Single Payer Health Care; and the 18% solution

If elected US President in 2012, I will start to work immediately on these two campaign promises listed in my written contract:

QUOTE:

FIVE:  I will veto every single bill from Congress that comes my way until it passes:

• A Single Payer health care reform package, which will provide medical coverage to all US citizens free of charge - that is, without co-payments, deductibles, or any requirement to pay insurance premiums. This will also establish reasonable medical billing practices and rates.

• A nationwide cap on personal credit card interest rates of 18%.

:UNQUOTE.

Background

The FIVE mentioned above refers to item number five in my Electoral Contract under which I’d run for president in 2008. Yes, I’ve floated these ideas before.

I am the only candidate for US President who has ever offered a written contract to the public in exchange for votes. Were I to violate any of the terms of this contract, I would forfeit my office by means of impeachment. No other candidate for this (or any elective) office has ever offered a written contract – not once in the entire history of this country. I did this back in 2008 (for the first time), and will do so again in 2012.

I’m currently writing the 2012 version of my contract, so I don’t know if the quoted section will necessarily bear the same number – FIVE. I also don’t know if I’ll post 47 promises as I did back in 2008. But I assure you this much: The 2012 version will be much more than “Change you can believe in.” It will be “Change you can take to the bank.”

Single Payer

Naturally, I aim to dismantle Obamacare, which really wasn’t any kind of reform package at all. We are a wealthy nation, so we should take care of our sick and incapacitated. It is unreasonable that we continue to stand alone among our peer nations in terms of the wretched state of our health care system, resisting necessary and overdue changes. Instead, we worry excessively if Big Pharma and the insurance companies are “earning” enough profit.

I am fully aware of the potential economic disruption Single Payer would create. Many insurance companies would suffer major financial losses and some could even go out of business. There are other types of insurance policies they could continue to sell. But let’s face it, loss of the ability to sell health insurance to a captive market will be a major hit. Not to mention secondary effects – such as unemployment resulting from insurance companies reducing their workforces, and the loss of income to their stockholders.

Such investors include massive pension plans, which have (in effect) been unindicted coconspirators in this usury scheme. I believe, if a crime has been committed, a penalty must be paid. But I also believe a coordinated effort by a Congress run by independents will go a long way toward lessening this transitional suffering.

Before someone calls me an anarchist for my proposals, think about this: Suppose someone invents a car that doesn’t require gasoline. Let’s further suppose this car is far cheaper to manufacture and operate than anything currently on the market. [I’m thinking of an electric car without the usual rechargeable battery-based system of operation – say, something that runs on stored capacitor power.]

In any event, if an American inventor with all the rights to this (or some other) revolutionary new technology started making these cars, needing far fewer employees than required by Big Autos’ assembly lines, what would/should the US government do? According to the Neo-Conmen, we’re supposed to let Free Market forces dictate winners or losers without government interference. At least, they say that unless their industry buddies “lobby” for a bailout.

I don’t really know how the feds would react to this new automotive technology. But I dare say, they should react to the economic disruptions inflicted on the insurance industry in exactly the same way.

Why should Single Payer detractors cry for the loss of business to be incurred by the long-time winners in this market? When cars replaced the horse and buggy, nobody cried for the manufacturers of buggy whips. Progress was made and time marched on. It wasn’t the end of the world – at least not for everybody. And that’s my point: When the American people, and businesses which have to purchase group insurance plans, are liberated from having to deal with these pirates, the resulting tidal wave of prosperity will help salve the wounds of many of the losers.

The 18% solution

The second part of my proposal mandates “a nationwide cap on personal credit card interest rates of 18%.”

I’m deadly serious when I rail against usury, in terms of the blatant highway robbery engaged in by lending institutions. Everybody wants a sure thing in life, and investors especially want to maximize the returns on their investments. My attitude is: If you want to earn those mega returns on your money, then you’ll have to be brave enough to make riskier investments. Such investors pride themselves in being “risk takers,” though they usually mean they like to engage in bubble economics and pull out before their bubbles collapse.

That, my friends, is not risk taking. It’s more akin to a gambling addiction.

When credit card holders are assured of a maximum interest rate of only 18%, they will buy more products. If they engage in irresponsible purchases causing them to default, they will simply have to wait until they can demonstrate creditworthiness again. They will no longer have the option of obtaining credit with increased rates that punish their bad behavior. And credit card companies will have to more carefully scrutinize their customers’ behavior, and stop writing off the massive and blatant fraud perpetrated by identity thieves.

These issuers will have to learn the new facts of life: No more easy profits (“easy,” like shooting fish in a barrel), and they’ll have to (well) take care of business – by establishing stricter management controls to discourage bad client behavior.

My vision of things to come

My vision of America doesn’t embrace any kind of “dog eat dog, looking out for number One” ideology. If a citizen is hungry, you feed him. If he’s lost his home – you don’t toss his possessions on the sidewalk and mandate that he “do something about that mess.” If you’re a cop and you see a 70-year-old homeless woman sleeping under a bridge in a Chicago January, you don’t drive away.

There are the smugly righteous who claim, “Nobody owes anybody a living.” True enough. But those same folks have no problem running to Uncle Sam for a bailout if their businesses take a hit. They can’t seem to conjure up enough charity in their own hearts to help out, except in the most token of ways. I know these people. I can close my eyes and see them as they sat in their churches on Sundays in the Deep South in the 1950’s, saying and doing nothing about the lynchings of blacks and the Jim Crow abuses which abounded.

In fact, they’d beat the hell out of any nigger who dared enter their church to pray with them. Heaven forbid.

