Max Baucus is an Excellent Employee - of the Health Care Industry!

by Pa Rock
Political Observer

Stocks took a big tumble yesterday, with each of the major indexes losing over 2 percent of their value. (I don't consider myself a member of the investor class, but I like to check the numbers every day and track my small 401-K. The value of my 401-K dropped 60 percent during Bush's last year in office - and this year it has regained a big chunk of that. Thank you, President Obama!)

But yesterday stocks tumbled - they have a bad day every so often. There were, however, a few stocks that did quite well while the others tossed about. Health care companies and insurance companies had a very good day. Why? Because word went out that public option health care was dead and those industries would be free to keep robbing Americans of their financial security.

Democrats sent out signals over the weekend that they were going to jettison the controversial plan that would allow those without insurance to be able purchase it at an affordable price. Can't have the poor getting a break - not in this life!

That was then, but now they are regrouping and changing their tune. The AFL-CIO, good people all, are saying they won't support candidates who won't support a public option. Howard Dean, a highly decent and caring individual - and a medical doctor - said that any Congressman who votes against the public option will have a primary challenger.

Taking union money away from jellyfish and making them spend their precious remaining resources on primary races are both good ideas, but one more thing needs to happen. Max Baucus needs to lose his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Baucus has been playing at reaching a "bipartisan" deal with Republicans for weeks, and keeping the details of his negotiations secret from members of his own party. That might be an effective approach to reaching a workable compromise, if that was what the Montana senator was really after.

Unfortunately for America in general, and uninsured Americans in particular, reaching a good compromise is not the senator's objective. Baucus is carefully killing the public option at the behest of his employers: the American health care and insurance industries. According to Roll Call magazine, Senator Baucus has received the following donations over the past four years:

$86,200 from pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough Corp, $65,250 from Amgen Biotech, $62,350 from Blue Cross - Blue Shield (now you know why your rates are so outrageous!), $59,150 from New York Life, $51, 750 from American International Group (Insurance and Financial Services), $51,250 from Aetna Health Insurance, and $47,850 from DaVita Health Care.

Baucus was also at the troughs of big banking and alcohol and tobacco interests.

Molly Ivins said it best, "You've got to dance with them what brung you." Sadly, the public did not bring Max Baucus to the dance - the health care industry did. Baucus is taking care of his own health and welfare, but his personal interests do not overlap with those of most Americans.

Max Baucus needs to lose the Finance Committee gavel, and if that makes him mad and he takes his bribes and goes home - well, that's just gravy!

Hard Luck, Montana

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The 3,600 residents of Hardin, Montana, thought they had come up with a sure-fire way to stimulate the local economy a couple of years ago when they floated a $27 million bond issue to build a state-of-the-art prison that would hold 464 inmates. The facility would be leased to a private prison company, and up to one hundred locals would be hired to work there. Those technical or licensed positions that could not be filled by Hardin residents would attract high-salaried individuals from the outside who would, of course, purchase local goods and services - and homes. Although the good people of Hardin had no contracts to fill the prison with inmates, their politicians felt that the state was implicitly implying that it would support the facility.

Wrong.

Hardin sued the state for the political equivalent of breach-of-promise, and won the case. But still the prisoners did not come. Montana has a law on the books that prohibits the importation of prisoners from other states, and there was apparently no pressing need for more prison space. (Although the closest county jail has to turn away minor offenders because their prisoners are already stacked too high.) The $27 millions dollars in bonds went into default last year.

So, there is a new prison - a high quality prison - sitting vacant on forty acres near Hardin, Montana. When President Obama announced that Gitmo would be closed and its prisoners moved, the folks in Hardin sensed that Christmas might be about to happen. Their city council voted unanimously to offer up the empty prison for any or all of Gitmo's 240 "detainees." Yup, the people that nobody wanted had a safe lock-up waiting in Hardin, Montana. Bring 'em on!

But once again Hardin was foiled by its state politicians. Senator Max Baucus, who can be semi-intelligent if it suits him, said that he feels for the poor folks of Hardin, but..."we're not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country - no way, not on my watch!" So much for being supportive of community development.

It can hardly be a safety issue, because if there is any state in the union that is better armed than Arizona, it has to be Montana. Any prisoner who managed to escape this maximum security facility would step into a frenzy of flying lead. It would be a bigger deal than elk season!

And water-boarding could be retired for good. One bitch of a Montana winter would have those terrorists spilling their guts about everything!

Hardin is missing the economic gravy train due to the political cowardice of its entire (3-person) Congressional delegation. The good folks of Hardin can kiss their $27 million good-bye thanks to the NIMBY (not in my back yard) attitude of a pack of dumbass political yahoos.

I am not a fan of privately run prisons, feeling they could easily become breeding grounds for all manner of abuse. But, they seem to be working in Arizona. So, if the people of Hardin have a prison waiting, and want the Gitmo prisoners - let's get it going!

And if that doesn't work out - McDonald County, Missouri, is still available. I will personally buy some of those bonds!