Wrong again, Mittens

October 12, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living One comment

I couldn’t stay away from the Civic Center yesterday. Mitt Romney was coming to speak and I had to be there to counter his “the emergency room works fine” lie.

See, Mitt believes people can get the care they need at the emergency room and that they won’t get a bill.

Wrong and wrong, Mitt.

My son’s story is proof.

Mike was born with a birth defect that left him vulnerable to colon cancer — a pre-existing condition. Since no company would sell him health insurance at any price, he was left to fend for himself. It wasn’t a matter of wrong choices as those on the Right would like to believe; it was a matter of no choices for him.

He tried the emergency room four times. But they don’t have to find the cause of your problems, they only have to address the symptoms, in Mike’s case, pain and constipation. So Mike was sent home with the wrong medications and a bill four times. By the time anyone was willing to do anything for him, the cancer had spread and it was too late to save his life.

People need to know Mitt Romney is wrong, especially since he’s been repeating the emergency room lie a lot lately.

So, I stood with other protesters across from the line of people waiting to get in. One man jeeringly asked me what emergency room had turned my son away, so I told him. It was Memorial Health Center in Savannah, Ga. He sneered at me and turned away, so I went closer to the line. A police officer started to step in front of me and I told him I had no plans to cause trouble.

“Excuse me,” I said to the man. “I see you have a son. You need to know that the emergency room only has to stabilize someone. It’s not a solution.”

He sneered at me again and turned away.

“I do what I do so your child won’t die the way mine did,” I said as he walked away.

One woman read my sign and looked me in the eye.

“Do you have children?” I asked.

“I do,” she said. “But I take care of them.”

Does she really think my son died because I failed to take care of him? I wanted to tell her how desperately I tried to get help for him and how deep into debt I went doing it. I wanted to tell her how much I loved him and how pissed off I was when his heart stopped and mine didn’t. I wanted to tell her how I still cry almost every day because my heart is still so shattered.

But I just stood there, shocked at her answer, as she walked away.

Several people laughed at me. They looked at my sign and laughed. I asked a few of them why they would laugh.

“What about this is funny?” I asked. But they walked away.

A reporter asked me how I felt as he watched it happen.

“It comes from fear, I think,” I said.

Very few of the people in line yesterday are more than six months away from poverty. What if they lost their jobs and could only find part-time work that didn’t have health benefits? Then what would happen if they got sick? If it’s true that the emergency room isn’t the solution, then what happens to them?

So, as a self-defense mechanism, they have to believe it can only happen to people who make “wrong choices.” Looking at my son’s photo and hearing his story bursts that bubble unless you dismiss it with a nervous laugh and walk away.

Then there was the woman who caused me to lose my cool.

“You need to read your Bible,” she hollered, pointing at me.

“I do read it,” I said.

“You’re a liar!” she jeered.

I snapped.

“Who would Jesus deny?” I yelled back. The police officer in front of me stepped away as though he was hoping I’d slap her miserable face.

“Do you think God let him die because I didn’t pray enough?” I yelled. “Tell me! Who would Jesus deny?”

I took a deep breath and stepped back in among the protesters, ashamed that I had allowed someone to get to me like that.

Getting angry at mean, spiteful, self-righteous, ignorant people doesn’t do the cause of health care for everyone and justice.

But she got to me. How dare she think that I didn’t care enough about my son to do all I could? How dare she judge my level of religious faith?

Looking back on it, though, I have to believe she is one scared, ignorant and helpless-feeling human being. I don’t believe anyone can be that mean without some fear and helplessness mixed in.

 

 

Too crazy

October 10, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia, says he believes people existed with dinosaurs. He is on the Science Committee in Congress.

A generation ago, someone who doesn’t believe in evolution wouldn’t have been on the Science Committee in Congress, and someone who espouses the death penalty for sassy children would have been laughed out of the public eye.

A generation ago, the media might have called Mitt Romney out on his lies during the debate instead of declaring him the winner. And a candidate who was caught in the number of flat-out lies and scope of deception of the Romney campaign would have been shamed out of the campaign long before the convention.

We used to have something called common sense that helped us weed out the crazies; now we seem to welcome them with open arms.

The guys who claim women can’t get pregnant from “real” rape get to stay in the race and maybe even win the election.

We who fought for women’s rights in the 1960s thought we had won some of these battles — like the right to access to contraception and safe abortions, and the right to keep our jobs regardless of whether we’re on the Pill and not married.

