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(Joseph Califano - Two Years in the hotseat and a pink slip for the trouble)

During the early days of the Carter Administration Joseph Califano was appointed Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. By all accounts it was a strained relationship which eventually led to his firing in 1979. From 1977 until 1979 he was the center of several controversies, including the banning of Saccharine, Affirmative Action and quotas in the College system, the Medicare/Abortion issue, a National Health Insurance proposal, smoking and even the 1977 outbreak of Swine Flu (yes, there was Swine flu even then). Califano was not handed softballs, to be sure. As these two exchanges from a 1977 appearances on Meet The Press will attest:

Carol Simpson (NBC News): “Mister Secretary, the Swine flu mass immunization program was a disaster from start to finish, and I have a two part question: first of all, to find out whether your agency, given the same information as was given the agency a year ago, would have embarked on such a program? And secondly, what are you going to do now that the American people have really become frightened by mass immunization programs and what are you going to do if we have a similar vaccine in the future that might be necessary to be given to the people?”

Joseph Califano: “Miss Simpson, I am not prepared to say what I would have done had I been in the government a year ago. It is not clear to me in what ways different decisions would have been made. I intend to look at that thoroughly and carefully as I think that kind of public health decision is difficult as the Secretary has to make. The greatest damage the Swine flu program has done, aside from the human tragedy of the individuals paralyzed and killed has been the impact on immunization programs, particularly for children. There are sixteen million children in this country under the age of fourteen who have not been immunized against Polio, and a large part of that is attributable to the peoples fear about immunization programs. We’ve got to restore confidence . The first step we’ve taken is to open up the entire process for selecting the vaccines for next year. We’ve done that and we haven’t made the selections yet, but every fact that’s relevant to that will be available to the public. We also intend to have a substantial stepped up program of education for children and parents in the immunization area , and to try and get the children of this nation immunized.”

Nancy Hicks (New York Times): “President Carter campaigned on a promise to bring National Health Insurance to the American people. Does this still have a high priority, and if so when might we expect a legislative draft?”

Califano: “This has a very high priority. I regard the Social Security issue, the welfare reform issue, the American family issue and National Health Insurance is four central Presidential priorities for me. We would expect to have legislation before Congress next year in this area. I will be working with and recommending a program during this year.”

Hicks: “Beginning of the year or end of the year?”

Califano: “I don’t know whether it will be the beginning or the end of the year. If President Carter continues the way he’s going on other programs it will be the sooner the better, and closer to the beginning of the year than the end of the year.”

Needless to say, 1977 was not the year of Universal Health Care. Nor was 1978 or 1979 for that matter.

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(As always, China looks at things a teensy bit differently than we do)

I've been working on getting a world overview of the Healthcare situation. Earlier this week I ran a debate over Health Care in Australia, hearing about issues we only hear rumors about. I kept wondering if in fact, the U.S. was the only country in the civilized (or even semi-civilized) world that didn't have some form of National Health, even as an option to private insurance. Hard to believe, but it's true - we are completely backwards in our relationships to health and healthcare.

Thanks to the BBC, I was able to locate a documentary done in 2008 which asked that very question - and did some exploring in Britain, the U.S. and China and came back with some interesting and very informative answers.

John McDonough (Director: Health Care For All): “All of the incentives, right now in our system reward Health Care providers for the volume of services they provide. So you get more money by doing more and more and more at a higher technological level. And we know the real secret comes from doing the lower complexity level of care much better than what’s being now. So all the rewards come from more procedures. And the more talking you do, the more time you waste and the less money you make. The incentives are completely upside down”.

The one thing I have noticed that's most disturbing about the current Health Care debate is the total lack of knowledge of what the issues and what the alternatives are. Clearly, ignorance is far from bliss and finding out how the vast majority of people on this planet handle things like doctor visits and emergencies is absolutely imperative if we're going to make crucial choices. Having ignorant people dangle the fear card in front of you doesn't do you or anyone else any good. Useful, factual information and knowledge of something your life and peace of mind depends on may save your ass in the long run.

The Bush years are certainly the gift that keeps on giving, aren't they? All those people who had jobs with what they thought was a secure future are all going to be scraping by on Social Security. Oh, and I just read that one of the largest long-term care insurers is about to collapse. Sure would be nice if FDR was around - maybe he could dream up some real solutions, like national health insurance...

The financial crisis has blown a hole in the rosy forecasts of pension funds that cover teachers, police officers and other government employees, casting into doubt as never before whether these public systems will be able to keep their promises to future generations of retirees.

The upheaval on Wall Street has deluged public pension systems with losses that government officials and consultants increasingly say are insurmountable unless pension managers fundamentally rethink how they pay out benefits or make money or both.

Within 15 years, public systems on average will have less than half the money they need to pay pension benefits, according to an analysis by Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Other analysts say funding levels could hit that low within a decade.

After losing about $1 trillion in the markets, state and local governments are facing a devil's choice: Either slash retirement benefits or pursue high-return investments that come with high risk.

