Raise the cap on FICA wages

I have never earned enough to exceed the "cap" on income subject to FICA (Social Security and Medicare) taxes, so all of my income is taxed for contributions to these entitlements. But if I earned over $113K a year, I would pay FICA taxes only up to the "cap" of $113K, i.e. I could earn $500K a year and pay the same amount of FICA taxes as someone who earns $113K. The FICA taxes aren't scaled like income tax, so a minimum wage earner ($15K a year) pays FICA taxes at the same rate as someone who earns $113K (and a minimum wage earner pays at a much higher rate than a $500K earner). We have two choices to fix the Social Security fund: (a) reduce benefits for the elderly, the vast majority of whom have paid FICA on all their earnings, or (b) raise the cap so those who earn more--and thus have more opportunity to save for retirement--will contribute FICA taxes on more of their income. That's the whole issue: Who pays? Another way to think about it is "Who will suffer most?" But then, I'm a bleeding heart.

I really like David Brook's column today. (Did I really say that?) Cable personalities give so much attention to Beck and his like and to tea-baggers and birthers and their like--they seem more numerous than they are. I hate to realize that I get confused over whether these nut cases represent the Republican or conservative mainstream.

But as Brooks points out, these people aren't mainstream Republicans. The press invents this--along with endless focus on celebrities and certain select missing persons. Can we return to those days of yesteryear, when both parties had respect for each other, even in the midst of harsh disagreements.

If a person can't afford health insurance, they probably can't afford to get sick. If that person winds up in the emergency room and can't afford to pay the hospital, the cost of his or her care will get passed along to those who are insured. The hospital has to mitigate that loss, so hospital rates go up, and insurance companies raise premiums. If the hospital is city owned or if the person qualifies for Medicaid, tax-payers are paying for that health care. That's not the whole story on price increases, of course, but it is the story on whether an insured person "should have to" pay for health care to uninsured.

These people who can't afford health insurance aren't necessarily unemployed or working in this country without documentation. My husband was self-employed, so he didn't have employer insurance. My son works for a small business, and the best deal they could broker with so few employees cost him $200/week to insure his family. I work for a small university, and insuring a family costs $600/month. The cost would be less at a large university. And people who work for large cities, the state, and such big employers will benefit from the deals their employers can broker with the insurers.

So the category of uninsured is likely to include many people you do business with. Small business are hurt by the current situation. People who are insured are ALREADY paying for health care for people who aren't insured, including unemployed citizens and undocumented workers.

The uninsured also includes insured people with a chronic disease who lose their jobs and, when rehired, are refused insurance because (a) they had a break in coverage and (b) they have a preexisting condition. Preexisting conditions can include pregnancy. This is what happened to the woman who had lupus, lost her job, was unable to get insurance because of preexisting condition, and died of a treatable disease. She finally was so sick that she visited the ER, was admitted to intensive care--and after hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on her care--the died. With proper health care, lupus doesn't have to be fatal. And the costs for her care were passed along to tax-payers and the insured. It would not only be morally just, but also thrifty to provide health care to keep people healthy

A person who can't afford to see a doctor or pay for a prescription may spread disease, e.g. strep throat, to other people. So it's also a public health issue.

This is why I find the firefighter comparison so useful. When fire companies were private, a person had to subscribe to obtain fire-fighting service. If my neighbor didn't subscribe, her house would burn down. If I subscribed, the fire company might be on hand to see to it that her fire didn't spread to my house. But in any case, her problem was very likely to become my problem.

When fire companies were taken over by the government, everyone got better care. Yes, it may have cost me more than my subscription to the private company, but now my neighbor's fire is less likely to spread to my house. We pay for fire-fighters through our taxes and we get good value for our money, even if we never require their services.

I remember when the state made auto insurance mandatory. There was a horrible outcry about big government. But now I expect people are glad that insurance is required. But how does the government make people buy auto insurance? Well there's the citation, but that's not really going to help if an uninsured person causes damage to your car or your person. So we pay an "uninsured motorist" insurance cost, even though insurance is required. And insurance companies created pools where people could get insurance more cheaply, if they meet the criteria.

