Daily Archives: July 5, 2007

Health Care

Prove You’re Not Evil, Google

You can’t really blame Lauren Turner the Google-ista who breathlessly begged HMO’s to let Google help them fight back against SiCKO and block that horrific push for universal healthcare.

But you can blame Google.

“Do no evil, Google?”

Let’s see how you can make your motto true…after the jump.

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

When Google backed off from Turner’s  blog, your official spokesperson wrote:

In fact, Google does share many of the concerns that Mr. Moore expresses about the cost and availability of health care in America. Indeed, we think these issues are sufficiently important that we invited our employees to attend his film (nearly 1,000 people did so). We believe that it will fall to many entities — businesses, government, educational institutions, individuals — to work together to solve the current system’s shortcomings. This is one reason we’re deploying our technology and our expertise with the hope of improving health system information for everyone who is or will become a patient.

So, you are the largest corporation in the world, with progressive employees, incredible financial independence, and a corporate motto to “do no evil.”

And you take on the nation’s largest, life-and-death problem by:

a) sending 1,000 employees to a movie and
b) doing a little categorizing of health information???

Sorry, Google, this does not “demonstrate corporate responsibility on a major issue of our time.” 

But here’s how you can.

1. Realize you don’t live online—you live off-line.  You do business in a nation where thousands are killed each year by a broken healthcare system.  Your customers are hurting, and so are your employees and your family.  From a business angle, the American economy is at a major competitive disadvantage with every other nation because we are funding an unnecessary health insurance sector.  Get serious about this issue, and I’m not talking about selling more ads to health insurance corporations.

2. Become the business that changes everything—you have the chance to make money *and* make a better country.  Use your famed lobbying prowess to change the culture and bring guaranteed health care to all Americans. 

Yep, you might step on the toes of a few right-wing think tanks, and some ideologically-driven conservative businessmen.  But this could also be the biggest PR/branding gift your company has ever gotten–and you could actually  demonstrate corporate responsibility and live up to your motto.

Here’s where we are right now: a coalition of big businesses are blocking health care reform, or are proposing health care reform that might pad their bottom line a little, but won’t really help customers. 

Meanwhile, other companies like Ford are just throwing their hands in the air and moving to Canada because they can’t afford our broken healthcare system. 

The irony is, that there is a proven solution to the health care crisis, but no one in the business world has the guts to stand up and say it. 

Except, that is, for BusinessWeek which admits that, “France, Britain, and most other Old World countries long ago took the plunge into universal health insurance and have made it work, with varying degrees of success.”  Other than them, there are a few CEO’s here and there who support guaranteeing healthcare on the single-payer model, but no one has shown leadership on this issue.

So why don’t you?  What’s the alternative?

According to E-commerce Times:

… Google’s bottom line, in large part, has to do with its street cred. In other words, it may act like a big business, but it doesn’t necessarily want to look like one. The current uproar — as silly at it may seem in the eyes of some in the business community — could have a negative impact on Google.

“Google is making a very tricky transition from a relatively young company to an established company, Jeffrey Johnson, partner at Pryor Cashman, told the E-Commerce Times.

“This transition is risky: If they do not handle the transition well, Google may go from being perceived as an “upstart” company with cutting-edge technology that helped bring Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)  and other corporate bullies down to earth, to a bully that is no better than Microsoft,” he remarked.

Sounds like a brand disaster in the making.  Or a revolutionary and profitable business strategy in the making.  Your choice.

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.

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Son of Prop 90?

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Prop 90 description:

Bars state/local governments from condemning or damaging private property to promote other private projects, uses. Limits government’s authority to adopt certain land use, housing, consumer, environmental, workplace laws/regulations. Fiscal Impact: Increased annual government costs to pay property owners for losses to their property associated with new laws and rules, and for property acquisitions. These costs are unknown, but potentially significant on a statewide basis.

vs.