I can actually remember when a woman could be forced to quit her job if she got pregnant because she belonged at home with her baby. It wasn’t her decision to make; her boss could make it for her.

Blatant lies like the ones put out there about the Affordable Care Act — the death panels, the $716 billion “theft” from Medicare — used to be dispelled by the media, which now repeats them over and over as “the other side of the story.”

Our previous president lied us into war, tortured prisoners and suffered no consequences for his war crimes. Our current president kills innocent people with unmanned drones on a regular basis and it doesn’t even make headlines.

Instead, we get to hear all about which celebrity is looking at jail time for drug abuse, who is divorcing whom, who wore the lowest-cut dress to whatever awards ceremony last week, cute fuzzy-puppy stories from Middle America and sports, sports, sports.

We are obsessed with Honey Boo-Boo and America’s Got Talent, but we can’t be bothered with the real issues long enough to demand that the corporate media explain the real ramifications of public policy instead of giving equal weight to the truth and the lies.

Instead of a media that searches for truth, we get a lying sack of crap declared the winner of a debate because he looked “sharper.”

I worry about this country’s future as people lose access to real information about real issues. Even the president is out there talking about Big Bird. Drop it already and talk about how we lower our military spending, make huge corporations behave and pay their share of the public load, regulate their greed-induced ill behavior and invest in education and other things that ensure a stable future for our children and families, not to mention our nation.

 

“Wonky?” What about the lies?

October 5, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living One comment

Today’s paper had a headline on the front page: “Debate reveals Romney’s wonky side.”

I don’t know if I would call it wonky to stand up there and lie for 90 minutes.

If you look for the headline online, you won’t find it, but it’s there in the print edition.

I’ll admit Obama wasn’t at his best, and if Romney had told the truth at all, I would give the debate win to him.

But he didn’t. Here’s just a sample, taken from the Daily KOS:

  • When he claimed, “Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” They’re not.
  • When he said President Obama had “cut Medicare by $716 billion to pay for Obamacare.” Obama didn’t.
  • When he denied proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. He did.
  • When he said President Obama had “added almost as much to the federal debt as all the prior presidents combined.” Not even close.
  • When he resurrected “death panels.” That’s been called “one of the biggest whoppers of the night.”
  • When he stated that half the green energy companies given stimulus funds had failed. Only if three out of nearly three dozen is half.

He stood there, smirking, and called President Obama a liar after telling dozens of lies about his policies and refusing again and again to offer specifics about his budget and job creation plans.

If you want to call than wonkish, if you want to call that winning, that’s your call; it isn’t mine.

 

More lies in the mail

October 3, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

My husband is registered to vote, but not in either party (I’m a registered Democrat; you could look it up). As a result, we get stuff in the mail from both parties.

The ones that get me the most are the lies about health care reform, or “Obamacare.” The latest one repeats the lie that the law will cut Medicare services by $716 billion. It will not. That is an out-and-out lie. No matter how many times they repeat it, it still will be a lie.

The Affordable Care act does NOT cut services for seniors. In fact, services should improve.

For example:

  •  As of Oct. 1, hospitals will be fined if Medicate patients are discharged and then readmitted within 30 days.
  • The Affordable Care Act closes the prescription “doughnut hole” for seniors.
  • Seniors now get their annual checkups with no out-of-pocket costs.
  • It cuts millions of dollars to private, corporate-run “Medicare Advantage” plans, which are more expensive for seniors anyway.

There’s more, but you get the drift. The $716 billion number is actually the estimated amount that will be SAVED by taxpayers over the next 10 years by the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

And as for the “death panels,” that un-elected board will only be gathering data to ascertain the most efficient and effective treatments for various illnesses and disabilities. No one’s actually been doing that.

For example, one hospital in Utah studied treatments for prostate cancer in older men and found that aggressive treatment in older men actually results in worse outcomes than the “watchful waiting” tactic.

The board will not have the authority to limit any treatments but instead will allow doctors to inform patients of the efficacy of various treatments. That’s information I want to have, don’t you?

And yes, Obamacare does raise taxes on prescription drug makers, whose profits are obscene and who are not re-investing those profits back into research. We are the only country in the industrialized world that doesn’t regulate drug prices. I think the least we can do is make these companies pay their fair share in taxes.

So, there you have it, the truth about that flyer you got in the mail yesterday. If you want to know more, go to www.healthcare.gov. The truth is there for you to read.

Let’s talk about poverty

September 25, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

I just took a pledge to talk about poverty.

