 125% of the value of the business if the business could not have been relocated and remain economically viable. (Statutory)

Owner’s Right to Repurchase Acquired Property. A home or small business acquired by eminent domain must be offered for resale to the original owner if the government does not use the property for a public use. The state or local government shall use reasonable diligence to locate the property owner. (ACA 8)

All in all, it’s a price worth paying to get this issue away from the Wingers.  I will be watching ACA 8 carefully as it proceeds through the Legislature, and see if it ends up as something worth supporting.

They’ve done it before, and they’ve done it again this year. Irvine is the safest large city in California. Check out the write-up in today’s OC Register:

Violent crime in Irvine dropped more than 16 percent and overall crime in the city fell 6 percent last year, making Irvine the safest large city in California, according to preliminary statistics released Monday by the state attorney general’s office. It’s the third year in a row Irvine has topped the list.

From January through December 2006, Irvine’s number of reported violent crimes – which includes homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault – dropped from 151 to 126 – at the same time the state saw a 1. 4 percent jump in violent crime. Irvine recorded drops in property and theft, but the number of homicides in the city doubled from two to four in 2006.

Following Irvine on the list of the state’s safest cities are Sunnyvale, Thousand Oaks, Santa Clara and Simi Valley.

Wow, now that’s safe! So how does Irvine do it? How can they stay so safe? Follow me after the flip as I look for answers…

So what’s the secret to Irvine’s success. Well, let’s start with their youth action team. Irvine is actually getting high schoolers involved in not only being productive in the community, but in also planning how they will be getting involved. And these kids really get active. Between concerts, graffiti removal days, and college workshops, these kids just don’t have the time to waste on crime.

Oh but wait, the fun doesn’t stop there! These kids (and adults) also play sports. They have tennis, basketball, soccer, softball, and much more. Again, these kids are too busy working out and learning teamwork to be caught up in any stupid illegal stuff.

And my goodness, look at all those lovely parks in town! Irvine has many safe places for kids to go to play and have fun. No matter where a family may live in Irvine, they know that there’s somewhere in the neighborhood where they can take the kids to play games and perhaps meet new friends in the neighborhood. And as these kids grow up being able to just play, they don’t get stuck in the streets.

OK, so what’s the point I’m trying to make? Well, here it is. Irvine’s smart planning has resulted in less crime and safer neighborhoods. By creating great parks in all the neighborhoods and giving kids great activities to do, Irvine has taken away whatever appeal criminal gangs might have had. And all these kids engaged in the community means kids who don’t feel that they don’t belong, and ultimately kids who don’t fall into gangs as they search for meaning in their lives.

So perhaps more cities should follow Irvine’s lead in reducing crime, and ultimately preventing any future crime. Clean up the neighborhoods, open some parks, and give kids something fun to do. This might actually help keep up the neighborhood. : )

A couple of one offs because I’m just not feeling particularly brilliant tonight.

Chris Reed, shockingly, is still stupid.  The only way to react to growing traffic is to build more roads.  Not create new transportation mechanisms.  Not to reconsider growth patterns.  Nope.  Build roads.  He likens this to taking medicine even if a condition is chronic.  I liken it to eating candy after being diagnosed with diabetes.  Hell, it makes you feel good and it’s easier right?

A judge ruled today that California can start shipping inmates out of state again.  Clearly, this will solve the problem.  This is why, when I get an assignment at work that I don’t like, I just stuff it in a drawer.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. still hates basic humanity.

Incredibly, even that is too much effort for some on the radical left who refuse to acknowledge that these people broke the law and need to make restitution, and that step one is acknowledging the wrongdoing. For many Americans, though, this is all they want — some humility and remorse by those who wiped their feet on our laws on their way in the door and then demanded rights once inside.

Presumably, those asshole slaves that kept escaping should have had to apologize for breaking the law before the 13th Amendment as well.

Thousands of Iraqis are being held in detention camps off the record..  Get angry with stop action.  Metric – Succexy.

“Invasion’s so succexy.”