This has been an interesting week. A Supreme Court decision, an election, the end of a television debacle, and my mail have me pondering a few things.
There are assumptions, and assumptions in assumptions, and questions. I have questions.
Let's start with the Supreme Court Citizen's United decision. The Supremes as a whole all seem to have assumed that corporations have first amendment rights. Funnily enough the moment you take that assumption, it actually makes the dissent more questionable. If corporations have first amendment rights, how do any of the possible legislative 'fixes' actually work in the long run? While I like the interference of foreign entities in elections the best, I think that assumption of rights still trumps it. It is increasingly obvious that we, as a nation, have to make clear what a person is. No judge should assume that a corporation or group has Constitutional rights. Most people have no problem recognizing that corporations are not persons - and Judges shouldn't either, but apparently because of some legal wrangling way back we have to tell them. The last week has made it clear that we need a Constitutional amendment clarifying what corporations are, and ARE NOT. Or tell me how we get around that assumption.
The election in Massachusetts reminded me of ten years ago in New York. Maybe I'm the only one, but one of the ways that Martha Coakley lost was by assuming that the election was a done deal. I'm not saying there weren't other factors, but this was a big one. I've come to the conclusion that Campaign consultants/managers should get together and package a dvd with Rick Lazio's and Martha Coakley's campaign mistakes under the title "Why you should never take the votes for granted?" One Republican candidate, one Democratic candidate and both assumed that part of their state was safe for them, and didn't bother to take the time to get to know the voters in that area and what their concerns were. Don't assume the 'base' will be there for you if you don't make it clear that you will be there for them.
NBC's idiotic mistakes came home to roost in the last couple of weeks. The shakeout starts now. But how did the home of must see tv become a punchline and an also ran? They put the wrong people in the top jobs, and then kept them there. No, I'm not talking Jay and Conan, try Jeff and Jeff and now Jeff. Almost like Americans continuing to elect people who prove they don't have your interests in mind to represent them, GE has kept men who have guided a number one network to number four and sometimes vying for five running their operations at NBC. Men, who gave up on actually providing popular shows to the viewers, but focused on stripping the most profit they could from products with limited appeal. Not recognizing that they had partners in this business until they rebelled. The partners aka affiliates, rebelled, Leno was canceled. Rather then programming for the margins, NBC programmed for the stupid, and shot those margins to hell with dropping returns and huge payouts. Surprisingly the person in whose lap this should be laid kept his job and is still pulling in millions. So strip mining broadcast television finally stopped working out. Perhaps the assumption that no one notices in a dying medium should be cast aside since that just got shut down. NBC made the same mistake that others have made (GM for instance) not looking at the market and looking for ways to expand it but only trying to wring what profits you can from one section. It is a losing business model and pisses off your partners, not to mention your customers in the long run.
My mail had some interesting letters. My current doctor is part of clinic style group associated with a local hospital. I have gotten a letter from both the Group/hospital and from United Health explaining that the hospital will no longer be associated with United Health. Not having had a chance to confirm with my doctor that she will now be outside my insurance system, or with my benefits manager to find out how much United Health got in their regular double digit premium increase - I won't know how much more is being paid for how much less service until after Monday. What I do know is that there is no way that United Health got less then I'll be getting as a raise this year, if any, and that the hospital is up front about the fact that United Health is insisting on a 15 per cent reduction from last year's rates. While I'm saddened and angry about this, it is par for the course. But this made me ponder the so-called desire to pass the Senate Health Care bill as is.
What is going to stop that from happening in the Senate bill? How does the Senate bill keep pressure on Insurance companies to keep providing service? How pissed will I be if I'm required by law to pay premiums to insurance companies and they drive out my doctors by pressuring providers NOT to hold the line on costs, but to drop their fees even as the insurers raise their rates? These are questions I actually have answers to: nothing, it doesn't, and very to beyond pissed to raging mad. What I don't have answers to is if we have to fight our own people to keep Social Security and Medicare safe, how do you expect to 'fix' the Senate bill? I'm not saying that we don't need health care reform, I just don't see much, if any, health care reform in the Senate bill. What little insurance reform I see could be done outside that bill. I get that it gets some people onto insurance but I don't see a lot of health care actually guaranteed. If the hospitals are only in the insurance system for emergency care, what is so different? If people have to pay to go to the doctor on top of insurance premiums are they going to be able to go? What really changes, especially if medicaid expands, but the money isn't provided to fund that? Without serious Insurance regulation how do you control the same abuses of the system we already see. More and more providers are refusing to accept medicaid - so as the demand expands the supply contracts. I have not seen anyone provide real answers to these problems inherent in the choices the Senate, and by extension the White House, has made writing this. But mostly I marvel that after watching the process during the last year that some people saying that "pass the Senate bill and fix it later" assume most of us are that foolish to buy that can happen. Tell me how it addresses the issues I have decided have no answers, and postulate methods and timelines of fixing the obvious problems. Don't just blow them off with later.
And finally I wonder if people will be as enchanted with the new puppies as they were originally with the Shiba Inu puppy cam. Will they tune in as often and as long as they did the last time? Would Mitch McConnell have a stroke if there really were a far left President rather then a centrist one he wishes to label far left? Do pundits ever question their assumptions? How can media outlets get their people and equiptment in and out of Haiti, while relief flights get diverted. Where does the need to inform the world and to secure help end and the need to actually help take precedence? How much security is enough, and the military flights need to scale back to give more space to supply flights? Did the celebrity telethon actually help, or could the same have been done with less 'star power'? Or might it have better a few months from now, when Haiti had faded from the public glare, but the challenges and problems would be still be there? Are they really going to vote for Bernanke's reappointment? Questions, I've got questions.