Berks Democrats

Pennacchio Addresses Healthcare Concerns in Gettysburg

Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Healthcare For All PA, spoke at the Gettysburg DFA meeting last evening about the crisis in healthcare and the solution:  a single payer system providing health and medical care for everyone.  A single payer system eliminates the massive overhead of the current system with its duplicative bureaucracies, multi-million dollar advertising budgets, huge CEO salaries, and inefficiencies.  Present single payer systems such as Medicare operate on a 3-5% overhead cost while the hundreds of different health insurance companies have overhead expenses of 25-30%.  Eliminating that difference frees enough money to provide healthcare for everyone without deductibles or copays and provide true universal, comprehensive coverage.

You would remain free to determine your own providers who would remain private businesses.  It would drastically reduce medical care costs by providing wellness and pharmaceutical coverage in addition to full mental health coverage.  Because a state trust would be ensured of running the system, collecting premiums from businesses and individuals which would be far less than the current broken system charges, no CEO would be paid $2 million/year as is now the case for many health insurance programs.  Some are paid far more than that.

Every television, radio or internet ad you see and every billboard is money not being used to care for people.  No person would be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions and no one would be denied coverage because the company prefers to make money instead of care for the sick, injured and dying.

The myth that anyone can get health care simply by going to an emergency room has even been perpetuated by President Bush.  If you are chronically ill you cannot get treatment at an ER until you are dying and in a crisis situation.  Then the hospital will give you a bed until it's time to call the coroner.  Many people must wait to get treatment until they're critically ill because they don't have coverage, they have inadequate coverage or cannot afford deductibles and co-payments.  Therefore the costs for their care is much higher than need be.  18,000 Americans die each year for lack of health care coverage.

The United States spends double the amount on health care than European democracies with single payer systems.  We do not have the best system of medical care in the world either, we actually rank 37th, behind several "third world" countries. 

Pennacchio's plan would change all this in Pennsylvania.  It would also be a magnet for jobs and economic growth.   This is why many Republicans in Harrisburg support the proposal, HB 1660 and Senate Bill 300.  Businesses would see their healthcare costs reined in and fixed.  Their employees would be healthier and more productive and the predictable, affordable premiums would be a huge attraction to companies looking to locate plants and facilities.

Unfortunately many Democrats in Harrisburg are opposing this plan.  At a recent Democratic Party meeting ill informed loyalists chanted the solution to this crisis is to elect more Democrats.  Unfortunately the opposite is actually true.  There is stronger and wider support among Republicans than Democrats.  Find out where your individual state Representative and Senator stand on House Bill 1660 and Senate Bill 300 before you vote this year.

Disclosure:  I volunteer for Healthcare For All PA and also served as Interim Campaign Coordinator for Chuck Pennacchio in 2005.

Family and Business Healthcare Security Act of 2007

This is from Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Healthcare4AllPA.org:

1.4 million Pennsylvanians have no health insurance. Millions more are underinsured. Untold thousands more think they have good coverage until the corporate-run insurance company rejects their claim based on technicalities, "pre-existing" conditions—or denies life-saving procedures arbitrarily defined as "experimental."

We are left with a system that delivers reduced preventive care; delayed treatment; difficulty seeing specialists; costly co-pays & deductibles, and caps on treatment costs.

  Single-payer universal healthcare replaces the "Medical-Industrial-Complex" of corrupt insurance companies and their allies with a simple plan using existing State and Federal funds, a 3% earnings tax and a 10% business payroll tax (a huge savings for most individuals and employers).  The outcome would be an improved Medicare-For-All system of publicy-funded, priavtely-provided universal healthcare.

Once Pennsylvania demonstrates to the nation what 87 countries have already discovered, single-payer universal healthcare will become national policy along the lines of Congressman John Conyers' HR 676. Congressman Conyers made this point precisely when he came to Pennsylvania in April to endorse the "Family and Business Healthcare Security Act."

Over 100 Pennsylvania State Legislators have had discussions with Health Care for All Pennsylvania, and nearly half of them

have signed up as co-sponsors. 

As the only statewide single-payer campaign in the nation with bills before the House and the Senate, as well as the commitment of our Governor to sign the legislation upon reaching his desk, Pennsylvania is stands to lead the nation out of this crisis, much as we did in 1776. 

Consider:

• Administrative costs for greedy insurance companies exceed 30% of the cost of healthcare compared to just 3% for Medicare. (This step would save Pennsylvania taxpayers 6-7 billion dollars.)

• The U.S. already spends double what most industrialized

countries spend per person on healthcare.

