Ex-Insurance Exec Tells The Truth

Amid the stench of lobbyist and insurance company lies swirling around Washington, D.C., a refreshing breath of fresh air blew through the Senate Commerce Committee last week. His name is Wendell Potter (pictured) and he is a former vice-president of insurance giant Cigna. He yestified before the committee and actually told the truth about the health insurance industry.

Mr. Potter is trying set things right after spending years working in the duplicitous health insurance industry, and he's doing that by exposing their lies and outrageous actions. He quit the industry after Cigna refused to cover an expensive liver transplant for a 17 year-old victim of leukemia. Cigna changed its mind after the case became public, but it was too late and the girl died only hours after they approved her surgery.

Potter told the committee, "I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry."

He described to the committee how the insurance companies went about "purging" small businesses who had some expensive medical claims. He said, "When that business comes up for renewal, the underwriters jack the rates up so much, the employer has no choice but to drop insurance."

The insurance companies have no interest in the health of sick people. Paying claims for sick people cuts into their exorbitant profits. They dump these people from their rolls and replace them with healthy people -- people who pay premiums, but do not make claims. As Potter says, the insurance companies are "beholden to Wall Street" -- not their customers.

Potter also talked about the lies told by lobbyists and insurance companies to try and defeat health care reform. He says, "They conduct what I call duplicitous PR campaigns. They'll say what people want to hear. It's how they operate. You cannot trust these guys."

He referred to an ad that said Congress was trying to impose a "Canadian-style program", and said, "Sometimes you'll see misleading information. And sometimes you'll see outright lies, like that [ad] is."

And he talked about the "rationing" lie. The insurance companies want us to believe that a public insurance option would result in the rationing of medical care, when as Potter says, "What we have is rationing by corporate executives who are beholden to Wall Street. And it happens all the time."

Thank goodness for people like Wendell Potter, who are willing to tell the truth about the private insurance companies. Personally, I don't want an insurance company employee deciding what medical care I can have (when the size of his/her bonus depends on how many claims are rejected). I want a doctor making that decision, and that's why I'm in favor of public health insurance.

Don't fall for the company lies! Write or call your senator and tell him/her to vote for a public health insurance option.

The Difference

Political Cartoon is by Mike Keefe in The Denver Post.

Where Was The Amarillo Globe News ?

Where was the Globe News coverage? Last night, Tom Schieffer appeared at a reception in Amarillo. This morning, he made another appearance at a breakfast in his honor. I wasn't at the breakfast, but I can attest that the reception last night had a very good turnout.

Mr. Schieffer is an announced candidate for the office of governor of Texas. In fact, he is the only Democrat who has announced so far.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I would have thought that having an official candidate for governor visit Amarillo was newsworthy. It's not like we get these kind of visits every week (or even every month). There were three TV channels who sent a reporter and camera crew, so I guess they also thought it was newsworthy. The Amarillo Independent was also there (our excellent weekly newspaper).

But conspicuous in their absence, was anyone from Amarillo's only daily newspaper -- the Amarillo Globe News. Why? I realize that the paper has a very obvious Republican slant to their news and commentary. Is this why they ignored this newsworthy event? Are they so biased that they cannot even admit a Democratic candidate came to town? I'll bet they would have had some coverage if a Republican candidate came to town!

I know the paper has been having some financial problems lately, and they have laid off a lot of their staff. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe after covering the police blotter and the various community social parties, they don't have any reporters left to cover actual news events.

I know this is a very red area of Texas -- perhaps the reddest. But even though the majority of their readers are probably Republican voters, I would have thought the community's daily newspaper would want to at least give the illusion of fairly covering the news. I guess I was wrong.

I still think it's fair to ask -- where was the Globe News coverage?

Affirmative Action

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

He won't Shut Up

Found at the web site All Hat No Cattle.

Schieffer Comes To Amarillo

Last night, Amarillo got its first political visit from a candidate in the 2010 Democratic primary. It was Tom Schieffer, who is running for governor. Schieffer is the only Democrat who has declared his candidacy so far, and he got a very good turnout from Amarillo Democrats (who are thirsting for a Democratic victory next year).

