Waking Planet Chronicles
Fall 2009 • New Paltz, NY • Issue 63 ____________________________________________________________________________
The Fight for Real Healthcare Reform
and the Corporate-Backed Front Groups that Want to Defeat It
We are in the fight of our lives. It is a fight to save American lives, reduce suffering and protect our hard working citizens from losing their homes and goi ng bankrupt just becaus e they get sick or are injured. A just rel eased Harvard Study reports that nearly 45,000 Americans die needlessly every year bec ause of lack of health coverage. Every other industrialized country provides universal care through some nonprofit national health insurance. Our failure to do so results in higher costs and an American dying every 12 minutes. We also can no longer accept the “stagnant quo” that allows insurance companies to unleash their most abusive practices; like dropping people from coverage once they get sick, denying claims because of pre-existing conditions (like the woman who was denied treatment for breast cancer because she failed to report a condition of acne) and premiums soaring four times faster than wages. (Kaiser Family Foundation)
As Wendell Potter, a former insurance executive said, “Insurance companies confuse their customers and dump the sick- all so they can satisfy Wall Street masters.” Paying claims is called a “medical loss” in the industry. Imagine that, they only “win” when they do not meet your health care needs.
A mass citizens’ movement is needed now for a strong Public Option. It is the only means we have to reign in the spiraling costs of healthcare and to provide coverage and choice to the American people. Not only is the Public Option not negotiable, it must be REAL- Ready right=2 0away, available f or Everyone, Account able and Large enough to provide needed competition to the gouging insurance companies (over 400 mergers have resulted in 94% of the insurance markets in20the US being highly concentrated in recent years). The insurance companies, like the banks, are not going to reform themselves. It was good to see our president (finally) coming out more strongly, especially against those who are trying to defeat his plan with fear and lies, but I wish he had more forcibly supported the Public Option. It is clear that he and Congress need to hear from the 77% of American people who are demanding real reform, that will give us that choice.
Big insurance is spending $1.4 million a day to defeat real reform. The $4 Million Dollar Man (the amount Max Baucus received from health insurance companies) did their bidding with the bill that came out of his committee that audaciously favors the industry and their profits above the healthcare of working Americans. But perhaps the most insidious means corporate America uses to influence policy is astroturfing- a billion dollar, unregulated industry that churns out fake grassroots organizations to spread misinformation, fear and anger while promoting a right wing corporate agenda.
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a massive front group factory (more on them on back). It is interesting to note that their major funder is the=2 0oil and gas giant Koch Industries, that sees defeating he ath care reform as the fi rst step in20eviscerating a clean energy bill. One of AFP’s fake grassroots causes is Patients United Now that begins, “We are people just like yo u,” and is full of misrepresentation of the “dangerous bureaucracy” that wants to take over your health care and deny you care, like the latest cancer treatment. They say they “oppose denying care for the elderly or sick,” like that is part of Obama’s plan. The only good news here is that under “events“, there are only a couple and they were in July- maybe their tour bus (and their scare tactics) are running out of gas.
Healthcare reform is a moral and economic imperative. The Wall Street Journal (9/16) reported that a study showed that almost 2/3 of corporations (another study said 40%) plan to increase employees’ share of the costs of their health plans in the next year. A business lobby said annual health care costs for employers will rise 166% over the next decade to $28,530 per employee. The status quo is simply not sustainable.
A Healthcare Reform- Public Option Now rally in New Paltz and Kingston on Sept 2 drew almost 200 people. A MoveOn protest on Sept 22 in front of the offices of United Health Group in Kingston drew over 60. A delegation of three were even able to enter the building to call the insurance giant out on their abusive practices, t o ask them to stop trying to block reform and to question why their current hea d, Stephen Hemsley has received compensation of 3/4 of a billion dollars over the last 12 years.
Call your elected representatives 202 224-3121 (a call is worth 1,000 emails!) Call Harry Reed’s office 202 224-3542- tell him to bring the late and great Senator Ted Kennedy’s bill to a vote, not the Baucus insurance give-away. No one should suffer, die or go broke in America because of our dysfunctional health care system. As Teddy said, what is at stake are “the fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.” The dream shall never die.
Just the Facts
Koch Industries, that funds Americans for Prosperity has been found guilty of releasing 91 metric tons of cancer-causing benzene in Texas and trying to cover it up, stealing oil from federal and Indian lands, faulty pipelines resulting in 300 oil spills, and negligence and malice after one of their gas lines exploded killing two.
Bonner and Associates, a PR firm specializing in astroturf camp aigns, boasts they are “grassroots experts.” They were caught sending fake letters on fake letterhead to=2 0House representatives opposing a clean energy bill on behalf of the coal industry.
