During the campaign season we were all focused on the colors red and blue, which is exactly what those who currently own and operate our government wanted you to do. The real issue that they didn”t want us to focus on was green. It reminds me of the old shell game where the victim is distracted by some quick and fancy sleight of hand and almost always loses.
Right now one of the most important debates during our lifetime is going on in Congress. Health care costs are out of control and are the leading cause of bankruptcy in our nation. Most of the victims forced to declare bankruptcy had insurance that they thought protected them from economic ruin but found out too late that their coverage was a sham.
Insurance companies, not doctors and their patients, decide about procedures and drugs that they allow. Many of you have health care provided at least in part by your employers, but when you are struck with a serious illness and can”t go to work, you lose your insurance just when you need it most. Try paying for “Cobra” when you”re on disability. This false sense of security is a trap that leads to economic ruin after a lifetime of hard work for most middle class Americans.
You would think that since the Democrats have a solid majority in both houses and a president who has made this a cornerstone of his time in office that a strong bill with a public option would be a foregone conclusion, but this is far from true. Why? Because it”s not about red or blue, it”s about green. Cash flows freely from insurance companies, drug companies and all the other groups within the industry to Congress. Cash that comes in huge chunks, dwarfing the pay these senators and congressmen get from the people.
Max Baucus is the Democratic Senator from Montana who is in charge of the Senate committee dealing with health care reform. His pay as a senator is about $169,300 per year. He has received about $3,000,000 from the health care industry in contributions however. This is almost what Congressman Boehner, the leading Republican in the House got from them too. When you see these fellows standing in front of cameras and microphones saying “We need to slow this down” and “We need to curtail the public option” please bear in mind that they are getting paid about 17 times more from the health care industry than they are from the people they are supposed to represent. Logic tells us who they really work for.
This goes far beyond politics and to the heart of what many believe is the weak link in government today. Corporations, who are not citizens of this country, get much more access and influence with our representatives than we do. These are the very same corporations that don”t hesitate to cut American jobs and replace us with virtually slave labor at the first opportunity. They offshore their profits and avoid taxation so well that the majority of major American corporations pay no income tax at all. Their teams of tax attorneys lobby for and exploit every loophole they can create or find in the IRS code.
Why not pass a simple law that states “No one other than a citizen, registered to vote, may contribute to any campaign. No corporate representatives may meet in private with any member of Congress.” They will argue this hinders their right of free speech. As a lay person who has read and keeps a copy of our Constitution at my desk, I wonder if the right of free speech was ever intended for a corporation since they are clearly not citizens. If a corporation wanted to mount a campaign to influence congress or the voters they could always pay to produce and air their viewpoint anyway, so long as they use their own name and not a misleading name like “citizens for balanced energy” when they are really a coal company for instance. If a corporation wants to get their point across to Congress, they should do so in open session, on the record, not behind closed doors in the Bahamas.
Lowell Grant is a local real estate broker.
