Moving toward a path to real reform

With health bill approved in House, we must keep pushing

H.R. 3962 – the Affordable Health Care for America Act – has passed in the House of Representatives for the betterment of the people.

Health care reform will not be the end of the Democratic Party, as some GOP pundits wishfully expect. It will not instate socialism in America. It will not kill our seniors nor will it bankrupt the nation.

As we neared the House vote on Saturday, it became very clear that the health care debate had transcended arguments over numbers and figures. The real issue was the question of governmental involvement in the lives of Americans.

Why is health care reform good for America? Because the current system has failed to adequately provide reasonable and affordable choices for millions of Americans.
As Congress voted, Americans anxiously awaited.

Perhaps the saddest part of this national debate has been that factual information has been misplaced and  baseless rhetoric has taken hold.

No matter how prolonged the debate or dialogue is between opponents and proponents, the reality is that some Americans will simply have to see the reform in action to believe it.

For some Americans, dislike stems from non-factual, personal philosophies on other issues, like abortion or illegal immigration.

Many fear that abortion will be endorsed under the reform bill. The reality is that the H.R. 3962 refers to the Hyde Amendment  of 1997, which only permits federal funding for abortions in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.

Already, concessions have been made to add wording that would further request individuals purchasing medical insurance not to utilize tax rebates for such procedures. Repeated emphasis on such wording comes as a great loss to women’s reproductive rights.

The bottom line is that those who oppose health care reform and use such arguments are unable to get past personal biases on a woman’s right to her reproductive system. These are the same individuals who would never subscribe to the need for reform.
The other fear tactic being used to prevent reform is the possibility that undocumented immigrants may be able to receive medical care on federal funding.

Those who oppose health care reform on this basis would not support it unless the wording specifically excluded people without citizenship access to any kind of medical facility or medicine even if their life was at risk.

If all else fails, the tactic is to turn to patriotic rhetoric: Critics immediately latched onto the fear of socialism, communism and some even compared the Obama administration with Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

As we remain almost a full year away from elections, politicians are weighing in the pros and cons of supporting H.R. 3962.

As some lie dormant, intimidated by the response from constituents that have bought into the scare tactics, there are still those who have decided to look ahead and responsibly answer the call to enact health care reform.

It’s refreshing to see that even Nevada possesses some independent thinkers. Congresswoman Dina Titus speaks on behalf of the needs of a majority of her constituents and rejects fear tactics.

“For more than six months, I have discussed the need for health care reform with my constituents and time and again I heard from small business owners who are struggling to afford health care coverage,” Titus said.

We cannot claim to have the world’s best health care system when millions of Americans are unable to afford basic coverage.

The legislation would allow 18,900 small businesses in Titus’ district to obtain affordable health care coverage while providing tax credits to help reduce costs on insurance.

The cost associated with this bill is especially problematic for many because of the tumultuous economic times we live in.

But this bill will help create a system that will attempt to clean existing defunct programs and create revenue for self-maintenance, thereby lessening the economic burden on the country.

This is a budget-neutral bill. Critics point at the GOP’s alternative would cost less. Of course it would cost less because the initiatives are less far-reaching and simply not enough to solve the real problem.

Will this bill be the perfect solution? Probably not.

Like any other bill, it is bound to have flaws, but the benefit most definitely outweighs the cost. The cost of inaction is greater at this point. In previous years, politicians have walked away from the debate, but that is no longer possible.

Now more than ever we need progressive, responsible solutions to problems that have built up through inaction.

Health care reform is not only an issue of the political left, as proved by the support of the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Cancer Society, American Medical Association, labor unions and moderate politicians.

This claim is merely a political tactic used by GOP leadership hurting from a failed eight-year administration.

Now we look to the Senate to pass some sort of similar reform. If passed, both plans would need to be reconciled and that will also, no doubt, be a similarly difficult process.

We must not stop here. We must keep going and keep supporting the responsible Congressional representatives who are choosing a responsible approach to solving a national need.

Is health care a right?