=0 A
California HMO’s reject 1 out of 5 claims for physician recommended treatment. PacifiCare denied almost 40% of all claims. LA T imes.com 9/3
One in four males 13-24 has played the videogame, America’s Army. Those who play are 29% more interested in serving in the military. DemocracyNow 9/4
A journalist and six protesters were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy for protesting the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia, a $12 million high tech facility with simulated apache helicopters and humvees that allow kids to simulate killing “ragheads”. It is staffed by 20 recruiters. Shutdowntheaec.net
The banks “too big to fail” have gotten bigger through mergers leaving consumers with less choice. “The oligopoly has tightened” and bank fees are rising. Wall St Journal 8/28
The US Chamber of Commerce is spending $2 million to try to kill the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) to protect us from financial abuses, like loans that are intentionally hard to understand and sky rocketing credit card interest rates. Call today, 202 224-3121- Say “Yes!” to the much needed CFPA! (The Cha mber tried to defeat the Consumer Protection Agency in 1977 too)
Sign the petition at ANewWayForward.org “NO New Powers for the Fed”.
Envoys of Hate
Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, now called Xe, has been accused of mu rder to silence witnesses to criminal acts by his company, smuggling weapons (like sawed off semi-automatic guns with silencers) into Iraq for profit, destroying evidence and lying. In federal court, two former employees testified that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Blackwater “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.” Shooting Iraqis was viewed as sport. When some Blackwater officials in Iraq sent some contractors back for excessive drinking and steroid use and wanting to achieve “kills”, Prince sent them back and told the officials to stop wasting company money. Blackwater also used illegal ammunition designed to inflict maximum damage by exploding in a body.
And recently, contractors in Kabul with ArmorGroup have been charged w ith lewd and deviant behavior
Is it any wonder we lost hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan long ago? Why are these companies still em ployed by our State Department?
Threat to Our Democracy
The Supreme Court is due to make a decision soon which could give corporations the right to use their massive wealth to20elect or defeat political candidates, reversing more than a century of campaign-finance law and basically imposing corporate rule in this country.
The=2 0Court has ruled time and again that a corporation is a legal entity and cannot enjoy the privileges of a private individual. Yet, the argument will be that a corporation has the right to free speech.
Chief Justice Roberts, who has never met a corporate argument he didn’t like, has routinely voted against the interests of aggrieved workers, the environment and consumers. Can you imagine what kind of policies the Wal-Mart, Halliburton, Exxon-backed candidate would be advocating for? Yet, with hundreds of millions for TV ads that is the person who would stand a good chance of getting elected. Fight back- dontgetrolled.org
=0 A The Cynical Ways of
Americans for Prosperity
In addition to their fight on health care reform and organizing Tea Parties and Town Hall rallies, Americans for Prosperity also run many astroturf campaigns, like; Hot Air Tour, to debunk global warming, Save My Ballot Tour that employs Joe the Plumber to smear the Employee Free Choice Act, Fre e Our Energy to increase domestic drilling and No Climate Tax, to defeat clean energy legislation. They advocate pro-tobacco industry positions rather than the public health and are planning to fight net neutr ality too.
AFP’s president is Tim Phillips, who has built a career on manufacturing fake grassroots causes. He worked with Ralph Reed of the Christian Coal ition to create Century Strategies and said “It matters less who has the best argument and more who gets heard and by whom.” Their buddy Karl Rove helped them get a contract with Enron to use religious groups to push for energy deregulation in California which led to the energy crisis. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff hired Phillips to pressure Congress to not impose wage and safety laws in the Marianas Islands, (a sweatshop haven for US corporations) ) even after a federal report said the Chinese women working there were subject to forced abortions and the women and children were subject to forced prostitution. Phillips sent mailers to his reliable Christian grou ps saying the women were exposed to Jesus there and went back to China “with Bibles in hand.” They, in turn, pressured Congress to oppose reform.
Phillips and Reed were also part of a cynical plo t to drum up outrage about gambling with Christian groups and then suggest Indian tribes hire Abramoff to help them. The duo also ran the smear campaign against McCain saying he fathered a black daughter and then showed pictures of his adopted daughter from Bangladesh to “prove” it.
I can understand peoples’ outrage at a ballooning deficit, record unemployment and the shrinking of the middle class. But duplicitous front groups and shills are being used to keep the country divided and the anger deflected from the elite who are benefiting from the status quo and turning people against the reform that could help them the most.
Waking Planet Chronicles is published quarterly by Barbara Upton. To receive free online write to her at a
AnahataSun@aol.com. WakingPlanet.com will=2 0be back, better than ever, soon. Keep Faith!
Please Forward!