Buckle Up

It's a funny country we live in. The President is firmly anti-abortion, dedicated to protecting fetuses worldwide. Once the beloved children are born, to help them get on their feet, he denies them health insurance. It's too expensive. After all, we're already borrowing 3 billion a week to fight the Iraq war, which is much more important than keeping our children healthy, apparently.

Conspicuously absent from the NY Times today is the story about British teachers and other civil servants walking out today, in a one-day job action. Working people taking a stand for themselves appears to be of no consequence whatsoever to the United States of America. But the British feel differently:

"We're tired of inflation going up and our salaries not meeting that rise," said Leanne Hahn, a primary school teacher from north London, one of the several thousand who marched through the capital's streets waving placards saying "No to paycuts" and "No extra unpaid hours."

"We're struggling to get mortgages and to get onto the housing ladder. We just can't afford to live," she said.

However, Councillor Ivan Ould, chairman of the National Employers' Organisation for School Teachers, said children and their parents would suffer as a result of the strike.

"Children so close to their exams will lose out on invaluable study time and parents will lose out as they are forced to take unnecessary holiday to look after them," he said.

I'm always touched by the arguments about the children. Apparently they're the British government's first concern. When they grow up, and their real salaries have declined, and they can't afford the same standard of living as their parents, well, then they can go to hell, I suppose. The government will be worried about their children then. With luck they'll have learned to sit down and shut up, much as American workers do.

Here, there's little worry about strikes, or even one-day job actions by teachers, since there are so few unions. For those that somehow remain (like us), penalties for strikes can be draconian. In the United States, the concept of working people standing up for themselves is just pure evil. In fact, George Will seems to feel that teachers negotiating contracts represents the end of civilization as we know it:

After 1962, when New York City signed the nation's first collective bargaining contract with teachers, teachers began changing from members of a respected profession into just another muscular faction fighting for more government money.

It's always illuminating to be lectured to about money by prominent pundits who make many times what we do. Apparently, it sets a bad example for the multitudes when working people stand up and say they need to be paid a living wage. If such trends were to continue, perhaps everyone would demand a living wage. And that, of course, would be bad for the children. The ones we love. The ones we teach toughness by denying them health insurance.

Not only that, but what have we got to show for all this collective bargaining?

...shopworn panaceas -- larger teacher salaries, smaller class sizes -- were pursued as colleges were reduced to offering remediation to freshmen.

Well, we've got larger salaries. But we've also got a larger workload, and with energy prices having quadrupled (not to mention prices of everything else), those larger salaries lag well behind cost of living. And here in New York City, despite all the talk, we've made no progress whatsoever on class size (not that this concerns Mr. Will).

Mr. Will believes, aside from the perfidy of teachers, that families are to blame:

No reform can enable schools to cope with the 36.9 percent of all children and 69.9 percent of black children today born out of wedlock, which means, among many other things, a continually renewed cohort of unruly adolescent males.

It's refreshing that Mr. Will rejects "reforms." It's odd, though, that he blatantly rejects collective bargaining for working people. You'd think a better standard of living might make people's lives a little more stable, and might even result in their behavior becoming more stable as well. It's tough to live the pristine lifestyle Mr. Will might prescribe when you have mortgage payments and crushing medical bills.

It's even tougher when you can't get debt relief for catastrophic medical emergencies, the no. 1 cause of bankruptcy in these United States. In Canada, where there's a social safety net, I've seen people place locks like those on my bathroom doors right on their front doors. I don't know anyone in New York who'd do such a thing.

And as long as the likes of George Will, George Bush, or, yes, John McCain are dictating social norms in this country, you'd better get a good strong lock for your front door. Consider barring your windows as well.

You can't be too careful these days.

Thanks to reality-based educator, Greg, and Abigail

Baltimore Jonny and the Rest of Us

Stories like this one (if you use that link, scroll down to see it) are beginning to seriously freak me out. World-class fiddler Jon Glik from Baltimore had been ill for quite a while. Online appeals for medical funds and benefit concerts had popped up to help him, but it's really tough when you don't have medical insurance in the US of A, and it's not easy for people who work as musicians to afford insurance.

Now sure, you might say, people shouldn't be musicians, and they should work in factories or oil drawbridges instead. I'd argue that musicians add something to our society even if they don't make as much money as, say, hedge fund operators. So as I encounter these various tales of ailing musicians, and I hear plenty, I feel ashamed that we're the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't routinely take care of our own.

Jon Glik was lucky. As a much-beloved musician, he'd met someone at a square dance (of all places) who was able to help him out. Also, he qualified for a state program that helped him out when he was set to get the liver transplant he needed. A few weeks ago, I worked with a musician who was not so lucky. He'd been having chest pains, and he ignored them (having no health insurance). Several days after I saw him, he had a heart attack and died.

