BAN ALL MONOPOLISTIC CORPORATIONS INSTEAD!

A corporate CEO, a teabagger, and a unionized public employee are sitting around a table. A plate with a dozen cookies has been placed before the CEO. He takes 11 of the cookies, and then says to the teabagger, "Watch out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie."

This ingeneous fable is a perfect illustration of the American economic system today. Big corporations have experienced gains in worker productivity as a result of, and despite, freezing wages, conducting layoffs, and reducing workers' hours. REAL unemployment (not the "official" government statistic, but those who are still without a job) is still unbearably high. Meanwhile, CEO salaries and benefit packages continue to skyrocket. Outsourcing of American jobs continues. Union membership in the private sector is at an all-time low, as repeated union busting attempts over the past 30 years have been largely successful. The corporation and its kingpin, the CEO, rule the roost. They have devoured the Republican Party whole, and have succeeded in neutralizing and making impotent the once formidable (former) party of the workers and the poor, the Democratic Party. Now they wish to make their victory all but complete by doing away with public sector unions. They know if they are successful in this attempt, the few remaining private sector unions will also disappear. It is a disgraceful and indefensible action being undertaken in this so-called "land of the free," where the only freedom in the marketplace belongs to those who set the wages, not to those who actually produce wealth through their labor.

The corporatists and their willing parrots in the reactionary Republican Party are trying to turn non-union employees against union employees. They circulate wild and crazy rumors about how union employees make vastly more than non-union employees for the same type of work (in most cases they DON'T); how union employees' benefits dwarf those of non-union workers and are paid for by taxpayers (although most union pensions and medical insurance are either fully or partly worker-funded); and how closed-shop companies are costing jobs overall (a baldfaced lie). Their strategy is simple: divide the workers, and then conquer them. Whip up public opinion against unions (especially public-sector ones), and remain safe and untouched and able to further increase revenues and profits while both groups of workers fight among themselves. It is a dishonest and cynical ploy. It is a tactic these plutocrats and their far-right parrots are attempting to institutionalize. It must therefore be resisted to the bitter end by all who aren't members of the upper 2% of the income scale!

Scott Walker and John Kasich, the extreme far-right Republican governers of, respectively, Wisconsin and Ohio, have tried to destroy the effectiveness of public-sector unions by stripping them of their ability to collectively bargain. They have proceeded with this radical agenda even though nationwide polls indicate that, by a landslide margin, most voters disagree completely with their approach. Being ideologues who detest unions, they have nonetheless gone straight ahead with their plan.

Both claim it is the only way to reduce their state's budget deficit. But that is a deliberate lie, and they know it. Keep in mind: Neither the Wisconsin NOR the Ohio public sector unions have a history or pattern of strikes, walkouts, or other disruptions. This is just a conspiracy devised at the last Republican Governors Association meeting to directly attack these workers, done completely without provocation. And these sneaky, dishonest two governors do not mention that prior to their action, both states granted huge tax cuts to corporations (Ohio even completely did away with their corporate income tax)! BOTH MEN MUST THEREFORE BE RECALLED AND THROWN FROM OFFICE AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE MOMENT FOR THIS ARROGANT, DEFIANT, AND DISHONEST ACTION!

Corporate taxes have steadily decreased as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product, as the chart below clearly shows. Yet corporations still send out swarms of lobbyists to get Congress to lower their taxes even further! It defies logic, and such behavior can only be filed under the heading of GREED. For, along with tremendous gains in productivity per worker over the past 20 years, corporations have caused an actual REDUCTION in the number and pay scales of American workers' jobs. That's right: rather than take their tax decreases and apply them to the creation of new, better-paying AMERICAN jobs, corporations have either sat on their savings, or, worse yet, exported American jobs overseas. Even worse, much of the taxes bthey used to pay have been moved steadily from them over to personal income taxes over the years!
The thoroughly bought-out Republican Party in the House of Representatives recently voted unanimously to defeat a Democratic bill which would have ended our $36 BILLION federal subsidy to the nation's top 5 oil companies, who together have netted $1 TRILLION in profit over the past decade! That should give you an idea of the REAL Republican feeling on cutting our nation's deficit!

