Dining Room Tables, Democracy, and Health Care Reform

Unless you have been comatose, no doubt you have heard about Massachusett's Congressman Barney Frank's retorts to a woman at one of his townhall meetings about health care reform. The woman, who was holding a sign that was doctored to depict President Obama as Hitler, asked "Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it?" He said, "When you ask me that question? I am going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question. On what planet do you spend most of your time?" After being momentarily stopped, the woman continued her line of questioning and the Congressman, in sincerity said, "Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."

And it is a shame when two people, whether it is a Congressman or a constituent, resort to belittling. It is more so a shame when there is no real dialogue going on.

The town hall meeting in Iowa City this Saturday was not nearly vitriolic, but there were a number of people who were clearly not there to listen, but to engage in political theater. Two rows in front of me were two men, one sporting an American flag ball cap and the other wearing a union t-shirt, who engaged each other. The fellow in the ball was booing 2nd District Congressman Dave Loebsack's response to a question asked by an audience member and the fellow in the union t-shirt asked him to keep it down. The other fellow glared red-faced at the union fellow and asked him if he was going to make him. Fortunately a Loebsack staffer walked toward them and they settled into an uneasy truce.

For those who were there to listen and learn, it was no doubt troubling to them to watch normally civil people get bent out of shape over health care reform that may or may not happen and certainly will change as the kinks are worked out. How can anyone know what the plan is unless they actually have read it (and at the size of a phone book, that's not an easy read) or if they come to the townhall meeting to get the synopsis and have the chance to have their questions answered? Congressman Loebsack was quite willing to address questions, but also was encouraging of people to preface their questions with their feelings--an invitation that would be taken advantage of throughout the hour plus meeting.

While Congressmen and Senators are trying to do their jobs to help their constituents to understand what the bill actually is, it does not help that some on both sides resort to out and out lies about what the House bill is about. The Senate will have to forward its own bill (which will likely have its own problems for those who are fighting for or against a public option) and the two houses will have to recouncil the two bills before it goes to the President. If anybody should be pounding the pavement to try to hear what concerns their constituents, it is the Senators and they should not be making pronouncements about "Grandma" and her state of being. They should be genuinely having dining room table conversations about what it is that is scaring their constituents about their health care and then take this back to Washington to write legislation around.

Perhaps if the theater could be scaled back and real people's concerns could be addressed, we could end up with health care reform that is healthy.

Americans Fail to Measure Up

Apparently we the people are not towering over other nations as we have done since the end of WWII.

In the Netherlands, the tallest country in the world, the typical man now measures 6 feet, a good 2 inches more than his average American counterpart.

Many economists believe height is important because it is correlated with numerous measures of a population's well-being.The same things that make people tall -- a nutritious diet, good prenatal care and a healthy childhood -- also benefit them in other ways.

That makes height a good indicator for economists who are interested in measuring how well a nation provides for its citizens during their prime growing years.

Details from the News Tribune.

I theorize our decline comes from being hunched over computer keyboards and receiving massive doses of EMFs.

Workers of the World-- You Whine!

A study released by FDS Research entitled "What Workers Want, A Worldwide Study of Attitudes to Work and Work-Life Balance" reveals that American workers are among the whiningest in the world based on a number of factors, including percentage of workers unhappy with pay, actual income relative to cost of living, percentage of workers who feel work impinges on private life, and average weekly working hours.

The French were first among whiners, Britons and Swedes are tied for second, and followed closely by the United States and Australia. "The UK and US, with their marked competitive individualism and unequal wealth distribution, both appear towards the top of the world's list of whiningest workers," said study leader Charlotte Cornish.

In terms of worker morale, Dutch workers are the happiest, followed by their Thai and Irish counterparts. The lowest morale of all is found in Japan, followed by Germany.

In a 2005 Gallup study, persons with low job satisfaction (whiners) tended to have more health problems.

Perhaps the lesson of both these studies in the US is to eliminate unsatisfying work, as it leads to whining and poor health. Think of the billions we could save by not needing a health care system?

Iowa and Other States Are Running Out of Health Dollars

The AP reports some states are warning that hundreds of thousands of poor children could lose their health insurance if Congress doesn't act soon to come through with more money for the program.

The situation is most severe in Georgia, where officials plan to stop enrolling kids in the state's PeachCare program starting March 11 because of a $131 million shortage.

The problem is that many states have nearly used up their annual federal subsidy for child health care, and it is not even midway through the fiscal year -- a situation some are blaming on the formula by which the money is doled out by Washington. Congress has been unwilling so far to deliver more money.

The uncertainty is making it difficult for some states to draw up their new budgets, because they do not know how much they will ultimately get from Washington.
In the meantime, states are scrambling to protect youngsters.

In Iowa, which is looking at a $16 million shortfall by the end of the state's fiscal year in June, lawmakers are pushing for a $1 cigarette tax increase to pay for children's health care and related programs. Some states plan to shift some children to the Medicaid rolls, at least temporarily. Others say they will pour in additional state dollars.

At issue is the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, which was started by Congress in 1998 and is funded by a combination of federal and state funds. Participants also pay premiums.

SCHIP's current budget is $5.5 billion. But states say the amount falls $745 million short of what they need.The program has had funding problems in the past. But "you've never had this many states before. It's never been this much of a shortfall before," said Genevieve Kenney, a policy expert at the Washington-based Urban Institute. "And Congress isn't moving."

Georgia's senators, Republicans Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, have proposed shifting money from states with surplus SCHIP money, like Texas and Connecticut. But states with surpluses are not eager to give up the extra cash.Dennis Smith, director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations, said President Bush favors redistributing any unspent money to those states with deficits. "

There's plenty of money. It's just in different places," Smith said.

SCHIP funding is based, in part, on the number of uninsured children in each state. So, those states that use the program most aggressively to reduce their number of uninsured children end up coming up short on federal funds.Another problem, say critics, is that the funding is based on outdated census data. That has been especially problematic in states like Georgia where the population has swelled in recent years, in part because of an influx of Hurricane Katrina refugees.