I took the pledge at http://www.ncjustice.org/?q=budget-and-tax/pledge-talk-about-poverty because too many people think people in poverty did something bad to get there.

The truth is that people in poverty are NOT lazy. In fact, many work two or three jobs and still don’t make enough to make ends meet. All many people can find is part-time work, and those jobs don’t come with benefits like sick days, vacation time or health insurance.

More people than ever are getting government assistance. Do you know why that is? It’s because we’ve seen a dramatic decline in workers’ rights, so wages have been going down for most people. So many good-paying jobs have been shipped overseas and replaced with low-paying service jobs that people who once donated to charity now depend on it to put food on the table.

Poverty rates have risen at a record pace, and the number of people living near the poverty level has shot up as well.

The poverty level for an individual is just over $11,000 a year. Try and live on that. You won’t be able to.

Even if you work full-time at minimum wage, you only earn $15,080 a year, based on a 40-hour work week. In nearly every city in America, you need twice that to live independently.

President Lyndon Johnson believed that if we really met the needs of just one generation, we could all but eliminate poverty. But his vision of the Great Society was derailed by the Vietnam War, and no one has had the political will since to even suggest that people in poverty deserve a hand up.

People in poverty often lose hope, and once someone has lost hope, they care a lot less about the rights of the wealthier people who seem to flaunt their good fortune.

Poverty causes crime. It breeds diseases that could be eliminated by proper nutrition (such as Type 2 diabetes).

People in poverty have shorter lifespans because of the stress they endure trying to provide for themselves and their families — not to mention their lack of access to health care.

People in poverty are not lazy; they are not mooches. Any one of us could land in the same place in a matter of months. Few Americans have enough savings to last longer than six months without an income.

Imagine if you got sick and it took a year to get approved for disability. This is not far-fetched; it took my son three years to get disability. You likely would lose your house if you’re lucky enough to own one. And even with disability, you income would be reduced drastically.

Imagine your job was shipped overseas and the only job you could find paid just half of what you used to make. How long could you survive at your current level?

How about if that new job didn’t have health benefits and you got sick? Would you be able to find a doctor who would bill you? If so, how long do you think that doctor would wait to be paid?

Meanwhile, how do you afford new clothes for your children as they outgrow the old ones?

Then what happens if your son falls down and breaks a tooth?

Now your auto insurance is due and you need that car to get to work, but you’re two months behind on your utility bill. Which do you pay?

You’ve already maxed out the credit cards in hopes you can pay it all back when a better job comes along.

Then the car breaks down and you fall another month behind on the mortgage.

Are you a lazy bum?

None of this scenario is far out. I know people these things have happened to. I have seen people foreclosed upon in similar circumstances.

I’m really tired of hearing we can’t afford to make people’s lives better. There is plenty to go around. Right now, the people in the top 2 percent are hoarding far more resources than they need to have. Their greed has become a pathology, and it needs to be addressed.

We need to make noise — a lot of noise — about poverty and our desire to eliminate it.

Please, go to http://www.ncjustice.org/?q=budget-and-tax/pledge-talk-about-poverty and sign the pledge. Then talk about poverty and the damage it is doing to human beings who deserve better.

 

 

 

 

Still seething

September 19, 2012 Uncategorized No comments

This is my son, Mike, who paid taxes right up to the time he got sick. After his Stage 3 colon cancer was diagnosed, he became one of the people Mitt Romney doesn’t care about.

The more I think about it, the madder I get.

I know I said a piece about Mitt’s comments yesterday, but since then I’ve been thinking about all the people who don’t pay income tax — Mitt most likely included.

There’s my friend, Lynn, who worked in human services all her life for low pay. She’s on Medicare now and she gets Social Security. She’s not on the dole and she’s not looking for a handout.

Then there’s my friend, Mike, who was injured in service to his country, and the woman he would love to marry. She has diabetes and would lose her health care if she married him. She also would love to get a job working with children, but she can’t because most of those jobs don’t come with health benefits.

All three of these people are better Americans than Mitt will ever be.

Then there’s my son, Mike. He worked hard and paid taxes until he got sick. He didn’t have health coverage because a birth defect is a pre-existing condition, and because of that, he couldn’t get the screening tests he needed.

After he was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer, Mike had to leave his wife to get Medicaid because she had student loan money in the bank. He later divorced her so she wouldn’t be responsible for his student loan debt.

He applied for disability but was turned down twice, even though he had metastatic colon cancer. He finally got approval nearly three years after he first applied, but he was dead nine days before his first check came.

