Category: Minnesota Politics

By Dave Mindeman

mnpACT! hosted a Health Care Symposium today, June 30th. In attendance were Kip Sullivan, a health care activist for singler payer for about 3 decades. Also, in attendance were 6 area legislators:
Rep. Will Morgan, 40A, Rep. Shelley Madore, 37A, Rep. Sandy Masin, 38A, Rep. David Bly, 25B, Senator John Doll, 40 and Senator Jim Carlson, 38.

Kip Sullivan gave a historical perspective of where Minnesota health care has been and how a single payer plan fits in. More people need to hear this presentation. He gives concrete evidence of how single payer is the only way to improve care, costs, and coverage.

After the presentation, the legislators were given a chance to give their comments. Senator Doll is on the Senate Health Care Committee and indicates his personal belief that the 2008 session will be dominated by health care issues like the 2007 session was a boon to environmental concerns.

Rep. Masin pointed out that Rep. Terry Morrow was getting a first hand look at how nursing homes and their employees need more funding, by agreeing to a one day stay in a local unit. She mentioned her personal desire to make sure "Cover All Kids" was given a priority.

Rep. Morgan expressed his disappointment that the Governor vetoed the coverage pool that had been authorized for teachers during last session. He leans toward larger coverage pools as a compromise measure for lowering costs.

Rep. Bly is a full fledged single payer supporter and has been a strong advocate during his campaigns. He finally won his seat on the third try.

Rep. Madore gave an emotional perspective of her own family's ordeal with the health care system. She has a daughter with spina bifida and a son with autism. Her daughter's diagnosis was delayed several years because of managed care encumbrances and she spoke emotionally of what it cost her family personally.

Senator Carlson carries a table of the rankings of western democracies regarding health care. He said the US ranks has by far the highest cost overall, yet ranks low in several categories. He blames the current methods of corporate insurers for the problem. He also pointed out how small business suffers from an inability to get top quality employees because they cannot compete with the quality health coverage of big companies.

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There are health care bills ready to go for 2008. Single payer will be on the table. How this is defined is still an issue up in the air. Competing schools of thought exist, even within the progressive community. We need to sort it all out and make Universal Single Payer Health Care a reality.... it is good for business; it is good for the state; it is good for our citizens.

But most importantly... it is the morally right thing to do.

Category: Minnesota Politics

by Dave Mindeman

My 10 year old was walking across the dining room with a glass of milk and, as 10 year olds do, his mind was totally lost in thoughts elsewhere. He stumbled against the leg of the table and managed to drop the glass and spill the milk all over the floor. He turned and saw me wince. Realizing the mess he had instantly created he offered a sincere, "Sorry, Dad", and he waited for my response. I realized it was just an accident and said, "It's OK, we'll fix it."

I turned around to grab the paper towels. When I had retrieved a fresh roll, I came back and noticed he had disappeared. Annoyed, I went to the door and saw him playing in the yard. I asked him to come back in and help me clean up the mess. He offered a slight protest about it being such a nice day.... but he decided the frown on my face meant I wasn't kidding around.

As we cleaned up the mess, I realized that this little incident explained something to me about why I have been bothered about the current Health Department information problem and its responsible party, Diane Mandernach.

An apology is not enough unless you are willing to accept consequences.

Commissioner Mandernach has offered any number of apologetic statements. Her printed statement on the website.... another during her interview on Almanac....and, yet another one at the Iron Range hearings. The word "sorry" has not been lacking.

But those apologies seem to be missing something. They do not cross any partisan divides with any satisfaction. And the problem seems to lie in the fact that she is unwilling to accept any consequences.

Even beyond all that, this is far more serious than a simple "glass of spilled milk". She has made a serious error in judgment here. She not only delayed disseminating vital public health information but she made sure that nobody else would be able to do it either. That is not only a mistake but a breech of acceptable protocol. It is a serious leadership flaw that could easily repeat itself.

And more than that, she offers no real explanation as to why. Maybe she was protecting the mining corporations.... maybe she wanted to protect the governor from bad news during a contested election.... maybe she didn't want to throw any public monetary requests out there while budget negotiations were tight. None of those are good choices but withholding this information is unacceptable under any and all circumstances.

Yet she refuses to consider any consequences for her performance.

The only truly acceptable and ultimately satisfying solution to this problem is for Diane Mandernach to resign. And she needs to offer that resignation herself. The Governor shouldn't have to ask for it; the legislative committees shouldn't have to ask for it. It should be offered by the Commissioner herself...of her own volition.

Any apology that is truly sincere must be willing to accept the full consequences of the action taken.

That did not happen here....and frankly, without accepting that responsibility, her apology isn't worth a glass of spilled milk.

Category: US Politics

by Dave Mindeman

It looks like the immigration bill is dead. Can the Republican Party be far behind? And we can also officially label President Bush the lamest of ducks.

Here are the winners and losers in immigration:

Losers:

1) Republicans. The GOP effectively blocked this bill's passage with a heavy majority of their caucus going on record against it. This may make the Republican base very happy and keep the donor's pockets open, but I think the general Hispanic populace may think otherwise.

2) Hispanic population. Opponents of this bill have always been careful to frame this immigration debate as a black and white matter of law and order. Emphasis on illegal. However, there is still absolutely no viable solution here and if you think a big long fence along our southern border is going to stop the problem... well, you must have been smoking pot with Norm Coleman too long. The real problem is the underlying bigotry that seethes beneath the surface. Illegal immigration has affected the entire Hispanic community with a cloud of suspicion that will only get worse as enforcement pressure increases. Legal or not, all Hispanics will have to deal with the suspicion and the uncertainty. The Minutemen in Arizona will continue to escalate their brand of vigilante justice in this legal vacuum that our broken immigration system has created.

3) Families. You watch.... more and more of these heart wrenching stories of parent and child being separated are going to affect the American psyche. No matter how adament you feel about enforcing laws, the visible picture of a family torn apart will trump it every time. There is no question that the logic of enforcing the law and the emotion of watching a child being taken away from his parents will test our value system to the core.

4) Labor. I know, I know...the big labor organizations were mostly against this bill, but SEIU was not and that's because they understand the future. The labor pool that would have been tapped when these immigrants eventually reached citizenship would have been enormous. And these are the workers that would have benefitted the most from organized labor affiliation. Status quo for the labor movement is bad news.... labor needs a shot in the arm and the immigration bill could have been provided a fertile gound.

5) Agriculture and Home Remodeling Industries. Already faced with labor shortages and now denied a guest worker program... these industries and the ones related to them, are going to be faced with some pretty tough choices. This type of labor pool is tough. Jobs are seasonal, have few benefits, and require mobility. Americans looking for stable..settle down...type jobs won't be picking up the slack.


Winners:

1) GOP Base. (For Now...) They exerted the pressure that forced the Republican Congressional caucus to cave. They are all smiles today..... but how long will they be smiling when GOP Presidential candidates head into a general election looking for electoral votes in states like Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, and Florida with heavy Hispanic populations?

Outside of that, winners cannot be found.

America will be stuck with an embarrassing make shift wall at the border of a supposed ally. We will continue to have a population living in the shadows.... fearful, but not of terrorism,,,,rather, they fear a system that tells them,

"We want you to work to build our economy....but without any rights or representation."

"We want you to work long hours in the fields, fix our houses, and fight our wars... but never ask us to give you equal status."

The attempt to fix immigration may be over for now, but the problem will persist..... we will have to come back to it, again, and again, and again.....