It might be good for other candidates to go ahead and declare their candidacy if they are serious about running. Because Schieffer is making the most of his candidacy, traveling around Texas and trying to tie up support before anyone else can do it. He seemed to have a very successful rally in Amarillo, as all the leading Democrats seemed to have turned out.

Schieffer was introduced by former House Speaker Bob Laney, and got standing ovations from the crowd both before and after his speech. He jokingly told the crowd, "You know it's been a long dry spell when you get a standing ovation before you speak."

Before he spoke, Schieffer was gracious enough to give this blogger an interview. I wasn't trying to be rude, but I did ask him why we should vote for him as a Democrat after his support for Bush, both as governor and as president, and his service as ambassador to Australia and then Japan for the Bush administration. He admitted it was a question he needs to address.

He did not apologize for supporting Bush, but he did say he's never voted in a Republican primary. He stressed that he has always voted in the Democratic primary. He also said that when Bush asked him to serve as an ambassador, he told Bush he had no intention of becoming a Republican, and that Bush told him he wanted him to serve his country -- not any specific party.

I also asked him if he supported enlarging the CHIPS program to include all poor children in need of health insurance. His answer was an enthusiastic yes. He said it was immoral for Texas to force children to go to an emergency room just to get any medical care.

Just out of curiosity, I asked him where he stood on establishment of a public health insurance option on the national level. He was opposed to it. He liked the idea of private insurance co-ops, although he did say that everyone deserved to be covered with health insurance.

When I asked what were the primary issues his campaign would focus on, he replied education. That was also the only topic he covered in his speech to the crowd. He said he wanted Texas to have a good business climate just like his Republican opponents do (and pointed out that he had more business experience than both Perry and Hutchison combined), but said a good business climate needed more than just low taxes. He said it also needed "a good education system".

Schieffer told the crowd that we must not "lose faith in public education", since that is where the vast majority of Texas students are educated. He also said if we didn't take action to improve public education, we would find Texas becoming like a "third-world state", and we would be unable to compete twenty years from now.

In answer to an audience members question, Schieffer revealed himself as a die-hard "free trader". He extolled the virtues of free trade, but never mentioned protecting workers rights when establishing trade agreements.

I left the event with a firm belief that Schieffer is a conservative "blue dog" Democrat, who would find himself agreeing with Republicans as much as Democrats. If you're looking for a "blue dog" Democrat, then Schieffer is your candidate.

Personally, I think Texas needs more change than Schieffer can offer.

Failure

Political Cartoon is by Nate Beeler in The Washington Examiner.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Must Be Changed

About 16 years ago, one of our country's more stupid laws was passed. It was called "Don't Ask - Don't Tell" (DADT), and it laid down the rules for military service by homosexuals in the United States. Basically, it said the military would not ask if a person was gay/lesbian, and that person could serve in the military -- as long as they kept their sexual preference a secret.

The reason given at the time for this silly law was that "unit cohesion" would be damaged if homosexuals were to serve openly in the military. This wasn't just based on bad information -- it was based on no information at all, but just bigotry. As Dr. Nathaniel Frank said, “The ban on openly gay service was not based on sound research because no research has ever shown that openly gay service hurts the military.”

Maybe the venerable conservative politician Senator Barry Goldwater put it best when he said, "You don’t have to be straight in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight."

But for the last 16 years, this ridiculous law has damaged both personal lives and our military. Over that period, at least 13,000 qualified men and women have been discharged from the military simply because their sexual preference became public knowledge in some way. Another 4,000 soldiers voluntarily leave each year because of this policy.

For the good of our country, the military and the soldiers who bravely serve our country, it is time to end this nonsense. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to end DADT. But so far, he has done nothing to keep this promise. In fact, since he became president, 265 service members have been discharged because of DADT -- some of them with badly needed specialities.

President Obama says the law needs to be changed by Congress. It does, but in the meantime, he could issue an executive order banning military discharges based on DADT. This could and should be done immediately, and then followed up with congressional action.