Yes, I know these people, and they’re not only from the Deep South. And that wasn’t only in the 1950’s. It’s here. It’s now. Deep-seated hatreds will continue to be contained – “Unless you fuck with me,” which they mutter under their breath. If they can’t get what they believe to be enough for Them and Theirs, they won’t care about You and Yours. [Not that they would give much of a care under any circumstances.] And don’t let their phony patriotism fool you either – they don’t give a rat’s ass about the United States. They care, but only to the extent that it profits them and suits them.

Yes, I have a vision of a great future for this country. A future in which the Rich and Powerful won’t be able to influence some House Negro to be their president and do their bidding. And, yes, I’ll come right out and say it, “There’s a special place in hell for Barack Obama.”

My vision of the United States requires its citizens to be brave. Brave enough to plunge into the unknown and ignore the sirens’ calling of the Democrats and Republicans. Brave enough to take a chance and do what’s necessary by electing independents to office. Brave enough to shake off the programming they’ve had to endure for so long. We’re supposed to be citizens of “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” right?

So what are we waiting for?

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

“If not now, when?”

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com …. only the serious need apply.

Obama's legacy "filibustered"

Introduction

My offering today is more or less an obituary – for the Presidency of Barack Obama. At this point, it’s over and nothing can raise it from the dead. When I think of what he could have done, the word “Camelot” comes to mind.

I re-read President Obama’s State of the Union address, delivered in January of 2010. Consider what he could have said, which is what I (in his place) would have said:

QUOTE [again, this is what Obama could have said]:

I want to make a personal appeal to each and every Senator here tonight to bring democracy to the US Senate by permanently eliminating the filibuster option. Our troops are dying to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. The least you can do is make the principle of One Man, One Vote a reality in the US Senate. When the threat of a filibuster means it takes 60 votes instead of a simple majority of 51 to pass a bill, those 51 Senators and the people they represent become disenfranchised.

I understand that Republicans and Democrats alike, whenever in the minority during past administrations, had found it advantageous to threaten filibuster. And this practice is quite old. It is also, and has always been, undemocratic and plainly unfair.

More importantly, the practice of filibuster is in direct violation of at least three different sections of the US Constitution:

Article V: "...no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." If, for example, a state were (like all other states) allowed two senators but (unlike the others) only one could vote, that would be a clear deprivation of "equal suffrage." And yet, if a state's senators were to find their votes rendered meaningless by a minority threatening a filibuster, that is a comparably clear deprivation of "equal suffrage."

The Fifth Amendment: "No person...[shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." When a citizen's senator finds the value of his vote diminished in Senate chambers, that citizen finds the value of his own vote similarly diminished. In other words, that citizen is being denied full and complete representation in the Senate, which in turn means that citizen has been "deprived of...[his] property [that is, the full value of his vote], without due process of law."

The Seventeenth Amendment: "...each Senator shall have one vote." That must mean, by any fair and sensible standard, that each Senator's vote is to be considered equal to each other Senator's vote. Allowing for filibusters denies this equality.

Therefore, I ask the Senate to 1) permanently eliminate the archaic, unconstitutional, undemocratic institution of the filibuster, and 2) pass a version of health care reform based on a simple majority with a scope (and this is my personal recommendation) at least as broad as that of the House.

:UNQUOTE [One more time: This is what the president could have said.]

We need a leader, not an uninspired figurehead

Ever since Barack announced his candidacy for the US presidency, I had a very bad feeling - which didn't take long to confirm. This man is simply incapable of thinking outside the box, of generating any unique and inspired approaches. He is proving to be too eager to embrace age-old traditions and ways of doing things. As he once declared in the early part of the primary season, in more or less these words: "Confrontation is not my style." [Perhaps so, but the “bipartisanship” approach didn’t work so well either.]

Okay, now what?

Let's consider two other quotes from his speech:

·       "That is why jobs must be our number-one focus in 2010, and that's why I'm calling for a new jobs bill tonight."

·       "And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay.

[sigh] Obama can want all he wants, but the fact is - the filibuster will still be there to thwart him. And with his blessing, for he will do nothing - absolutely nothing - to challenge it. And you know what? If he ended up doing nothing else during his presidency, making the US Senate live up to our democratic ideals would make a fine legacy indeed. But he simply won't - can't - do it.

But if I had been elected President...

...we would have had Single Payer Health Insurance by now. And, no, I'm not just talking about reforming health care, I'm talking about the whole enchilada - SINGLE PAYER.

And to help pay for it? The money we would have saved by having removed all of our combat and non-combat forces from Iraq and Afghanistan well before June of 2009. These bold innovations were all listed in my written contract* which contained 47-points, including:

QUOTE:

POINT FIVE:

I will veto every single bill from Congress that comes my way until it passes:

a Single Payer health care reform package, which will provide medical coverage to all US citizens free of charge - that is, without co-payments, deductibles, or any requirement to pay insurance premiums. This will also establish reasonable medical billing practices and rates.

:UNQUOTE: source: The Electoral Contract of Steven Searle*

Had I been elected President, Single Payer would have come to pass. And I wouldn't have let any filibuster stop me. Barack Obama’s rhetorical skills might exceed my own, but I would have gotten the job done. Even if it meant having to embarrassing the entire US Senate during my State of the Union speech.

Steven Searle for U.S. President in 2012

Founder of the Independent Contractors’ Party

   * In 2008, I was the only presidential candidate in US history to offer a binding written contract to the voters, containing my campaign promises. If I were to violate any of those 47 promises, I would have forfeited the presidency (which was one of my 47 promises).