How are you liking it so far? (Part II)

           

By Jack E. Lohman

If you’re thinking more of the same, you’re right.

It’s political corruption and the dire consequences it has on society. It cannot be ignored, no matter how hard we try.

Health care costs: You’ve heard this before. A full 31% of health care costs is administrative waste — make-work that is consumed by the insurance bureaucracy that never lays a hand on the patient. This 31% should instead be spent on doctors and nurses and hospitals. We could provide first-class care to 100% of the people for the same dollars we are spending today if we switched to a single-payer system. But the insurance industry pays massive campaign dollars to our favorite politicians to keep the system broken. Add it to your list.

Pharmaceuticals: One of the most profitable businesses in the world is hitting up congress for even more tax incentives and subsidies to justify more “medical research,” even though their 23% profit levels are calculated after deducting for R&D and high executive salaries! And then they convinced congress to give them a $780 billion Medicare Part D Drug giveaway and blocked Medicare from negotiating for lower prices. How would you like that protection in your business? Only when you give $100 million per year in campaign contributions and have members of congress as shareholders can you get away with this kind of taxpayer rip-off.

Mortgage crisis: Isn’t deregulation great? How are you liking the free market and all of that? If you thought Congress learned something after losing $1.6 billion of taxpayer money on the Savings and Loan fiasco, you haven’t seen anything yet. A lot of taxpayer money made a lot of fat cats even fatter, all thanks to a lot of campaign cash. These guys know which hands to grease. 

Income gap: As the income gap increases between the rich and poor, and the wealthy own an even bigger piece of the national pie, is it any wonder that the massive imbalance of wealth has left cities and states without funds for education, health care and other needed services? How can we invest in the infrastructure and continue transferring our national assets to the wealthy?  When CEOs demand 25% yearly increases in salary, they cut other costs, either by sending jobs overseas or reducing local worker wages. And they get their bonuses even when the company does poorly. How’s that for taking responsibility?

And our politicians sit back and watch this all happen. It’s the free market, don’cha know?

Okay, so the conservatives are right on this one. People who are energetic and ambitious will get further in life than people who are lazy and complacent. We should have only the former and none of the latter. It’s that personal responsibility thingy they keep talking about.

But look at what the free market and rise to the top has gotten us. The rich are getting very rich and the poor are getting very poor. The middle is getting smaller. You either have it or you don’t. I’ve got mine, you get yours. It’s called YOYO.

What is terribly puzzling is that the rich folks have not looked at the logical conclusion of this terribly imbalanced system. But then again, maybe they have and that’s why they are buying property in other countries. They don’t want to be here when the U.S. falls apart because of it.

Conservatives began the takeover of Congress in 1994 and it’s been downhill ever since. They like to blame the liberals but it is they who’ve had the reins. Still do, with the filibuster in the senate.

How are you liking it so far?   (read the numbers and weep!)

Related posts:

How are you liking it so far? (Part I)

Sensenbrenner Watch: It’s called “pain,” Jim.

Sensenbrenner’s rant falls on deaf ears

How are you liking it so far? (Part I)

           

By Jack E. Lohman

Ok, let’s cut to the chase:

Gas prices:  It all started with the 1994 conservative takeover of congress and it got worse under the Bush administration. Deregulation of industry in general, not just energy.

The fix? All monopolistic acquisitions (oil, food, airlines) must be prohibited and the Feds must break up ExxonMobil, just as they did Standard Oil in 1911. And we must ask Iraq, politely of course, to start paying us back in oil, and we must revisit nuclear power and look at converting coal to gas.

Then Congress must authorize a new oil exploration effort to drill in the deep Gulf, and create a federally-owned entity like the U.S. Postal Service to compete with the OPEC conspiracy (where ExxonMobil is part of the problem, not part of the solution). 

Can we make this happen? It won’t be easy with Big Oil owning a piece of every congressman through their campaign contributions, and another piece of those who own oil stock (like Jim Sensenbrenner’s $1M of stock in ExxonMobil).

Talk about anti-trust; our own congressman tops the list!

Food prices: Indeed the increased farming and transportation costs due to the oil crisis are partly to blame, but the bigger problem is the congressional hands-off policy that has allowed big corporate farmers to buy up the small farm competition. Congress even gives them massive taxpayer subsidies in the process!

And now biofuels consume more energy than they save, consuming both the corn and grain we eat.

The fix?  Ban biofuels!  They are inefficient and driving food prices out of sight. Prohibit farm monopolies. Donate farm equipment to needy nations, not money or food.

Why won’t congress fix it? Follow the money and you’ll find your favorite congressman on the other end with his hand out. They receive both oil money and food money to NOT fix the system! Millions in campaign dollars from Archer Daniels Midland keeps the ethanol pot boiling. That’s our free-market Congress.

Jobs:  Unemployment is now above 5% nationally, 250,000 jobs lost this year alone. And many of those people with jobs are high tech workers flipping hamburgers because their real job was outsourced. Mothers can no longer stay home with their children because they must work to help support the family.

So get this: corporations (including Microsoft) are now lobbying congress to increase the H1B visa quota. They say they can’t find qualified workers in America, so they must import them!  At a lower wage, of course, which helps maintain high CEO salaries.

What’s the common denominator?

Our corrupt electoral system. Politicians on the take!

There’s a handful of trusted politicians, and the voters know who they are. But the rest must be fired. Bribery and payola is driving every issue, and campaign contributions are killing our nation! It doesn’t matter what your party, fixing it will take a complete turnover of politicians, both at the state and federal level. We cannot afford to keep our current government.             

Free speech and the politicians it owns!

         

By Jack E. Lohman

Rep. Don Pridemore (R-Hartford) is researching a bill that would require independent groups to disclose their financial backers, but activist organizations are objecting because they want their funding sources kept secret. And their funders want anonymity so they can fund a cause without taking the responsibility they often preach.

If a group is receiving funds from the insurance industry and is paying for ads to support politicians to block meaningful health care reform — opposite the public’s wishes and best interests — does the public have a right to know that such opposition is funded by special interests rather than ordinary people? If a personal contribution is made to this group, should that also not be disclosed?

It’s an interesting debate, especially in these days of “values” and “taking responsibility” for one’s actions. Here we could have a wealthy tycoon avoiding disclosure by giving cash to a group to fund support for a particular candidate.

