Here are the only two health care numbers you need to know:

Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

That's Zachary Roth at TPMuckraker citing data from a Health Care for America Now! report on the anti-capitalist nature of the health insurance industry. Premiums: nearly doubled. Profits: quintupled. And that's just in this decade.

As Roth points out, the corporations making such massive profits are going to use the threat of campaign contributions to bring senators into line, but any senator with a modicum of sense should understand that power relationship is bass-ackwards: The public option, which the Congress can easily institute, should serve as a cudgel to get the corporations to institute their own new policies; namely, competition. You know: like they do in capitalist markets.

Sadly, as we know all too well from the evidence presented by the actions of members of Congress, "modicum of sense" is as absent from most members as is "courage" and "responsibility to constituents". We are fully likely to see the wishes of the corporations granted — ie, the public option trashed — and the wishes of the vast majority of Americans — to have a public option made available, as per the demand of the person they elected President — shat upon.

Anyone who wants to now how most of the Congress works just needs to watch the last 5 minutes of "The Magic Christian". An accurate, if heavy-handed allegory.

Scare tactics may be the favored means of killing the general public's support for real health care — omgz they're gonna take away your doctor and make you see a bureaucrat who will let you die because you had to wait 6 months for your bypass operation —but that nonsense won't work with most members of Congress (the ones not cheating on their wives in Jesus). To sucker people with a modicum of intelligence on the subject requires an ability to misstate facts and possibilities in a way that sounds rational while making "reasonable" alternatives — ie, not changing a damn thing — more attractive.

The key to tricking people with reasonableness is to use words, phrases and concepts that are not explained but carrying sufficient data to carry a point that, if scrutinized properly, would prove unreasonable. Taking as given certain "facts" — that health care insurance, provided by profit-driven corporations, is always going to be part of any system — is also important. The key is to avoid digging into the real reasons for why the entire system is broken and taking the entire economy down with it.

Here's an excellent example from today's New York Times:

How would insurers lower prices and raise quality? By passing their incentive along to doctors and hospitals. To maximize their revenue from insurance companies, doctors and hospitals would need to provide better care at a lower price — something they can accomplish only by squeezing out error, waste and inefficiency.

The amazing system that is touted as a great example is in Danes County, Wisconsin, and features both the state refusing to pay full cost for the program (patients pay for anything above the program's ceiling) and the inclusion of HMOs. How can this work? Easy: it "impose[s] a stern and lasting discipline on our insurance market — and at the same time insure[s] everyone, provide excellent benefits and offer abundant choices." In effect, the state-run system, which the authors sees as a model for their "public option", low-balls insurance bidders, takes the lowest bid and any costs above what the state system pays is out-of-pocket for enrollee. The refusal by the state to pay above a certain amount, while allowing the insurers to charge the insurees for the additional costs, is the "discipline" that fixes a broken system.

From today's New York Times:

"We do not believe that it is possible to create a government plan that could operate on a level playing field," read a letter to the Senate from Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, and Scott P. Serota, president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. "Regardless of how it is initially structured, a government plan would use its built-in advantages to take over the health insurance market."

That is, of course, the hope of single-payer advocates. Pres Obama says, pish, not the case:

“If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government — which they say can’t run anything — suddenly is going to drive them out of business?” Mr. Obama said. "That’s not logical."

Meanwhile, Sen Baucus — who receives more money from the health-related industries than anyone else in the Senate — is part of a group that is suggesting employers who do not offer affordable health insurance plans pay half the Medicare costs for low-income employees. I fail to see how this can solve anything other than the existence of companies which hire low-income employees while offering unaffordable insurance plans. The problem never has been the affordability of insurance; the problem is the incredible cost of anything that requires more than the bandaid you buy and apply yourself.

I've been trying to understand this particular part of our economic crisis with as open a mind as possible. I'm trying to separate myself from a pre-defined goal -- the public option -- to concentrate on what is needed at the end of the process: affordable health care. Not insurance; care. The one thing that stands out, the one thing that dominates my thoughts in this regard, is the one thing only the public option addresses: profit. As long as a system includes profit-taking, especially on the scale demanded by a corporation, there will be costs that can be avoided.

A public-option has no need to make a profit. That gives it an advantage in this marketplace. If the corporations cannot do better than that, why the hel should they continue to exist? Unless they have a god-given right to profit of the illness of Americans and a constitutionally protected right to be protected from better systems of health care.

I think not.

There are two objections to the public option. One, of course, is that it will undermine corporations and lead eventually to a single-payer system. If the public option becomes a reality, then health-care-for-profit is probably doomed.

Too true.

The other object, which has too much basis in reality, is that it would be a government-run program. Despite the failure of the private sector in the past eight years, there are still millions of Americans who simply do not trust the government. I'm not talking about the paranoids who are convinced Obama is preparing to take away everyone's guns and lock us all up in re-education camps run the by UN. No, I'm talking about a more reasonable perspective that is summed up in the simple question:

"What has the government done well?"

We look at all government gets wrong, and that question rings loud and seemingly true. From bureaucracies that frustrate individual initiative to bureaucracies that cannot take two steps without tripping over their own feet, government seems defined by incompetence. What, indeed, has the federal government done well, well enough that we should trust it with something as huge as the proposal for the public option?

Well, for one thing: the Republic still stands. Compare what has happened in the rest of the world since the Constitution was ratified in 1783. Yes, we had our own massive trial in the Civil War, but following the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was restored and that division, in terms of what led to that war, has been, for the most part, erased. Two world wars and a great depression, tumults that were global in scale, did not overthrow our constitutional form of government. Few other nations can make that claim (our two greatest allies are among them: Great Britain and Canada).

