Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
What Mid-terms? It’s All About Paying the Bills
Over the past two years, I've marveled as I watch folks on every side of the political spectrum and those who see themselves as pristinely distant from the political parties argue passionately about the issues of the day. Wall Street vs. Main Street, some used as a battle cry. Yet millions of this nation's people are so entrenched is just keeping their financial heads above water that even that distinction aimed at somehow creating the illusion of empathy seems empty and foolish.
Watch the media offer up personal finance experts who act ever so concerned about the unemployment rates and then advise those facing unemployment to use their "emergency funds" carefully and slowly. Laughable. It isn't that most American workers don't hear the advice to keep some emergency funds for those sure-to-come rainy days. It is simply impossible for most families to sock away much if any money during such stressful times, much less months of living-expense reserves.
The reality most Americans live with is a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle of necessity filled with worry about getting paid something, anything before the next round of bills come due and then past due. Unemployment benefits provide some relief for some, but in reality few people can support families for long on unemployment benefits. You pay one bill one month, bargain with the other creditors for time and then reverse the process the next month. You juggle. You worry. You splurge on a modest meal somewhere because the family hasn't gone anywhere for months and then worry about who to short in the next round of bills. You feel guilty. The phone calls are increasingly from creditors reminding you of past due payments and then threatening more collection action as you beg and barter for time.
Then you turn on the news and hear some person from the Tea Party right or some person from the "Professional" left say something perfectly incongruent with any of your reality. The nation's deficit? It may register as a problem but paying for housing by the first seems a bit more pressing. Health insurance in 2014? Geez, 2014 may as well be 2024 or 2034 or beyond, and how is buying health insurance going to necessarily mean a better outcome instead of just more bills to pay? War? People dead on foreign soil? Awful but many right here don't see how they'll stay afloat past next week. Many die here and go unmentioned and uncounted.
Many turn to something else to escape for just a bit. Video games. Television. Sports. Celebrity envy. Drugs. Alcohol. Sex. Anything but the cruel reality of the calendar bearing down on you for the next rent check and the next credit card bill and the next medical visit you cannot afford. It really isn't much of an escape to listen to politicians and those that follow them talk about the fine points of their preferred policies.
It seems to me a luxury for those with jobs and income or at least a source of personal funds to be fighting the fights in the political arena right now. Perhaps more so than ever before our nation is an unforgiving one in terms of financial success or lack thereof. People are hurting and suffering in silence all over the nation, yet their elected officials act like there is time for an August recess and time for a mid-term election and time for a lame duck Congressional session and time for a pro-life, 2nd amendment mama grizzly and her friends to rise up and protect the right to kill or is it the right to live? They are all out of touch. Right of right, centrist, and left of left.
The reality is that all of the audiences for all of these privileged visionaries (elected ones and unelected ones) are mostly made up of the people who can afford the time and travel and effort to be in any audience and who have had the luxury of time to pay attention to the issues. Most of America is trying to eek out a living - not trying to gather great fame and fortune but just pay the bills and stop the collectors and not have to move again and go to the doctor when they get sick and not feel guilty for spending a dime on something extra along the way.
I support a single-payer, Medicare for all healthcare system because the reality is I was crushed by the for-profit, private health insurance based system - and millions of other people have been or will be crushed in the same way every single day going forward. But I've been blessed enough to have the chance to know about and advocate for what I believe because I was lifted enough out of the mess to regain my voice and participate again in the process. Millions and millions of people cannot do that because the daily struggle against this economic mess is too great to overcome - no matter how hard they work.
Do we want more people engaged in this democracy? Sure. Certainly I want a better cross-section of my fellow Americans engaged with me because so long as those who have forgotten what the terror of day-to-day hanging on feels like or those who never knew it at all are the ones controlling the debate on a wide range of issues, we will not have all the best minds and the most creative and spirited minds coming up with the common sense and uncommonly brilliant changes we need going forward. We'll keep getting the lip service and delayed gratification moves of those who are secure and safe.