• 18,000 Americans die annually from being uninsured.

• Thousands of the insured die from services denied or

delayed by insurance companies.

• Life expectancy in the U.S. is among the shortest in the

industrialized world.

• Infant mortality rate in the U.S. is among the highest in the industrialized world. Only Latvia is worse.

• We pay far more per person than any other country.

• Approximately 50% of personal bankruptcies in the U.S.

stem from medical bills.

#1 Visit our website at http://healthcare4allpa.org to learn more and to educate others.

#2 Lobby your State Legislators using the talking points below.  Find your representative at: http://healthcare4allpa.org/legislators.htm

#3 Write letters to the editor, using the talking points below.

#4 Donate $10, $25, $50 – whatever you can – to our volunteer, citizen-centered education and lobbying effort: http://healthcare4allpa.org/donate.htm

#5 Circulate a petition and return it to us:

http://healthcare4allpa.org/documents/petition_s.pdf

 

 

The Death of Robo Calls?

I hate robo calls.  If you're going to call and solicit my vote at least have a real person on the line so I can ask questions.  Nonetheless many candidates use this tool.  The Berks County Democratic Committee even paid for robo calls supporting State Representative Dante Santoni Jr. last year.  It's taken some digging but I finally found the firm hired to do those.  Interestingly the expense for that was never reported to County Committee people and whoever paid for them has never been revealed, even in state campaign finance reports.

A new group, formed by Shaun Dakin, called Citizens For Civil Discourse, is establishing a Do Not Call Registry fo these phone calls.  You might think this already exists and that you're signed up for the do not call registries.  Unfortunately for all of us the politicians exempted themselves from that program.   This new group is trying to create one to close that loophole.  Read more about it here.

Having worked and volunteered on campaigns I understand the importance of direct voter contact ( a method alien to local Berks County campaigns)  in assembling a data base for an effective get out the vote strategy on election day.  However too many candidates abuse the process.  People are still groaning every time their home phone rings afraid it's the Lois Murphy campaign calling again.   Those people so abused the phone lines many Democrats are no longer willing to even volunteer for anyone much less give anyone their phone numbers.

The Death of Service

This article isn't about politics but about bad service.  I'm so frustrated lately at the level of service being provided by area businesses and shocked at the conduct I witnessed at one local restaurant.  First of all, can someone please train clerks how to give change?  I'm so tired of having it all dumped in my hand with coins atop paper bills I could scream.  I've actually stopped patronizing some convenience stores because the clerks cannot give change properly.

Servers in restaurants present another quandary.  When Drinking Liberally left The Works in Wyomissing I was excited that we actually might begin to get some acceptable level of service.  Not to be.  Canal Street is just as bad.  On enight I sat at a table for three hours and never even got a chance to order a soda.  I finally went to my car and brought a bottle of Diet Pepsi in to drink.  Other evenings I've wanted to order dinner and never got the chance.

The last DL I was able to order a soda but nothing else.  I'd been out much of the day and hadn't eaten much and was looking forward to a nice meal.  Canal Street, unlike The Works, actually has food you want to eat, if you get lucky enough to order.  I didn't that night and finally gave up and went elsewhere for dinner.  You shouldn't have to wait two hours before giving up.  It actually took 30 minutes just to pay my bill for the Diet Coke even though I had the cash on the table.

These servers refuse to ask people if they want to order anything and refuse to make eye contact so you can even gain their attention.  It's their loss.

That pales in comparison to Friday night however.  That was one of the most disturbing experiences I've ever witnessed.  I was on my way home and got a request to pick up a pizza at one of our local places, Margherita's in Pricetown.  I ordered ahead so I wouldn't have to wait.  I had to anyway because a family was there returning food which had been delivered cold.  I know of no method for keeping food hot for 90 minutes and neither does Margheritas.  In spite of this they continue to act shocked when customers are unhappy about that.  There's a simple solution for this dilemma:  don't promise delivery if it's going to take an hour and a half to get there.

This owner got all belligerent however.  Instead of willingly giving them a refund he called the man's wife "white trash" and him an "a**hole."  Right there in front of me and a large family sitting in the corner.  Yes, the man was being loud complaining about his experience.  We've gotten cold pizza from this place before too so I understand his frustration.  At this point an older man from the corner table arose and challenged the man's wife to a fight.  He openly threatened her and began a series of profane comments and words befitting a sailor on leave.

The owner of Margheritas then tried to call the police to evict the man, his wife and their daughter, all without refunding their money.  I just stood there observing all this and wondering if anyone would ever wait on me and also questioning if I wanted that.