A middle ground, of course, could require disclosure of corporate backers yet protect individual funders, but then local interests would cleanse their contributions through out-of-state 527s. It’s messy.

A better approach is to provide optional public funding of campaigns, where the candidate(s) choosing a public grant for campaigning receives matching funds when these groups advertise against him. That removes the incentive for groups spending on trash ads in the first place, and it actually increases the “political speech” and debate activists say they want to protect.

But, Oh. That would level the playing field, and they don’t like level playing fields. Outspending their opposition is key to their strategy, which automatically means a disparity in our electoral system.

As well, they don’t want their money going to candidates they don’t agree with.

Surprise! That is already happening through the back door, as the massive taxes that result from our corrupt political system get passed to all citizens, right and left alike. Thus all taxpayers are already paying for all campaigns, but we pay hundreds of times more than if we simply paid for the elections up front. And those who are now giving, actually pay twice.

According to Wisconsin Democracy Campaign’s studies, it is costing us $1300 per taxpayer per year in excessive government spending, all to appease campaign contributors. The deficit hawks should be fuming over this, but they aren’t.

Under the clean elections system, at $5 per taxpayer per year, we’d all be funding a clean political “system.” My money funds all parties and so does yours, because the system is funded by the taxpayers rather than the special interests that want expensive government giveaways (read that, taxpayer assets).

Is this constitutional? Of course it is, and politicians that claim otherwise are either totally misinformed or terribly disingenuous. Candidates can opt out if they prefer private money, but then they have to justify to the voters why they chose private funding. That’s the part they don’t like. (That “responsibility” thingy again.)

Opponents derisively call it “welfare for politicians,” but nothing could be better welfare for politicians than our current system of graft where 95% of incumbents get re-elected.

Money buys votes, and more money buys more votes, thus the rich can buy votes and the poor can’t. And incumbents are better positioned to gather money from the special interests because they have something to exchange: the ability to write laws in their favor.

And “incumbent protection” it is not, or the incumbents would have passed public funding years ago.

Clean elections make sense for the public, but that’s usually enough to draw strong opposition. You’d hope our politicians were better than that.

It’s puzzling that fiscal hawks can argue to protect the corrupt political system that is driving taxes out of sight and our state’s and nation’s economy into the ground.

Roads to nowhere? Bridges to nowhere? How about $200 million to widen I94 between Milwaukee and Illinois that will do little or nothing to relieve congestion? Follow the money and you’ll find a politician on the other end with his hand out. And perhaps even a friendly road builder.

And is all of this money going to Bill Clinton for his speeches, or really a back-door payment to Hillary to sponsor or vote for certain bills? Not that I don’t trust them, you know.

See all WDC reports here:
http://www.wisdc.org/sp052505.php 
http://www.wisdc.org/pr081103.php  
http://www.wisdc.org/grafttax2report.php  
http://www.wisdc.org/grafttax.php

Sensenbrenner Watch: It’s called “pain,” Jim.

          

By Jack E. Lohman

My recent visit to Jim Sensenbrenner’s Town Hall meeting would have been comical were it not so sad.

Sensenbrenner gets very offended when you imply that we have a corrupt political system. Like, this is the first time he’s heard about it?

“The system is working,” Jim says in his defense. “People are in jail!”

Of course some congressmen are in jail, Jim. Just not enough of them.

And the problem isn’t the illegal bribery that puts these people in jail, it’s the legal bribery that doesn’t put the rest of them there.

That corrupt system is called “campaign contributions,” and it stinks to high heaven. It has led our nation into near if not total bankruptcy, trashed the dollar bill, and destroyed our economy through deregulation of the financial and mortgage markets. All because of a massive increase in private interest dollars buying public policy.

Payola. Bribes. Regulation and deregulation is bought-and-paid-for, and Sensenbrenner denies it.

Nearly 250,000 jobs have been lost since January, and four airlines have closed up shop in just the last week. Obviously, with a $15 million net worth, Sensenbrenner doesn’t feel the pain. But the nation does.

Get this and get this straight: Our economy is not going to return until our jobs do. And the corporate cash that gave us NAFTA also created CAFTA, which Sensenbrenner voted for even after railing against it as a jobs killer.

Sensenbrenner defends lobbyists as having the same First Amendment right to petition congress as I do. And he’s right. But they petition with cash in wheelbarrows and I don’t, and that is what is destroying America.

Congressmen are allowing campaign cash to influence laws that kill US jobs and reward the companies that outsource them, but Jim takes offense at any inference of corruption.

Jim also doesn’t like talking about another conflict of interest, perhaps because it hits closer to home:

He owns a million dollars worth of pharmaceutical stocks, and voted for the $780 billion Medicare Drug Giveaway program to the pharmaceutical industry. It transfers dollars to the Pharma and insurance industry, and also mandates that Medicare not negotiate for lower drug prices. He says he voted that way ”for the seniors.” If he really cared about seniors, he should have demanded that Medicare negotiate drug prices as the VA does, as they’ve cut costs to vets in half because of it.

He owns massive oil industry stocks, including a major investment in ExxonMobil, and they must love it too. He recently voted against restricting the tax breaks and taxpayer subsidies for Exxon, which has $38 billion annual profits.

He owns $5-7 million of defense industry stocks and has been instrumental in privatizing our army in Iraq and elsewhere. Halliburton and BlackWater must love him too. We are paying them 5 to 10 times more as private contractors than we do our own troops. That’s a deal most of us would love.

Yeah, there’s a lot of love to go around, and it’s nice when you’re a multimillionaire that benefited from the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. But that’s not the pain most of us felt. Our GOP congress turned a $300 billion surplus into a $600 billion deficit and started the House of Cards falling.

I wonder how they are liking in now?

Well, Jim didn’t like something, because he voted against the recent tax cuts for the poor and middle class, which he says was because it also covered those who were unemployed and paying no taxes at all.

Well, Duh! There are a lot of people that are not paying taxes today because the “fair trade” agreements he’s voted for have outsourced their jobs, and there are none available in the states so they’re unemployed as a result! And the deregulation he’s supported has trashed our economy, and nobody is hiring! So, what now?

Does he not feel any responsibility?

Sensenbrenner says he has no qualms voting on regulations that improve his private investments, and in fact, opposed legislation that would have forced all congressmen to put their investments in a blind trust. Current policy is worse than insider trading.