To further show how greedy corporate America has become, not only has their average rate of taxation declined steadily, but they have also taken to using creative ways to present themselves so as to incur even less taxation! Designation as a sub-S corporation provides for an even larger tax savings, as the steady rise in companies doing so is shown in the chart below.
To put this in proper perspective, I am presenting below two graphs which I obtained from TomCat's post of March 3, which appeared on his marvelous blog www.politicsplus.org. (Left click on each graph to make it larger and more readable). They show exactly how corporate America has robbed YOU over the past decades, and what the current table of income levels reveals. It is DISGUSTING!
It is an unfairly reckless act for Govs. Walker and Kasich to effectively be balancing their state budgets on the backs of middle class and poor workers, and an added insult to bar public unions tfrom bargaining collectively for better pay and working conditions. These are not the actions of men who truly believe in a free market. Rather, these are puppets of the plutocracy this country has become. They aren't public servants; they are servants of an evil, greedy oligarchy which wishes to push all wealth upward into the hands of a select few. For if these clowns really did believe in a free market, rather than ban collective bargaining among public employees, they would heed my call to BAN ALL MONOPOLISTIC CORPORATIONS INSTEAD!


PROGRESSIVES AND INDEPENDENTS: REMEMBER THE WISCONSIN PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS!!!

In closing, I say to the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives:

OK, you got your extended Bush tax cuts for the rich; NOW WHERE ARE THE JOBS WHICH WERE SUPPOSED TO RESULT? You've regained control of the House of Representatives; NOW WHERE ARE THE JOBS WHICH WERE SUPPOSED TO RESULT? You've been Speaker of the House for over 2 months. You have done nothing to create new jobs and have instead wasted all your time on social issues. NOW, WHERE THE HELL ARE THE JOBS YOU SAID WOULD BE CREATED WHEN THE REPUBLICANS GAINED CONTROL, MR. BOEHNER?

AN INSIDER'S VIEW OF OUR BROKEN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

I got a very nice email recently from a former classmate, now a nurse, who has followed my blog and its various posts on our pathetically profit-driven and chronically broken health care system. She provides some behind-the-scenes insights on the day-to-day frustrations and horror stories now being faced by many of our nurses and hospital workers in this increasingly greedy and corrupted system. My own comments follow her email in bold, at bottom below.
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Jack,

I still love your blog, it makes me think way too hard, so I have to always plan some time to read it. Your information and thoughts take time to read, consider, and always learn. You should join the bloggers that make an income blogging. Though finding sponsors may be a bit difficult with your views on caring for and improving the lives of the people of our country.

I was a little, well very worried about your April 1, 2010 blog until I got to the end. GREAT READ.

Here are some thoughts for you to think about:

As you may know the big hospital industry in Minneapolis is trying to negotiate the MNA (nurses union) contract. According to the Mpls Startribune the hospital CEO salaries in the metro run from $957,300 (David Cress at North Memorial) to $1,738,300 (Richard Petingill-Allina). The hospitals cite the need to make changes because of declining reimbursement, increased uninsured patients and anticipated changes of reimbursement due to the national health care program.

The hospitals have some "great" ideas of how to cut their costs by changing the way patients are cared for by delivering the care in a more efficient way. Efficiency includes redefining the care provided to each patient and taking away reimbursement to the nurse in terms of pension. Nurses do not have the luxury of profit sharing, stock options and bonuses given for meeting corporate cost saving quotas like many professionals.

Key issues during the MNA (Minnesota Nurses' Association, the nurses' union-Ed.) negotiations include nurse-to-patient staffing ratios and the hospitals’ desire to slash the nurses’ long-standing pension plan benefits. The hospitals also want the ability to change nurses' daily assignment to fill in at the site and unit most in need for that shift. I for one do not want to be called 90 minutes before a shift and told to go over to United and work in the OR. A patient or a surgeon does not want to see me show up at that site and pretend to know what I am doing.

As a nurse I can cite many daily examples of wasted time or resources. I can testify to the consequences of working short staff. As a mother of an uninsured 25 year old son I worry about any injury or illness he may have that requires medial care. Medical bills cause a large amount of bankruptcies and that is not good for society. I also have a child with a serious and persistent mental illness. The mentally ill are truly neglected by our society. Day to day living is a challenge at best for them. As an abandoned wife of a director at United Health Care, I see the huge corporate profits and the excessive compensation executives make by negotiating health care payment, determining what health-care procedures are going to be paid depending on the diagnoses and finding legal loopholes to continue to make excessive profits at the expense of the ill. As I watch my 47 year old brother die from cancer, I grieve for all the terminally ill people stuck in such system that seems more concerned about profit than patient care.

