Republican priorities

In one quiet decision last month, two powerful Republicans threw a $22 billion gift to the private HMO industry.
     Then, they wrote a budget that eliminated $4.9 billion from one of the most successful and socially important initiatives the federal government pays for: making sure that deadbeat dads pay what they owe their families.
     And eliminated $12.7 billion in aid to college students...
     And gave states “sweeping new authority to impose premiums and co-payments on millions of low-income people covered by Medicaid... [and to] scale back benefits for many recipients.”
     Republican priorities. Gotta love ’em.

  

And the day's not over...

Today’s Bush administration news (and the day’s not over)...

You’ll recall it’s supposed to be “OK” that we’re torturing people in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib because those folks are all terrorists, not members of an actual “army.” That’s why they’re allegedly not covered by the Geneva Convention. (OK, it’s a load of hooey, but it’s the closest thing to a justification for torture that the Bush administration has managed to muster.)

But now, let’s look at how we deter the torture and murder of official generals from honest-to-goodness militaries:

The L.A. Times...

An Army interrogator convicted of killing an Iraqi general by stuffing him face-first into a sleeping bag can remain in the military and does not have to go to jail, a court-martial jury ruled Monday night. The sentence was a stunning reprieve for Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer Jr., 43...

...After emotional pleas from Welshofer and his wife for leniency, the jury ruled Monday night that the interrogator must forfeit $6,000 of his salary over the next four months, receive a formal reprimand and spend 60 days restricted to his home, office and church.

Not everything is a slippery slope. But some things are. Torture is one of them.

Meanwhile on the Hurricane Katrina front, we discover that the Bush administration was warned in excruciating detail 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina...

In the 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit, the White House received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property, documents show.

...and is now stonewalling attempts to discover what happened, so we can fix it before the next hurricane season.

To them, it’s just politics.

It’s politics to me, too: the politics of working together as a society to make sure that fewer people die next hurricane season. Made harder, as usual, by the Bush gang.

Don't get sick. Ever.

In discussing Medicare Part D last week, we mentioned that George W. Bush is getting ready to propose Health Savings Accounts again. We called them “miserable.” Ezra Klein has done a great job of explaining just what’s so miserable about them -- and why they’re such a perfect example of the President’s “you’re on your own”-ership society.

... [W]hat HSA's really do is separate the young from the old, the well from the sick. Currently, insurance operates off of the concept of risk pooling. Since health costs tend to be unpredictable and illness isn't thought a moral failing, we all pay a bit more than we expect to use in order to subsidize those who end up needing much more than they ever thought possible. The well subsidize the sick, the young subsidize the old, and we all accept the arrangement because one day we will be old, and one day we will be sick, and no one wants to shoulder that alone.

But HSA's slice right through this intergenerational, redistributionist arrangement: they're a great deal for young, healthy folks because they don't force subsidization. Just don't get sick. And if you're already sick, don't think you can hide by remaining in traditional insurance plans: when the healthy rush towards HSA's, older plans will hold only the ill, and insurance companies will send premiums skyrocketing to recoup the difference.

I’ve heard it said that “one of these days big business will get sick of paying for healthcare, and that’s when we’ll finally get national health care.” You can hear Karl Rove cackling: HSAs head off that possibility for the indefinite future. Ezra Klein again:

What they achieve is massive, large-scale cost-shifting, generally from employer to employee. Where businesses used to pay for insurance (and thus for treatment), now they'll simply help employees found HSA's and let them pay their own health costs. And that's really what this push is about. Businesses don't like paying for health care. The Bush administration, as always, heard and heeded the corporate complaints, and is set to propose a policy agenda that'll help employers wiggle out of insurance costs. But someone, always, is left holding the bag, and if businesses let go of it, their employees will have to pick up the slack. For the lucky, healthy ones, the changeover won't affect them much; it may even leave them better off, at least for awhile. But for the old or the ill (all of us, eventually), costs will skyrocket.

Personally, I doubt they can get away with this one (people haven’t had time to forget how well their last healthcare initiative is going). But with one-party control of Congress, you never know. They certainly won’t have any other “accomplishments” to point to this year.

The time to start raising hell on this issue is now.