Sensenbrenner uses his town hall meetings as a campaign forum, and gets free taxpayer funding to support them. Perhaps if his opponent (Jim Burkee) were offered the same, this wouldn’t be such an issue.

The high cost of “for-profit” medicine

             

By Jack E. Lohman

Everybody has an opinion about the trend toward “for-profit” healthcare. Some say the free-market delivery of medicine will reduce costs, while others claim that the profit motive diminishes quality and increases costs. The evidence supports the latter.

Dr. John Geyman, in his heavily sourced book, The Corrosion of Medicine, points out that the for-profit hospital chain “Tenet has hospitals in California that mark up their operating room charges by 800 percent and charge more than 12 times as much for chest x-rays (two views) than public hospitals.”

So much for private being less expensive than public.

Geyman points to the quality pitfalls of investor-owned health care versus not-for-profit care:

For-profit hospital costs run 3 to 13 percent higher, with higher overhead, fewer nurses, and death rates 6 to 7 percent higher. (18-23)

For-profit HMOs have higher overhead (25 to 33 percent for some of the largest HMOs); worse scores on 14 of 14 quality indicators reported to National Committee for Quality Assurance. (24-26)

For-profit Dialysis Centers have death rates 30 percent higher, with 26 percent less use of transplants. (27-28 )

For-profit Nursing Homes have lower staffing levels and worse quality of care (30 percent committed violations that caused death or life-threatening harm to patients). (29)

In for-profit Mental Health Centers, Medicare expelled 80 programs after investigations found that 91 percent of their claims were fraudulent(30); for-profit behavioral health companies impose restrictive barriers and limits to care (e.g., premature discharge from hospitals without adequate outpatient care). (31)

So much for private being higher in quality than public. 

These stories persist across the country, and for logical reason. CEOs of for-profit hospitals, HMOs, PPOs, nursing homes and dialysis centers are, by law, required to do everything in their power to maximize profits for investors. Even without a law executives will maximize their own salaries, bonuses and stock value.

That means cutting costs, which translates to denying patient care wherever possible, either by denying costly procedures like cancer treatments and transplants, or needed tests like MRIs and nuclear scanning, or by cutting their nurse-to-patient ratios (which is driving nurses out of the industry).

Physicians can advocate on behalf of the patient, but now that they are becoming employees of the for-profit hospitals, even they are walking on thin ice.

The argument goes that politicians should not control health care because they can’t do anything right. And that’s usually true because they are bought off by special interests that want them to do everything wrong. The current healthcare system is evidence of that.

But put them and their families under the same health care system everybody else has, as Healthy Wisconsin does, and they’ll do it right. At least they can be trusted more than the private executives that are paid on the basis of how much care they can deny.

Put congressmen under Medicare and even that system will be cleaned up overnight!

Better yet, put every U.S. citizen under Medicare and let’s totally eliminate the 31% of waste caused by the insurance bureaucracy! Eliminate all of the other bureaucracies like Medicaid and BadgerCare, and let’s get this system fixed once and for all so we can move on to other major national challenges!

A Medicare-for-all system, covering even government employees, will not only reduce health care costs for us all, it’ll reduce the extra taxes we pay for public employee healthcare. How can that be argued against?

Yes, there are things that must be fixed in Medicare, like fraud and overuse. But those are far worse under the private system that does not punish offenders with jail time.

But — and you must be as tired of hearing this as I am of saying it — the politicians are being paid off by the healthcare industry to NOT fix the problems.

I’ll put my money on the special interests winning this before we do.

         

Sources from Dr. Geyman’s book:

18. Chen J, et al. Do “America’s Best Hospitals” perform better for acute myocardial infarction? N Engl J Med 340:286, 1999

19. Hartz A. J., et al. Hospital characteristics and mortality rates. N Engl J Med 321: 1720, 1989.

20. Kover C. & Gergen P.J. Nurse staffing levels and adverse events following surgery in U.S. hospitals. Image J Nurs Scholarship 30:315, 1998.

21. Silverman E.M., et al. The association between for-profit hospital ownership and increased Medicare spending. N Engl J Med 341:420, 1999.

22. Woolhandler S. & Himmelstein D. U. Costs of care and administration at for-profit and other hospitals in the United States. N Engl J Med 36:769, 1997.

23. Yuan Z. The association between hospital type and mortality and length of stay: A study of 16.9 million hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries, Med Care 38:231, 2000.

24. Himmelstein D. U., et al. Quality of care in investor-owned vs not-for-profit HMOs. JAMA 282:159, 1999.

25. HMO honor roll. U.S. News and World report October 23, 1997, p62.

26. Kuttner R. The American health care system: Wall Street and health care. N Engl J Med 340:664, 1999.

27. Devereaux P.J., et al. Comparison of mortality between private for-profit and private not-for-profit hemodialysis centers: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA 288:2449, 2002.

28. Garg R.P., et al. Effect of the ownership of dialysis facilities on patients’ survival and referral for transplantation. N Engl J Med 341:1653, 1999.

29. Harrington C., et al. Does investor-ownership of nursing homes compromise the quality of care? Am J Public Health 91(9):1, 2001.

30. Wrich J Brief Summary of Audit Findings of Managed Behavioral Health Services. Chicago: J. Wrich & Associates, 1998.

31. Munoz R. How health care insurers avoid treating mental illness. San Diego Union Tribune, May 22, 2002.

This is an absolutely excellent book, and the above reflects perhaps .01% of its useful data. If you are serious about what’s wrong with healthcare, you’ll find the answers here.      

Why $3.29 Gas? Because they can!

           

by Jack E. Lohman

Follow the money, if you can.

It would make sense that if we are going to stay in Iraq, Iraq should offset our costs by paying us in oil. Not overpaying us, just fairly paying us. Our presence wouldn’t have to cost us a penny and, since our Iraq efforts helped trash our economy, they can help us out of our mess.

Of course ExxonMobil wouldn’t like that because the Iraqi oil would be competing with their oil, and their prices couldn’t remain at $3.29 a gallon.

And guys like U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner wouldn’t like it because he owns roughly $1 million in ExxonMobil stock and gets campaign contributions from oil industry executives. He even voted against the recent bill to eliminate tax breaks and subsidies for the oil industry, and he refused to support a non-conflict-of-interest bill by U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders. Good goin’ Jim. Your loyalties are showing through.

