Tag: medicare for all

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, People Helping People, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
Child brushing teeth (FreeImages.com)
Child brushing teeth (FreeImages.com)

We always hear from conservatives that they don’t see how we can possibly afford universal health care, let alone the Green New Deal. Thus, as a public service, I’m listing five ways (among dozens if not hundreds) we can locate the funds. This is not even pretending to be comprehensive (or in any sort of order), and I’d love you to add your favorite in the comments.

  1. Eliminate the private for-profit insurance system, which jacks up the price. According to The New Republic (2015), this is costing us between $375 billion and $471 billion per year. The savings in getting rid of the middlemen would more than cover the increase in taxes.
  2. Cap doctors’ salaries at something reasonable and generous. I’ll pull a figure out of the air: 200K per year for generalists, 300K for specialists—but it could be higher or lower.
  3. Eliminate the crazy subsidies and price protections in so many industries, and particularly fossil and nuclear fuel, Big Pharma, highways and bridges to nowhere, and chemiculture-based Big Ag. We are subsidizing all sorts of things that should not be subsidized! Our policies should support the changes we want society to make (but right now, our policies interfere with those changes.
  4. Cut the military budget down to the expenditure of China (the country second on the list). Right now, the US is spending an obscene $649 billion per year (2016) to “defend” 329,345,285 people (more than the next seven countries combined). Yet China manages to protect 1,420,615,635 people, more than 4.3 times the US figure,  with military spending of just $146 billion (2016), or less than a quarter overall, less than a sixteenth per capita. So if the US slashed military spending by 75 percent to match China’s, it would still be spending more than four times per person than China does. Surely that would be enough to protect ourselves!
  5. Increase the tax rates for multimillionaires and for multinational megacorporations. Under Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent; now it’s less than half, just 37 percent. Meanwhile some of the most successful corporations pay zero income tax even while decimating local economies built on mom-and-pop retailers; In 2018, Amazon managed to double its profits from $5.6 billion in 2017 to $11.2 billion, and paid zero income tax both years. Lets end socialism for the rich.
  6. Do a Marshall Plan-style investment program to convert the entire nation to safe, clean, renewable energy; the upfront cost will be quickly amortized by energy savings AND healthcare savings, since we’ll be eliminating major causes of asthma, emphysema, etc. Plus, the cost of converting to solar, wind, etc. will drop way down, as economies of scale kick in. Even without a big government investment in converting the whole economy, solar and wind prices are now often compatible with or even better than fossil or nuclear power sources.

So next time you meet someone who wonders how to pay for the world we want, this article gives part of the recipe. Readers, please add your own favorite ways to find the money for these improvements, and please include a source for your data.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Nonviolent action theorist/activist/author George Lakey published a fabulous essay, “A 10-point plan to stop T***p and make gains in justice and equality” last week*

George Lakey, activist and author (most recent book: Viking Economics)
George Lakey, activist and author (most recent book: Viking Economics)

George has been a hero and mentor of mine ever since I first heard him speak around 1977. His presence at Movement for a New Society’s Philadelphia Life Center was a big part of why I moved to that community for a nine-month training program in nonviolent action, back in 1980-81.

He argues that this is our moment to break out of reactive protests and into big sweeping social and environmental demands. He notes that the LGBT movement was one of the only progressive movements to gain traction under Reagan—because its agenda was so much bigger than just fighting cutbacks. Twenty and thirty years earlier, the Civil Rights movement accomplished sweeping social change as well.

So instead of defending the weak centrist gains of the past 30 years, we go beyond and organize for our wider goals. We refuse to play defense against DT’s shenanigans and instead take the role of pushing for a new, kinder, people- and planet-centered normal. With direct-action campaigns that link multiple issues, such as Standing Rock, and with alternative institutions like the Movement for Black Lives, we create a nonviolent invasion of deep social change (this is my metaphor, not George’s).

In short, we think bigger—and act bigger. and instead of crawling to the politicians, we force them to court us as they see us come into our true power.

I’ve been saying we need to think bigger and more systemically for years. George says it succinctly and eloquently, and with a lens I hadn’t looked through.

How does this apply in today’s world?