Finally the people got their money and left.  Then the worst part of all happened.  The owner's wife went over to the man spouting all the profanity (he was still engaged) and told him where the others lived.  This was the man who had threatened them and she was now informing him of their address.  I couldn't believe my eyes and ears.

I finally got my food after fifteen minutes of enduring all this abuse and got home to eat....cold pizza.

What has happened to service?  Does anyone care any more?  Why are we tolerating this level of service?

Jim Gerlach: Take A Stand

Today is Take A Stand Day across Pennsylvania.  Americans Against Escalation in Iraq is concluding Iraq Summer by asking our Congressional delegation to Take A Stand against the war.  Jim Gerlach has been a specific target and has been invited to attend this forum about the war this evening.  His staff has said he has a schedule conflict and cannot attend.  His office people have been very gracious to the AAEI folks.  In Reading Take A Stand is at 7 pm at Central Park United Methodist Church, 138 South 6th Street in Reading.

Crime Tips

The solving of the McDonald's drive through murder is a reminder of the importance tips play in solving crime.  The "no snitch" mentality spread by evil doers to protect themselves and intimidate others is very dangerous.  It threatens the peace and prosperity of our communities by breaking down law and order.  There's no better way to destroy your neighborhood than to protect the criminals within.

Crime Alert Berks County fights criminals by establishing an anonymous method for people to report information.  Their telephone number is 1-877-373-9913 or you can email tips to [email protected].  Tips on trash dumpers have been added and rewards are now being offered to those who report illegal dumpers.  One arrest has already been made from this program.

The system works anonymously.  Callers do not have to give any personal information.  When you call you are given a code.  To collect your reward in a case simply use that code and a Crime Alert person, probably Barry Rohrbach, will give you an envelope with the cash for your public service.

Crime Alert works.  It has received 2,127 tips leading to over 200 arrests.  They have paid over $80,000 to people providing information.  The group is supported by the community.  Go to their website for information about how and/or your company can support them.

The McDonald's case would not have been solved except for tips made to the police.  Until people are willing to take a stand for their communities and their neighborhoods there isn't much law enforcement can do to protect them.  It must be a collaborative effort.

Hazleton Decision Vindicates McMahon

Yesterday's decision in which a federal judge struck down Hazleton's anti-immigrant ordinances vindicates Mayor Tom McMahon's decision to avoid getting Reading mired in the same legal messes.  Hazleton is beset now by lawsuits and litigation costing their taxpayers unnecessary expense.  Much of the town has also been riddled with empty stores and homes because so many people, legal or not, fled the area.  The message of bigotry and intolerance, fueled by a Mayor more interested in his own self aggrandizement than  what was good for his city, was based on allegations which later turned out not to be true.

Tom McMahon made a decision not to pursue similar policies in Reading.  Immigration matters are clearly spelled out in the constitution as being in the responsibility of the federal government and the federal judge ruled as such yesterday.  All these laws do is further burden cities and taxpayers with litigation and divide people based on ethnicity, exactly something not needed in Reading. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn't have the resources to enforce the laws.  There simply aren't enough agents, detention centers, managers, and deportation methods to deal with 12 million undocumented workers.  There are two solutions to this situation and having communities passing unconstitutional and unenforceable laws aren't either of them.  We can crack down on the businesses which hire and exploit these people so, with no jobs available they return home, or we can increase taxes significantly to pay for thousands of additional people to arrest detain, transport and detain millions of people.  This would be very similar to what Germany did in the 1930's and 40's with the Jews.  Is that really what we, as Americans, wish to do?

Penn View Fiasco

One has to wonder if the two acres in West Reading, formerly home to the Penn View Motel, are cursed.  Perhaps it's just the after effects of reading Harry Potter but what is it about this location?  The old motel was a magnet for criminal activity until the County and Borough seized it and demolished the facility.  Promised a replacement use far different now the project is being altered to put a long term hotel on the property.  Instead of the Penn View West Reading will get a Candle whatever Suites which many fear will become another Penn View over time.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results.  People see this new project as the definition of insanity.  The County poured public funds into buying and demolishing the old eyesore.  The impetus was to clean up an area known for drugs and prostituion.  The people who lived at the Penn View were long term tenants (aside from those who rented rooms on an hourly basis).   Replacing it with another long term stay hotel is absolutely absurd.

There is little West Reading can do about the change in the project.  Let's hope the County can since the use of the land has changed.  One of Tom Gajewski's pet peeves is how developers make these changes after getting public support for their projects.  He has been requiring clauses in agreements now preventing just this sort of shenanigans.  Was such a clause inserted into this agreement?  That's a question which needs to be answered.  If there isn't anything the Borough can do under zoning law (written in Harrisburg by the developer's lobbyists)  we have to rely on the Commissioners to restrict development to the original proposal or ask for a refund of County monies pured into the site.

Don Spatz's Drugs

I want to know what drugs Don Spatz is on and how I can get some.  The Reading Eagle must have a very interesting health care program...  Mr. Spatz continued his health insurance funded series on this crisis in this morning's paper.  Last week he promised us his solution to the broken health care system in today's column.  His solution:  health savings accounts.

I'm sorry it took me all day to respond but, frankly, I've been on the floor laughing for hours.  Health savings accounts?  What part of the failed system doesn't he comprehend?  HSA's do NOTHING to fix a broken system.  Nothing.  The primary problem is the private health insurance industry which denies medical care to increase profits (this includes the Blues).  It does nothing to ease the burden on businesses with their liability insurance and workman's compensation coverages, nothing to provide long term care and prescription drugs, nothing to foster the competition he cites.

News flash Don:  managed care actually decreases the public's choices and ability to shop around for care.  The Family and Business Healthcare Security Act will free people to shop for medical care and force doctors and hospitals to compete for patients on a level field.  Because medical care will remain privately delivered these providers will actually be able to cut their overhead, not raise it as HSA's would require.  Spatz wants to make the system more complicated and more difficult for health care providers to get paid.

We need to simplify that system and reduce those costs so we can provide coverage to everyone.  Don Spatz's proposal does the opposite.

How on earth does he think people can shop around for medical care?  What planet has he been living on for the past few years?  Managed care means you're told what doctors you can see, what hospitals you can use, even what ambulance service you can use, even if you're unconscious and cannot make that decision.  It tells you what drugs you can take and what tests you can have.  If anything sounds like socialized medicine it's our current, failed system.

Health savings accounts are a band aid for a hemorrhage.

I still cannot believe Don Spatz has sat through several presentations on this issue.  Maybe he slept through them, maybe he was on drugs.  I want some of those drugs so I can also escape reality.  The reality of the nightmare of our current, for profit system.  I know because I was one of its victims, as I wrote about on my other blog.  I know because I've read Jonathon Cohn's book "Sick" about the history of our system and because I watched Sicko and saw stories similar to mine.

I don't understand everyone to comprehend the problems inherent in our current health care system but I do expect it from a reporter who has sat through presentations about the issue, who purports to write about the issue and proposes a solution and for someone who, seemingly up until now, wasn't strung out on illegal drugs. 

Maybe we need to classify Republicanism as a mental illness the way homosexuality was for ages.  See, what Don Spatz is doing is parroting the GOP talking points.  HSA's are their idea.  I understand he's a proud Republican and that's fine but get the facts before you become a member of the Right Wing Noise Machine and do your homework before making yourself look like a fool in your column.

Here's the bottom line:  HSA's leave the inurance companies in place.  The insurance companies ARE the problem.  They actually hire people and pay them based on how much dire medical care they deny to people with lawful contracts for that care.  They can do this because, in this country, a corporation's primary legal duty is to make money, not provide medical care.  Until we change that Americans will continue to die waiting in emergency rooms or for critical operations and treatments denied them by insurance companies.

Spatz's Hatchet Job

It's difficult to believe Don Spatz sat through the entire health care forum at RACC a couple weeks ago.  If I hadn't seen him there at the end of the first row I'd think he'd missed it after reading his hatchet job of a column today.  The Reading Eagle reporter normally covers City Hall but was designated for broader duty that evening, probably due to the departure of Kori Walter.  The Eagle is trying to cover political news in a scattershot manner rather than hire a replacement for Kori and it shows.  Their Harrisburg news now comes via the AP wire.

I had a lot of respect for Kori.  He was fair and he always saw things from a centrist perspective.  He served as a gauge for me of how well we were getting our messages across to the public.  He was perceptive and gave everyone a fair shake.  Not so Don Spatz.  The Eagle is top heavy with arch conservative editors like Chuck Gallagher, John Forester and Spatz has written a number of columns over the years revealing his right wing tendencies.  Today's was a good example.

Spatz takes on a good friend of mine and an issue dear to my heart:  Chuck Pennacchio and health care reform.  I know Chuck extremely well.  In fact I'm having dinner Thursday evening with him and his family at their home in Plumsteadville.  Chuck and I have some work to do on the health care bill in the state legislature.  Afterwards I'm attending the Upper Bucks Democracy For America meeting.  I worked on Chuck's U.S. Senate campaign in 2004 and 2005 and ran it for several months.  You get to know a person incredibly well when you run their campaigns and Chuck Pennacchio is someone I truly admire.

That's why I was so offended by Don Spatz's column.  Not only did Don attend the forum at RACC but Chuck came to Reading last month for an editorial board meeting at the Eagle to discuss the bill.  There's literally no excuse for the Eagle to print errors like this about the bill.  It's irresponsible journalism.

Spatz refers to the physician who also conducted the RACC seminar as Chuck's "ally."  I don't think the two men ever knew each other before that event.  Dr. Davidson hasn't been involved in HELP Fund PA as far as I know and I've been involved in it for some time.  He was invited by the local organizers.  He did put on a very detailed examination of how our current health care system has failed and how we have shorter life spans and higher infant mortality rates than countries with universal, single payer plans.  Maybe Spatz slept through that part of the forum.

What bothers me most about this column is Spatz's complete condemnation of government services.  His assumption is that everything governments do is bad and inefficient.  Typical Republican hogwash.  It's only bad when Republicans run it because they don't understand the differences between government and business.  They always want to run government as business and you can't.  They do different things in different ways which is why some things need to be business run and other things government run.  When you try to privatize (business) government you spend tax money for someone's profits.  This isn't proper.  Private individuals and companies shouldn't be profiting at the taxpayer's expense, especially when government is far more efficient providing those services.

Health care is a perfect example.  For profit private health insurance has overheads between 16-30%  This is because of duplication of overhead (adjusters, actuaries, claims specialists, management, etc.),  marketing expenses, sales commissions, CEO salaries, and profits.  Don Spatz  doesn't seem to comprehend how 1 government health care worker can do the work of 25 in  private industry.  Let me explain for him:  a single payer system only needs one management bureaucracy, not hundreds.  There are, literally, hundreds of health insurance companies, all with their own actuaries, adjusters, accountants, claims specialists and management.  Our program has one.  That's why Medicare has overhead of 3%.  It's actually quite simple if you're smart enough to comprehend that one management system is more efficient than hundreds.  Duh.

The savings from that cut in overhead is enough to cover everyone with full, comprehensive health care.  For example the two CEO's of the state's Blues, Highmark and Independence, make $4.3 million this year.  How much money do you think just the Blues spend on advertising?  Millions.  Then you have sales commissions.  They also contribute quite generously to political campaigns, especially the Governor's.  Each union providing coverage for their workers gets a healthy commission from the Blues and other companies.  Every insurance agent receives a nice commission.

This all adds up to big money.  Spatz also decries having government handling the money.  He says there will be strings attached.  Yes, it'll require doctors, hospitals and other providers to render actual medical care instead of spending inordinate amounts of time and money trying to collect their fees.  See insurance companies don't like to pay benefits.  They aren't in business to give you health care they're in business, and the law actually requires this, to MAKE MONEY.  The more health care they deny the more money they make.  The Blues stopped being non profits in 1986.  Check their cash reserves if you think for a second they aren't in this to make money.  Look at their salaries.

Insurance companies are also, historically, prone to scamming people.  Periodically there's a new one targeted at the uninsured.  They sign people up then deny benefits.  By the time the state catches up with them people are dying because they got scammed by another health insurance company.  Just try getting medical care paid for if you get hurt at work, in a business or in an auto accident.  These for profit insurance companies refuse to pay a dime until you sue them.  The litigation costs of our broken system are huge.  It isn't only the malpractice legal issues involved here but the routine legal costs.

It's easy for people working at the Eagle to get all sanctimonious about health care, after all, they have it.  The company provides it and the paper isn't competing in a global economy for subscribers.  They haven't felt the pressures of trying to compete against businesses which don't have to pay 30-40% of their payrolls for health care.  Their employees don't worry what'll happen if they get cancer or need a transplant.  It's easy to ignore the problems of us "little people" when you're one of the "haves."

There are 47 million Americans with no health coverage and many more underinsured.  People are dying every day because they don't have coverage.  Something has to be done and burying your head in newsprint isn't a valid response.

Spatz is correct on one aspect:  the health insurance industry is fighting us tooth and nail.  They don't want to lose their gravy train.  These executives make big money fleecing patients and doctors.  Lawyers laugh all the way to the bank suing them constantly trying to get people's bills paid.  Both sectors have vested financial interests in perpetuating the failed system.  If you've ever fought an insurance company for your benefits contact Don Spatz ([email protected]) and tell him your story.  Maybe then he'll comprehend how broken things are for the rest of us.