Is there a nursing shortage? Ask the RN graduates of 2010 or 2009 or 2008, how many recruiters are banging on their doors begging them to work at their health care corporation. I know a few 2010 graduates, and none of them have been recruited, they are are all aggressively looking for a job-any RN job. The nursing shortage? Yes. The average age of nurses is high and someday they will retire. Others will go into another career. My unit had 2 nurse managers return to staff positions. The important nurse manager job is left to a "rotating charge nurse" situation which is a band-aid for a shift but provides no one able to see the needs of the patient or the unit in a consistent manner. No one advocates for the patients or unit. Last week, we temporarily closed one of the small units because of vacancies, secondary to MDs being on vacation. Four to six staff were told to stay home each shift. Last summer almost every shift experienced the need to reduce staff, sometimes the staff voluntarily took the shift off and took a vacation day or no pay, sometimes they were mandated to stay home. Try to pay your bills when your vacation is all used up and you are mandated to take the shift off. Try to plan a vacation-we bid vacations in Feb but if all your vacation time is used up by leaves you do not get the vacation time.

Other shifts we are truly short a nurse. The number of patients on the unit require so many nurses and one calls in sick or there are admissions causing the number of nurses to be less than ideal. Admissions are always happening, causing nurses to take on more patients. The hospitals staff for the number of patients in the unit. The patient number determines the number of nurses. There are no accommodations made for acuity or anticipated admissions. Getting 4-5 admissions on a shift is a nightmare for the staff.

The schools offering nursing programs are doing well. They have several applicants for every open spot. They have a cash cow, expanding their nursing program staff to add more student spots and make more money. I have met many nontraditional students going into health care because of the perceived guarantee of a job. I question if the purpose of this career change is for financial gain or perceived job security. Some males want to be a director (of something) and going into a traditionally female profession gives men an advantage. Real nurses are nurturing healers who want to take care of those needing help or dying. Fortunately, the "old" traditional nurses are just that.

Health care is in crisis, but don't blame sick or mentally ill, handicapped, or nurses. In our society capitalism has created corporate greed. Health insurance companies divvying out health care treatment at the expense of the sick while making huge corporate profit. Politicians create laws which give incentives to hospitals and MDs provide only the minimum amt of care, or not offering some care or treatments, just to increase profits. If an insurance company pays a predetermined amount for a procedure or admission diagnoses, the hospital tries to "get the job done" for the least expense. My daughter broke her jaw and needed 2 surgeries. and the insurance company determined she did not need anesthesia. Where did the actuary or the writers of that plan get their MD degree? I had brain surgery, access to my brain was through nose and upper jaw. This killed my two upper front teeth, causing them to yellow and brown. The insurance company would not pay for the required reconstructive surgery. They explained to me breast reconstruction is required by law but they are not legally required to fix my teeth. Somehow the insurance company never got my 3 requests and my physician's explanation of the need for the surgery.

One MD on MPR reported that 1/4 (or some significant amount) of every health-care dollar does not go to health-care. Is this the time I am paid to triple document education and pathways? This takes time away form patient care. Then one of my managers audits charts to make sure all documentation is entered. Then insurance companies or Medicare audits the documentation. I understand that if all required documentation is not entered the claims may be not paid or medicare or the state or someone can fine the hospital. The outside auditors-medicare need to be paid I believe my taxes pay them. I would prefer my taxes go to caring for the sick or homeless, or working poor paying way too much for a small apartment for their families leaving little for food, a car and no health insurance.

I hope you and Nick Coleman pay attention to what is happening to our negotiations. Nurses are not the problem in the health-care crisis. I love being a nurse and cannot think of anything I would rather do except to be at home taking care of my high school age daughter and my grandchildren. Some shifts I actually get to spend quality time with one of my patients.

Take care.
P.

HERE IS THE TEXT OF THE MNA's MAR. 16 PRESS RELEASE:

ST. PAUL (March 16, 2010) – Saying their 12,000 members are committed to standing united in the coming months, Minnesota nurses formally began labor contract negotiations with six Twin Cities hospital systems on Tuesday.

“The safety and quality of care for our patients is on the line,” said Minnesota Nurses Association President Linda Hamilton, who works as a registered nurse in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. “Nurses always have and always will be an outspoken advocate for the men, women and children of Minnesota who are put under our care. These negotiations are all about the bottom line. For nurses, that bottom line remains the same – patients before profits.”