And other politicians that own oil stocks and receive oil industry contributions won’t like it either. And most certainly the congressmen that plan to retire and become industry lobbyists won’t like it. Nor will George Bush.

That leaves just you and me and 300 million other Americans that would like it.

But we don’t count for all the obvious reasons. Otherwise they’d not only make Iraq pay us in oil, they’d implement a competitive system like we have between the post office and the UPS/FedEx crowd. Delivering packages today would likely be double the cost were it not for the U.S. Mail providing competitive services.

We need a U.S. Oil Service too. We should commission the Army Corp of Engineers to drill for oil in the deep gulf, or wherever. Or even subcontract it to a private entity as we have with Medicare.

But this oil exploration must be taxpayer funded and publicly controlled. Actually we are already paying for this in tax breaks and subsidies and price gouging, so let’s formalize the deal and benefit from it.

Let’s replace the so-called free market oil industry that isn’t a free market at all. It’s controlled by the OPEC conspiracy and has a willing co-conspirator in ExxonMobil, who is making $38 Billion a year in profits and feeding a portion back to the politicians that make it all happen.

The Republicans should know all of this and should be mad as hell, because “free market” is supposedly their thing.

But they aren’t, because they and most Democrats are in on the deal. They not only take money from companies that pay them cash dollars to write or block laws, they make investment profits on these same companies that they should regulate but instead de-regulate.

In the business world we call this corruption. In politics we call it normal. In November we must call it over.

                   

What’s that old saying? Be careful of what you ask for?

Well, U.S. automakers got what they wanted, no tightened C.A.F.E. standards. Which left the Japanese to overtake American automakers in gas efficiency, and now the Big Three honchos are wishing for a do-over. Duh!

And I sure hope I’m wrong, but this recession may be our Great Awakening. We had a war to help us out of the 1929 crash, and we can surely muster another one of those. But this time we have globalization and any new jobs we create will go to other countries. Except perhaps for defence jobs, and even there we can’t be sure.

Isn’t the free market great? How are you liking it so far?

Why zero corporate taxes make sense….

        

By Jack E. Lohman         

This may not be mainstream thinking, but it seems silly to me to tax corporations only to have them pass those taxes back to us in higher product prices. And worse, after they’ve added their exorbitant costs for tax avoidance lawyers and accountants, which also get passed on to consumers. Or worse yet, they move out of the state and take their jobs with them.

As bad as the nation’s economy is, our patriotic CEOs keep outsourcing our jobs. Good guys these.

Anyway, let’s make corporate taxes zero, at least for “good” corporations that are loyal to Wisconsin. And then let’s brag like hell about it to attract other corporations and jobs to the state, and keep those that are here.

Base the zero-tax rate on whether corporate CEOs and executives remain in the state and pay taxes, and don’t outsource jobs to other states or countries. But in the process let’s ensure that they can’t pay their CEOs through “management” companies in another state to avoid personal taxes here.

Corporations currently pay only 3% of our state revenues, the third lowest collection in the country. Let’s be the lowest. Increase my taxes by 3% and make theirs zero. I’ll get it back in lower product prices, and we’ll have more tax-paying jobs in our state, which may even offset the need to increase mine.

Two of the things that drive companies out of the state are taxes and higher-than-normal health care costs. A third is labor costs, but that’s an issue for another day.

But our business leaders seem to support the very pay-to-play political system that perpetuates these problems. Wisconsin Manufacturers Commerce loves it, even though it drives up taxes and protects the insurance bureaucracy that drives up health care. But WMC also sells insurance and has insurance members, a potential conflict that could be detrimental to its other members.

Would companies like Miller Brewery be considering leaving the state if we had zero corporate taxes and a Healthy Wisconsin to reign in health care costs? I doubt it. Will politicians fix either system? Not without pressure. They like the current cash flow to their campaign coffers.

Yes, we should blame the health care industry, but more so, we must blame the politicians that are taking cash dollars to write or block laws that benefit their campaign contributors. Blame the Democrats for not pushing zero taxation for corporations, and the Republicans for blocking health care reform. Blame them both for passing laws that send taxpayer assets to favored corporations, which in the process drives up all taxes for corporations and taxpayers.

But also blame the corporate CEOs and WMC for perpetuating this corrupt political system. There is a high price to pay for political corruption, and we need only look at what it’s done for Mexico.

We’re heading there too. Get used to it.

Few corporate leaders would tolerate an employee taking cash from a vendor on the side, and trading corporate assets in return. They’d fire him, maybe even have him jailed.

Yet they don’t think twice when sending cash to politicians that do exactly the same thing. They give away taxpayer assets to fill their campaign coffers, and that seems okay.

Are we having fun yet? At what point in time are we going to stop politicians from giving away our state and country? Can anybody look at the current economy and claim that campaign contributions have no role in the tumble?

Would, you know, “regulation” have prevented the current money crisis? Or is the same “free market” that got us into it, going to get us out of it?

And while regulation won’t work with OPEC, the U.S. does have options if the politicians would get out of Exxon’s pocket.

As a disclosure, I’m retired, employed by no one, and I like it that way.  I’ve paid more than my share of taxes, and I would hope for decreases in my retirement years. Mainly I don’t like the political corruption that will ultimately destroy America, and I don’t like CEOs and politicians in my pocket.

Healthy Wisconsin; fixed and ready to go!

            

By Jack E. Lohman

Healthy Wisconsin is on everybody’s lips, primarily because healthcare is into everybody’s wallet. It’s getting worse, but doesn’t have to be that way.

HW changes the way medicine is paid for; not the way it is provided. Its only problem now is political.

