Two threats to democracy

AfD secretary Dr. Peter Mott had this letter to the editor published on Thursday, April 22, by the Rochester, NY, Democrat and Chronicle.

To the Editor:

There are two increasingly serious threats to our democracy. First, the threat of corporate domination. Consider: Who chooses our representatives in Washington, the people or the corporations? Who chooses our health care system, the people or the insurance corporations? Second, the decreasing ability of our society to truly listen to one another. The extreme right-wing in our country is becoming so well financed and organized that it can shut down civil discourse on almost any issue by creating factions based on fear, racism and hate. We need to quickly recognize and speak out strongly against both. To let them fester is to continue to weaken our country.

Peter D. Mott

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Is there a regional meeting near you?

The latest on our regional meetings! If you don't see one near you, organize one! It doesn't have to be elaborate--if a potluck and discussion meets your local needs, that's fine. We can also suggest possible topics for speakers or films, and provide you with literature and in some cases dvds. For more information, contact afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org

October
Oct. 6, Tuesday, Blue Hill, ME
Blue Hill Public Library, 7:00 pm
AfD national council member Bonnie Preston hosts panel on water with Emily Posner Defending Water for Life in Maine on bottled water; Sarah Bigney of Maine Fair Trade Campaign on trade and water; Antonio Blasi, a member of Maine Water Allies, active in eastern Hancock County, on ground water; and Nancye Files, of Alliance for Democracy Downeast.

Mid-October, Sacramento, CA, TBA
AfD Defending Water for Life Campaign hosts with other co-sponsors the movie “Tapped” on bottled water. View trailer and Ruth Caplan here. Nestlé is coming to Sacramento and we’re fighting back!

Oct. 31, Saturday, Portland, OR
First Unitarian Church, SW 12 and Salmon, Time TBA
Watch AfD Portland website for details. Possible topics: election reform in OR and the nation; corporate personhood and corporate money in elections: Citizens United v. FEC; water privatization: Cascade Locks/Nestlé and bottled water-Bull Run reservoir and costly water treatment plants;

November
Nov. 8, Sunday, Concord, Massachusetts
Boston/Cambridge Alliance and North Bridge Alliance potluck focuses on corporate personhood and Citizens United v. FEC

Nov. 12, Thursday, Davis, CA
Time/Place TBA: Potluck and discussion of the corporate voice vs. the people’s voice in local land-use development campaigns

Nov. 12, Thursday, Pittsfield or Rochester, NY
Time/Place TBA: Local Potluck Dinner and discussion on “Do Corporations Rule the World?”

Nov. 14 -15, Sat-Sun, Ukiah, CA
Bi-annual Convention of Northern California Alliance for Democracy
“Rethinking Rights of Corporations in Northern California: What Can Local Communities Do Now?” Details coming!

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AfD Secretary Dr. Peter Mott on what's wrong with the Obama health plan

by Dr. Peter Mott

Why would many of us who worked hard to make Barack Obama president now work hard to oppose his health plan?

The explanation is quite simple: There are three possible directions to take with our complex, confusing, expensive, and failed health care non-system in the US – but only one of them is affordable. If our leaders choose one of the other routes they will vastly increase our deficit and we will find ourselves back in the old quagmire of rationing, with the same questions raised: Who will we exclude from receiving medical care? Which elderly citizens should not have major surgery – and at what age? Which should not have unlimited nursing home stays?

The three main options before us are:

• Continuing the current mix of hundreds of private insurance corporation plans and several public programs;
  
• A single payer system; and
  
• The Obama compromise – a public/private option.
  

The Obama plan proposes that everyone should choose among all existing insurers and a competing public plan. The latter would be similar to our current Medicare. The government would help low-income families either to buy private insurance policies or join the public plan. The 50 million uninsured Americans (plus an estimated 40 million under-insured) would have that choice. Everyone would be covered. The insurance companies would love having millions of new customers.