The urgent need for outsize returns by these vast public pension funds, which must hit high investment targets year after year to keep pace with rising retirement costs, is in turn fueling a renewed appetite for risk on Wall Street.

Before the crisis, many public pension funds had experimented with risky trading techniques or committed more of their money to hedge funds and other nontraditional firms, which in turn invested some of it in complex mortgage securities. When these melted down, pension funds got burned.

Now, facing an even bigger funding gap, some systems are investing in the same securities, betting that a rebound in their value will generate huge returns.

"The amount that needs to be made up is enormous," said Peter Austin, executive director of BNY Mellon Pension Services. "Frankly, they are forced to continue their allocation in these high-return asset classes because that's their only hope."

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The man who was almost part of Obama's cabinet is now a big opponent in the health care reform debate. I wish I knew what President Obama was thinking when he selected this man, but like all good conservatives he too doesn't let facts influence his position.

There was a new poll done by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which asked doctors how they feel about the public option. A whopping 63 percent of physicians support a health reform proposal that includes both a public option and traditional private insurance. Andrea Mitchell asked Gregg about this new poll and here's what he had to say.

Andrea:...at the same time there's a new poll, let me share with you from the new England Journal of Medicine today and 63% of American doctors polled say the public option should be at least available. That's 63% to 27% supporting the public option. Don't doctors know best?

Gregg: Yeah, well I think if the follow up question was asked, do you as a doctor want to work for the government. Do you as a doctor want to have yourself and your basic delivery of medicine be controlled by a federal bureaucrat? The answer would probably be 80% no. The fact is a public option is a stalking horse for a national health insurance...

The idiot known as Judd Gregg assumes that doctors haven't considered what it would be like to deal with the government and pulls information out of his ass to try and dismiss this vital poll and attack the public option. Andrea didn't push him on it after his non-answer, but she put it out there to him and he does what conservatives do.

This poll is surprisingly honest because the AMA stands against the public option, but doctors know what it's like to deal with the health insurance industry. Gregg knows this so he makes up his own poll questions and then answers it and gives us the percentage. he should start his own polling company.

My doctor already will not accept any form of private insurance because they block him from performing his craft. Since the Villagers are using polling as a weapon against health care reform, this poll should be high on their radar and the American people should be told. I wonder how many times it will make it on FOX News....

President Obama has new and powerful information known to insist that a public option be included in health care reform. As Andrea said: "Don't doctors know best?"

h/t danieljbmitchell:

In 1971, President Nixon proposed a national health insurance plan built on heavily employer private coverage. Senator Ted Kennedy proposed what would today be called a single-payer plan. In 1974, the debate had morphed into Nixon vs. Kennedy-Mills vs. Organized labor. Despite the prediction in the second clip shown, the result was stalemate rather than passage in 1974 or 1975.

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(Casper Weinberger - Long before Iran-Contra, but the spots are the same)

I almost forgot Casper Weinberger was a holdover from the Nixon administration. During the Ford period he was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, responsible for slashing budgets long before Reagan made him Secretary of Defense.

So, with the current state of Health Care reform going in full siege mode, I thought I would dig out an Issues And Answers episode from October 10, 1974 where Weinberger gives his two cents regarding a National Health Care package:

Edward P. Morgan (ABC News): “Let me quote to you from a speech you made a month ago when you said ‘since price controls were lifted, the cost of medical care has increased fifty percent faster than the economy as a whole. And this we must and will moderate.’ Are you talking about some kind of controls over medical costs?

Sec. Casper Weinberger: “Well I have said with considerable roughness, because I’m a free market man, I don’t like controls. But I do think there is not a free market in Health Care and I do think the increases have outstripped the cost of living , and the cost of living is obviously racing away at totally unacceptable levels now. And so I personally have felt for some time that cost controls are necessary in the health field. And as a matter of fact they’re contained in our bill of National Health Insurance. But meanwhile, before that bill was enacted there have been very high rises in healthcare costs, particularly in hospital rooms. Some of these can be justified as passing on additional costs that hospitals are incurring. But the fact that they are going faster than the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, is a matter of very grave worry to us because it erodes the ability of anybody to receive health care, and for another thing it’s costing the Government a billion dollars extra in our own health programs . . . .

Morgan: “ Mister Secretary, our time is running out . . . . .

Stop me if you've heard this, but I don't recall any Healthcare Bill that was enacted to bring down the cost of Healthcare - do you?

Oddly, Edward P. Morgan stops and shifts the conversation rather quickly over to Betty Ford's recent Cancer surgery and the subject of National Health Insurance is never brought up again.

Maybe it was the timeclock, but cynicism makes me wonder otherwise.

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(People just get sick - it's what people do.)

It always sounds like a good idea and it's always debated, and it makes great soundbites, and it sometimes gets votes. But the seemingly endless debate on a National Health Plan I'm sad to say, never quite goes anywhere.

In 1974 President Nixon offered a Health Plan. Actually, he offered one in 1972 and in 1973 - with each year being dubbed "The Year Of The Health Plan", but nothing ever came of it.