Healthy Wisconsin strengths:

• * Its biggest change is in the structure. Rather than employers paying a middleman insurance company, they instead pay a flat 10.5% percentage of wages (which replaces the 15% many are now paying for employee health insurance). That’s a 4.5% savings, about $2 billion saved for employers.
• * Employees would pay 4% of wages, which would be offset by a 16% increase in benefits, such as adding limited vision, dental for children, mental parity, pharmaceuticals, and the extension to family coverage for all. Complete portability is provided when changing or losing jobs, and pre-existing diseases are a thing of the past.
• * Employers would no longer be involved in heath care, and Wisconsinites are no longer obligated to take an employer plan or even a family plan. Every family member can make their own choice between either a health care network (HCN) or the traditional fee-for-service (FFS). Every family is covered, though none are locked into a family plan.
• * Doctors and hospitals remain private and send their bills to a central payment administrator rather than to the 450 statewide insurance companies (or 1500, if we allow cross-border insurers). This drastically reduces their billing overhead and these savings are included in the total $1.8 billion projected.
• * The systemic changes eliminate the costs that add nothing to healthcare, like insurance broker commissions, actuarial costs, costs for cherry-picking and gatekeeping, high executive salaries and the ever-rising shareholder profits. Even the insurer’s high costs for lobbying and campaign contributions to politicians that were passed on to the patient are eliminated under Healthy Wisconsin. These are all gone, though it also explains the massive opposition from the insurance industry and their politician supporters.
• * HW provides major savings to most businesses and therefore fewer will outsource jobs to countries that have no employer contribution for healthcare. More businesses will open, remain open, and relocate to Wisconsin as a result. The Wal-marts and McDonalds of the world will now start paying their fair share, but few taxpayers will object to that.
• * While some small business owners objected to the earlier version of HW, the new version provides a three-year phase-in period, which should be quite palatable. As well, a cap of $102,000 in wages taxed has been placed on two-earner families.

In spite of the frivolous scare tactics used by the proponents of a status quo approach to health care, Wisconsin would not become a magnet for the unemployed or immigrants. Most already have free Medicaid coverage in their own state, thus relocating families is a foolish option.

No matter how important the HW proposal is to the people and businesses in Wisconsin, there remains an insurance industry that wants to continue drawing profits from the medical field, and politicians who receive their contributions. Hopefully they will all realize that as HW improves the state’s economy, other insurance markets will emerge and the state will grow accordingly.

Prior to retiring four years ago I owned a company with 70 employees in four states (40 in Wisconsin). Had Healthy Wisconsin been in effect at that time, I would have indeed closed my offices in three states and moved the jobs to Wisconsin.

Importantly, a year after selling my company the buyer did move offices. They closed Wisconsin and moved the jobs to the east coast. Had HW been in effect at that time, I seriously doubt that would have happened. Instead I think they would have moved their other offices here instead.

How many more jobs are we losing because of our high health care costs?

My guess is, a lot.

Only a complete turnover of politicians will do.

                  

By Jack E. Lohman

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently reported that health care costs will reach 20% of GDP by the year 2017, driven by increased prices and greater demand for care.

It doesn’t have to be that way, but that’s the way health care and insurance interests want it, so that’s the way it’ll be. And they’ve got the cash to make it all happen, at least under our current moneyed political system.

Free marketers argue that they’ll control medical costs, and indeed they will. They’ve driven them up — and they’ll continue pushing them up instead of down. As they say, “there’s gold in them there hills.”

Medical costs do not have to keep rising faster than the rate of inflation, and there is every reason why they should instead decrease as new technologies catch diseases in their earlier stages and new miracle drugs cut hospitalization and treatment costs. Those savings are already estimated to be 17%, and they should improve as new drugs and technologies are developed.

But our mindset is locked into believing that a disproportionate increase in cost is inevitable, and it gives politicians cover for their malfeasance. They are giving away the country’s assets for personal gain and to stay elected, and it’s got to stop. Now!

Energy and petroleum are taking a bigger share of our household pie because of (a) campaign cash and (b) politicians taking a hands-off position on the exorbitant profits reaped by the Big Oil companies. Over $36 billion per year for Exxon even after deducting for high research costs and outlandish CEO salaries.

Like the postal service has tempered delivery costs, the U.S. should introduce competition into the energy arena and not leave it to the OPEC conspiracy and willing American co-conspirators to decide our fate. FedEx does quite well against taxpayer-funded competition and so would Exxon.

Food is now demanding a bigger share of the household budget because of (a) campaign cash, again, and (b) bigger farm subsidies to the corporate farmers who drive the smaller farmers out of business and eliminate competition. And as well, the higher energy prices they pay to transport their goods to market, and the diversion of corn to ehthanol, which also results from campaign cash flowing from the petroleum industry.

We are not talking about commodities that are elastic, such as TVs that you can avoid buying when priced out of your budget. Health care, energy, and food are all “inelastic.” You pay the price or starve, and that means cutting back on other family needs. Cutting discretionary spending.

These interests are all after a bigger share of your pocketbook, and they are winning because they’ve got political help.

Surprisingly, the right-wingers see this as “competition” rather than gouging, and they seem not to know how to follow the dominoes as they fall. It may well have taken a George Bush to make the rest of the country understand our deadly direction, and pushed a right-leaning electorate back to the center. We’re lucky in that vein.

Politicians of all stripes should be absolutely ashamed of the corruption and greed in their profession, and frankly, the voters should force a complete turnover in 2008. Republicans should vote for Republican challengers in the primary, to get the incumbent Republicans out, and the Dems should do likewise. Or vote for independents, but vote for change.

Importantly, we cannot have an efficient government if the political campaigns are funded by interests that want exactly the opposite, and taxpayer-funded elections can reverse the nose dive at a hundredth of the cost of the current system. Corruption comes at a price.

Voters must demand a clean government or continue watching their assets being transferred to someone else.

Unfortunately, it appears that we’ll need a complete turnover of politicians every year until we have an optional system for public funding of elections. If they know their job lasts just two years without it, maybe then we’ll see action. Voters must not waver on this.

As U.S. healthcare costs hover around 16% of GDP today, Canada’s are under 10% even while they cover 100% of their population. But they do have wait times, and those could be eliminated with a 10% increase in spending (to 11% of GDP). They’ve accomplished their savings not with cutting care but by eliminating the 31% of waste the U.S. spends on its insurance bureaucracy.

Even conservatives should be disgusted with our corrupt cash-and-carry political system, as it drives taxes up and the economy down. And politicians? You’d think they’d have difficulty laying their heads on the pillow at night, but I give them this: they are tough and immovable.

HSAs? Delaying the inevitable.

       

By Jack E. Lohman

Health savings accounts are being pushed by an insurance industry trying to stay in the healthcare profit loop, and they are willing to share their profits with the politicians that make it all happen. They clearly know what legislative buttons to push.

The fact that political cash must flow in order to achieve passage of a bill is the first red flag. Good laws don’t need political cash to pass, only bad laws do.

The insurance industry seeks to siphon off the young and invincible by dangling a so-called “savings” to lure them in, and some will buy their pitch without looking at the risks.