I wish one of my elected leaders would say it. Just one. "We need to immediately make sure all Americans have work, housing, food and access to healthcare when they are sick. Now. No excuses. No delays. Then when our people are safe and secure in their homes, we'll go to work on the deeper, bi-partisanly created systemic issues that are causing this military-medical-industrial complex to be our only focus as a means to greater wealth for the few over the greater welfare of the many. We'll own our charge from the Constitution to promote and provide for the common welfare." Then I'd like them to act on that Constitutional responsibility.
That's what I want. But for now I have to go back to work. The first of September and another round of bills are only 15 days away. Time's a wastin'.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
46 Comments so far
Show AllAs always Donna, right on the money (where it is and where it should be). I wonder how many people MIGHT be able to take a job offered if that position also offered some sort of health care plan that wouldn't drain too much from the actual paycheck? In my own workplace we have lost good people because they couldn't work enough hours to pay for health care and in one situation we lost a great guy because he had to drive a school bus to get health insurance since his other full time job didn't provide any. So Donna, I wonder how many people might be able to find a job if we had oh say for argument's sake single payer, universal health care finacing? WE should now be well into our second year of a universal plan, everone covered and no bankruptcies because of profiteering on the part of the insurance companies. Keep up the good fight Donna.
The DC in Washington DC stands for Delusion Central. The DC electeds are either totally deluded and out of touch with reality "on the ground", and/or they are cranking out delusions 24/7 to provide cover for their 24/7 corporate welfare proliferation program.
We've been paying taxes with our hard-earned money and putting money into the system all these years. My question for both houses of Congress: Where the heck is the 'return on our investment'?
It was a rhetorical question. My point is to demand accountability from Congress.
Great article, Donna. "They are all out of touch. Right of right, centrist and left of left." That says a lot. Sadly, I think "they" are also "we". Watching TV and listening to the daily "serious" discourse, one would wonder if anyone's paying attention at all. Our intellectual elites have fallen on their faces, and we allow them the hill, again. I have come to the conclusion that the U.S. is a lunatic nation. We produce more bombs and bullets than books. Sane people do not do this.
Donna Smith, thanks for your voice representing the best of humanity.
I have been reading CD since 2003 and this is by far the most realistic article possibly ever written on this site. Hopefully someone in office would read this article and take action but that would simply be wishful thinking.
No one in office will read it. You see, over half of our Congress members are millionaires! And the same with the Supreme Court!
No one should fool themselves into believing EVEN FOR A MINUTE that anyone in Congress is truly interested in helping the average citizen! They're having much too much fun spending their endless amount of funds on themselves and their petty interests.
Who has heard anyone in Congress talk meaningfully, seriously, or intelligently about REALLY helping the millions of citizens who are wondering how they'll make their next mortgage payment of when they'll ever be able to find another job? I certainly haven't heard any intelligent discussion by anyone in Congress in this regard!
We're on our own, folks!!!
The only one who might read this is Bernie Sanders, but as with his Medicare for All bill, it will be to an empty or near-empty Senate.
The states of California and Washington now have a "top two" primary that keeps third party candidates out of general elections. It won't be long before many more states adopt "top two" thereby assuring that no third party Senators or Reps. exist.
This morning I had to turn off "Face The Nation" in total disgust. Same old political hacks lying, spinning, trying to make themselves and the corrupt two party joke we have in this country look legitimate.
The entire discussion was all about politics, and image, and questioning if a video showing a candidate kicking some guy in the nuts might be a problem for her. It was a show that did not even mention anything that would be meaningful to the average Americans life. Now as I type this with "This Week with a bunch of overpaid political hacks" playing in the background they are yapping about the frigging mosque in NY city, which IMHO is just a big distraction as America burns.
This should be read EVERY DAY in front of Congress for weeks on end until at least some of them start to get the message. Being in Washington D.C. has insulated far too many politicians from reality and having campaign rallies is not enough to expose them to "real America". Excellent article.
Donna seems so tired of it all, I feel sorry for her and I also feel a great deal of empathy for her. I'd be out here working like her if I even had a job, but I'm 61 sick and out of work and out of luck, to young to retire , to old to be hired. To young for SS and to way to young for Medicare. My body doesn't care it has it's own clock ticking away and if society says here's the retirement age, it says maybe that's so, but oh well. The jobs are gone and the wolves are closing in on whats left of the safety nets of SS and Medicare. Our young Pres. is one of those wolves in sheep's clothing and he and they are out to finish us all off ( for our own good of course).