That's the point of the public option with the health care reform bills. If we require people to have health insurance, some people will not be able to afford it. So we have to have a way to make it affordable to them.

The second reason to have a public option is that it will increase competition, which will encourage insurers to reduce rates.

The high costs of the uninsured are borne by the tax-payers and the insured. Reform is essential and the public option is both morally justified and financially justified.

Maureen Dowd has said it: much of the fear/anger over President Obama is expressed by people who are not able to accept a black president. The fears that he threatens our American ways by being a socialist are thinly disguised fears that white supremacy is threatened. After all, if everyone has health care (for example), then that's one less way to feel superior. Saying this out loud is sure to provoke a tsunami of denials and accusations of playing the race card. But I've been thinking it. And I expected it. Racism is alive and well in this country. But it is encoded in issues that make people feel less racist.

And I do think there's more to the anti-Obama anger than racism. In part it has to do with the state of fear that the Bush administration peddled for eight years. Those who bought into the fear are still terribly afraid. And a president who isn't selling fear brings them to a state of panic. Bush reassured them that they were right to be afraid--so what do they do with that fear now? And if, in truth, they don't need to be afraid, then they've been duped, and who will they blame for showing them they've been duped? They blame the messenger.

And clearly some people are blaming Obama for problems caused by the pro-Big Business policies of the Republican government. He is blamed for the deficit, for the struggling economy, and for not being able to solve these massive problems in six months. But Republicans held all three branches of government for a long time, and the result is that business isn't well regulated. The proverb says that the love of money is the root of all evil. Certainly it begets greed, and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. History shows that unregulated capitalism will cause great distress for working people--that's why we have regulations. And now we have a president who will take care of the little people, so Big Business is spending some of its profits scaring people into thinking that Obama will make the people more economically distressed--when, in fact, it is Big Business (insurance, medical equipment, pharmaceutical companies, etc) who will take the hit--and all the while, Big Business is filling its deep pockets and getting richer.

And for some Obama-haters, it's payback for Democrats who refused to accept George W. as the winner in 2000. In return, the birthers' claim is that Obama isn't eligible is equivalent. Tit for tat.

Cognitive Dissonance

Good Lord. Palin has referred to "Obama's Death Panel"--the fear-claim that pretends our elderly would be at risk under government-funded health care--ignoring the fact that our elderly already have socialized medicine and are very happy with it--and not in fear of their lives because of their government-funded Medicare. I guess the anti-government-funding crowd thinks our elderly would be better off with for-profit health care that promotes capitalist (rather than socialist) values--even if it means our elderly can't afford medications or medical care. (Wait--am I going mad?--or did the word think escape my lips?)

Palin claims that a government-funded plan would threaten health care for her son--but this ignores the fact that so many special needs children are already on Medicaid because private insurance discriminates against them. Our current insurance system considers Down's syndrome a pre-existing condition. Those who promote capitalist values by dissing what they call socialist medicine should be honest about their value system. This values profit over social justice.

A decade ago, when our HMO changed its system and refused to pay for my husband's oncologist--who was covered under their system, but was not in our "network" within their system--I switched plans and never insured him under HMO again. But even with the more expensive PPO system, we ran into difficulty when St. Ed's had a provider for one year that wouldn't cover M.D. Anderson. For-profit insurance was so expensive for us that we had to declare bankruptcy when he had to quit working and go on disability. Hooray for capitalist values?

Even more ironic to me is that Palin represents the anti-choice block of voters who want the government to decide who will maintain a pregnancy. And this group overlaps with those who don't want the government to step in and see to it that every unborn receives prenatal care--because that would promote socialist values rather than capitalist values.

Cognitive dissonance?

Alito hearings a farce--yet quite revealing

Dionne's editorial, "A Hearing About Nothing," hits the nail on the head. Listening to Alito, I can feel the smoke he's blowing up my .... He won't answer even the easy questions. He won't even answer questions about his own personal opinions about general issues. How can anyone vote for a person without getting any feeling about him other than he's suspiciously evasive?