People think that once the deductible is satisfied, the insurance kicks in, and they’re covered. Don’t count on it.

Don’t assume that it is catastrophic coverage and the company is not able to bail out when you get really sick and need coverage the most. They are canceling contracts even today (ask Blue Cross for details). HSAs provide the same coverage, their high deductable just delays the inevitable — and the credit card companies and bankruptcy attorneys just love it.

Insurers all have a legal “out” in their contracts, and when they need it they look at pre-existing diseases not properly disclosed. Same as before. Did you think they forgot about that?

Don’t assume that when you exceed the deductible that they are not going to have the same gatekeepers and deny care and interfere with doctor decisions like they do today. That’s their job. It’s called utilization review. When your money runs out and they have to start paying, the scrutiny begins.

And when they siphon off the well and leave the sick for other policies, not only will this drive up the costs of all other insurers, it removes the healthy patients from any large pool that will make health care affordable for all. But they like that and make money from both market segments.

Yes, those with a HSA will now start looking at costs and avoid doctors whenever possible. They’ll avoid both wasteful and needed care, thus delaying treatment of real diseases until they are more costly to treat or become untreatable.

That may help us ultimately, because those who die prematurely no longer expend costs. What a deal!

Delaying care will be costly both to you and your employer, as they end up with a sicker workforce. And their current savings will be lost if they start losing workers to better benefits down the street — unless they increase wages or benefits, which negates the purpose of HSAs in the first place.

Worse for HSA subscribers will be when they start needing care and want to switch or change jobs, only to find that their pre-existing diseases are not now covered by the new policy. Thus HSA users are painting themselves into a dark corner.

One way to test whether HSAs are a good idea is to mandate them for all members of the state legislature. If they are good enough for the public they must be good enough for the politicians.

Another way is to eliminate the cash that flows between the insurance industry and the politicians and see if it still passes muster. Not just delay the campaign money, as Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) is doing while she shills for the industry, forswear it also in the years to come. Then see if the politicians will pass it!

But political money is driving this issue, not logic.

Importantly, whether HSAs or not, we must mandate that all private insurers provide at least the same level of care as does Medicare. No pre-existing disease exclusions. No limits on coverage. No gatekeeping. No interference with doctors. No denials of care. No cancelling when costs start increasing. In other words, no playing games, no under-insuring and no cheating. Patients get care when they need care. Always!

I think that will put the kibosh on it all.

We also need evidence-based health care, but we won’t get there until we have a solid, national database where 100% of our population’s diseases and treatments and results (without patient ID) are stored and compared and then given to the physician before he treats the patient. This will someday lead to transparency and competition on the basis of physician quality rather than price, and it will allow us to follow drug reactions and dangerous trends.

We need ONE national database, not the hundreds that are in production. But that means “government control” which flies in the face of the right-wing philosophy of “everybody for themselves” and the left wing’s privacy hang-ups.

Resources:

“HSAs coupled with high-deductible health plans increase cost-consciousness among enrollees, but have little effect on overall health care costs.” - The Bell Policy Center

“Market-Based Failure — A Second Opinion on U.S. Health Care Costs” - New England Journal of Medicine

“Consumer-Directed Health Plans — Driven by health care consumers, or are they just along for the ride?” WhatIf.com

“Will Consumer-Driven Medicine Really Cut Health Care Costs?” The Healthbeat Blog

“Top 10 problems with health savings accounts” California Nurses Association

 ”Health Net ordered to pay $9 million after canceling cancer patient’s policy” LA Times

Optional Medicare for businesses?

          

By Jack E. Lohman           

Liberals want Medicare-for-all and conservatives say it’s too costly.

Some like the free-market “for-profit” system, others don’t want profit driving medicine. Some don’t want the government involved, others trust elected politicians more than unelected CEOs.

So, let’s have both. How can anyone argue against that?

For those willing to pay the extra costs of the insurance bureaucracy, let them. That 31% of the dollars includes broker sales commissions, marketing and advertising costs, high executive salaries, bonuses and stock options, ever increasing shareholder profits, and even lobbying and campaign contributions that are added to the price of the policy.

If the conservatives want to pay it, let them. That’s the free market they espouse, and it keeps some people in jobs.

But for those who want health “care” instead of health “insurance,” let them opt into the federal Medicare system and reimburse Medicare for its actual costs. Employers can give employees the choice, and if one is more costly they pay the difference.

For those unfamiliar with Medicare, it’s simple. You get sick, you get care and the caregiver gets paid. But the providers get paid by the Medicare administrator – which is Madison’s non-profit WPS – instead of the insurance company the employer has chosen. This year, anyway.

The hospital or doctor doesn’t have to fight to get paid – the payment is guaranteed and there is little or no bad debt. And they remain as private contractors to Medicare, just as is WPS. It’s the same private hospital and doctor you see today, just a different payer and it’s portable if you change jobs.

Here’s what’s interesting. If Medicare truly is too costly, as its opponents claim, there’ll be no takers. But if Medicare is cheaper, the private insurers will have no takers! How’s that for competition and consumer choice?

Here’s the rub. Medicare IS more efficient and private insurers will not want to compete with them. They can’t compete now, as private Medicare HMO contractors, and it won’t be any easier under this system.

However, one thing must be changed. Whether HSAs or not, private insurers must provide the same level of care as Medicare does. No pre-existing disease exclusions. No limits on coverage. No gatekeeping. No denials of care. No cancelling when costs start increasing. In other words, no playing games, no under-insuring and no cheating. Patients get care when they need care. Always!

This doesn’t get us to a perfect system, just a more efficient and competitive one. There remain problems with both the fee-for-service Medicare system and the “flat rate” HMO/PPO models typically in the market. With FFS the physicians receive more income as the amount of care and ordering of tests increases. Sometimes too much care can be as bad as not enough care.

Conversely, with the fixed-rate HMO/PPO models, as more tests are ordered those costs come out of the bottom line profits. So depending on the financial relationship between the physician and HMO/PPO, needed tests could go undone so the profits increase.

All of this can be fixed if politicians have the will. Doctors and clinics should not be allowed to profit from expensive testing. Hospitals should not be able to employ physicians. The certificate of need should be reinstated and hospital overbuilding should be restrained.