And you and yours (and me and mine, and our neighbors) might not be lucky either, if you haven't got insurance. If you're middle-class or anything close to it, you'd have to divest yourself of pretty much everything you have before you qualified for Medicaid. Also, catastrophic medical emergencies are now no longer grounds for debt relief under bankruptcy, thanks to the credit card companies, the US Congress, and George W. Bush.

Some argue against national health care. Some point out shortcomings in the Canadian and European systems. I've no doubt there are shortcomings. But we can do better than this. It behooves us to do better than this.

Listen to Jon:

A Mesage to the Pope

That's what unionized Catholic school teachers have. They're demanding a living wage, and objecting to the church's insistence they pay 10% of their health benefits. I can't say I blame them, as the movement toward less, rather than complete, insurance for working people is troubling indeed.

On weekends, I play music, and I work with a lot of people who have no health insurance. I met a banjo player last year and we argued about health insurance. He called himself a libertarian, and complained about liberals (like me) who thought we ought to have universal health insurance like every other industrialized country. It was entitlement, it was too expensive, we needed choices, and I don't remember what else he said.

A few months ago, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Apparently, he'd avoided seeing doctors for a long time, and his prognosis is not good at all. He had to divest himself of all his worldly possessions and apply for Medicaid. Last week we played a benefit for him. Here in the USA, you don't get help until you lose your home, your money, your job, and pretty much everything. It's an unconscionable system.

Two weeks ago, I had a job opening for a professional touring bluegrass band. We went out to lunch with them. I sat across from another banjo player (I no longer talk politics with banjo players) and we talked about where he came from, music, and the food at the restaurant, which was pretty good. I couldn't help but notice he was the only guy in the band who wasn't overweight.

Three days later, he had a heart attack and died. He'd been having chest pains, but didn't have insurance (banjo-playing is not the most lucrative job around), and didn't want the expense of seeing a doctor.

The Pope ought to insist that Catholic school teachers get complete health coverage, and that all Americans get complete health coverage. It's preposterous that in this country people can no longer use catastrophic medical emergency, the no. 1 grounds for bankruptcy, as grounds for bankruptcy.

We ought to all have coverage, there ought not to be such a thing as bankruptcy due to catastrophic medical emergency, and the Pope, along with the leaders of every other religion, ought to make universal health care in the US a moral imperative. If we can pay 3 billion dollars a week for an endless and pointless war, we can surely afford to help our own people.

And that includes the Catholic school teachers, of course.

Saint Rudy Talks Numbers

Well, we all know Saint Rudy's favorite number--9/11. After all, on 9/10 he was a bum, about to slink away from NYC, and the next day he was America's sweetheart. That's pretty good for a guy most people would be afraid to invite to their houses for spaghetti.

And it's damn good for a guy who went to court to demand the right to bring his mistress to a home he shared with his wife and young children. No Bill Clinton there. More like, "Damn right I was with Ms. Lewinski, and I'm bringing her home to meet the wife and kids right now."

But now Rudy is on a mission to make sure health care doesn't get to the bootless and unhorsed. To that end, he put an ad on the radio:

In the radio ad, Giuliani, who has suffered prostate cancer, said the U.S. survival rate for the disease was 82 percent, but the survival rate in Britain was just 44 percent "under socialized medicine."

It appears, though, that Mr. Giuliani got his statistics from the same folks who said we needed to invade Iraq:

A health department spokesman said the latest figures from Britain's Office of National Statistics showed a five-year survival rate of 74.4 percent for prostate cancer.

That's a significant difference. And that's not all:

Even that difference, as experts explained, probably has nothing to do with the British National Health Service and much to do with the aggressive screening programs employed in this country. (And for the moment, let's merely mention another highly pertinent issue, namely that the great majority of prostate cancers occur in men over 65, which indicates that many if not most are treated successfully under Medicare -- our version of national health insurance for the elderly -- or by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which comes as close to truly socialist healthcare as any system in the world.)

But the supreme irony is this--Saint Rudy was actually treated under a government program--specifically GHI, then a non-profit health care network popular with New York City employees (like me). So I guess it's easy for him to say we don't need to help those who've got nothing. After all, that was his entire approach to the school system--My kids don't go there, so what the hell do I care? That's why he had no problem proposing welfare recipients be required to work in public schools. Why shouldn't people chronically unable to find jobs serve as role models for our kids? After all, they're not his kids.

Sadly, that approach is precisely the one taken by the current administration, which has no qualms about sending kids to toxic waste sites or fighting tooth and nail when people ask leased schools be inspected as thoroughly as city-owned schools. Note they don't build sports stadiums on toxic waste sites. The billionaires who own the teams would never put up with that.

I read somewhere, "If Rudy becomes president, every day will be 9/11"

Put an End to the Suffrage!

