national economy Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Lessons from our second hurricane

I truly adore Melissa Harris-Perry. She is extremely thoughtful in her analysis of problems and our political circus. She and her husband, James Perry, have written a great piece in The Nation. Enjoy.

From the Nation:

New Orleans hurricane disasters are who we are.

We met in the aftermath of Katrina, both giving speeches about race and recovery at a fair-housing conference. We attempted our first date during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, but the requisite preparations and family evacuations for Hurricane Gustav made it impossible to connect with each other. On our second date, at President Obama’s inauguration, we co-authored a commentary arguing that his election was possible because the televised suffering of Katrina survivors dramatically changed American public opinion toward President Bush and the Republican Party. We were in love by the time President Obama made his first presidential visit to New Orleans. We took the opportunity to write together again, claiming that the lessons of post-Katrina New Orleans offered a blue print for rebuilding our national economy. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2012-08-31T19:50:51-04:00August 30th, 2012|Environment, Party Politics|Comments Off

Serious Heathcare Reform – Industry Pledges $2 Trillion in Cuts

Wow! $2 trillion (that’s trillion with a “T”) in savings from the Health Care industry. Now that’s a pledge. Or is it?

From WaPo:

The pledge comes amid a debate over how, or whether, to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, and Obama administration officials predicted that it will significantly increase momentum for passing such changes this year.

The groups aim to achieve the proposed savings by using new efficiencies to trim the rise in health-care costs by 1.5 percent a year, the officials said. That would carry huge implications for the national economy and the federal budget, both of which are significantly affected by health-care expenses.

One of the only things that I liked about Ronald Reagan was his mantra “trust but verify.” Although this pledge would help decrease the amount of money taxpayers would have to shell out for health care… as Hans Solo said, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

From NYT:

At this point, administration officials said, they do not have a way to enforce the commitment, other than by publicizing the performance of health care providers to hold them accountable.

Once the momentum for changing the Health Care system is gone, it will be gone for some time. We have to do this right,now. We have strike now. We need to put in place a system that is going to work for 10 or more years. If we are going to mess around and come up with some compromise that will need to be “fixed” or “looked at” every 2 to 4 years then this compromise is worth less than the paper that it is (not) printed on.

By ecthompsonmd|2009-05-11T05:36:50-04:00May 11th, 2009|Healthcare, Obama administration|Comments Off