Rigging the evidence

"House Republicans estimate that their plan to place nearly all Medicaid consumers in managed care would trim costs of the program for poor children and families by $360 million annually... The GOP proposal is similar to a recommendation from ... The Ohio Commission to Reform Medicaid." What's wrong with this plan? Three things.

Managed care (which usually means HMO's) tend to work well only if you don't get seriously ill. When my eldest son was hospitalized for the third time in a year, we were told that my private HMO wouldn't pay for any more inpatient time... and that we'd also used up our outpatient visits. We incurred over $3,500 in medical bills that year - during the time we were covered by the HMO. I know how much that hurt, and can only dream of how bad that'd be for someone who needed Medicaid to begin with.

We have no specifics on how this plan is supposed to work. Given GOP trends, I'd bet they mean giving these accounts to private HMOs... which means more overhead costs for fewer benefits, and larger medical bills for those covered. How are you supposed to get yourself off of Medicaid if you get hit with larger bills? It'd make more sense to go to a single payer system.

Here's the biggie: Remember the "volunteer" group, The Ohio Commission to Reform Medicaid, that gave a similar proposal? There's no real surprise there - every last one of the commission was appointed by a Republican - the Governor, the Speaker of the House, and the President of the Senate. Even the Executive Director, Jennifer Carlson, appears to be a long-term beneficiary of the Governor. Both in science and journalism there is a concept known as full disclosure - but it got no heed in this article. Isn't that conveeeeeeeeeeeeenient.

There's three talking points on one important issue - that didn't make the front page yesterday, and won't again tomorrow. It's time to write your letter to the editor, or a short comment to Speak Up!. A letter writing HOWTO is here.

What's the Delay, you say????

The DeLay Smoke Screen House Republican Leader Tom DeLay, struggling with an ever-widening circle of allegations of ethical lapses and potentially illegal conduct, has clearly settled on a strategy to make himself bullet-proof: just attack anyone who questions his and the Republican Congress' behavior as instruments of a vast left-wing conspiracy to "destroy the conservative movement." Today's Washington Post reports DeLay has enlisted a number of conservative groups to echo this dismissive message, which goes as follows (in DeLay's own words): "It's nothing but a bunch of leftist organizations that have a public strategy to demonize me." Already, some of his allies are circulating talking points that suggest DeLay's ethical problems are just a mirage created by organizations connected to a figure they like to demonize, liberal financier George Soros. So let's examine some of the leftist conspirators who are concerned about DeLay's behavior, and what it says about the GOP-controlled Congress: For starters, there's us. We have long argued that DeLay's modus operandi, focused on a crude play-for-pay approach to lobbyists interested in legislation, and including the most savagely partisan management of the House since the Gilded Age, is a disgrace, even if it turns out he has simply violated Congress' toothless ethics rules rather than any actual criminal statutes. Somehow or other we have reached this conclusion without receiving any advice, instruction, or donations from Mr. Soros, and few of our friends or critics would do anything but laugh at the idea that the DLC is some sort of "leftist" front organization. But even across the aisle in DeLay's own GOP voices are being raised against his style of governance, and against the corruption of the once-proud "Republican Revolution" that lifted him to power. Just the other day, that well-known leftist organ, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, summarized the allegations against DeLay, and concluded: "Whether Mr. DeLay violated the small print of House Ethics or campaign-finance rules is thus largely beside the point. His real fault lies in betraying the broader set of principles that brought him into office, and which, if he continues as before, sooner or later will sweep him out." Then there's The Weekly Standard magazine, financed not by Mr. Soros, but by Rupert Murdoch, which has reported heavily and scathingly on the Indian Casino Shakedown scandal in which a close DeLay associate is a key figure, and of which DeLay himself, along with other prominent House GOP members, is alleged to have been a beneficiary. And only a true conspiracy-theory enthusiast could believe the "leftist" campaign to "demonize" Tom DeLay could extend to College Station, Texas, where the Texas A&M student newspaper, The Battalion, published an opinion column earlier this week calling on Republicans to oppose DeLay's re-election in 2006. It's not surprising that DeLay is promoting a "we're all in this together" defense, in which fidelity to the conservative cause and the GOP require a hard line against any allegations of wrong-doing. But it's a smokescreen designed to obscure the facts and give DeLay carte blanche to do anything he wants, as a matter of ideological and partisan solidarity. For their part, Democrats need to remember this controversy is not simply about Tom DeLay. The real goal is stopping the pattern of partisan and ethical abuses he represents. As even Republicans are beginning to say, DeLay's real significance is his role in the degeneration of key leaders of the conservative movement into a power-hungry cabal that has avidly pursued the maximum use of government to reward Republican constituency groups, to entrench wealth and privilege at the expense of the national interest, and to perpetuate their power as far into the future as possible. As Republican David Brooks said of the Republican Revolutionaries of 1995 in a New York Times column last week: "As time went by, the spectacular devolution of morals accelerated. Many of the young innovators were behaving like people who, having read Barry Goldwater's 'Conscience of a Conservative,' embraced the conservative part while discarding the conscience part." With each effort to wrap himself in the mantle of ideology and party, Tom DeLay seeks to tie his friends to a systemic culture of political corruption. And you certainly don't have to be a "leftist" to deplore that.