Americans will have to tackle the question eventually and define what constitutes a right

One of the claims being tossed around in the debate on health care reform is that health care is not a right.
I find this remark quite intriguing — and it makes me wonder, why not?

Could health care be a right? What exactly is a right?

Regardless of what the plans for reform are, this central idea must eventually be addressed: are we entitled to health care?
Here in the United States, we tend to think that all people have certain rights, as embodied in the Bill of Rights. We have rights to free speech and press, freedom of association and religion and the right to bear arms.

Technically, opponents of reform are correct in that the right to health care is not currently outlined in the Bill of Rights. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it cannot or should not be. Rights can exist without explication.

In fact, some rights, like the right to privacy, have been firmly established by the courts and common law and yet are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.

Where does the Bill of Rights come from? Americans tend to view rights as one specific type – we can call these civil, or primary, passive rights. They are passive because they explain what the government cannot do, and involve no direct action by the government except to ensure that they are protected.

For example, we have the right to assemble peacefully. The government does not need to do anything, except allow us to assemble and ensure that others do not infringe on that right.

There are also other rights that are not often recognized by Americans as valid rights, but have gained acceptance in much of the world—we can call these secondary or positive rights. These are socioeconomic rights; they are positive because they involve direct government action in order to grant them.

Much of the industrialized world, including Western Europe and Canada and even less-developed states like Russia and China, recognize these as valid human rights – as valid as any of the passive rights.

These socioeconomic rights include government-provided health care and minimum standards of living for all, provided by generous unemployment benefits and redistributive welfare. States that provide these benefits are also called welfare states or social democracies.

Is government-provided health care a right? Clearly, this is a normative question. In the U.S., our traditional values of self reliance and personal responsibility reinforce the conviction that government has little or no place in giving aid on a large scale to the entire population.

We do embrace limited welfare, like food stamps and limited unemployment compensation, but cringe at anything that hints of a welfare state.

But does that mean health care is not a right, simply because Americans believe it isn’t? Is our view any more valid than our counterparts’ in Europe and Canada?

We believe that we are in charge of our own affairs and should pay no attention to other states’ policies, but human rights are increasingly a trans-border issue.

We endorse the idea that certain human rights are guaranteed to all people, regardless of what specific nations or cultures think. We believe that countries like China and Venezuela are oppressive for denying their citizens the right to protest and censuring communications.

We believe that some Muslim nations are barbaric for their conservative views on women and extreme, in our view, punishments.
Is the U.S., then, barbaric for not providing health care to its citizens? Perhaps not — or, at least, it isn’t viewed so just yet.

With international norms moving toward acceptance of positive socioeconomic rights and the blurring of state sovereignty, it is likely that the U.S. — both citizens and the government — will begin to embrace these views eventually.

If not, European nations may press the U.S. in the future, in the same way that the international community pressures China and other nations for what are very obviously human rights violations.

In any case, the idea of health care being a right is supported by a significant amount of governments and citizens worldwide. Simply arguing that it should not be implemented because it isn’t a right is avoiding the issues at hand.

Opponents of government-run health care need to explain why they believe health care is not a right and how the U.S. should move forward in opposition to international norms.

Of course, there are many other points that can be validly debated regarding health care reform and government-run options, including moral issues, rationing, potential effectiveness, cost and free-rider problems.

Those debating health care should address these factors. More importantly, advocates of both sides need to address and explain why citizens should or should not be entitled to a certain standard of living provided by society.

Health care reform bill needs sin taxes

Charging those with unhealthy habits is more fair than any alternative

One idea being tossed around in the current chaotic debate on health care is to instate a “sin tax” on unhealthy behaviors.

This idea is not new — it has been endorsed and legislated worldwide for things like smoking and gasoline use. These Pigovian taxes (after economist Arthur Pigou) are intended to correct negative market externalities, unwanted consequences of economic activity that are experienced by unrelated third parties and in inefficient markets.