New real reform description:

Bars state and local governments from condemning or damaging private property for private uses. Prohibits rent control and similar measures. Prohibits deference to government in property rights cases. Defines “just compensation.” Requires an award of attorneys fees and costs if a property owner obtains a judgment for more than the amount offered by the government. Requires government to offer to original owner of condemned property the right to repurchase property at condemned price when property is put to substantially different use than was publicly stated. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Increased costs to many governments due to the measure’s restrictions. The fiscal effect on most governments probably would not be significant.

Wishing this is the same old Prop 90 doesn’t make it so. If you seriously think this is, back it up

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Schwarzenegger: Lifestyle of the Rich And Entitled

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The most sickening thing about Paul Pringle’s excellent LAT story on Governor Schwarzenegger’s little non-profit scam is that we’re talking about a very rich man, one who prides himself on not drawing a salary for his public service, one who has boasted that he can’t be bought.  But yet he willingly sucks up all kinds of goodies and treats on the public dime.  I’m going to excerpt Pringle’s report on the flip, but first, a little story.  Plenty of people I’ve talked to in Santa Monica have encountered Schwarzenegger, and I honestly can’t say that even one reaction is a good one.  Of particular note is the story of one employee at a Starbucks in a ritzy area of town, one that receives celebrity customers all the time.  When Arnold came in and asked for a couple beverages, he scoffed at the notion that he would have to pay for them.  “I’m the governor,” he said.  The employee told me that he was pretty much the only celebrity customer that’s ever pulled that move.  But it makes perfect sense in the context of this article:

California’s larger-than-life governor is unabashed about living large, but keeping him in luxury sometimes depends on the same taxpayer subsidies granted to hand-to-mouth charities.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, a millionaire many times over, bills much of his overseas travel to an obscure nonprofit group that can qualify its secret donors for full tax deductions, just as if they were giving to skid row shelters or the United Way.

So rich donors give in to a fund that Arnold uses to finance his lifestyle, and the donors can both hide their identity and receive a tax deduction, robbing the state coffers of tax revenue.

Nonprofit watchdogs say using charitable write-offs to pay for sumptuous travel is an abuse of tax codes.

“Wow, that’s a problem,” said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy. “Why should our tax dollars subsidize his lavish lifestyle?”

Making matters worse, Borochoff and others say, is that the nonprofit that finances Schwarzenegger’s globe-trotting, the California State Protocol Foundation, could be a vehicle for interests that hope to curry favor with the governor.

By giving to the foundation, donors avoid having their identities made public, because charities are not governed by the disclosure rules that apply to campaign contributions. And they can donate unlimited amounts to the nonprofit, which is not subject to contribution ceilings the way campaign accounts are.

This is unbelievably wrong.  A multi-millionaire governor, first of all, shouldn’t be living large off of any kind of donation fund.  Second of all, it shouldn’t be a back door around campaign finance laws.  And the nonprofit that runs this fund refuses to open their books and disclose their donor lists.

But this is all too typical.  It’s the same sense of entitlement that a rich man uses to demand free lattes at Starbucks.

Here’s a fun anecdote about Schwarzenegger ripping off the Simon Weisenthal Center:

Schwarzenegger has tapped at least one other charity for some of his travel. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, celebrated for its Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and far-flung Nazi-hunting efforts, paid more than $51,000 to help send the governor to Israel in 2004, a year when the charity ran a deficit, records show.

The trip carried a steep tab because of the private jet, said people familiar with Schwarzenegger’s travel […]

The governor could easily pick up outsized travel bills himself, and a spokesman said Schwarzenegger does pay for his private jet when he flies domestically on state business.

But trips abroad are something else.

The argument Arnold always makes against this is that a foundation bankrolling his travel means that the public sector doesn’t have to.  That’s a load of garbage.  We all finance this travel through bad legislation and payouts to the donors who pay into this slush fund in secret.  In addition, by allowing these donors to write off their donations for hotel suites and Gulfstream Jets and caviar, taxpayers ARE footing the bill, at least in part.