Nations collapse because of failure of government (among other things). Whatever the failures of American government, what it did right has proven even stronger. And since the presidency of FDR, where government finally began to look after the welfare of poor, elderly and otherwise non-powerful Americans, government has made failure even less possible. Yes, bureaucracy has increased tremendously. So have the quality of life for most Americans. The two are connected, and the connection is not accidental.

The public option is not, in my opinion, even an option. If health care is to be fixed in this country, we must have a means of providing care that is not part of the commercial marketplace. Profit considerations are bad for your health, which means the public option is the only healthy means of assuring all Americans receive quality health care.

The debate over the public option is really a debate over the efficacy of two means of providing a product: the private sector, in particular major corporations, and the government, who some would argue is the biggest corporation of all. I say this is a discussion the country desperately needs.

Our economy is in tatters because the private sector was allowed by government to behave irresponsibly and now all Americans are paying a price. Government has a role in ensuring we have an economy that is strong, vital and working for everyone, not just a handful of stockholders and their pals. But government has to remain responsive to market conditions and allow for innovation and individual effort. I believe government can actually support the market more effectively than the private sector, but only with an involved citizenry. That is, only with a progressive government that includes grassroots citizens at all levels of government decision-making can we avoid the errors of both the private and public sectors.

Oh yeah, good luck with that.

Corporations are uniquely privileged in this country. They have acquired the rights of an individual, yet individuals within them are shielded from the legal, and often the economic, consequences of corporate behavior. Yet everything a corporation does is based on the decisions and actions of individuals. It's truly a bizarroworld where rewards far exceed worth and consequences can be skipped with a call to the lawyers.

Corporations have the ability to unite money, resources and labor to provide products and services unimaginable by small, private businesses. This can be a good thing, bringing millions of people things they desire or need at an affordable cost. It can be destructive as well, as the collapse, not to mention crap products, of GM shows. Or the way Dow has avoided responsibility for the horrific disaster in Bhopal, India.

Corporations will continue to be a fundamental part of the national and world economies for the foreseeable future. What's needed are not diatribes against them but an understanding of how they work: Not just the how, but the why. And there are usually two driving factors behind any corporation.

It's way too early to come a real conclusion about Mark Hass' vote on the revenue bill yesterday. On the surface, it does appear he chose business interests above the need to raise revenues; perhaps this does represent the interests of his Beaverton constituents. It does not serve the rest of the state well, but let's see what happens today.

What does come through is the apparent lack of clout voters carry. In 2008, across Oregon and the nation, voters demonstrated clearly they wanted a new kind of politics. The swing of voters from right to left, although limited, was decisive, from the Democrats' rejection of Hillary to so many unexpected wins in "red" areas across the nation. Oregon voters have been moving in that direction for years, not because they want Dems to act like moderate Republicans but to step up and do what is necessary to fix our state.

Mark Hass, and way too many other Dems in the Leg, did not get the message. He chose, it seems, to continue the broken status quo. Meanwhile, it appears the Dem leadship is giving away goodies to get votes. Stand on principle? Why? What good does that do? Once these guys get themselves holed-up in the Capital, they begin to lose touch with reality. The sound of their own voices whispering in the corridors and between office doors becomes the sound of wisdom.

Out here, we simply hear the roar of the avalanche hurtling down on us.

If what we saw yesterday turns out to be the final case, then Mark Hass may go down in modern Oregon political history as Karen Minnis' love child. Choosing to support corporate interests over the needs of school children, cops and firefighters, the elderly and others in need is a gross betrayal of the state. Perhaps we're just waiting now for Hass to do a reverse Ben Westlund and announce the Democratic Party has left him behind.

It appears they should.

One of the reasons Oregon is stuck (and I use that word purposefully) with a part-time Legislature is the idea, half-baked as the one that keeps the initiative process alive, that it gives us a citizen legislature. You know: Ordinary folks, average citizens who are not only more in touch with the lives of those they represent but more accessible to their constituents as well. In other words, less susceptible to the power of lobbyists and special interests.

What a crock.

Most Oregon legislators are, in fact, quite accessible. There is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to stop anyone from entering the Capital and walking directly into the office of a state Representative or Senator. If, like me, you do some campaigning for them — spend several days during the campaign going door-to-door to help them get elected — you're like to get a warm welcome, even when you're not from their district. If it's your own representative, then you'll even find yourself listened to.

But this has nothing to do with it being a part-time legislature. This has to do with Oregon being a small state of only 3 million people and legislators, especially representatives, being able to meet and get to know those citizens who step forward and introduce themselves. This could happen with a full-time, annual, professional legislature, too. In fact, not having to cram 2 years worth of legislating into the compressed schedule currently required would allow our citizen legislators to take even more time to listen to their fellow citizens.

I love Twitter. I don't tweet (post to Twitter) a lot, and I don't obsessively check for new tweets all days — especially at work, when I'm too busy. But I love the concept, I love participating when I can, and I love the expansion of my personal universe into th twitterverse (although I do have mixed feelings about Twitter-derived words that come with that territory).

Not everyone loves Twitter. Fine. I'm not into RPG (role-playing games) or any of a zillion other options available online for fun and friendship. I rarely chat or IM apart from Twitter (and, less frequently since I post to thru my Twitter account, Facebook). But the difference between me and a lot of the non-lovers of Twitter is that I keep my mouth shut about those things I don't participate in. Two good reasons for my silence: One, just because I don't enjoy or "get" something doesn't means it's not a thing of great value. Two, it's likely any criticism from me would be pure ignorance.

In other words, I would be showing the world how stupid I can be by blathering on about how stupid something else is, something I know little about.