The current labor contract between 12,000 Minnesota Nurses and six Twin Cities hospital systems (North Memorial, HealthEast, Allina, Methodist, Children’s and Fairview) expires on May 31, 2010. After several weeks of bargaining, nurses will vote on May 19 to either ratify the new contract or authorize a strike. The last time there was a large-scale RN strike in Minnesota was 1984, when 6,000 nurses walked off the job for 35 days. It remains the largest RN strike in U.S. history.

At the forefront of 2010 talks are two issues – RN staffing levels and the nurses’ pension fund, which has been in place since 1962.

“More than 72,000 people in this country needlessly die every year because hospitals don’t have enough nurses on staff,” Hamilton said, referencing a 2005Medical Care Journal study. “The numbers don’t lie. If you don’t have enough nurses working, people are going to die when they don’t need to. So we’ll keep saying it until we’re blue in the face: Safe staffing saves lives.”

Pension bargaining between nurses and the hospital systems began during early March, and the hospitals have made it clear they want to cut the nurses’ pension funding by a third.

“First of all, our pension funding equals about one percent of these hospital systems’ annual revenue,” Hamilton said. “It’s a minimal expense. These hospitals aren’t going to be closing their doors in order to pay nurses the retirement benefits we’ve been earning for nearly five decades.”

The hospitals’ current proposal would put the nurses’ pension benefits back to 1968 levels, according to Hamilton.

“Gas cost 34 cents a gallon in 1968,” Hamilton said. “A new house cost around $15,000. To ask us to retire and support our families on a standard of living like that would require a time machine to pull off.

“Nurses are not greedy people. It’s not in our nature,” she continued. “We sign up to do what we do because we put the well-being of others ahead of ourselves. At the same time, we need to advocate for our families the same way we advocate for our patients. We need a livable pension plan to ensure that we can retire when we’re ready and that our spouses and children have the support they need from us.”

Minnesota nurses will hold a large rally for patient safety on March 27 at Hopkins High School as part of their united stance on the labor contract’s key issue.

“When it comes to the people of this great state, Minnesota nurses want everyone to know that we care,” Hamilton said. “We care for each and every patient we see. And we’ll keep fighting to ensure we’re allowed to do that to the very best of our ability and that your experience with us is as safe and comfortable as possible.”



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This attempt by Twin Cities hospitals to shake down their nurses is an outrage I'm sure a number of you were never aware of or ever thought about. It's the same old story, though: wealthy corporate CEOs are trying to further increase profits and line their pockets at the public's AND THEIR OWN WORKERS' EXPENSE! In this case, their greed is not only cheapening the "product" their institutions provide, but directly and negatively impacting the care sick and dying people will be receiving. "Free market" economy advocates: this is a perfect example of "free market" economiucs gone astray, and why there MUST be government oversight in the marketplace. If these greedy CEOs are to succeed in rolling back employee pensions and further cutting back staff, they will be the ONLY beneficiaries. The patients certainly won't benefit, nor will the nurses. Should a handful of self-centered individuals be empowered with the ability to negatively impact health care solely to protect and maintain their own already opulent lifestyles? I ask you, everybody: IS THIS NECESSARY? Why should hospital CEOs and directors receive exorbitant salaries when they are doing virtually nothing themselves to heal or comfort their customers, the patients? Why are they attempting to cut employee pensions at a time when the insolvency of Social Security is looming? Why are they, in effect, STEALING from their employees, the very people who ARE healing and comforting their customers? Shouldn't the priority here be the maximization of patient comfort and quality of care rather than the maximization of hospital profit and/or CEO and stockholder earnings and benefits?

This is not an isolated incident. Corporations all across this country have been chipping away at employee pay and benefits for far too long, and the time for a reversal of this is long overdue. It is my sincere hope that, if these purported actions against nurses are taken by Minneapolis-St. Paul hospitals, the Minnesota Nurses Association will respond more vigorously in their negotiations than they ever have before. Enough is enough. When the greed of a handful of piggish individuals begins to hurt patient health care, these piggish individuals have gone WAY too far! They will - if not directly, strongly, and successfully challenged - effectively be instituting their own PRIVATE "death panels" which will be REAL, unlike the fictitious government ones Sarah Palin has lied about. These CEOs are classic examples of how badly broken our existing for-maximum-profit health care system is, and they are walking billboards for a fully government-run, single-payer system like every other civilized country in the world has!