Why are we hesitant to proceed? In short, we could fix the system if we removed the insurance industry and hospital campaign contributions being paid to politicians to protect the status quo. Unfortunately, private interests can give campaign contributions and Medicare can’t, so the politicians will be a hard sell.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just close up BadgerCare and Medicaid and pay WPS to handle those patients as well? Look at all of the administrative costs we’d save.

Let me expand this: “Some don’t want the government involved, others trust elected politicians more than unelected CEOs, even though the latter own the former.” For those who want corporate control rather than political control, you’ve got it through our moneyed political system.

Sensenbrenner’s rant falls on deaf ears

                   

By Jack E. Lohman              

Interesting that Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner is ranting on the issue of pork barrel projects, for a number of reasons.

First because he, too, has been guilty of pushing through pork projects for Wisconsin interests, and he even votes for everybody else’s pork. And secondly, because he adamently opposes the one change in political ethics that would curtail the practice of government giveaways … campaign finance reform.

Sensenbrenner is my congressman, and was once my favorite. But he has helped perpetuate the cash-and-carry political system that has driven up taxes and sent jobs out of the country.

1. He ragged against CAFTA because it was a jobs killer, then he voted to pass the bill because his was a tie-breaking vote and this is what his party wanted. Too bad his people didn’t prevail.
2. He voted against the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007, but of course, he owns several million dollars of stock in the drug industry.
3. He refused to support a bill by U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders to mandate that congressmen put their holdings in a blind trust so they can’t vote on legislation that would benefit their private investments. No surprise here. The effort failed.
4. And of course, he was obviously disturbed enough at the IRS for taking a part of his Kimberly-Clark inheritance that he voted to kill the estate tax.

Not my kind of guy.

It was interesting that he’d present a chart that confirms that the 1994 takeover of Congress by the Neocons escalated the pork barrel projects to what they are today. A disgrace. The only thing missing is an overlay of the campaign contributions politicians have received from the special interests seeking government favors, and that overlay would exactly mirror the growth of government spending and the taxes that result.

Why wouldn’t Sensenbrenner support an electoral system – public funding of campaigns – that would virtually eliminate the government giveaways that amount to $3000 per taxpayer per year? He says “taxes,” and that makes him a big hero. But the cost would be just $10 per taxpayer per year, a bargain at a hundred times the price.

The real reason is power. Political money gives incumbents an overwhelming advantage over challengers. Campaign reform would level the playing field, but the last thing in the world incumbents want is a level playing field. They’re ready, willing and able to destroy our economy and democracy to stay in office, even if staying in office means giving away taxpayer assets.

Or at least that’s what they perceive. Sen. Bill Proxmire did it by spending just $500 on his last two elections, and voting for his people over the special interests. And he kept getting re-elected. Funny how that works.

Sensenbrenner is a “fair weather” fiscal hawk. He will vote against spending bills when his vote isn’t needed to pass, and then rail against it as a hero. But when the chips are down he’ll vote with his party elders, spending money like a drunken sailor.

Only one challenger has emerged, Jim Burkee, and he’s running as a Republican in the September primary. He isn’t real happy with Sensenbrenner either, and if he unseats him he’ll likely face a Democratic challenger. This is not an endorsement, yet, but he’s got to be better than what we have today. I’m waiting to hear more on his positions.

You can see more of the Sensenbrenner Saga HERE and HERE. It’s not a pretty sight, as a good look at today’s economy will attest.

And puzzling is the obvious turning of a blind eye to these government giveaways by conservatives, who rant against high taxes but ignore the corrupt political system that causes them. What is is about money do they not understand?

A stimulus by any other name

          

By Jack E. Lohman

Isn’t it strange that today we need a tax break for the middle class — a “stimulus” plan — to reverse the downward spiral caused by George Bush’s “other” so-called stimuluses in 2001-03?

Earlier we needed a tax break for the wealthy… today it’s a tax break for the middle class to reverse the negative results. Both ostensibly to do the same thing. One will work, a little, when the other didn’t at all.

Economy.com reported that, for every dollar spent extending unemployment benefits, our economy would grow by $1.73 — and that same dollar tax cut for low-income earners would increase the GDP by $1.34. When giving money to high-income folks, however, a dollar increases the GDP by only 59 cents, and by phasing out the taxes on stock dividends, it rises just 9 cents.

Doesn’t that tell us anything about where tax breaks really provide a stimulus, and should have been applied in the first place?

But even this will not have the total effect desired, because while low and middle income earners will have more cash to buy product for their family, much of that product will stimulate foreign manufacturing instead.

It used to be that tax breaks for the wealthy translated to investment in U.S. manufacturing. Today that money goes offshore, if not to foreign tax havens then to foreign manufacturing and other foreign investments. Who today would want to invest in the U.S. dollar?

What America really needs is our jobs back. We need the one-sided trade agreements modified to eliminate the advantages companies receive when off-shoring manufacturing and services.

At the very least we need a single-payer health care system that removes the heavy burden from manufacturers, just as competitor countries have done. And we should also add tariffs to imported products. Yes, those tariffs add to product price, but they would make U.S. manufacturing more competitive and our economy stronger.

But let’s look at why we are here in the first place. Our doldrums are all — 100% — due to the campaign money politicians have taken from special interests who wanted laws changed to benefit their industry. In any other country we’d call it political corruption; in the U.S. we call it free speech.

The trouble is, it’s always to the detriment of the public and our economy. It’s got to go.

The free trade agreements have gone too far and must be scaled back. The free marketers want the government out of it, except when that government is dishing them subsidies or controlling their competitors.

The very thing Mitt Romney criticizes John McCain for – campaign reform – is the very thing this country and this state needs to decrease spending and taxes. Even conservatives should love that. We complain about subsidies and pork barrel spending, but ignore that those recipients have paid dearly for them… in campaign contributions.

Better regulation would have avoided the sub-prime mortgage disaster, the savings and loan fiasco, and even the Enron collapse. But cash transfers to politicians blocked needed regulation.

The state legislature has a chance to solve the problem at the state level, but will they? They can reduce taxes with the swipe of a pen, but are campaign contributions going to prevail?

Here’s an interim solution to the health care crisis: Open the Medicare system to the people and let them decide. Allow any employer or employee to opt into Medicare at actual cost!

If Medicare is too expensive, as conservatives charge, they’ll get no takers. If it is indeed more efficient, it will prevail.

As a current Medicare beneficiary, I’ll put my money on WPS, Wisconsin’s Medicare administrator.