The cost of the Obama plan, however, would be huge. Total health care costs in the US now are nearly twice that of any other industrialized nation per person per year; and our costs are rising at a rate faster than any other country each year. Imagine the total cost if, added to all this, we help pay for those same 90 million under- and un-insured people. What if we add long-term care insurance for nursing home or home care – which most Americans do not have now? On 7/17/09 Congressional Budget Director Elmendorf stated that the proposed Obama plan legislation “significantly expands…health care costs.”

The President’s hope is that a competing “public option,” on the model of expanded Medicare for All, would attract enough customers to force down overall costs. However, if the premiums for the private and public options are equal – and the insurance corporations will push for this – a majority of citizens probably will choose the private route. Then overall costs will go through the roof.

The “single payer” proposal is easiest to understand by looking at the bill now in Congress called HR 676 or “Medicare for All.” Everyone would be covered. We would have free choice of doctor and hospital. All needed services would be covered at no charge, including regular care, preventive care, emergency services and chronic, long-term care. Health care would be planned and organized by regions. The single plan would be paid for by a progressive income tax and an excise tax on corporations. Such single payer public plans have been shown in careful studies to save money over our current health care costs. After a transition period there would be expected savings of $350 billion per year. Administrative costs of the current Medicare program are only 2-3% - compared to those of private insurance corporations that are from 15-30%, largely because of advertising costs, shareholders’ profits, and high pay/benefits for executives.

Why does President Obama – who previously favored single payer – now push for a compromise? Because he wants to win Congressional votes – and the gigantic insurance corporations control many of those votes. Is this anti-democratic? Yes, indeed! But Congress won’t care about that unless there is a groundswell from the grassroots demanding what is best for America.

Seventy per-cent of the public have expressed support for national health insurance. Now that 70% must speak out. The stakes are high: public good vs. corporate profit. Battling the insurance corporations, their lobbyists, and the propaganda which is already spreading - will be tough. But when was democracy ever easy?

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Two Quick Actions for Single Payer!

Through your efforts the grassroots movement for single payer health care is growing stronger and louder every day. But we must keep up the pressure. We're headed into the "endgame" for health care reform, with lobbyists for the health care profiteers swarming over Capitol Hill promoting piecemeal plans and toothless reform.

Please forward this alert to everyone on your lists and take the actions below. And keep making calls, talking to family and friends, sharing your health care stories, responding to the media, and writing letters to the editor. We will be heard!

Action #1: Sign Sen. Bernie Sanders's "A Petition to Congress Supporting Single-Payer Health Care"
Sign the petition, forward the petition, and leave your story on the comments section. More than 20,000 people have already added their names. Join them!

Action #2: Call Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius at 1-877-696-6775 and email the President.
Tell them that the current proposed health care reforms are not universal (36 million Americans will still be uninsured), and too expensive--with Congressional Budget Office estimates on the Kennedy legislation at $1 trillion over ten years. Adopt single payer, make health care a right, not a commodity, and you cover everyone and save nearly $400 billion.

Finally, thanks to Alliance for Democracy members in Rochester, New York, for their work for single payer, and for Alliance co-chair Lou Hammann, who has been working both nationally and at the state level; check out a slideshow from Healthcare for All PA's single payer rally June 11 in Harrisburg, PA in support of Pennsylvania's two state-level bills. On Friday, June 26, AfD council member Ruth Caplan will speak at a single payer demo in Washington D.C., starting at 5:30 p.m. in front of Union Station. If you're in the area, be part of this action!

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Op-Ed on Single Payer by Peter Mott

Peter Mott, doctor, author, and AfD secretary, wrote the following op-ed for the Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle:

Change We Need – And Can Afford

Because of the current financial crisis many observers see no point in discussing an expansion of health care coverage this year – either federal or state. Indeed, it is true that the current crisis is adding greatly to our public debt. And it is true that total health costs in the US are already twice as high per person per year as those of any other nation and rising faster. If we were to start paying to insure our 50 million uninsured – plus an estimated 40 million Americans who are underinsured – costs would escalate hugely. This would be true with any of the recent proposals for insuring the population – except one.