I kept wondering how a judge would react if a witness answered this way in a courtroom (not that Alito has been a trial judge), because instead of answering questions, he launches into some academic smoke-blowing that is insulting to the person asking the question--always a democratic senator, because the Republican questioners only kiss Alito's ass and tell him to continue stonewalling the mean, evil Democratic senators.

What a farce. Dionne gets it right: "when their party controls the process, Supreme Court nominees can avoid answering any question they don't want to answer." I wish Dionne's conclusion would happen: "an extended debate in which his evasions will be made perfectly clear to the public "

My own opinion is that Roe v. Wade will not be overturned--I don't believe even a conservative court could do so, because it is definitely settled law. And everyone taking part in these proceedings know it. All this talk about Roe is aimed at a segment of Republican constituents who have been strung along by Bush and the Republican machine to believe that Roe might be overruled--they're still being fed a line so they'll keep voting for the neo-cons. But Alito dare not say what he knows because he won't be supported by that segment of the party if he speaks the truth.

What worries me more about Alito is his favoring corporations over worker's rights--that's clear from his record. He also seems unwilling to voice an opinion about executive power, and that's worrisome. No one acts this "hidey" if they have nothing to hide.

And Dionne gets it right about this being an opportunity for Rep's to attack Dem's for asking the correctly probing questions. Afterall, Alito's wife cried when Sen. Graham recited all the wickedly pointed questions the Dem's have been asking (and the news mistakenly reported that the Dem's made her cry--it was R-Sen.. Graham) -- and we mustn't diminish the power of a crying wife in the enactment of a farce.

Clearly, this is attempt to subvert the Senate's obligation to "advise and consent" and an effort instead to bow down to the increasingly powerful executive branch. One thing the Democrats have accomplished is that they have brought to public debate the "unitary executive" theory espoused by the Bush admininstration. This article in The Nation, "The Limits of Power: Questions for Alito" explains why this Bush imperative is dangerous to our democratic process.

Iraq requests a timetable for

Iraqi leaders from each faction have agreed that Bush needs to provide a timetable for withdrawal, and they believe we should be out within 12 months.

My favorite response to this comes from John Avarosis at AMERICAblog: "So has Dick Cheney called the Iraqi government reprehensible for wanting us to withdraw? I can't wait for Rep. Jean Schmidt's statement that the Iraq government is full of cowards."

And the Iraqi leaders have underscored one of my primary complaints about the terminology in this war--we need to clarify the term "terrorism" and it's related term "terrorist." According the the Washington Post story (linked above), the "communique condemned terrorism but was a clear acknowledgment of the Sunni position that insurgents should not be labeled as terrorists if they don't target innocent civilians or institutions that provide for the welfare of Iraqis."

I've been saying that we started out fighting "terrorists" in Iraq whom I would have called "insurgents," but as the number of attacks against our troops increased, and we were unable to stop or slow down this opposition, we began to hear them referred to as "insurgents." This seemed less like a move to select a more accurate terms, and more like an attempt to avoid the conclusion that our tactics have been ineffective against "terrorists." A good definition of "terrorism" would--just as the Iraqi leaders have done--separate attacks against troops (insurgency) from attacks against civilians (terrorism). Good rhetoric from the Iraqi leaders. Bad rhetoric from the White House.

It's going to be interesting to see how the White House spins this one. As I wrote in the last blog, the word from Iraq is that much of the "insurgency" is actually grassroots resistance against U.S. occupation of Iraq and the instillation of a puppet government that would work the will of the U.S., much like France's resistance to the German occupation of France. When we leave, the "insurgency"/resistance melts away.

John Murtha is in touch with military leaders, who know what's going on in Iraq. Seems like his colleagues should know that Murtha wouldn't put himself out on a limb like this without cause. Bless his hawkish heart, because he truly supports the troops.

Let's see if the White House can figure out how to wipe egg off their faces instead of just blaming the egg for being there.