Unfortunately, most voters never look past the articulate, well groomed, hoop shooting wolf and his cute little wolf puppies in the white house !
Thank you Donna for keeping the public informed about the reality of our unemployment and our health care system gone worse. I often wonder how people never cease to complain about paying taxes yet go silent on their monthly bills. When one adds up 12 months of monthly bills, in most cases, a tax refund can't offset the amount. The Tea Party is just a scam movement designed to keep the status quo intact by reinventing the "reverse French Revolution" style protesting. Ask them about how they like corporations robbing them monthly with bills and less pay and they either go silent or give another "that's business" response. Our nation actually has higher unemployment rates compared to other nations but the numbers are fudged to keep the working class Americans brainwashed. We need full and honest reporting of both unemployment and underemployment so that the public will realize that our capitalist policies are failing us.
P.S.: We may not get single payer health care but we will not allow the health care regressive scam that passed in March to prevail. Out here in MO, on August 3, 71% of us Missourians who voted on a ballot initiative on Obamacare had a strong message for Washington. We will not tolerate paying Uncle Sam gines for our refusal to purchase scams from private health insurers. I strongly recommend that CA do the same and see the results. I will bet that at least 60% of the Californians who do vote will reject this federal scam.
You do realize that this initiative by Missouri was met in the MSM as Tea Partiers and other right-wing nuts trying to take health care away from the people. Every time I heard that I wanted to scream, because Missouri is right. Maybe what the problem is that enough people aren't out there with the alternative, along with the signs stating "Out with Obamacare, In with Medicare for All." Or maybe they are and, as usual, the MSM doesn't want to report that. They've done a very, very good job of saying that only right-wing nuts, who vote against their interests, don't want Obamacare, which is a total lie. They're very, very effective at keeping out the "left" anger at Obamacare.
I dread 2014. I feel exactly as Donna stated -- it's just another hefty bill to pay that will do me virtually no good, and at the same time will wipe out the ability to pay for other things I do to keep myself healthy, not to mention attempting to save for necessities like eye exams and glasses -- since vision and dental are not included in crap lower-tier private policies, or even in regular Medicare, apparently.
I am very well aware of the MSM and their distortions of the truth but that doesn't surprise me much. I hope that more states will either take this scam to court and/or let the people decide just like we did in MO. The more states that join the fight, the better our chances of halting the health care disaster in 2014. The MSM will always mistake MO as a rightwing state which it is not. The Kansas City and St Louis areas are heavily populated and often try to offset the deep red in the rest of the state but they won't pick up on that. If CA were to reject Obamacare on the ballot, I would not be surprised if Obama decided to cancel this scam under an executive order out of fear.
If CA hadn't fallen for the Governator scam in 2003 the state would now have single-payer and other states would be starting single-payer, just as Saskatchewan started Canadian single-payer and the other provinces were not far behind.
Had Gray Davis not been recalled he would have signed the CA single-payer bill rather than vetoing it the way Arnold did.
I used to believe that Gray Davis was a liberal for a Democrat but his record proves that he was a conservative Democrat despite the media and the Republicans labeling him as "liberal". His support of 3 strikes law, vetoing legalization of cannabis, going wishy washy on driver's license for immigrants, taking more funding from prison guard unions, caving in to Enron which lead to the disastrous energy crunch in the state, and as you mentioned vetoing single payer health care for all Californians turned off a lot of otherwise Democratic supporters. I didn't think that he should have been recalled in the middle of his second term but a conservative and dull Democrat vs a Hollywood macho Republican billed as "moderate" and it was clear that the media and the Republicans would go all out to make sure Arnold got elected that year.
It would have been interesting to see what CA would have been like had single payer there had been signed into law. While Bush or Obama would have preemptively abused federal powers to trample on CA's right to offer its citizens health care for all, this would have been a better wake up call and maybe we would have seen millions motivated into taking to the streets for Washington to provide health care for all Americans.
