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!

Texas Shenanigans

by Pa Rock
Tourista

I'll be flying out of Texas in the morning, and I hated to leave without taking a swipe or two at the Lone Star State. So here goes:

First of all, I miss Molly Ivins - I really, really miss Molly Ivins. The late Texas newspaper journalist had a well-earned national reputation for telling it like it was. When Miss Molly sat down at her keyboard, Texas politicians would start diving for cover. But Miss Molly has been gone for a couple of years now and the Texas political snakes have begun crawling out from under their rocks and are once again making their state look extremely foolish.

The Texas School Board, which controls - really controls - school curriculum in the state, has recently set up a committee of six typical Texans (they call them "experts") to review the curriculum for social studies. It seems that the good ole boys on the Board feel that there is currently an over representation of minorities in the state's social studies books. David Barton, one of the "experts" appointed to the curriculum committee, said that Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers Union, lacks the "status, impact, and overall contributions of so many others." (Translation: We don't want our kids reading about no union organizing Mexican!)

Evangelical Minister Peter Marshall, also on the Board's social studies curriculum committee, said "To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin...is ludicrous." He went on to say that Chavez "is not a role model who ought to be held up to students as someone worthy of emulation." The good reverend is also wound up about Thurgood Marshall, the late Supreme Court Justice who was also the attorney in Brown vs. Board of Education - the case that desegregated America's public schools. Marshall said that Thurgood Marshall was "not a strong enough example of an important historical figure to be presented to students." (Translation: Our kids don't need to be reading about no uppity nigra who probably got into law school because of a quota!)

The curriculum controversy in Texas is important to the rest of the country because Texas is a huge purchaser of textbooks, and its goofball curriculum guidelines literally become the tail that wags the dog. The publishers don't make a Texas edition, they make a national edition that meets the Texas standards. As Texas slides, so slides the nation.

Another bit of Texas political nonsense came to light today when Governor Rick Perry, whom Molly Ivins used to refer to as "Great Hair," announced his belief that the states should be responsible for health care policy - not the federal government. Unsaid by the pretty-boy governor was the fact that Texas has the lowest rate of health care coverage in the country with a full 25% of the state population completely uninsured. Apparently health care costs in Texas are among the very highest in the nation. Governor Perry has been in office for nine years, health care in his state is a complete and total joke, and he thinks fixing health care needs to be left to the states? What a bozo!

Rumor has it that there are some intelligent people in Texas. Apparently they live in El Paso and Austin - but the Austin group does not include the state legislators!