Poll: Public Option Favored By 65% Of Americans

By Jeff Parker, cagle.com

NYTimes.com: A New York Times/CBS poll again finds that 65% of Americans want a public health care option, while only 26% opposed such a plan. Those polled also responded that they feel President Obama has not clearly explained the main points of health care reform. Fifty-five percent said he had not explained his plan clearly, and many felt under-informed about the policies under discussion.

Maybe it's not so much that President Obama hasn't repeatedly and clearly explained the main points of health care reform, and more that Republicans and health insurance industry lobbyists have so widely and loudly sowed fear-based mis-information, that people feel confused and therefore under informed.

After all, the program of mis-information has closely and successfully followed the plan written by right-wing message guru Frank Luntz last May instructing the Republican Party how to frame the health care debate to both alarm and confuse people on the issues. More...

By R.J. Matson, cagle.com

Have You Ever Thought About Running For Elected Office?

Have you ever thought about running for elected office? With the pivotal 2010 elections fast approaching, now is the time to give it some serious thought! One great place to get experience running for and serving in elected office is by serving as a Precinct Chair in your own neighborhood. There are many other elected office positions that you might consider too.

Precinct Chairs, of either party, serve as the most direct link between voters and their respective political party and and the party's candidates. Precinct Chairs help to carry the party's and candidate's message to their neighborhoods and they help Get Out The Vote for their respective party's candidates.

The Chairperson of each county Democratic Party Election Precinct is publicly elected by precinct voters during the Primary Election. The term of office for a Precinct Chair is two years, beginning on the 20th day following Primary Election Day or the following primary runoff election day, if scheduled. (The Party's County Executive Committee can elect interim Precinct Chairs for unfilled Precinct Chair offices and for Precinct Chairs who are unable to serve out their two year term of office.)

The next Precinct Chair election for the March/April 2010 to March/April 2012 term of office occurs on Primary Election Day, March 2, 2010. Qualified candidates can file (form PDF) to have their name placed on the March 2, 2010 Primary Ballot for the position of Precinct Chair from Monday, October 5th, 2009 through 6:00 PM January 4, 2010. Contact your local Democratic County Chair to ask if a Precinct Chair vacancy exists in your election precinct and find out the requirements to run for this, or any other, elected office. To find out more about Democratic Precinct Chairs - click here.

There are many other elected office positions that you might consider too. Of coarse, nearly all the elected office positions that will appear on Collin County ballots in 2010 are currently filled with incumbent Republicans, but perhaps it is time for incumbent Republicans to have a Democratic challenger in 2010, for the first time in many years.

The following elected office positions will first appear on each of the March 2, 2010 Democratic Party and Republican Party Primary Election ballots and then finally on the November 2010 General Election ballot.

Collin County Executive and Judiciary

• County Clerk
• District Clerk
• District Attorney

Collin County Commissioners Court - info

• County Judge - incumbent Keith Self
  
• Place 2 - incumbent Jerry Hoagland
  
• Place 4 - incumbent Kathy Ward
  

Collin County Courts

• 5 District Judges
• 6 County Court at Law Judges
• 1 Probate Court Judge
• 4 Justices f the Peace

State Executive

• Governor
• Lt. Governor
• Attorney General
• Comptroller
• Commissioner of General Land Office
• Agriculture Commissioner
• Railroad Commissioner - info
  
• State Board of Education, place 9 and 12

State Judicial

• Several Justices of the Supreme Court - info
  
• Several Justices of the Court of Criminal Appeals - info
  

Regional Courts

• Several Justices, 5th District Court of Appeals - info
  

State House of Representatives

• State Rep., Dist. 66 (McCall)
• State Rep., Dist. 67 (Madden)
• State Rep., Dist. 70 (Paxton)
• State Rep., Dist. 89 (Laubenberg)

State Senate

• District 8 (Shapiro)

Federal

• US Congress 3rd Congressional Dist. (Johnson) - info
  
• US Congress 4th Congressional Dist. (Hall) - info
  
• US Senate (Hutchison) possible resignation triggering a special election - info
  

Party Offices

• County Chair
• Al1 Precinct Chairs
• And County and State Convention after the primaries.
  • State Chair
  • DNC Reps
  • SDEC Committee members

The filing period to have your name placed on the primary ballot runs from December 2009 to January 2010. The Democratic and Republican primary winners of each elected office position appearing on the primary ballot will then face each other in the November 2010 General Election.

The following "non-partisan" local city and school board trustee elected office positions will appear on election ballot for the May 2010 city and school election.

• CCCCD Trustees( non-partisan)
• City Council races (non-partisan)
• School Board races (non-partisan)

Republicans Out-Tweet Democrats

While progressive blogs, with the encouragement of DNC Chairman Howard Dean, help power Democratic electoral wins in 2006 and 2008, many in the Democratic party have been reticent about, and towards, its blogosphere echo chamber.

And now it seems that reticence has carried over into the use of Twitter.

Nearly twice as many Republicans as Democrats have accounts on the social networking platform Twitter (101 compared with 57), and the GOP dominates Twitter usage by an even wider margin, according to a report released this week by the Congressional Research Service that analyzed two weeklong periods in July and August. During those spans, congressional Republicans posted 932 messages — or tweets — compared with 255 for Democrats, CRS analysts found.

Twitter allows users to text short messages of 140 characters or fewer from their phones, BlackBerrys or computers to their profile pages and their followers’ phones and computers. And though some experts question the effectiveness of Twitter as a political communication tool and more than a few lawmakers have already experienced the downside of the unfiltered communication it offers, Republican communications staffers have actively encouraged their lawmakers to tweet away. And so they have.

Democrats seem all too willing to let it all slip away by not leveraging the new media approach to political campaigning.

