Protecting A Million Texans Requires Your Vote

As if you needed another reason to make time to vote in November think about this, Texas is one of 20 states suing the federal government to take away healthcare from millions of Americans especially middle and lower income Texans. Our Republican Attorney General, Ken Paxton, joined the suit earlier this year in an effort to use the courts to do what Congress chose not to. Paxton is empowered by the fact that Republicans control both houses of the legislature and every statewide office.

The cynical ploy used by the Attorneys General is the claim that since the individual mandate was central to the Affordable Care Act, the fact that Congress repealed it invalidates the entire law. Since 1.2 million Texans are covered through plans purchased via the Exchange created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) having the court decide in favor of killing it will endanger the lives and health of all of them. Of course it won’t have any effect on the 4.5 million Texans denied coverage by Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision not to accept the 90% federally funded Medicaid expansion.

Whether or not Democrats can beat Paxton directly by electing Justin Nelson to replace him or indirectly through electing a majority in one or both houses of the legislature and cutting his budget, it can be done. Readers have three or four ways to protect the healthcare of over a million Texans. They can vote to replace the current Attorney General with Justin Nelson who if elected will certainly withdraw from the suit. They can vote to replace the Governor with Lupe Valdez who can make it known to the legislature that she will veto any budget that continues to fund attacks on the Affordable Care Act. They can vote to replace the incumbent in the House with John Rodgers who would fight to force Paxton to drop the suit by cutting his budget. Rodgers would also demand that the state take the federal money to expand Medicaid which would not only be a boon to those 4.5 million Texans not currently insured, it would also stimulate the economy of the entire state leading to many more jobs and higher paying jobs as well. If you live in the part of Guadalupe County which is in Senate District 25 you can replace the incumbent who is widely recognized one of the worst legislators in Texas with Steve Kling.

On the federal side we have an opportunity to put a stop to Republican efforts to repeal the ACA in whole or in part by taking back one or both houses of Congress. We need to hold onto a House seat by voting for Vicente González so that in other districts where Republican incumbents are in jeopardy of losing their seats we can gain enough to achieve a majority there. This is really important as Republicans in the House are still working to undermine the ACA by any means available. They are also plotting to cut Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid benefits claiming that they are causing a deficit; when in fact that deficit is caused mostly by the tax breaks they just gave big banks and billionaires. A Democratic House majority insures that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the ACA all continue to be adequately funded.

There is also the very real possibility of replacing one of the Senate’s most unpopular members if we all get out and vote for Beto O’Rourke. If Texas voters flip that seat it will go a long way toward making it possible to win a majority in the Senate.

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Democrats Know the Solution is Medicare for All

In 2009 when the Democratic controlled Congress passed and President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, there was hope that nearly all Americans would soon be able to access healthcare, especially preventive care. It was expected that millions who had previously suffered, thousands who would have died and tens of thousands who would have gone bankrupt or heavily into debt would be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Some few claims by proponents turned out to be exaggerated but on the whole millions did indeed get health insurance at a price they could afford and had access to doctors and prescription medication previously unavailable to them. Even before the ink was dry on President Obama’s signature, Republicans in Congress and state governments began working to prevent Americans from having affordable healthcare. Governor Rick Perry declared that Texas would not expand Medicaid and thus denied one million Texans, many of them children the opportunity to see a doctor and receive adequate treatment.

If you’ve listened to their excuses for their behavior it becomes quite clear that in the conservative mind only those who have jobs with sufficient income even deserve the benefit of healthcare. Now they don’t say it outright but that’s really what it boils down to. If you get sick or have an accident you can get as much healthcare as you can pay for. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, it just matters how much you’re paid for it.

President Obama’s Affordable Care Act was an attempt to satisfy the conservative mind by retaining the capitalist model of the existing system and even making it more profitable for insurers, as they’d have more customers, while taking care of a far greater portion of the American public. It works fairly well at what it was intended to do and would work better if Republicans including the current White House resident would stop trying to break it.

The experiment has also shown us that the capitalist approach to healthcare is not the solution that Republicans claim it is. Private insurance companies drive up the cost of care in a number of ways including the right to take 20% of premiums for themselves. In addition they cost the medical profession significant amounts due to arcane billing procedures and delays in payments. Worse still private insurers often make difficult to actually receive the care we think we’re paying for by denying the treatment the doctor prescribed for any number of reasons. When Republicans were fighting the Affordable Care Act they complained about unelected bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor, I find it telling that they had no such concerns about the flunkies of profit seeking corporations getting between you and your doctor.

Democrats in Congress and the Texas legislature have come around to an idea that many in the public already had which is that the solution to the high and often unaffordable cost of healthcare is to make it a part of what you get for your tax dollars just like every other industrialized nation on earth and even places like Iraq.

In Congress, Democrats are actively pushing for a bill known as Medicare for All while in the Texas legislature we can look forward to something similar. Both bills guarantee that every resident will receive comprehensive healthcare services. Individuals will have free choice of licensed health professionals and services including vision and dental care as well as home healthcare, adult day care, and hospice.

Healthcare for millions more Americans at lower cost, what other reason do you need to vote for Democrats in November?

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 16, 2018

Republican Plot to Kill Paid Sick Leave

How do you feel about going into a restaurant or fast food place and being served by someone who is obviously ill? How would you feel if they were sick but you couldn’t tell just by looking or their behavior? How do you feel about your child being served by someone sick? What if it is another kind of retailer or an office you work in?

It’s important to consider this because not every employer provides paid sick leave and that encourages people who are paid at or near minimum wage to work even when sick. We all understand that many illnesses like the flu are easily transmitted from one person to another and we even have a word for an action taken to stop the spread of especially virulent strains, that word is quarantine. If you’re ill and don’t have some overwhelming reason to be out and about most people will self-quarantine just because they don’t feel like doing anything other than staying home in bed or on the sofa.

Low income folks without paid sick leave often are compelled to work even when quite ill by the need to make the rent or buy groceries for their family. Instead of self-quarantining they then interact with dozens of people and run the risk of infecting some of them. Many businesses recognize that having sick people at work just makes it more likely for other members of the staff to become sick as well and therefore offer paid sick leave.

In an effort to address the health concerns of the public who may shop at or otherwise visit locations where the employer encourages ill staff to work the cities of Austin has passed a paid sick leave ordinance. In San Antonio citizens have gathered 140,000 signatures on a petition to get a proposition to create a paid sick leave ordinance on the November ballot.

So far this seems quite reasonable but our Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton (R), claims the Texas Minimum Wage Act preempts cities from enacting a paid sick leave ordinance. I’ve read the legislation, nowhere in it does it even mention sick leave. AG Paxton isn’t the only one on this crazy horse, our state senator, Donna Campbell (R), sent the mayor of San Antonio a letter urging him to block such an ordinance on the grounds that employers don’t like it. According to her letter some members of the business community have taken exception to the proposition on the grounds that it will cause them to lose business opportunities. This is typical Republican logic, make poor, sick people work until they drop and the heck with the health consequences for everyone else because “job creators” need every penny.

Sen. Campbell and AG Paxton just don’t get that employers aren’t job creators, customers are, and when you sicken your customers and your other employees you’re really just hurting your own bottom line. Worse they don’t care about the public health issues created by forcefully encouraging sick people to expose themselves to the general public. Given that Campbell is an emergency room doctor you’d think she’d know better but as in other cases in the past Campbell has let her raging right wing agenda override her professional judgement.

In about 90 days you and I will have an opportunity to send her a resounding message that her failure to look out for the health and well-being of the citizens of her district and all of Texas are unacceptable by electing Steve Kling as our new state senator for Senate District 25.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 10, 2018

Health Care Promises versus Real Proposals

When running for president, Trump claimed he already had plans in the works for fixing the healthcare mess this country has suffered for 70 years.  Candidate Trump promised “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” in an interview with The Washington Post. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us” he continued. On another occasion he claimed "​I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not, the government's gonna pay for it." Not only have those promises not been kept; there has been no actual plan proposed by the Trump administration that would even attempt to fulfill them.

Democrats in congress have already filed legislation that would address all those issues, it’s called Medicare for All and our congressman, Vicente Gonzalez, is a sponsor of the bill. There’s a reason that the “market” can’t provide health care for all at reasonable costs. Health care isn’t like a commodity or even most services.

When you need it you don’t have time to shop around, sometimes you need it regardless of the cost so rising prices don’t substantially affect demand as they would for most commodities and for the most part there is no substitute or alternative. If the price of potatoes goes up people eat more rice or bread. As the price of beef has risen people switch to chicken. When you’ve got an infection that’s gone septic your alternatives are strong antibiotics with hospital care or surgery to remove the affected limb or death. I know because my wife spent three months in the hospital and various rehabilitation facilities after coming close to death.

Another claim was “I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process that we’re going through.” I got a raise in February and in March my insurance premium went up almost exactly the same amount. While not every reader may have experienced it I’ll bet most of you have found that your insurance premiums have risen yet again.

A recent study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University projects that if Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill were to pass overall health costs would go down, and wages would go up. Had the study been done by some group at the University of California at Berkeley I’d expect a lot of complaints of liberal bias, in this case the Mercatus Center is backed by wealthy Libertarian Koch brothers. So if even the far right can see the benefits of the Democrats bill we should all be confident it’s the real deal.

Early in his campaign, candidate Trump claimed on Twitter, “I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid”. In October 2015, he tweeted, "I am going to save Medicare and Medicaid, …”. So far there’s  been no indication that he’s actually working to avoid cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and since the Republican controlled congress is working on legislation to slash both programs in the name of deficit reduction he’d better get a move on or he’ll fail to fulfill yet another campaign promise.

In November if we elect a Democratic governor, state senate and state house they could then pass the  Healthy Texas Act which would provide similar coverage to Medicare for All but just in Texas. If you believe that everyone deserves health care get out and vote for Democrats in November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 3, 2018