All of this is to say that the Arnold of the “I can’t be bought” days was never telling the truth.  His outsized celebrity ego actually has instilled a sense that he shouldn’t operate under the constraints of, you know, having to pay for stuff.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Environment, Health Care, Prisons

July 5, 2007 Blog Roundup

Blog Roundup on the flip: More on the Global Warming Solutions Act, the Air Quality Board, and other environmental and land use notes, a couple posts on health insurance, D-Day on prison privatization, the California Foundation for Consumer and Taxpayer Rights, and some shots from the Fourth. If I missed something, toss it into comments.

P.S. Still haven’t solved the link issue in the RSS feed, but working on it.

Environment (Especially
AB32, the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act)

Health Insurance (or the
failure thereof)

A Couple Other Things

Some Pictures from the
Fourth of July

Health Care

As Single payer (SB840) Nears Passage/Veto, what’s next?

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Single Payer cleared another hurdle by passing out of Assembly committee in Sacramento this week, but it seems to be on a sort of death march to Arnold’s veto pen. That is unfortunate, but that is reality. And while it probably requires no further explanation of how wrong our system really is, it’s really wrong:

Blue Cross of California refused to extend her policy after she used the plan once for a minor infection, Campbell said, and in a pinch she bought another short-term policy from Blue Shield of California. Last summer, she worked a Friday shift, got sick over the weekend, and a week later was diagnosed with two aggressive forms of cancer — rhabdomyosarcoma and adenosarcoma. On July 20, her health insurance policy runs out and no one will insure her, Campbell told the Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday while testifying in support of Senate Bill 840.
*  *  *
“I’m too young for Medicare, and I make too much money for Medi-Cal,” Campbell, 53, told the panel. “But one eligibility worker told me how I could get Medi-Cal: ‘Get pregnant, get the Medi-Cal card, abort the baby, and keep the card.’ This is my only option.” (SacBee 7/4/07)

So, we doom somebody else because saving them isn’t profitable for an insurance company.  Ugh, just go see SiCKO, I don’t need to repeat everything here. I’m not saying the insurance companies did anything wrong, it’s that they exist in the first place that is the wrong.

But where do we go from here? Well, here in San Francisco, we have Healthy San Francisco, which signed up its first 29 applicants on Monday.  Follow me over the flip…

There are some really great things about Healthy San Francisco.  Tom Ammiano worked very, very hard to craft good policy. He had to fight the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and the Mayor, but he got it done. It’s why he’ll be a bulldog in the Assembly.  It helps cover the people that can’t get Medi-CAL nor can they afford regular insurance.  But this isn’t true insurance.  The main drawback? Well, you can’t really leave the City/County of San Francisco and expect any care.  Your pseudo-insurance card only works in the City, and is worth about as much as a Jack Taschner (who?) baseball card outside of the city.

So while it is billed as universal care, it’s not really. So, what else? Well, we have the possibility of whatever reform Assembly Speaker Nunez and Senator Perata can come up with. Of course, it better be business friendly, or you know Arnold will veto it. So, do we end up with some sort of plan that still leaves Ms. Campbell out in the cold?  My crystal ball seems a bit foggy, but I’m not convinced that the reforms being touted will truly address the inequities at the heart of the InsCo health care system.

I’d love to be wrong, though.

Uncategorized

California Delegation supports Farm Bill Reform

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Half of the California delegation to Congress has signed onto a letter to the House Agriculture Committee urging major reforms in the 2007 food and farm bill.  The letter seeks expanded support for:

* organic, family, and beginning farmers
* healthier local food systems
* conservation programs
* food stamp and nutrition programs 

Unfortunately, despite widespread outcry for reform, the version of the Farm Bill that passed  subcommittee to the full committee on June 19 is a straightforward extension of the existing policies that enrich Archer Daniels Midland and the corporate food processing oligopoly, fostering an epidemic of obesity and diabetes and continuing environmental degradation.