Conservatives Ask - What Recession? What Health Care Crisis?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, declaring last week that Texas is recession proof said, "... someone had put a report out that the first state that's coming out of the recession is going to be the state of Texas ... I said, 'We're in one?'" (video left)

Paul Burka of the Texas Monthly: "This gaffe is going to stick. ... You cannot be callous and cavalier when people are losing their jobs, [their health insurance] and their homes. I don't care how ideological the Republican base is. ... Everybody knows someone who is suffering in these times."

The Labor Department reported last week that 42 states lost jobs in August, up from 29 in July, with the biggest net payroll cuts coming in Texas, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio.

Texas lost 62,200 jobs as its unemployment rate rose to 8% in August for the first time in 22 years. The state's leisure, construction and manufacturing industries were hardest hit, losing 35,500 jobs.

The Labor Department report shows jobs remain scarce even as most analysts believe the economy is pulling out of the worst recession since the 1930s. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said earlier this week that the recovery isn't likely to be rapid enough to reduce unemployment for some time. The jobless rate nationwide is expected to peak above 10% next year, from its current 9.7%.

Back in late July we posted that Gov. Perry, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator John Cornyn, Congressman Sam Johnson and every Republican elected official in Texas made headlines for months pronouncing that President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) economic stimulus plan was unneeded and unwelcome in Texas.

Gov. Perry, the top Republican in Texas, proclaimed that federal money from Washington is so onerous to "all" Texans that Texans might rise up in revolt and secede from the United States, by invoking the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, rather than accept "Washington money."

In March, Gov. Perry rejected $555 million in federal stimulus funds to fund unemployment benefits. By July, Perry was forced to ask the federal government for a $170 million loan to cover unemployment insurance. The state is expected to request a total of $650 million to fund unemployment insurance, around $100 million more than Perry originally rejected.

In Texas, the ARRA stimulas is expected to save or create 269,000 jobs over the next two years. The plan also includes provisions to help both employed and unemployed Texans. Nearly 8.2 million workers will receive the Making Work Pay tax cut of up to $1,000, and 677,000 unemployed workers will receive an additional $100 in unemployment benefits per month. In addition, the plan includes funding to help unemployed workers pay for COBRA coverage. [Monster.com]

On the issue of health insurance reform Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) also threatens 10th Amendment secession. [Star-Telegram] Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator John Cornyn, Congressman Sam Johnson and every Republican elected official in Texas have again lined up with Gov. Perry to reject the idea that Texans need health insurance reform.

According to facts given in a The Dallas Morning News article, Texas may need health insurance reform more than any other state:

"[Even after removing illegal immigrants from the numbers] Texas virtually leads the nation in percentage of residents without health insurance, according to both conservative and liberal researchers.

Only 49.5 percent of [Texas] residents were covered by employer-sponsored insurance, in a two-year average ending in 2008, compared with 58.5 percent nationwide, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated this month. Between 1996 and 2006, the cost of family coverage for private sector workers in Texas increased 86 percent, while incomes increased by less than 9 percent, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which finances health care research and supports universal health coverage.

Compared with the rest of the nation, the Texas economy relies heavily on small businesses and relatively low wages. So although most of the state's uninsured live in households with people who work, fewer employers offer coverage, and fewer employees can afford it.

For an average family of four in Dallas, medical care and health insurance this year will cost nearly $17,000. Of that, 41 percent – almost $7,000 – will be paid by the employee, MHBT found in a survey of 139 local businesses. "

Texas has the highest percentage of those without health insurance in the entire country. A Families USA report released in March found that the number of uninsured in Texas throughout 2007 and 2008 is around 9.3 million:

The report went further to say that 7.5 million Texans were uninsured for six months or more during that same time period and about 82.6 percent, were in working families, either working full or part-time.

An estimated 5,550 Texans are losing their health coverage each week, Families USA says in another report out in July 2009. “Rising like a deadly tide, escalating health care costs will have caused 866,580 Texans to lose their health coverage between January 2008 and December 2010,” the organization says.

The average health-care coverage for the average family now costs $13,375, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2009 Employer Benefits Survey. Over the past decade, premiums have increased by 138 percent. And if the trend continues, by 2019 the average family plan will cost $30,083.

About 160 million Americans receive health coverage through their employers. In general, the employer picks up 73 percent of the tab. This seems like a good deal. In reality, that money comes out of wages.

As Ezekiel Emanuel, who advises Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag on health-care policy, has pointed out, health-care premiums have risen by 300 percent over the past 30 years (and that's after adjusting for inflation). Corporate profit per employee has soared by 200 percent. Hourly earnings for workers, adjusted for inflation, have fallen. The wage increases have been consumed by health-care costs.

In a new study, "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults," published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health, Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993. The researchers estimate that lack of health insurance causes 44,789 excess deaths annually which are hight than previous estimate of 18,000 annual deaths published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

“I can’t imagine that anyone from Texas who cares about this state would vote for Obama Care. I don’t care whether you’re Democrat or Republican,” Perry has said. Gov. Perry has no need to worry - Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator John Cornyn, Congressman Sam Johnson and every conservative Republican elected official in Texas stand united in their support of giving the private insurance industry a free hand to increase fees annually for increasingly reduced health coverage insurance policies sold to only those most likely to not get sick.

Though luck if you are unemployed and without health insurance. If you are employed, though luck, if neither you nor your employer can afford to buy health insurance coverage. Though luck, if you have insurance, but your insurance company cancels your policy as soon as are diagnosed with cancer or some other expensive to treat disease. Though luck trying to buy insurance, if you have a pre-exisiting health condition. And, tough luck, if your big corporate employer moves your job to China or India, where the government provides health coverage, to cut its overhead cost of U.S. employee private health insurance.

Rachel Maddow: From Fear To Eternity
On Health Reform - 09/21/09