But instead, President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates and military leaders are discussing ways to make DADT "more flexible". Gates said, "One of the things we're looking at is, is there flexibility in how we apply this law....What I discovered when I got into it was it's a very restrictive law. It doesn't leave much to the imagination, or a lot of flexibility." He went on to say, "That's the kind of thing we're looking at -- seeing if there's a more humane way to apply the law until it gets changed."

They want to exchange a lot of discrimination for a little bit of discrimination. That's unacceptable. Discrimination is evil and unconstitutional -- it doesn't matter whether it's a little or a lot. DADT is not improved by making the discharge decisions on a case-by-case basis.

There simply is no way to improve DADT. It needs to be eliminated completely.

Outrageous

Political Cartoon is by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News.

Rating Mainstream Media

The inimitable Dr. Zaius of Zaius Nation clarifies his diagnosis of the mainstream media.

Scalia Votes With Court's Liberals !

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court announced an important decision. By a 5-4 vote, the court said the federal government was wrong when it stopped New York State from investigating predatory mortgage lending -- the same sort of lending that precipated the economic crises.

The Bush administration had argued that mortgage lending was covered by federal regulation, and therefore the states should have no say in the matter. The court disagreed, saying states have the right to enforce their own laws on the matter. I believe the court's decision was the correct one, and I applaud it.

But the decision is an oddity because of the make-up of the five votes that decided it. The decision was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, who joined the court's four liberals to form the majority. Scalia voting with the liberals? Has Hell frozen over?

It was easy to understand why the four liberals voted the way they did. They were rightly protecting the rights of consumers. But why did Scalia abandon his conservative principles to vote with them? He is probably the most right-wing conservative member of the court.

And then it hit me. Scalia didn't abandon the conservative position -- the other four conservatives did. This decision really should have been a 9-0 decision. That's because this is not just a consumer protection case -- it's also a state's rights case. It was one of those odd cases where liberal and conservative principles converge.

Scalia was simply defending the same state's rights position he has always supported. It was the other conservatives who abandoned the conservative position to provide cover for the Bush administration -- who were trying to advance a federalist position.

So the world is not upside down and Hell hasn't frozen over. Scalia wasn't voting as a liberal. He was defending the traditional conservative position. I'm glad. I was worried for a while that the world might be ending.

It's Time To "Hike"

Political Cartoon is by John Darkow in The Columbia Daily Tribune.

Coleman Concedes - Franken Wins

It's finally over. After 8 months of contentious bickering, a recount and a court fight that went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court, Minnesota finally has two senators. On election night last November, Norm Coleman finished ahead by 206 votes out of more than 2.9 million votes cast. State law mandated a recount because of the closeness of the vote. After the recount, Al Franken led by 312 votes.

Coleman refused to concede, and contested the election all the way up to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court announced its decision. Their unanimous decision declared that Al Franken "received the highest number of votes legally cast"and he should be certified as Minnesota's new senator.

Coleman had threatened to appeal to federal courts if the Minnesota court ruled against him, but he's not going to do that. Finally bending to the will of the people of Minnesota, Coleman told reporters, "I just congratulated Al Franken on his victory. I told him it's the best job he'll ever have -- representing Minnesota in the United States Senate. The Supreme Court has spoken, I will respect its decision, and abide by its results."

Minnesota's governor and Secretary of State have now both signed the election certificate, and it will be delivered to the Senate today. Mr. Franken is expected to be sworn in after the Senate returns from its Fourth of July break.

Franken said, "We are so thrilled we can finally celebrate this victory and I'm so excited to finally be able to get to work for the people of Minnesota. We have a lot of work to do in Washington, but that's why I signed up for the job in the first place....I want the people of Minnesota to know that I'm ready to work for all of you, that I'm committed to being a voice for all Minnesotans in the U.S. Senate."

Senator Al Franken. Damn, but I like the sound of that!

Beat It

Political Cartoon is by Daryl Cagle at msnbc.com.