More across the flip…

The harm of the current policy

Michael Pollan connected the dots a year ago in the excellent book, “the Omnivore's Dilemma” which  explains how the Farm Bill is critical, and harmful to public health, the environment, and energy. The current subsidy system keeps prices low and production high, and rewards the overproduction of a corn, soy, and a handful of other commodities. 

The current farm bill underlies the epidemic of obesity and diabetes.  Between 1985 and 2000, the  cost of  soft drinks fell by 23 percent while the cost of fruits and vegetables jumped by 38 percent.  The farm bill subsidizes the creation of high fructose corn syrup, which makes Coca Cola cheap, and  does very little to benefit the production of fruits and vegetables. The corn and soy are used as  animal feed, fostering the creation of vast inhumane CAFOs and making McDonalds burgers cheap.

The current policy fosters environmental destruction.  There is a vast “dead zone” in the Gulf of  Mexico  where the level of oxygen is too low to sustain life. The deadzone is created by runoff from  areas of the upper midwest which receive the biggest payouts in federal crop subsidies, and have the  fewest acres in conservation programs, according to a recent study conducted by scientists at the  Environmental Working group. 

The biggest benefit from the Farm Bill goes to the oligopoly of food processors.The processors pay  farmers less than  what it costs to produce food, and the government makes up the rest in subsidy.  The top four  companies controlled 84% of beef processing, 59% of hog processing, 59% of chicken  processing, 81% of  corn, 81% of soybeans.  They use this market power to craft draconian contracts,  where farmers can't disclose terms to their lawyer or even spouse; and need to make long-term loans  and purchases as conditions for short-term contracts.  The subsidies are a boon only to the top  handful of  wealthy producers. 70 percent of the subsidies go to the top 10 percent of growers. 

So, what would be a better policy?

* close loopholes that provide subsidies to the largest players
* foster competition in the processing sector with anti-trust and fair business policies
* make healthy food available to low-income folks, old folks and kids
* fund conservation and environmental protection programs
* support organic, family, and beginning farmers

More detailed recommendations from California Coalition for Food and Farming here. 

Who is in favor of reform? 

There is a broad and unusual coalition of groups that want reform:
* representatives of urban and suburban voters who eat and who realize that the current system is  making Americans fat and sick (most of California, and most of the US)
* advocates for low-income, elderly and young people who suffer the most from unhealthy food
* representatives of regions with growers of produce and organic farming (much of California's  agriculture)
* advocates for the environment who favor provisions for that support local, organic food production, and conservation
* antitrust progressives who would curtail the power of the food processing oligopoly
* fiscal conservatives (the few that exist) who want to reduce corporate welfare.

There are more people who want to reform the system than to keep it. 

In the 2002 debate that  product the current farm bill, a reform bill by Rep. Kind came fairly close (200 votes) to passage.  This time around, there are alternative bills advocating subsidy reform, conservation, healthy food, and sustainable farming with support from 200 members.  But the proponents of the system are concentrated and well-organized, and the opponents of the  system are distributed.

Until recently, the farm bill looked to a lot of people like something that was of interest to farms and farmers. Only a few percent of Americans farm, so agriculture policy was left to  representatives of a few farm states.  It is important to speak up and let our reps know that there is voter support for reform. 

What to do, and what's next?

On July 17, the House Agriculture Committee is planning hearing the recommendations of the  subcommittee.  The July 4 recess is an excellent time to contact your rep. If he or she is on the  list, thank them and ask them to continue to pressure for reform. Also, please contact the members of the four California members of the House Agriculture Committee Joe Baca, Dennis Cardoza, Jim Costa, and Kevin McCarthy. 

California Coalition for Food and Farming has a sample letter to start from. You can sign up for their action alerts 

This is an important issue for progressives, tied into public health, the environment, and energy and  corporate power.  Reform is an opportunity for California. California's leading farm sector is produce, which doesn't benefit from the current bill,  California growers grow nearly half of the nation's organic vegetables and also lead in the production of organic fruits and nuts.  It's a good opportunity for California to come together for progressive reform. 

How to stay informed 

There are some excellent blogs and sites covering the Farm Bill that you can use to stay up to date.