  • The Republican attack on what George calls the “medical industrial complex-friendly Affordable Care Act” (a/k/a Obamacare) is a chance to bypass the witheringly bureaucratic and unfair insurance system and push for real single-payer, Medicare-for-All plan of the sort that’s worked so well in Scandinavia (he explores the Scandinavian social safety net in his latest book, Viking Economics)
  • The Standing Rock Water Protectors have linked multiple issues into a coherent whole: clean water, the environment generally, the rights of indigenous people (among others)
  • Movements around creating a meaningful safety net, such as the $15 per hour minimum wage, can reach disaffected white working class voters as well as people of color; when those who voted for DT on economic grounds realize he has betrayed them, we can win them over (I would add that this will only work if we have mechanisms in place to defuse the racism and nativism that DT used to attract them, and have meaningful ways to integrate the lesson that all colors, races, and religions can be allies to each other and are stronger together—and Lakey does point out that the United Auto Workers has been successful organizing on these unifying principles)

I could add a lot to George’s list. As one among many suggestions, let’s push to not only end all subsidies to the fossil and nuclear industries but let’s push for a complete transition to clean, renewable energy—whether or not we get any help from the government.

Read his essay. Come back the next day and read it again. Then share it with friends, social media communities, and colleagues and discuss how you personally and your group of individuals with shared positive purpose can make these changes happen.

*Why did I replace DT’s last name with stars? And why do I call him DT rather than by his name? Because I am doing my best not to give him any search engine juice. I don’t want him showing up as “trending” or driving traffic to him.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, People Helping People, Politics Tagged with , , , ,

Since the Republicans have taken a few pages from the Saul Alinsky organizing playbook—Alinsky was the legendary Chicago community organizer who influenced Obama, known for such tactics as a fart-in—maybe it’s time for Barack Obama to ask himself “What would Alinsky do?

What he wouldn’t do is capitulate. Alinksy would know, as Obama should know, that if he lets health reform die now, his entire agenda will be sunk in a quagmire of intransigence, lies, and loud, even violent public opposition. He will have no legacy beyond this point, and that would be a tragedy.

Barack Obama, President should turn to the Barack Obama of the past: that community organizer and brilliant marketer who knows how to galvanize a crowd, frame an issue, and move the discourse.

The Barack Obama who understood from Alinsky the impact a group of low-income could have when they move from disenfranchised, socially alienated aloneness with their troubles to a cohesive community group able to press the power structure. The Obama who was a contributing writer to a book called “After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois.”

THAT Barack Obama would not be talking about taking the public option off the table. Instead, he’d make a speech something like this:

“Fellow Americans, for the past several months, we’ve been trying to move this health care system forward from the disastrous present where good solid working folks can’t afford to get treated, but healthcare executives live the high life. All we’re trying to do is create a system where health care is the right of every American, just as it is the right of the citizens of almost every other industrialized country in the world. But we are blocked at every turn. We’ve tried to meet them half way, and we have been rebuffed. We try to negotiate, to compromise. And instead, we’re shouted down, we’re lied to, and we’re faced with people who will not budge an inch because they want to protect their own perks.

“We will not allow this little group of small-minded selfish liars to control the dialogue. We made a promise to make healthcare not only affordable but he guaranteed right of every American, and we’re going to keep this promise.

“To get out of the stalemate, I am withdrawing the existing health reform legislation and replacing it with just one paragraph that everyone can understand, that can’t be misrepresented, and that will rapidly transform us to full universal coverage. I ask your wholehearted support of this clear and simple action plan. It uses the one part of our healthcare system that has been working, and working well, since 1964. It’s tested and proven.

“As of one year from the passage of this legislation, the effective age of eligibility for Medicare shall be lowered to age 55. As of three years from passage, the eligibility for Medicare shall be age 35. And as of five years from passage, all citizens of the United States shall be eligible from birth. Companies now offering healthcare coverage to their employees shall continue to extend coverage until they are Medicare-eligible or until an employee takes a position with another company that offers equal or better coverage.

“That’s it. Instead of hundreds of pages of confusing legal jargon, a single paragraph of enabling legislation to open the door to the right of healthcare for millions of Americans. Citizens of America, this is your birthright.

“I will introduce this legislation every year that I am in office, until it passes. And I will work with you to organize, community by community, until your Senators and Representatives, whether Democrat, Republican or independent, support this bill or are replaced by those who do.”

Let’s see this speech on every network, every blog, every radio show, and in every newspaper in the country. Delivered, as he surrounds himself on stage with the victims of today’s healthcare policy madness: those who can’t get treatment, get the wrong treatment, are marginalized or even see family members die because of the cost-first, profit-only, single-bottom-line narrow-mindedness of today’s system.

In 1979-80, Shel Horowitz advocated for single-payer healthcare as a staff organizer for the Gray Panthers of Brooklyn. His eight books include Apex Award winner Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

Source for the “fart-in story and Obama’s book contribution: Bill Dedman, “Reading Hillary Rodham’s hidden thesis,” https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail