Here's an idea for legislation: Limiting the number of miles I may drive my Rolls. Or how about this: Restrictions on the amount of Cristal I can serve on my Lear jet. Maybe a cap on how many homes worth $1 million I am allowed to own. What would any of these bills have in common?

Stupid pointlessness. I have no Rolls, no jets, no home of any kind. They would put limits on things I don't have and am likely to never have .The Cristal is a possibility, but not in the near future; this is how ridiculous suck limits would be.

This is exactly, however, how stupid the talk about rationing health care is. 50 million Americans have as much health care as they own Lear jets: zero. And I am not likely to have either at any time soon. My workplace offers a barely adequate plan, but with child support payments, I cannot afford that plan. It would not offer dental or vision, the two things I actually need (apart from an annual physical, the lack of which was mitigated somewhat by the exams I got when I was hit by a car in December). So talk about health care rationing is, from my point of view, as meaningful as a discussion about the travails of extreme wealth.

When I hear someone like Sen Judd Gregg talking about rationing health care, it angers me so much because those words have no regard for the plight of tens of millions of Americans with no access to health care. How can you ration what people do not have? And when the costs of basic care are skyrocketing — a fact no one argues with; no one — and people are going into bankruptcy over medical issues more than anything else, the most idiotic thing to talk about is rationing. That's the least of our problems.

I have already been rationed out of the system. The health care and insurance industries want nothing to do with me. If I can't afford the premiums, I certainly can't afford the co-pays and other charges that will come my way. What good am I to them if I can't even pay the admission at the front door? The current system is working fine for them; fee-for-service makes billions in profits for the existing medical industry, just like the current bidding-plus-approved-overruns is fabulous for military contractors. Changes that would ensure all Americans and make health care affordable, not just for consumers but the economy as a whole, is an end to the money machine being run by insurance, high-end doctors, drug and pharma, and the other criminal conspirators who are content with 50 million Americans having no health care other than WebMD and emergency treatment.

Ration me? Please. The fuckers have already done that. I'd simply like a seat on the bus; they can keep their damn Rolls.

I care. A lot. And not only do I care, I want to know what I care about. I am not content with the talking points; I want facts, details, actual knowledge. I care, I learn and I act. I get out and do something about what I care about. I try to be, as the saying goes, the change I seek.

And I frequently do absolutely nothing at all. A classic conundrum.

Take health care. On Saturday, I will be doing with the Bus Project to walk for health care reform. We'll be joined by Health Care for American Now! and Organizing for America, and we'll be informing people in the Salem area about changes made here in Oregon that will cover all children. This is an important step forward for the state, and I'm happy I will be able to help in a small way.

I am also trying to learn all I can about the issue. I'm trying to understand "fee for service" and "single payer" and "whatever the hell Wyden is pushing" and all the other various elements. I try to follow Baucus' latest attempts to destroy real change in order to provide zero votes from Republicans. I am taking notes, using Evernote to capture and, I hope, organize information.

And, as I said above, I am doing nothing at all. Joining with the Bus? I'm just showing up. Richelle and the rest of the Politicorps team are doing the the actual doing. I'm just giving a few hours, which do matter, of course, but actual doing. Writing, organizing, real involvement that goes beyond the easy superficial activity of a few hours on a Saturday. Nothing.

The problem, apart from a paying-the-bills job that sucks away most of my day, is that I have yet to find a way to focus on doing one concrete, useful thing each day. There is so much I want to do and so much I visualize myself doing, that I end up doing nothing. The list of Things That Doing By Me is extraordinarily long. It is very large, too, and frightening. It is an 18-wheeler roaring towards me at 75 mph, and I'm the scared little bunny sitting on my haunches staring up at it and waiting to become roadkill.

This is why we have Zen, of course, and I know that, but try to get me to practice any of the precepts?

So if health care reform fails, please feel free to blame me for not doing anything because I wanted to do so much. Maybe what I am doing at this moment — I chose one thing, and I did it, letting everything else I might have chosen just sit in a corner and wait for its turn — will help me learn the lesson I have been trying to teach myself for a very long time:

I cannot save the world. I can only use the next few minutes wisely.

Or not.

Sen Max Baucus is, allegedly, a Democrat. Democrats were sent to Washington, DC, state legislatures and other elected bodies in huge numbers last year because Americans were sick of what the Republicans were doing and they wanted change. Real change. To make this message clear, vast numbers of Dems were elected with the mandate to join the President in real change. So what is Baucus doing?

Trying to appease Republican Senators.

Ok, a moment to mutter dark obscenities under my breath. Then: What the frack is wrong with him? Is he waiting for his copy of the memo that explains the new political landscape? Does he not know the Rs have been repudiated by the voters and that Barack Obama is the leader the American people chose — not Chuck Grassley?

Yesterday in an interview in Esquire, Howard Dean spoke of Washington, DC being "he most conservative town in America. Its culture is the most resistant to change except a few religious cults." Conservative does not even begin to cover it. It's like Baucus does not give a damn what people voted for. As if the polls that show three-quarters of the nation demanding a public option do not matter. Max Baucus is treating the American people as irrelevant while he concentrates on pleasing Chuck Grassley.

And I hope that sounds as nasty as I intend it to be.

Don't forget the breath mint after, Max.

From the AP, via the Corvallis Gazette-Times:

Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day ... said he is hoping that when the costs of environmental legislation this session come home to roost — particularly the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions when the state already ranks 41st in the nation on carbon footprint — voters will look to the GOP to send the pendulum swinging the other way.

The Oregon GOP is in freefall, and their hope is that Oregonians will be angry at Dems for protecting the planet? Yet another brilliant recipe for success. Will they be looking to Sarah Palin for inspiration and guidance? We can only hope.

The economy will turn around. By the time Oregonians vote in November 2010, things will be moving in the opposite direction than they are now. How strong a recovery Oregon is enjoying at that time is a big question, given how little we have to build on and how badly we are suffering now. But the national mood will be more optomistic; two years of gloom about the economy is more than most people can take, and any upswing will be a good enough reason to decide, "Hey, I'm feeling more positive."

Even in Oregon. Next year, of course, the #1 political story is going to be the race for governor. That is likely to be settled in May when the Democrats select their nominee. Republicans no longer have the ability to wage a winning statewide campaign. The general election campaign will be run with an eye on what the Legislature can accomplish in 2011, and that means building on what should be a more positive national atmosphere and turning against anything that smacks of defeatism. As in, "Poor Oregon, we cannot afford to stop destroying the planet. We have no choice but to end regulations that will save the planet but undercut corporate profit."

Because, yes, Oregonians want nothing more than to enrich corporations, most of which take those profits out-of-state while leaving the state not merely poorer, but less capable of future survival. Exhibit one: the timber industry. So Ferroli can fantasize that the Leg's actions regarding global climate change will cause a Newtonian shift to his party but what's more like is that Oregonians will have had an additional year to watch the climate turning ugly and realize that corporate profits are less important to them than basic survival.

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.