Failing our schools - and our children.

Walk into any locally-owned small business and tell them they're not earning enough money. Then tell them to do better - while you take money out of thier budget. It doesn't work. Yet the GOP - who you'd think has enough business majors to understand that - wants to take more money from public schools. I do not think public schools do everything right - we homeschool one of our children. I do think public schools should be there for every child. In America, we are supposed to be able to succeed through education. Yet the GOP wants to cripple that education in the places where they need the most help. Simply adding money to school budgets isn't the solution - we need to determine why these schools have problems. But just like any business, slashing the budget is only going to make the problem worse.

Republicans redefine job description

There are some times that the news story almost doesn't require commentary. Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell is paid $102,128 in salary, but his legal bills for outside counsel this past year cost taxpayers more than three times that total. So he's using money that belongs to us, the public, to defend himself. That's bad enough, right? Still, the senior deputy attorney general says they're "pursuant to his role as secretary of state" Like "election issues" (read - irregularities). Or... and I love this one.... "investigations related to alleged misuse of campaign funds." That would be the allegation mentioned here: "The campaign arose from widespread irregularities largely blamed on Blackwell, who both administered the election and served as co-chair of Ohio's Bush-Cheney campaign. In the past week, Ohio media widely reported that Blackwell has sent out a fundraising letter soliciting contributions from corporate donors, which is illegal under Ohio law. Petro's office has yet to indict Blackwell. Blackwell says the letter was "a mistake" and pledged to send back any such contributions. He also claimed credit in the letter for delivering Ohio's electoral votes to Bush, a boast that has infuriated many Ohioans who believe the election was administered in a partisan manner. " It's nice to know that the Republicans are admitting that election irregularities and misusing funds are part of thier idea of the role of Secretary of State. It's time for us to show them wrong.

What's real success?

Meals used to be available daily in Springfield but service has declined to four or five days a week.

A Soup Kitchens Task Force wants to rebuild that structure.

The need has climbed as the economy has floundered, said Vincent Chase, executive director of Catholic Social Services, which also runs Second Harvest Food Bank.

It's great that people are pulling together in times like this - both here in the greater Dayton area, and around the world. It's true that no man is an island, and that"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall hang separately".

Those statements are truisms simply because... they're true. America - despite its mythology of individualism - is a land where no individual succeeds without a community. Whether Boston merchants during the Tea Party, "the Donald" with his employees, or Daytonians during a massive Christmas snow, we all need and depend on others in some way. It's how you treat those others in your community that really demonstrates how successful you are.