For example, all of humanity is affected by the environmental degradation inflicted by use of carbon fuels. But the incentive to drive less and thus contribute to less air pollution is, on the aggregate – nonexistent.

There is no incentive for any single individual to drive less — it is too much of an individual sacrifice. And it simply won’t make a difference if the rest of society doesn’t also change driving habits.

To rectify this, a high tax could be levied on gasoline. This would not explicitly prohibit driving but would decrease the total number of hours spent driving across society, thus lessening carbon emissions.

In other words, the externality would be corrected. Drivers would be made to internalize the full consequences of their decisions – even those that affect others.

The same concept has been suggested regarding other “sin” behaviors — actions that are entirely logical at the individual level but force high costs on unrelated parties who have no influence or choice on the action.

One obstacle to passing any substantial health care legislation that would redistribute costs is how to deal with obesity. The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that the total costs of treating obesity-related diseases ballooned to $147 billion in 2008 —about nine percent of all U.S. medical spending.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 50 percent of these costs are paid by government programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security for those disabled by morbid obesity. There is no question that these “diseases of affluence” are a major public health problem in the developed world.

Most Americans who agree that the government should somehow contribute to a new health care system have no problem with higher taxes to fund it. The idea is that all of society would contribute more to government, which would provide or subsidize health care for all.

The problem is that any government-sanctioned system must find a way to deal with the negative effects that poor individual health decisions have on the entire society.

People who take care of their health — by eating healthy food in moderate amounts and exercising — are making personal sacrifices in order to be healthy.

Why, then, should this group pay more taxes to subsidize the treatment necessitated by the many, many health problems caused or worsened by obesity?

Of course, even those who consciously take care of their health can have health problems. These are the illnesses that health insurance (government or private) should pay for. It seems immoral to charge those who exercise self-discipline to stay healthy in order to pay the exorbitant and preventable health costs of those who don’t.

There are many contributing causes of obesity. Among them are other health issues that prevent exercise and lead to weight gain. It also appears unethical to attempt to establish some type of weight or health benchmark to use to charge higher premiums or taxes.

To resolve this moral conflict, the government should levy sin taxes on poor food choices. This policy has already been pursued to some degree with regard to smoking.

Smokers pay increasingly high taxes on tobacco products, which are set to discourage smoking and generate revenue to help pay for the public health costs of smoking, like Medicare and Veterans” Affairs treatment costs.

This same concept should be applied to unhealthy behaviors that lead to obesity and the many associated health risks.
This approach has many advantages. For one, it does not discriminate against obesity as a condition or a benchmark. The sin tax would discourage unhealthy behavior across the board and would thus attack the process of becoming obese and unhealthy, rather than judging someone’s condition.

Another benefit of sin taxes is the potential assistance for lower classes. The poor have a higher incidence of obesity simply because unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food.

The revenues gained from a tax on nutritionally deficient junk should be used to subsidize healthy food. This transfer of incentives would create an easily calculated individual incentive to watch one’s weight.

Libertarians will argue that such policies are another example of unwelcome government intrusion. As one conservative friend exclaimed, “Stay the **** out of my groceries!”

To some extent, I agree. People should be able to purchase and eat whatever they want, even if their choices are slowly killing them.

But one’s health is not entirely removed from the public sphere. Rare is the individual who can pay for all of his own health care.

Even those who are happy with their private insurance plans and want no further government intrusion will likely someday end up on the government’s tab, through Medicare or another government program.

In other words, people should be free to slowly kill themselves if they agree that they should not seek any public health care for the consequences of those choices.

Even if no further health care legislation is passed, it is time for all citizens to see and feel the real costs of their poor choices and stop passing on their consequences to taxpayers.

The government should enact junk food taxes immediately to correct the skewed incentives to ignore one’s health.

Will real health care reform be allowed to pass?

Once again, political games overshadowing need for change Read more

The influence of biases on policy

The fight over health care reform revealing narrowmindedness of voters, anger taking precedence over rational discourse

Health care reform can neither be delayed nor stopped.