He was one of the “47 percent” after he got sick, but he wasn’t looking for a handout. He wanted to work, but he was too sick. He even tried working a part-time job for a couple months, but he couldn’t even work two hours without a nap.

In the end, everyone got paid except Mike. He never had the dignity of deciding what bills to pay because we all paid his bills for him. Not everyone is lucky enough to have friends and family who love them the way we loved Mike.

My son was not a bum. He was not lazy. He was terminally ill and still couldn’t get what he needed, even though he had paid into the system for 15 years.

These are some of the people Mitt Romney isn’t interested in.

And no Mitt, it wouldn’t help if you were Latino. I have a feeling you would be the same arrogant bastard no matter what your ethnicity.

He’s not interested in people who need help

September 18, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living 2 comments

 

Mitt Romney isn’t going for the votes of people who need help paying their bills, buying food, getting health care or keeping a roof over their heads in the face of falling wages and high unemployment.

Mitt cares only about the wealthy who are hoarding America’s financial resources and contributing to the needs of the rest of us rather than helping to solve the problem.

That 47 percent of America that pays no income taxes still pays sales taxes, gasoline taxes, school taxes and more. And the reason they don’t pay income taxes is because their wages are being held artificially low.

The 1 percent has gotten wealthier and wealthier, and none of what they’re hoarding is trickling down to help that 47 percent who can’t even meet their most basic needs without help.

Should such things as health care, nutritious food and a roof over one’s head be considered basic human rights? Well, here’s where I differ with Mitt and his cronies — I believe these things should be seen as rights.

There is enough to go around. In fact, there’s plenty for everyone; it’s just that the 1 percent won’t be satisfied until the rest of us are their indentured servants.

Somehow, the oligarchs have convinced millions of Americans to vote against their own best interests. Just look at the map. You’ll notice that the places that pay the least taxes are also the places where the schools are the worst and critical-thinking skills the lowest.

Thirty years ago, the salaries and bonuses CEOs are paying themselves today would have been unconscionable. There was a moral aversion to such theft and greed. Somehow, though, they’ve convinced Americans that they’re worth it, even though they led us to the brink of worldwide financial disaster.

Mitt’s lack of compassion for fellow human beings is appalling. The people I work with, most of whom can’t work because of illness or disability, are deserving of the dignity of having their needs met. Perhaps Mitt and cronies believe people who can’t “contribute” should be put to death. I suppose that would leave more money for them.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz details the economic inequality in our country in his latest book, The Price of Inequality. And while conservatives think the economists on the Right who espouse “trickle-down” economics know what they’re talking about, I’ll go with the Nobel Prize winner.

I’d say he knows more than I do, and apparently, a whole lot more than Mitt Romney and his advisors.

 

Running in circles

September 14, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

I was on Matt Mittan’s radio show yesterday for the first time since he left Clear Channel.

Matt and I disagree on a lot of political things, as do his producer, Agnes Cheek, and I.

But it’s OK. Matt understands my mission to get access to health care for all Americans, and he even agrees with me on some points.

The thing is, I treat Matt and Aggie with respect and they do the same for me. We listen to each other’s point of view and don’t talk over each other. We don’t raise our voices. It’s all about constructive conversation.

He posted on Facebook that I was there, and within a few minutes, two people posted questions for me, which I saw when I got home.

One was a woman who wanted to know why New York City is so intent on limiting people’s access to soda.

I explained that my specialty is access to health care, and although I think sugary sodas are bad for people, I won’t try to answer for the government of New York City.

The other was someone who asked me to name one government program that works.

So, I explained that Medicare spends 97 percent of what it takes in on direct services, and the people I know who use it are pretty glad it’s there.

That wasn’t good for him because Medicare is about to go broke.

So I explained that we need to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, since no money is trickling down anyway, and close up corporate tax loopholes so we can shore up Medicare.

That wasn’t good enough for him either because he wanted me to name anything the government does that works.

So I did: Child labor laws, water systems, roads, employee safety regulations, Social Security, schools (until we began de-funding them), federal drug safety laws, police, fire departments, the military, the WIC program, libraries …

They’re no good, he said. They’re all broke.

Well, I said, that’s why we need to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and close corporate loopholes.

No. Taxes are bad. Oh, and the government’s broke. We need to pay down the deficit.

I explained that he seemed to be talking in circles and spewing talking points rather than having a sincere conversation and that I would disengage.