Correction: Gray did support single payer all along and would never have vetoed it even as a conservative Democrat. Still, I don't recall Davis ever talking about health care on the campaign trail. He should have done that though.
Speaking of Arnold, I see he has a new movie coming out soon. Good to know that California is in such good shape that it only requires a part time governor.
Well, I sure hope CA gets on the bandwagon. I won't hold my breath that NY will.
This article is very simplistic and that is also why its brilliant. Many articles tend to overly-intellectualize the situation while offering no real solutions. My comment is as simple as the article itself and hopefully more writers will take such a similar approach to these complex issues.
Thanks Donna for being a hero and not forgetting us out there. As someone who has been used to limping from one temp job to another for two years with little or no health care, I've been getting used to it. I tried to find full time employment but never found one even in Milwaukee. Two years after completing college and I still don't know what my education means to me anymore. Paid leave? All I can tell myself to do is try not to get sick and keep it at that. Paid holidays? Lose the pay and take the day off is usually what I do even though I don't like it. I hear you on those monthly bills. Living with a friend or two and splitting the costs is the best I can do. I'm not ready to file for unemployment benefits yet. Maybe the end of this month if I don't get my next job. Thanks again.
If Obama had started single payer insurance (or at least lowered the Medicare eligibility age to 55 or 60) millions of baby boomers could retire from our family wage jobs with benefits thereby creating job opportunities for Michael and millions of other young Americans. Single payer would vastly improve US health care and put a dent in the unemployment rate.
Instead, Obamacare combined with Obama's other pro-corporate, anti-worker "victories" will delay or cancel retirement for millions of boomers and keep millions of young Americans unemployed for many years.
That is an excellent point. Americans generally have to worry about their jobs not giving health care benefits. It would have been an honor if Obama had respected the idea of even the original public option let alone single payer but the scam that passed in March only makes matters worse by forcing health care to be tied to employment thereby keeping health care more as a privilege rather than making it a basic right for all Americans.
There is an old adage that says, "If you cannot convince them with knowledge, dazzle them with bull shit." The bevy of Sunday Morning Quarterbacks seem to be hell-bent on keeping the nation ignorant of reality so they can continue to peddle their particular brand of B.S. on behalf of corporate power and big money.
"Great wisdom is always to be found in simplicity." Keep up the good work, Donna.
Politicians (directed by their puppet-masters) are not merely out-of-touch. We need to comprehend the enemy powers that are facing us. They are psychopathic bastards!
In a Jack London story, “To Build a Fire”, a young miner simply ”lacked imagination” of what -60 degrees F could actually do. Even after being warned by an old-timer never to travel alone, he set out solo and built a fire under a snow-covered evergreen - expecting to survive.
We need each other. We need to stand strong even if all the powers of Hell seek to destroy our imagination. We must make a spiritual connection between ourselves and the Divine each day to find the truth.
We must choose love - not fear.
So what have you got that is any better?
No, I think the time for that has past...
Ok, lets try this again and please no assumptions on your part. I'm not so sure you understand how healthcare works, if you just go to the doctor and pay your insurance chances are you don't. Donna Smith and Michael Moore have taken a closer look and in some cases made an attempt to compare it to other models or healthcare systems. If you want to change how this system works you have to have specific plans with specific contingencies. Creating a political party is not going to accomplish this although it may not be a bad idea. In this country it has been a combination of capitalism and socialism that has been most successfull for the greater good. This gets a little wierd here for reasons I do not chose to share with you, but it is how the story goes. Healthcare has been corrupted probably more than you know. I did like some of your post because you do have strength of your convictions but it would be nice to see a little more independent thought That is where your real power is...
If you really want single payer healthcare it would be a good idea to immigrate to one of the industrialized countries that have a provision of healthcare that does not externalize costs and profits from illness and death. I know what happened to single payer, does it really matter who got the biggest piece of pie. Do you think people that are sick or dying really give a damn about that? That is what Donna Smith is saying. I just don't know how to tell you how off base you are on healthcare reform. You do realize that your healthcare is owned by venture capitalist?