Republican Party leadership hungry for seats in the 2010 elections cannot hijack the debate. Democratic leadership afraid of losing their political careers should not delay reform. Most importantly, reform should not become an instrument of lies carried back and forth in the halls of Capitol Hill.

Many opponents have loudly voiced their complete and utter dislike for “socialism” in the form of health care reform, but just as many Americans are sick and tired of uninformed, racially motivated and politically driven nonsense being spewed – even though they don’t scream out in discontent in the middle of important speeches.

This debate does not only tell us about the ignorant mindset surrounding the health care debate, but it also showcases the narrow-mindedness that lives within many households in the U.S. today.

Many are treating this administration as if it is the enemy. In recent years, Washington, D.C. has become a polarizing arena but never before has there been such a clear disregard of propriety when dealing with an American president. Does President Barack Obama deserve all this?

No. It is a politically motivated mob mentality that has swept the nation. He is not the first president to utilize “czars” and he is not the commander-in-chief who blindly led thousands of our brave men and women to an unjustified war in Iraq, nor is he the man who single-handedly isolated the U.S. through unilateral international policies.

The reality that we face today comes from a culmination of years of poor economic guidance by previous administrations, but even more so, it is the result of a society having to deal with unanswered socio-economic and racial tensions.

It is laughable at best that the GOP leadership is utilizing the U.S. Constitution to denounce government intervention to improve the lives of Americans. Does the Patriot Act ring a bell?
It is, however, not laughable to compare Obama to Germany’s Adolf Hitler. But this is a sad reality of the mob-like mentality that thrives among opponents of the administration. Stop with the demagoguery. Our country is in great need of a reality check.

Race is a factor: It is necessary to recognize the catalyst that leads many individuals to openly disregard the president’s role as commander-in-chief. The bottom line is that while criticism is accepted and even welcomed, it should not be OK to openly issue hate speeches against our democratically elected leader, nor should it be OK to disregard protocol when addressing the president.

So why is the name-calling being celebrated? Is it somehow socially acceptable to demean a member of a racial minority in a position of power?

Obama should be challenged as any other president because debate makes our nation progress, but the use of labels like “socialist” or “Hitler” are a clear indication of the poorly based foundation for such outspoken groups.

There are ways to voice discontent. I disagree with the president’s use of the term “illegal aliens,” as I consider the label to be dehumanizing to immigrants, but I will not blindly spew hate speech.

It was not that long ago that some Americans were up in arms after hearing that an American singer from the Dixie Chicks spoke badly of former President George W. Bush in a foreign country, yet no one seems to care that some American citizens are praying for the current president’s quick death.

The belief that “playing the race card” is getting old is the same narrow-minded belief that has kept racial tensions at bay. There is still much to do to change years of systematic and historical oppression.

Today, Americans are not merely debating the pros and cons of health care reform. They are also discussing the role of government. The reality is that there is more distrust toward this president and that is being utilized by well placed leaders in our nation to spread unfounded fear among citizens who may have legitimate concerns.

Let me be clear: I firmly believe that Americans have a right to challenge our government and I do believe that there are many Americans who have a legitimate cause of concern over spending and other items in the legislation.

However, the problems lies in that there is an undeniable truth to the notion that some Americans blindly dislike this administration on the basis of personal prejudices and have managed to hijack what could be a helpful debate.

This is a moment of realization that calls on Americans to once again challenge their preconceived notions of privilege.

Some debts are worth incurring and justifiable even if they have to be passed on, like a debt to ensure a healthier citizenry, but we can no longer afford to pass on to our future generations years of hatred and biases.

Learning health care from the French

Look past ideologic controversies, examine the numbers Read more

Dirty Harry comes to UNLV: members only

Health care event exclusive, not an effort to reach out

You may have noticed that part of the second-floor of the Student Union was shut off from the public on Monday, Aug. 31. Or you may have noticed a bunch of zombie-like people walking around the area holding signs that read things like “Organizing for America.”