Believe it or not, there is one proposal which could cover all Americans for all needed services and save money. And it is now – with funds getting shorter every day – that we must explore that proposal. In truth, we cannot afford not to. Careful studies have shown that national savings would amount to $350 billion per year.

At the national level this proposal is called Medicare for All, and it is embodied in Congress as Bill HR676. In New York State it is called Single Payer New York and it is one of the options now being studied by the Governor in Albany.

The propagandists call it "socialized medicine." But it is not – because most doctors and hospitals would be private and working in their own facilities.

How could covering more people decrease total expenditures? The difference is in "administrative costs." Private insurance companies have such costs totaling 15 - 30%. Blue Cross 11%. Medicaid 5%, and Medicare 1-2%. "Administrative costs" include advertising and shareholders' profits, as well as the billing and collecting costs of hospitals, doctors' offices, labs and x-ray facilities. These become a nightmare as patients change among a variety of insurers, or when they lose insurance by changing or losing their jobs.

HR676 is an expanded Medicare for All, and it is brief, simple, uncluttered: Everyone in the country is covered. Everyone has one card. Present costs disappear completely. The patient may go to any doctor or hospital. The entire health system is paid for by taxes on corporations and a progressive income tax. It is administered by a public or quasi-public body. Health providers do their jobs and receive a fee for service with the fee scales negotiated annually.

Do private insurance companies suffer? Yes. Their roles would be limited. That part is controversial, and that's where the fight begins. Many feel that it's impossible to beat the insurance industry. But, if this is truly a democracy, who should decide such a basic public policy as this? The people or the corporations?

My own opinion, after 40 years of organizing to change the health care system, is that the private insurers have had decades in control. They have had their chance, and they have left us in a mess: Ranked 37th in the world by the World Health Organization for health care delivery; 1/3 of our population un- or under-insured; costs higher than any other nation; many parts of our population with poor care; higher morbidity and mortality rates than any other developed nation. It’s time to fight!

President-elect Obama’s health proposal is not close to Medicare for All. But he is a good listener who encourages the grassroots to speak up.

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Rochester AfD takes action on single-payer health care

Rochester chapter organizer and Alliance council secretary Peter Mott writes:
A few years ago the Rochester Chapter formed a county-wide committee on health insurance for New York state. We have since merged with other local groups to become the Interfaith Health Care Coalition. That, in turn, became part of a state-wide campaign called Single Payer New York. Our goal is covering all New Yorkers with health insurance and from many good national and state studies it is clear that only a single payer system could actually save money over current total health costs. (Compromised plans--leaving insurance corporations alive--would greatly increase costs.

Single payer health care has been an AfD priority since our founding at Mo Ranch in Texas in 1996. At the 2007 AfD convention in Tucson we tried out a simple True/False exercise about single payer, and now have a slick version of it, "Health Care: Truths and Myths" in red, black and white, available by e-mail from afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org.

Of course the single payer system is a lethal threat to the insurance corporations, and they have more weight than we do --so far--in the State Senate and even with our Democratic Governor. We're next to Canada and visitors there see the truth about Canadian "Medicare": efficient, effective and with full experience and data since 1964. However, that doesn't prevent the corporate propagandists from bad-mouthing it. So we are now going door-to-door (with a pause for our election) to build support for a better plan for New York state.

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New book by AfD secretary Peter Mott

Drawing on his experiences as a doctor and an activist, AfD secretary Peter Mott has written Cancer in the Body Politic: Diagnosis and Prescription for an America in Decline, newly published by the Ecumenical Program in Central America and the Caribbean
(www.epica.org). Howard Zinn describes the book as "a work of both fact and imagination, with a spiritual thread, a moral center--it comes at a time in our history when we can use both common sense about the present and hope for the future."

Note: Peter has very kindly donated some signed copies of this book as thank you's for contributors of $50 or more to our end-of-year appeal. Thank you, Peter!

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