I guess we will just have to see where the solution can be found but honestly I am not holding my breath for your plan. Anyway this is over, I might end a sentence with a preposition and your head would explode. la
It is not fair to frame Donna Smith as if she were a party apologist. She has tried to fight for health care for all and even against warfare. Listen, most of us progressives and liberals are at fault for voting for the Democratic Party so even if she voted Green, it wouldn't have made any difference. Now Michael Moore is a well known supporter of this administration but Donna is not a partisan. You should know that fighting a system is an uphill battle. We could have a national ballot on health care reform but even if 95% of the voters voted in favor of asking Washington to pass single payer health care very quickly, it wouldn't happen. Government and big business know how to professionally ignore the will of the majority and brainwash enough of them into thinking of not accepting a good idea that they would accept at heart.
democracy? fellow americans? constitutional responsibility? what? there was slavery under the original constitution, and there is slavery again. slavery in the old manner, and in the new, 1984 manner...
I'm not voting for any Democrat that's not a progressive in the coming elections. Our primary has a decent progressive challenger to the typical incumbent, but I don't think he's going to win. While our community has a strong progressive streak and a college culture that took over the caucuses for Obama, there is also a *certain* controlling group around these parts that doesn't have the courage to make it really happen when they have a chance at the local level.
So I expect him to be running again, as we shall find out in the next couple of days ..
This representative, a Democrat, took over a year to respond to many people's letters on health care. He was kind enough to read the bill but he was not a single payer advocate and he was rather weak on the public option as well.
He also voted for another 55 billion dollars in defense spending.
There are no jobs in our community.
Our community is filled with *quiet*, polite bigots.
After the progressive loses, I will find a nice third party candidate with no chance of winning or I won't vote for anyone on that position.
If I can't find anyone on any other position, I will turn in a blank paper ballot, probably with a write-in to ward off any possible fraud.
The reason I can do this, after so many years of voting Democrat, whether they were or weren't progressives, is because I no longer think the answer lies in our elections.
I think the answer lies more in the power of the purse at the level of boycotting. For example, organized boycott of insurance.
Now, before anyone howls and says they can't give up their health insurance, let me put it to you this way :
When 45,000 Americans are dying every year, what you basically have is a state of civil war. The problem is that you have to realize it's a war. No one is asking you to pick up a gun and do anything violent to anyone else. But perhaps it is time we started asking people to be willing to put their lives on the line.
People say Jefferson said a country should have a revolution every so often, including the one he was involved in starting. I think, personally, that this would be the best way to go about it.
In the meantime, I'll just vote for candidates I think really represent me, for a change. They might be progressive democrats, maybe green party candidates, maybe a write-in, but I'm finished with the corporate owned Democratic Party that is still spending on endless war, can't pass a sane health care bill like an expanded and improved Medicare for the country, bullshits around with social security, when that too should be expanded and improved, and likely, at this juncture with the future and the space age, should be instituting a Guaranteed Minimum Income (vs wage) for every American adult, and regardless of income (higher or lower) thereby making the "welfare" system completely unnecessary.
The fact that this takes such a 180 degree mind bend for so many in this country is tragic, but yet one more reason, why I don't buy into the one-party voting mythology any longer.
The health care bill and the endless war with a democratic controlled congress and presidency has cured me of that false wish.
Where the hell are the people on the left who want to abolish capitalism and build socialism? Do they exist? If the best we can do is propose that the financial capitalists ease up just a little, they will laugh at us.
History proves that the powers that be will not change course unless they think that people are thinking seriously about socialism. When this happens they launch a two pronged counterattack. One prong is a serious red baiting campaign against the leaders of the opposition. The other prong is "reform", which actually can improve the lives of most people. That's how we got the "middle class" in the post WWII period. The same happened in Europe. Of course, once the "communist threat" goes away, the reforms are reversed. This is the epoch we have been in since the 70s.
So people should start thinking and talking really radical and say so in the streets. We should flatly say we deny the right of those who have accumulated huge wealth on our backs the right to own it. We should be talking about expropriation of the financial bourgeoise. Otherwise, they won't think you're serious, and will continue to turn the screws on the people.
Remember, there is no bottom, even though there is a race to the bottom.