What was this all for? Our gracious Sen. Harry Reid came to UNLV to discuss health care reform not with his real constituents — regular Nevadans – but with the people he truly represents: organized labor.

I fought to get into the event. It was not well-publicized and was kept a closely guarded secret. However, thanks to the diligence of one student organization, the word got out and it was demanded that students be allowed to attend.

Upon finding out, I called the Nevada Democratic Party’s office in Las Vegas and told the woman on the other line, Naomi, that I would like to RSVP for the Harry Reid event. She said she would pass my name on to somebody and I would be able to get in. That was the Thursday before the event.

Fast-forward to Monday. I approached the area where the health care rally was being held and gave the people my name. Apparently, I was not on the list. I was directed to another person named Brian who angrily informed me that I was not on the list and that I was to leave immediately. I told them repeatedly that I was a student and that I had confirmed my attendence.

My only conclusion to this was that I was purged from the list. I called the state Democratic Party’s office again, demanding answers. I demanded to know who was passed the list with my name on it to attend the event. I was again directed back to the guarded area and was quickly ushered out, as nobody there wanted to give me answers.

I finally managed to get in only after telling them I was a part of The Rebel Yell.

Many of you may have seen the Democratic Party attack ads targeting Americans who are fed up with their elected officials, by calling them hate-mongers and Astroturf.

So who exactly attended this event? Only the most grassroots organizations since the invention of grass: organized labor unions. Organizing For America, President Obama’s White House-based ACORN group, organized the event. In attendance were members of the Service Employees International Union, who coincidentally helped write the less-than-stimulus bill and are currently helping write health care legislation.

There were also representatives of our local Culinary Union as well as members of the National Education Association.

The NEA was by far one of the most unique groups at this rally. I inquired as to why the NEA had decided to support Reid. The response I got was that a few delegates were selected from each local union to go to San Diego to vote on whether or not to support Reid and the health care reform bill.

This is a far cry from the general membership vote in which members in each area vote for issues and candidates.

Perhaps most shocking was when a teacher was asked if this current health care legislation was constitutional. The reply was: “The Constitution isn’t relevant to today because it was written a long time ago by free, white, land-owning males.”

So we have a schoolteacher, who teaches our youth, using an immature, liberal argument to trash the U.S. Constitution. This person is about as qualified to teach school children as a sexual predator.

Then, we have our senator, who from the time he returned to Nevada has refused to hold any town hall meetings about current legislation in Congress. It seems as if he’s afraid of real Nevada voters, which is why he chooses instead to hold a health care “rally.”

This “rally” was not open to students. It was not open to the general public. It was an invitation-only event in which only labor unions were invited.

The “rally” was simply a panel of sob stories about people being uninsured or underinsured.

There was also a business owner who, it seemed, simply wanted to dump his employees on to a government plan without any regard for how they would be treated.

Don’t get me wrong – my heart goes out to these people. But my wallet doesn’t.

There was no debate and audience members and press were not allowed to ask questions of Reid after his 15-minute sad excuse for a speech.

What did Reid say? Well, nothing meaningful. Nothing was said about any version of the health care bill in Congress. No honest statistics were given about the health care “crisis.” Reid didn’t even properly address attacks levied against the health care bills.

Reid, who is touted by the NEA in a recent commercial as “rising above the partisan fray in Washington” and “working with Republicans and Democrats” to get health care reform passed, attacked Republicans and the people opposed to health care reform.

The supposed bipartisan senator has not even talked with Republicans over this issue and has blocked the Republican version of health care reform known as the Patient Choice Act.

The man who rises above the partisan fray called those who protested outside “well-funded Republican allies of the insurance companies.”

Wow, Senator. You sure are a man of the people – a true, independent Nevadan who meets with labor unions instead of constituents.

Our senator is a weak, cowardly politician who refuses to meet with the people who put him in office. Is he a senator who represents Nevada or a senator who represents the labor unions?

Since he refuses to meet with Nevadans, Nevadans will hopefully refuse to send him back to Washington.

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