* California Coalition on Food and Farming
* Environmental Working Group
* Blog for Rural America
* Organic Farming Research Foundation
* The Ethicurean

Uncategorized

A Fuller Spectrum of News on this July 4th?

I hope you enjoyed your fireworks.  There actually wasn’t that much fog in SF, so you could see them this year.  That’s always fun.  But how did the 4th go across the internets?  Well, I actually found this kinda funny:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Why is this funny? Well, funny is a strong word. Let’s say sad.  Get a “fuller spectrum of news” over the flip.

Well, it’s sad because way down there, you see the news folk have buried the lead. I guess by a fuller spectrum, they mean that they’ll tell you about how we eat burgers and bump our wars, and the fact that we aren’t doing so hot, down the list.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

So, yeah, there’s your fuller spectrum of news.  Thanks, media.

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Michelle Obama and Wal-Mart

The following diary was pulled from Calitics, it was an attempt by “truthteller2007” to hijack the platform:

There are many reasons to oppose Obama, whose paltry legislative record disqualifies him for the Presidency.  That he would cite state legislative experience during a Presidential campaign as a qualification already reveals to this voter how underprepared he is for the Presidency. 

But the real reason I oppose him is his wife’s deep connections to WAL-MART.  Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times published an article about this highly controversial connection in May.  According to Sweet, Michelle Obama is no longer connected to the company.  But this was not a decision Michelle Obama made on her own volition.  Following the lead of her husband’s vague campaign, Michelle Obama quit the company that ties her deeply to WAL-MART.  According to Lynn Sweet,

Michelle Obama resigned Tuesday from the board of TreeHouse Foods Inc., a Wal-Mart vendor, eight days after husband and White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he would not shop at the anti-union store.

I guess Obama’s attempt to pander to AFL-CIO union voers in Trenton, NJ, created a conflict with one of the Obama family’s sources of income. 

Michelle Obama sat on the Board of this Wal-Mart friendly company since June 27, 2005, or just a few months after Obama was elected to the US Senate.  Michelle Obama, also a VP of The University of Chicago Hospitals in charge of “community outreach,” did not have experience in the private sector before serving on the Board of the WAL-MART ally.  In fact, she chose to pursue the Board position in order to gain experience in the private sector, and this experience was made available to her after her husband was elected to the US Senate.  According to
the London Telegraph,

[S]he has just been re-elected to the board of an Illinois food-processing company, a position she took up two years ago to gain experience of the private sector.

She was reelected to the lucrative post on April 19, 2007, or three months after Barack Obama began actively campaigning for the Presidency.

But how did she obtain the position?  According to Lynn Sweet, she undertook the position with the WAL-MART ally in order to gain experience in the private sector.  Here is a summary of her experience before serving on the Board of a WAL-MART ally:

A Harvard-trained lawyer, Michelle Obama began her career as an attorney at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin, and later went to work at Chicago City Hall and at the non-profit group Public Allies, a leadership program for young adults.

And she holds the sinecure of part-time VP at the University of Chicago Hospitals while working for the WAL-MART friendly vendor.  But if she had no experience in the private sector, why was she elected to the post?  Is that not a risk for the company?  Or did the company want a link to a US Senator?

Obama, according to Lynn Sweet and to other who reported on his statements before the AFL-CIO in Trenton, NJ, said the following:

On May 14, during an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, N.J., Sen. Obama was asked about Wal-Mart. “I won’t shop there,” he said. Chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) served on the Wal-Mart board between 1986 and 1992.

He also made the these pronouncements, which are reproduced in the London Telegraph story:

As the Illinois senator prepared to join the presidential fray late last year, he threw his weight behind the union-backed campaign against Wal-Mart. He declared that there was a “moral responsibility to stand up and fight” the company and “force them to examine their own corporate values”.