Big Pharma, the other elephant in the room

                 

By Jack E. Lohman

Make no mistake about it, American healthcare already employs the “free market system” conservatives have been calling for, and it’s eating us alive.

It is fraught with profit-taking, with the two most egregious rip-offs being the middleman insurance bureaucracy and the highly profitable pharmaceutical industry.

The insurance industry is totally dispensable and must be eliminated from the system, as it drains 31% of health care resources without ever providing direct patient care.

The second, pharmaceuticals, enjoys more legitimacy because some drugs are indeed effective and have themselves cut healthcare costs by treating diseases without the need for expensive surgeries and hospitalization. Advanced and effective drugs are estimated to save the healthcare system upwards of 17% of its costs.

But that’s no reason to give away the store, or give it all back to them. Some drugs do more damage than good.

Pharmaceuticals are one of the most profitable industries in the world, even after deducting its R&D costs, lavish CEO perks and enormous shareholder profits. The taxpayers – through public grants from the National Institutes of Health – fund about a third of all drug R&D costs, with the industry’s resulting share equaling only 7% of their total revenues.

Where does the other 93% go? Advertising, both TV and in print, sometimes educates patients but also undermines physician advice. And on costly sales reps who should restrict their time to educating physicians instead of treating them to staff lunches, physician and spouse dinners, and “educational seminars” in plush faraway places. Hawaii is nice, but patients should pay for the trip.

Drug and device manufacturers also pay physicians handsome consulting fees – sometimes in the area of $200,000 per year or more – all to add credibility and convince their colleagues what a wonderful product they represent. And to prescribe the product. even if it isn’t good as others.

But these bonuses should be viewed for what they are: payoffs for ordering the drugs or implanting expensive devices. A kickback.

Many of these “consulting” physicians also sit on the FDA panels that approve drugs for the companies they represent…. a conflict of interest we should not accept in our nation’s food and drug oversight.

Of course these companies must allocate a portion of revenues to cover costly tort expenses, especially when these conflicted physicians sitting on the FDA review board vote to approve drugs they shouldn’t have. They did that in the case of Vioxx where over half of the FDA board had received payments from the parent drug company.

If all of these pharmaceutical expenses went to new, innovative drugs it would’t be so bad. But from 1995 to 2000 only 13% of America’s drugs were “innovative” and unique to the marketplace.

Even today over 80% of all “new” drugs are remakes of the older version whose patents are about to expire. Not generics manufactured by competitors, but “me-too” drugs where the original manufacturer changes the formula just slightly and reintroduces it under a new “improved” name. It may not even be better, because the testing is against old placeboes rather than the original drug itself, and may even be worse. Not a pretty picture.

Thus over 80% of our drugs and the associated expenses are unnecessary.

Why would companies do this? Because they can. Congress has done nothing to intervene with this so-called “free market” approach to medicine. In fact, they passed the Medicare Part D drug program which will transfer over $780 billion to the drug industry over the next decade, all while prohibiting Medicare from negotiating for lowest prices. And even when the average beneficiary savings is $9 per month.

And you again ask Why?

Follow the money to our corrupt political system. Over $100 million dollars per year are spent by the pharmaceutical industry for lobbying and campaign contributions. And yes, they add these costs to the product and they are picked up by the patients in need.

As well, many congressmen – like my Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner – own millions of dollars of stock in Pfizer and Merck and others, and want to protect their investments even when not in the best interest of the country. That’s a double conflict of interest that must be eliminated.

But it’s a free market, don’cha know.

Resources:

“Bush / Big Pharma conspiracy? White House to oppose open disclosure of clinical drug trials” HERE

“The FDA still allows serious conflicts of interest in decision panel experts” HERE

“The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It” by Marcia Angell 

How about a tax cut that works?

         

By Jack E. Lohman      (Comments ON)

What does a president do when one tax cut sends the economy into a tailspin?

Of course! 

Propose another tax cut!

This time … hopefully … it will favor middle class workers who must save their mortgages and buy goods for their families, both of which will help the economy. But to pay for that cut, Congress must rescind Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, and that’s a big bite to chew.

They could also cut spending.

Reducing government income through tax breaks — without also reducing spending — increases the deficit and national debt, both of which got us to where we are today. Contrary to Dick Cheney’s idiotic claim, debt does matter, especially when it is owed to foreigners.

More of the same is not a prescription for repair.

But spending cuts should not come from Medicare and Social Security, two of our nation’s mainstay programs that have made our country great. Yes, they need attention, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yet.

Instead, we must cut the wasteful spending that goes to local pork-barrel projects, corporate subsidies, roads and bridges to nowhere, no-bid government contracts and other taxpayer giveaways to the industries that fund the political elections. The problem is that the seniors on Medicare and Social Security are not the ones funding the elections and these guys are.

In Iraq we are paying mercenaries — like Halliburton, Blackwater and Bechtel — ten times more for work our own troops could and should perform. But that’s our “privatized” political system for you. These companies can give campaign contributions and the U.S. Army can’t. Surprise!

If those cuts don’t do it, then we can look at entitlements.

To fix these problems means getting the corrupt money out of the political system, but we’ve been there before.

Indeed our whole tax structure should be revisited. We should totally eliminate taxes on those corporations that have reasonable CEO-to-worker pay ratios and manufacture their products in the United States. Those that offshore manufacturing and services should pay higher U.S. taxes on corporate revenues (rather than on profits, which can be cleverly manipulated by smart accountants). Or simply add a tariff to imported product. And they should lose their current tax subsidies for outsourcing, which are stupid on their face. 

Corporate taxes are actually regressive, because they are added to the product price and passed on to consumers. And they represent only 8% of federal revenues anyway. As well, the high legal and accounting costs that corporations incur jumping through hoops to avoid taxes, are also added to their product price and we consumers reimburse them at the cash register. So are the lobbying and campaign contributions they use to better their position over the public’s. Go figure!

So let’s apply taxes strategically, to benefit American companies that are loyal to America.

Protectionist? You bet!

And let’s get real. Allowing CEOs to first drain their companies of $50 million and $100 million salaries and stock options, and then move their ill-gotten gains to offshore tax havens and not even reinvest in American enterprise, is absolute stupidity.

But not to worry. Along the way these fat cats transfer enough cash into the pockets of the lawmakers to make it all happen, yet another symptom of our corrupt political system.

Are you listening, Democrats?