So in response to this version of a health plan offered by Nixon, Senators Ted Kennedy and Wilbur Mills offered an alternative, one which would be funded via Social Security. Kennedy explained the details of his plan in a radio address on May 22, 1974. Granted, the timing wasn't particularly terrific - with Impeachment hearings looming and most of America reeling from daily revelations.

So, as history has shown, the Kennedy/Mills idea of a Health Plan didn't fly either.

Someday, one will.

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It didn't take long for the Villagers to fall in line, did it? Reality has no meaning. I'm not sure why Rush Limbaugh is getting nervous about the astroturfers. He's saying the teabagger protests are not bought and paid for: "It's not ginned up, it's genuine. It's real." Can't he see that they are falling right in line? Matthews certainly has.

Digby: The Village Idiots Fall In Line

And here's the way the overarching media narrative that supports it gets set:

Matthews: What do you make of this firestorm that's going on across the country. We've got pictures from Texas and Long Island and Philly. Every time a congressman calls a town meeting now, the people show up and it's like -- I don't know --- it's like Iran! It's like the streets of Tehran!

Michael Smerconish: People are hot. I sense it in the phone calls that I get every day. I think they're very nervous about what's going to come out of this debate about national health care, and Chris if I've heard once in the last couple of days, I've heard it 50 times: "if they can't get cash for clunkers straight, what in the world are they going to do with my national health insurance?"

Matthews: You mean they won't get the numbers right?

Smericonish: Yeah they won't get the numbers right and it smacks of bureaucratic ineptitude, that the federal government has blown through this money so quickly on a plan that seems so straighforward.

I also think that what going on is that many people don't understand the elements of this debate, so what do they know? They know that they have health insurance and they know that this enormous price tag is being assigned for the 45 million or so who don't have it. And frankly what they saying is, why can't we just write them a check and pay for it. It sounds like it could be less expensive.

Ok, neither Smericonish, a conservative, or Matthews, a Village dullard, mention that the "riots" are not exactly spontaneous uprisings, but are rather the result of well-financed astroturfing enterprises, much like the ones that were done to disrupt the Clinton rallies back in 1994. (In fact, the threat of violence was so great that they ended up cancelling them, which is something we may yet see this month.) Matthews who prides himself on being an historian of arcane political strategy throughout the ages seems to know nothing of what's happenening now or then.

Meanwhile, he lets Smerconish disseminate this summers "drill, baby, drill" --- that insipid "cash for clunkers" line that Jim Demint cloddishly threw out there on the Sabbath Gasbag shows --- with no explanation as to why it makes no sense at all. (After all, the program proved to be so popular that they need to extend it -- that's usually thought of as a success, not a failure. Everywhere but in the village, that is.)..read on

It goes on. Surely Jonathan Martin of the Politico will straighten all this out, right?

And as A.B. Stoddard tells us, it doesn't matter if these events are shams because the media will just transmit them along to the public, unfiltered.

Here's Lawrence O'Donnell sitting in for Ed Schultz:

O'Donnell: AB, does it matter if these protests are organized or spontaneous? I mean, isn't it true that it's just the video that ends up on the local news that does the damage here?

AB Stoddard: It doesn't matter at all, and the fact is that the only goal for the Republicans right now is to scare people off this, to depress voter support for this so that when they come back in September it's even harder for the Democratic Party than the chaoes we just just witnessed on capitol Hill this month. All they have to do is just say, "this is going to be terrifying, this is a risky experiment." They don't have to be constructive right now. Remember who turns out in mid-term elections: the angry, ok? African Americans are not going to turn out at the rate they did last year and neither are young people. The people who carried marginal Democrats in in formerly Republican districts .. . It's going to be a very tough year for Democrats.

There you have it. The future is foretold. Journamalism isn't there to give the facts or tell the truth. It doesn't matter anyway, because "it's out there."

The only responsibility journos have is to to get it out there, dog.

(Please send me your videos of any town halls you go to at crooksandliarsvideos@gmail.com)

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(Claude Pepper - D-Florida - Governor Harold Stassen - R-Minnesota - The relentless jangle of The Bogey Man)

The never ending debate in a National Health plan and another dig in the archives for some perspective. Seems the one thing the debates had in common (the ones I've come up with from 1947, 1949, 1951, 1961) is the fear factor, trotted out almost verbatim by spokespeople for the AMA - all following the dreaded bogey man. It seems this overriding fear was the biggest factor in sinking any useful legislation in health care. And always the fear card is played by the Republicans. This debate features Senator Claude Pepper (D-Florida) and former Governor Harold Stassen (R-Minn.) from the program "American Forum Of The Air" on January 29, 1950.

It's interesting to note that one of the arguments made against the British system of Health care was the reported "dramatic rise in gravesites" after it was enacted in 1943, eluding to the notion that British National Health care became inept. Trouble was, there was that little thing called World War 2 that seemed to escape the radar and that all this sudden rise in dead people came not from a flawed health system, but rather bullets and shrapnel.

In the argument against a decent National Health care plan - reality doesn't seem to play much of a role.