(my health care series is now on Fridays)
I do not doubt that Ezra Klein is a nice guy and some sort of an oh so "respectable liberal" blogger.  But he does seem to getting a terrible case of inside-the-beltway corporate tunnel vision when it comes to health insurance reform.

In recent months he has repeatedly been promoting Senator Wyden' plan as the sort of supposedly bipartisan proposal that could break a Senate filibuster and lead to health care reform". He has been completely dismissive of Conyers HR-676 single player plan in the House, to the extent of not bringing it up directly and by name in any discussion.

Wyden's plan has 6 Dems and 6 Repugs as co-sponsors, the supposed bipartisan basis for its being serious. That makes for 12% of the Senate backing it. Meanwhile Conyer's plan has 90 co-sponsors or 20% of the House. Surely that is worth discussing by name and in detail?

All this talk of "Offer her the VP position" (I would bet money against this happening) or "Offer her SCOTUS" (seems better odds) or "Offer her Senate Majority leader" (not Obama's to offer, and probably within reach for Clinton anyway) misses the point to me.

First of all, Clinton and her advisors know full well that her odds of securing the nomination are minuscule at best. They're soldiering bravely onward not to gain the shot at POTUS, but to gain political leverage. Nothing wrong with that; anyone would do the same.

So what is it they want?

When I arrived at JFK November of 1999, I was in some respects the classical immigrant. I was certainly tired. I was quite poor. And after a six hour flight, I was most definitely a huddled mass yearning to breathe free. And I spent a time in this country acting as many immigrants do - working hard, keeping my head down, and not making any trouble. Even when you are perfectly legal, married to a citizen, speak the language, and have a decent job, it pays not to make waves around here.

In the time since then I have done much to assimilate myself into the American culture. I have visited all 50 states. I am addicted to baseball, both as a spectator and a player. I have become something of a historian of Brooklyn, my adopted home. But I have remained disengaged from the political process, even as the government of this country has become still more corrupt and self serving than I could have imagined. It's time I made an effort. And this post is my starting point.

Read what the Republicans Wish You Wouldn’t

I'm on the run today, but want to get the latest from the DNC research department out there. Today's Daily Flipper has the following stories:  
Sen. John McCain is all mixed up on his wars
He needs to go back to health care 101
McCain Gets White House Sign Off Before Criticizing White House
McCain Wants World To Look The Other Way On Shady Connections
How Much Does McCain Love Nuclear Power - Billions of Giga-Bunches
Giuliani Having Trouble Raising Money for McCain

Read the full report in the Daily Flipper.  Flip it good.

Asthma has been on my mind lately, because a child in my extended family was recently diagnosed with it after going to the hospital for respiratory problems. The chronic disease is one of the leading causes of hospitalization in children.

In addition, at least 20 million American adults are estimated to have asthma.

Yesterday was World Asthma Day, in connection with Asthma Awareness Month.

Join me after the jump to read about five policies our society should implement, as well as five steps individuals can take, to reduce the incidence and severity of asthma in our households and across the country.

There's so much discussion about the economy and what can be done or proposed to enhance it that I felt that a diary dedicated to the economy might be something that others (besides me) were interested in!).

I'm currently a single woman age 50 and live alone.  I've been through the raising of children and having to provide for them as a single parent.  Between the 'gas tax holiday' and the 'tax incentive checks' and some of the recent media attention on our economy there are some basic, overlooked facts.

Now we all know and anticipate that prices are going to go up, it's just the way it is - I'm grounded in reality whether I want to be or not.  As a grandmother I wonder how my children manage today - especially when compared to when I was bringing them up!

Embattled Speaker of the Texas House, Tom Craddick recently attacked three opponents for extending state health insurance for employees who only work part time.

It was revealed today by the Lone Star Project that Craddick himself, using a law that he co-authored in 1996, is keeping his 37 year old affluent daughter on the State of Texas Employee health-care plan.

I would love to get this massive McCain "flip-flop" (hate that term) out there but am afraid traditional media is asleep at the switch...

The record of politicians issuing challenges to the press is not a happy one.  Just before his Donna Rice scandal broke in 1987, Democratic frontrunner Gary Hart dared the media to "follow me around."  The rest, as they say, is history.  Now, South Carolina Senator and John McCain water carrier Lindsey Graham has issued a challenge of his own.  Claiming on CNN that McCain "is his own guy," Graham then threw down the gauntlet, "Good luck making him George Bush."

Challenge accepted.

Save The Children is out with a new report detailing the state of the world's children (and women as well). Their major conclusions are shocking, sadly unsurprising, and once again put the "civilized" world's preoccupation with "terrorism" as a cause of death in perspective: 9.7 million children die every year (26,000 each and every day) from diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia which are not only treatable but treatable at extremely low-cost. 6.1 million of those 10 million could be saved if those low-cost solutions were made available to the world's population. Unfortunately the report does not attempt to estimate the cost in total, but given that antibiotics to treat pneumonia can cost less than 30 cents, and that the oral rehydration salts needed to prevent a child from dying of diarrheal dehydration cost less than 50 cents, I think it's safe to say that the total cost of saving the lives of 6.1 million people would be well under the cost of the war in Iraq. Probably less than one month's worth. Maybe less than a day's worth.

While the majority of progressive bloggers were either:

a) Obsessing over Hillary Clinton despite the fact that Obama has had this wrapped up since February.

or

b) Scolding kos because he won't admit that Barack Obama can't beat John McCain without all the confused white ladies!!!!

A funny little thing happened: John McCain made himself unelectable.

I mean, seriously, have you read this health care plan? The Democrats might as well just go ahead and propose single-payer, because this thing is a nightmare for the middle-class.