You turn on the TV and you see people say no, universal health care is not the way to go. Not one word about catastrophic medical emergency being the number one cause of bankruptcy. Not one word about the impossibility of such a thing occurring in most countries. Not one word about President Bush signing a bill that ensures you'll still be liable for Visa payments after your catastrophic medical emergency.

And then they roll out their big guns--It's "socialized" medicine. Socialism. That's bad, right? Well, you'd certainly think so if you listened to demagogues like Bill O'Reilly or Randi Weingarten, who vilify their opponents by tossing about scary names. But they do that only because it's easier than putting forth a viable argument.

What would such people say if women today were trying to get the vote?

Well, in Canada women vote. And what happened there? They speak French. That's right. French. Do you want to speak French?

Well, what if they're having their time of the month or something? Maybe they'll hang the wrong chad and end up voting for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore.

What if they get in the booth and can't make up their minds? Do you want to spend a half-hour waiting for your chance to get in that booth? Waiting time is a huge issue.

It's feminist! Wait, no, it's radical feminist! Yeah, that's the ticket.

Well, in Ohio women voted, and in 04, people had to stand in the rain for ten hours waiting in heavily Democratic districts (Oops, sorry, that happened here).

If you're determined enough, you can make up an argument for anything. Still, it's incredible in this day and age that Americans stand up and argue against systems that provide decent health care, reasonable work hours, affordable child care, and higher education that doesn't require a second mortgage.

In 1984 I spent some time in Communist East Berlin. They sold Pravda on every street corner but nobody bought it. They had TV channels showing tedious meetings and great reverence to their highly reppected comrades from the USSR. If Rupert Murdoch had been running Pravda in the style of Fox News, with Wilhelm O'Reilly, there'd still be a Communist East Berlin.

Open Wide--Here Comes the Airplane

Arthur Pepper, the Executive Director of the UFT Welfare Fund, sits on the Board of Directors and Corporate Officers of GHI. So who's in a better position to inform rank and file about the upcoming GHI-HIP merger?

Probably no one. Mr. Pepper says the combined buying power of these two organizations will result in premium stabilization. That sounds viable.

The process of bringing these companies together will be ongoing and subscribers in each plan will not see any immediate changes in their benefits or the way they access their care.

That sounds good too, if you don't look ahead (a bad habit of mine, and I'm not sure where I picked it up). What happens after we see "no immediate changes?" But where Mr. Pepper really loses me is here:

As part of the process, GHI and HIP are also moving ahead to convert to “for-profit” status rather than their current “not-for-profit” designation. As a “not-for-profit” entity there are statutory restrictions that limit the accumulating of revenue that can be used for improvements such as updating claim processing systems. For instance under the GHI program, currently any money realized at the end of the year is returned to the City program as a dividend which helps to keep the benefit costs stable.

Now isn't it a good thing to help keep benefit costs stable? If we don't, doesn't it imply that benefit costs will not be stable? And if such costs were reduced by the merger, wouldn't it be a good idea to pass on the reductions to those of us who work?

And won't the "for-profit" moniker encourage these companies, which as far as I know cover most city employees, to deny coverage to save money (like other private companies do)? Or are they really gonna use profits only to update claims systems?

Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I never imagined the union would dump seniority placement, send us back in the lunchrooms, support charter school entrepreneurs, make high school teachers teach six classes, make teachers come in in August (for no reason and no money), or support the unpaid suspension of teachers based on unsubstantiated charges.

Since they've now done all of the above, it seems more than prudent to be wary of their pronouncements.

Better Take Your Vitamins

My friend's mom smoked too much. She didn't watch out for herself, and the doctors told her she needed to change her habits or she was gonna lose her leg. Well, she didn't change her habits, and she lost her leg. Then the doctors told her if she didn't change her habits she'd die.

She died, but only after a long hospital stay. My friend's father had to sell his house to pay the bill. One Christmas Eve, in his new digs in the basement of his son's home, he picked up a revolver and blew his brains out. That was when I decided there was a health care problem in the United States.

But the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan loudly proclaimed there was no crisis. When you have US Government health insurance, things look pretty rosy, I suppose. Still, nothing was even attempted for a long time until Bill Clinton put his wife in charge of a task force. President Clinton, in perhaps the worst mistake of his presidency, declared that he would veto any bill that did not match 100% the proposal for universal health. This left no room for compromise, and no possibility that we could have at least improved our system.

One very good thing, for most teachers, is the health care plans we have. We don't generally have to contend with the issues you'll encounter in Michael Moore's new film Sicko. But a lot of Americans do.

Why should that be? If other countries can provide universal health care, why can't we? And if there are problems in other systems, why can't we learn from them and improve on them? Why must the business of insurance companies entail denying health care to maximize profit? Isn't the welfare of our people more important than the bottom line of these companies?

Can't we do better than this?