A DEADLY PRESCRIPTION PROFIT OVERDOSE

"Let's take the profit motive OUT OF MEDICINE!"
- Manifesto Joe, Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues -

"Tax the very wealthy to make everyone healthy!"
- Vigilante, Sozadee, CA -



A disturbing piece by Duff Wilson has just appeared in the NY Times explaining how the nation's greedy, profit-obsessed pharmaceutical companies have sneakily raised prices on their brand name drugs a whopping 9% at the wholesale level over the past year, even as the Consumer Price Index has FALLEN 1.3% in the same period. This is significant because roughly 78% of all prescriptions sold are brand-name drugs.

Stephen Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota, has done cost analyses of the drug industry for AARP, the nation's premier advocacy lobbying group for the aged. He has compiled this data, which has been backed up by other Wall Street analysts. He is critical of this increase, as well he should be. Harvard economist Joseph Newhouse found similar increases happened as drug benefits were added to Medicare in 2006. He has said that such increases usually do occur in the face of new health industry legislation. But are they justiofied? Hardly.

Ken Johnson, the senior Vice President of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade organization, dismisses Schondelmeyer's criticisms and report as being politically motivated. Yet the numbers speak for themselves, Mr. Johnson, and they say you lie. Industry claims that these price increases are necessary to keep profits at a level needed to sustain proper research and development for new drugs, which is indeed a costly process, lose credibility when you consider that nearly 30% of new drug research and development costs are offset by us consumers and taxpayers in the form of federal tax breaks and subsidies. What these increased prices REALLY pay for are the ever-rising and exorbitant salaries paid pharmaceutical board members and the lavish marketing campaigns now employed constantly on TV to sell new and even established prescription drugs to consumers. That's why we are constantly bombarded with totally aggravating TV ads for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, Zytec, Boniva, Lamisil, Crestor, and so many others. 30 years ago, far less costly and much less pervasive advertising was done not to consumers, but to physicians, as it should be. This push-pull marketing technique to get us to ask our physicians for specific brand name drugs is something WE are paying for - dearly - in the form of ever-higher prices. This is absolute nonsense!

Speaking of exorbitant industry annual salaries, I focused on the top 10 pharmaceutical CEO members' salaries in my August 17, 2009 post, "Top 10 Reasons Your Prescriptions Cost So Much", and, just as a brief reminder:
No. 1 was Bill Weldon of Johnson & Johnson at $29,500,000
No. 2 was Miles White of Abbott, at $28,300,000
No. 3 was Bernard Poussot of Wyeth at $25,000,000, and
No. 10 was John Lechleiter of Eli Lilly at $13,000,000.
Remember, everybody, these are just CEO salaries. Other board members were also paid salaries nearly as enormous. Such salaries are wholly unjustifiable and indefensible in a country where millions of people are now out of work, without health insurance, or are seniors on fixed incomes.

This industry increase occurs as pharmaceutical companies make a lot of ballyhoo about their voluntary pledge to cut 8% per year over the next ten years off the prices of prescription drugs as their way of complying with the spirit of proposed new health care reform legislation. It is as deceiving as a retailer who marks up his $500 suits to $600 overnight, and then the next day trumpets a "huge $100 off SALE!" As all of us know, this is just a dog and pony show these greedy manufacturers are putting on, as their price rises amply prove.


I CURRENTLY BUY AS MANY OF MY PRESCRIPTIONS AS I CAN ONLINE FROM CANADA, WHERE MY NET COST, EVEN WITH POSTAGE, IS SLIGHTLY MORE THAN HALF OF WHAT IS CHARGED HERE. I URGE YOU TO DO SO AS WELL. They are the exact same drugs manufactured by the exact same American manufacturers as you find here, but at roughly half the price. That, in itself, is a strong argument for a Canadian-style, single-payer health care system!

We Americans are getting a deadly prescription profit overdose from our piggish pharmaceutical industry which is killing our businesses, bankrupting our elderly and chronically ill, and benefitting ONLY very greedy and very overpaid business executives. Conservatives, Republicans, and a number of blue dog Democrats oppose a public option for health care which would exert strong downward pressure on drug prices. They obviously believe corporate profits are far more important than affordability of needed drugs for us taxpayers. Does this make sense to you? It certainly doesn't to me, and that's why these fools must be driven out of office and replaced by progressives in 2010!




Take a good loook at this...it's a picture of your personal and your company's hard-earned money being stolen by greedy wealthy pharmaceutical industry board members for their obscenely high salaries, bonuses, and profits.