Of course, it's all packaged under the buzz phrase "Health Care Freedom," but in this case, freedom is definitely just another word for "nothing left to lose."

SEIU 1199, the New York-based local closely associated with Int'l Pres. Andy Stern, has decided to put their muscle behind Republican NY Senate President Joe Bruno and his Republican caucus, and apparently committed to working to ensure that Democrats do not regain control of the chamber.  The Albany Times Union reports:

The union will provide resources exclusively to the GOP this fall, the person said.  Union leaders, joined by key health care industry figures, met Friday with Sen. Bruno to discuss how to help the GOP hold control.

The Reps hold the Senate in this blue state by a 32-30 margin, which is very bad news for a wide range of progressive causes, especially healthcare.  This SEIU-Republican deal is instructive for those following the debate within the labor movement between Andy Stern’s SEIU and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, much of which turns on the political profiles of the unions and on CNA/NNOC's work towards guaranteed healthcare.  

There's a giant disconnect between the real world and the world of beltway journalism.

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the past few days, we have focused on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In our final installment, we note how Abu Ghraib and Gitmo aren't the only abusive facilities getting tax dollars--both by direct funding and by welfare fraud, Teen Challenge gets quite a bit of your tax money for institutionalised abuse...and Dubya is still to this day bailing them out when they're caught doing something wrong.  

The NYT highlights yet more lies emanating from the mendacious 71 year old John McCain, this time about the health care reform proposals of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. McCain often states or implies that Obama and Clinton are advocating for a single-payer system or a nationalized health care system such as are common in Europe. Regrettably, they are doing no such thing.

The suggestion is incorrect. While both Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York are calling for universal health care and an expanded role for government, they stop well short of calling for a single-payer plan.

Mr. McCain has made the assertion several times in recent days, even as he and the Republicans have made repeated calls for accuracy on the campaign trail.

McCain has really been laying it on thick this week, "using language that evokes the specter of socialized medicine" as the Times puts it.

"There are those that want a massive government takeover of the health care system in America," Mr. McCain warned Thursday in Des Moines, as he made the case for his more market-based approach...

"But before you decide to sign on to that kind of a program, go to Canada, or go to European countries that have government-run health care systems," he continued. "My friends, they don’t work, they’re inefficient, and they end up in a two-tiered system where the wealthiest can afford to pay for their own health care and those with low income sometimes wait six or eight months for a routine kind of treatment. And that’s what I’m not going to let happen to the United States of America."

As a matter of fact, and unlike McCain, I have lived in Britain. I found the health care system there to be much better and more rational than the crazy health-care mess that Americans tolerate.

In any case, that has to be some of the most laughable fear-mongering that any Republican candidate has engaged in. A two-tier health-care system in which the rich get better coverage than the poor? Horrors! How could such an unfair imbalance ever be allowed to arise in the USA, a nation with no more than about 50 million uninsured, give or take a few million poor children? Never mind having to wait "sometimes" for months for "routine" (i.e. non-emergency) medical procedures, the uninsured in America tend to get no health care whatever, unless that is the government picks up the tab (to the tune of $45 billion per year).

If I were to editorialize, I'd want to make two points here: (1) John McCain is not my friend; (2) McCain's demagoguery on the health care crisis reveals what a hollow, shrivelled soul he has.

Instead, I'll leave the editorializing to the Des Moines Register, which had a rather pointed reaction to the latest health care proposal being flogged by McCain himself. The Senator, who gets his own health coverage through Congress, wants to encourage businesses to stop providing employees with health coverage. You'd have thought that American businesses don't need any further encouragement to leave their employees without health care. But McCain's goal, as ridiculous as it seems, is to force individuals to negotiate their own health insurance deals. He proposes to do that by eliminating business tax breaks for medical coverage, and giving tax breaks to individuals who buy their own coverage.

It's fair to say that Senator McCain's swing through Iowa this week left the Des Moines paper's editors just a tad underwhelmed.

The proposal [by McCain] should scare the heck out of the millions of Americans who rely on employer-based coverage...Buying individual policies means having your health history reviewed. It means not having the bargaining power and protections that come with being part of a plan offered by an employer. And it's expensive...

The senator is correct that the employer-based system of health insurance in this country isn't working. Businesses are saddled with the high costs of coverage, putting them at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace. Insurance shouldn't be tied to jobs.

But the more reasonable solution is to offer everyone what Medicare already offers: health coverage financed by a combination of tax dollars and participant contributions, thus allowing the huge bargaining power of millions of Americans to leverage down costs.

That idea is nowhere near as radical as forcing millions of Americans to shop for their own coverage in a profit-driven, private-insurance sector.

Medicare for all. That doesn't seem like such a difficult concept to me, somehow or other. At times the rightward tilt of political debate in the US leaves me puzzled. If Americans think that universal health care is a "radical" idea, goodness gracious - how would they react to something truly radical like universal old-age pensions? Oh, wait, never mind...we already have those. They're called "Social Security".

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the next few days, we are going to focus on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In the latest installment of this series, we focus on an increasing trend of using Teen Challenge as "alternative sentencing"--and to add insult to injury, the use of "indemnity contracts" by Teen Challenge to prevent lawsuits by survivors who manage to escape.  

John McCain has been trying to scare voters by telling lies about the health care plans being floated by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Today the NYT nails him for it, as well as for his hypocrisy in calling for accuracy on the campaign trail while at the same time making assertions over and over again about his opponents that he knows are not true.

Senator John McCain has been repeatedly suggesting that his Democratic rivals are proposing a single-payer, or even a nationalized health care system along the lines of those in countries like Canada and Britain.

The suggestion is incorrect. While both Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York are calling for universal health care and an expanded role for government, they stop well short of calling for a single-payer plan....