But how can he denounce WAL-MART’s values and claim he would never shop there when his wife has over $100,000 of salary, stocks and benefits from a company that engages in very friendly practices with WAL-MART?  According to CBS2 Chicago,

The company, which supplies retail grocery chains with pickles, nondairy powdered creamer and other products, said Wal-Mart was its largest customer last year, according to an SEC filing.

In other words, TreeHouse Foods and WAL-MART are close business partners.

Now the Obamas have not provided compelling answers when asked about this egregious conflict of interest.  Here is Michelle Obama:

Barack is gonna say what needs to be said, and it’s not going to, you know, necessarily matter … what I’m doing if it’s not the right thing,” she said. “He’s going to do what’s right for … the country. He’s going to speak out. And he’s going to, you know, implement his views as he sees fit. … I see no conflict in that.”

According to Michelle Obama, her affiliation with WAL-MART through the sinecure she held at TreeHouse Foods, does not “necessarily matter.”  In fact, she “sees no conflict in it,” as Barack will “say what needs to be said” in order to win the Presidency.

But the cynicism does not stop there.  Here is Barack Obama in the London Telegraph:

Sen Obama’s campaign team and Mrs Obama’s spokesman did not respond to requests by The Sunday Telegraph for comment. But the senator previously told Crain’s Chicago Business magazine that, while his views on corporate reform and social justice remained the same regardless of what happens at Treehouse, “Michelle and I have to live in the world and pay taxes and pay for our kids and save for retirement”.

So for Obama it is just a bunch of words: he and Michelle can profit from WAL-MART through a company that is one of its biggest allies, for they have to take care of their own.

That Obama’s opposition to WAL-MART is just a bunch of words is admitted by a spokesman the Obama campaign managed to find to defend this conflict of interest.  Chris Kofinis, Communications Director of WakeUpWalMart.org, just one of many activist groups who oppose WAL-MART, made the following excuses for Obama:

“Many companies do business with Wal-Mart,” said Chris Kofinis, communications director for WakeUpWalMart.com, a project of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. “The difference is whether one stays silent on Wal-Mart’s negative business practices or not. Sen. Obama has not stayed silent, and he should be applauded for that.”

So for Kofinis, who ostensibly opposes WAL-MART, endorses doing business with WAL-MART.  And for him, mere words are enough.  Since the Obama campaign’s opposition to WAL-MART is just words, I imagine Kofinis, who is just one of many critics, and not necessarily the most effective critic, is satisfied with these mere words.  But what about the $100,000 the Obama family now possesses as a result of their collusion with WAL-MART?

It is significant that the Obama’s view opposition to WAL-MART as so many words to be uttered during a campaign.  Obama is from Chicago, and the Chicago City Council voted to force stores such as WAL-MART to pay living wages, not minimum wages, if they were to build facilities in the City of Chicago.  The vote on the Big Box Ordinance occurred in late July 2006.  Richard Daley vetoed it on September 11, 2006, when Bush was visiting Chicago.  This was Daley’s first veto after serving as Mayor of Chicago in 17 years.  All this occurred while Michelle Obama sat on the Board of the WAL-MART friendly company.

Barack Obama endorsed Daley for Mayor in January 2007.  And Michelle Obama was still on the Board of Tree House Foods when this endorsement occurred.  And Obama made this endorsement despite all the reports on cronyism and corruption in City Hall.  In fact, Obama ran into trouble with Daley in 2005 after making comments about Daley’s corruption. 

Why the reverse on his stance on corruption?  Did it have anything to do with WAL-MART, the Big Box Ordinance and his wife’s affiliation with a WAL-MART friendly company?  And if Obama is so vocal in his opposition to WAL-MART, why endorse a Mayor who vetoed a bill that would force WAL-MART to change its corporate policies,?  Is this not what Obama says they should do when engaging with AFL-CIO voters?  Or is it all just words?  Or is it just words in the right place at the right time?  To quote Michelle Obama again:

Barack is gonna say what needs to be said, and it’s not going to, you know, necessarily matter…

Indeed, it will not necessarily matter, for the Obamas have their $100,000, and WAL-MART has an ally in Chicago City Hall.