He sent me another message that all he wanted was the answer to his question.

“I gave you several answers,” I wrote.

That’s the problem with people who insist on using talking points; they can’t stop. They just go from one to the next and back again. Did this man even know what WIC is? It’s one of the most efficient and effective programs out there, offering nutrition education and food to low-income pregnant women, and it stays with them after their babies are born.

And why didn’t he answer to child labor laws? Are they bad too? How about the military and cops and firefighters?

There was no thought in his responses. Nothing the government does is good, we’re broke and need to pay down the deficit and we can’t raise taxes on the “job creators.”

If he wants to continue the conversation the way it was going, he can just go back and read it again and again. I’m too dizzy to stay engaged with him.

 

 

For 9/11, do something life-affirming

September 11, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living One comment

What are you doing today? Are you sitting at your desk trying not to think about the horror of this day 11 years ago?

I think about it a lot. I lived in suburban New York and my husband worked at a trade magazine just 12 blocks from the World Trade Center. He watched the buildings go down.

We don’t watch any of the television specials. Seeing it live was enough for my husband.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t remember. My Sunday school kids asked my how God could allow something so terrible — many of them had friends who lost a parent in those buildings.

I told them that God gave humans free will and this is what some humans do with it.

So what do we do to memorialize those who died? Building a memorial is one thing, and it’s important for us to have a place to go and ponder what happened.

But what about today, 11 years later? Should we still be angry, shaking our fists and vowing to wipe out every member of Al Qaida?

I don’t think that does anyone any good.

I’m giving blood this afternoon.

My friend Thom bought coffee and doughnuts and brought them to the fire station to say thanks to the people who are there every day to keep us safe. My friend Byron is celebrating her niece’s birthday with special fervor.

Today is a day to reach out in that same spirit we all felt the day after the attacks. We can all do something in that spirit.

Here are some thoughts:

  • Give blood. Someone always needs that.
  • Sign up to volunteer at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen and listen to the stories of the people there.
  • Donate to a food pantry or volunteer there.
  • Sign up to spend a day working at Habitat for Humanity. You have no idea how cool it is to drive by a house you helped build and know as family finds shelter there.
  • Volunteer at an animal shelter. Some shelters have shifts for cuddling kittens to socialize them. Some need help walking the dogs so they will be exercised and not as hyper when people come to see them.
  • If you see a homeless person, smile and say hello. It’s something to celebrate when most people look right past you as they pass and then someone recognizes your humanity.
  • Donate to a charity. Nonprofits do a lot of good work and funding is harder to come by than ever before.
  • Buy coffee and doughnuts for your local fire department, or better yet, if you have time, bake something.
  • Thank a cop, a firefighter, a soldier, a social worker, a nurse, a teacher … these people all work hard to make our society a better one.

Do something other than dwell on the lives lost; honor them instead by dwelling on how you can make some lives a little better while you’re here on this planet.

‘My children are my heart.’

September 10, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

‘My children are my heart,’ she said. This is a woman who understands that no mother should lose her child to a broken system.

I watched a little of the GOP convention before my head came dangerously close to exploding. Chris Christie was loud and obnoxious. Paul Ryan hardly spoke a word of truth. Mitt Romney was no more honest.

And while Ann Romney talked about what a wonderful man her husband is — and I’m sure she thinks so — it was Michelle Obama who was the highlight for me.

I love Bill Clinton as policy wonk. He was, as always, a rock star. But let’s not forget that he was the president who signed the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act and NAFTA and other free-trade agreements that wound up sending so many jobs overseas. Still, it was a great speech.

And Joe Biden, as always, was heartwarming and sincere, calling his wife “Jilly” and asking her why she waited until the fifth time he proposed to accept. I keep remembering his speech in May to the families of people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way he used his own experience of loss to offer them hope.

But Michelle was just amazing. Her speech was so from the heart. When she talked about her children — “My children are my heart.” — and her eyes welled with tears, I knew she understands what kind of pain I live with every day. I knew she’s on my side when it comes to helping the poor, the sick, the hungry, the homeless, the forgotten. She knows they all are somebody’s children, and none of them deserves to suffer because of the greed of the few. She has compassion, which is rare among people in Washington.

I can’t say I’m happy with all of President Obama’s policies, or the way he has backed off to try and compromise and then gone too far — taking the public option out of the Affordable Care Act, for example. And the fact that we’re still sending out drones that are killing innocent people.

But I want Michelle in the White House. I know she’s a champion of all of us.

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