Progressive Voices Archive

North Carolina now has an unprecedented opportunity to fix its broken State Health Plan.

The State Health Plan Blue Ribbon Task Force that recently convened in Raleigh brings together lawmakers, state officials, and other stakeholders to discuss ways to improve the insurance plan that covers more than 660,000 current and retired state employees. And the group faces formidable problems.

The Obama Administration already has a remarkably full plate - health care reform, cap-and-trade climate legislation, financial regulation, immigration policy, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s just on the domestic policy front.

Sometimes, you have to hand it to Senator Richard Burr for his creative and imaginative takes on the national health care reform debate. At one moment, he’s tossing around inaccurate (often outrageous) claims about the serious reform bills under consideration. Then, the next minute, he’s offering proposals of his own that he can’t even get his own party to take seriously.

The House vote to establish near-universal health care coverage came at a steep cost to women. That cost, which came in the form of an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), eliminates abortion coverage by private insurance companies even when women are paying for all or most of the premium with their own money.

Dear Democratic Congressmen Larry Kissell, Mike McIntyre, and Heath Shuler:

I saw that you joined the Republicans and voted against the House Health Care Reform bill. It was a close vote, 220-215, even though you Democrats have a comfortable majority of 258 votes out of 435.

How reproductive health care is dealt with in national health care reform is no small matter. And who provides this critical care is still to be determined.

This summer, the city of Wilmington announced its decision to place “Automated License Plate Reader/Recognition” (ALPR) technology on the drawbridge connecting Wrightsville Beach to the mainland. Wilmington isn’t alone; six other police departments in North Carolina also use ALPR.

A consulting buddy of mine used to say that “there are three modes of existence in life and in economic development - you can flourish, cope or die.”

Wake County voters will soon cast ballots in four Board of Education contests; and the future of one of the nation’s last efforts to create genuine classroom diversity hangs in the balance. More than fifty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racially segregated schools were “inherently unequal,” no matter how much money any district spent. If a new anti-diversity majority takes control of the school board, they could dismantle a recognized model of educational access and equity for all children—regardless of race, class, religion, or ethnicity. Wake County would then probably follow Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) backward in history toward racial and economic re-segregation.

By most measures, our nation’s health care system is in shambles. We spend nearly twice more per capita than almost any other western country yet have mediocre (at best) health outcomes. There are nearly 50 million uninsured and tens of millions more with inadequate insurance. The cost of health care is rising at four times the rate of inflation, driving down wages, and economists predict that without reform, health care could bankrupt many of our businesses and institutions, undermining our nation’s economic competitiveness.

All is well at the poultry plants run by the House of Raeford in the Carolinas, at least according to an investigation by the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. A year and a half ago, the ,em>Charlotte Observer published an exposé on the company, uncovering a series of abuses in its treatment of injured workers and failure to report job injuries. In a recent follow-up story, the Observer reported on the results of the Commission’s audit of the company, which cleared House of Raeford of nearly all the allegations contained in the Observer’s in-depth investigation.

Here’s a simple concept with profound implications: our health care system is complicated.

Opponents of reform make hay about the size of Congressional bills to fix the health care system. They cut commercials that scare seniors. And industry-funded groups carpet bomb our email accounts with malicious lies about various provisions included in Congressional health care bills. This is all made possible because a complex system requires a complex fix. There’s no way around it.

Two-thousand and nine is a year for some important global anniversaries: #40 for the Apollo moon landing, #20 for the fall of the Berlin Wall, and #30 for the United Nations’ adoption of CEDAW. Unfortunately, while most Americans are familiar with the first two, they probably have no idea what “CEDAW” stands for.

Second to the fictional “death panels,” the so-called “public option” has been a prime target for the hysterical opponents of President Obama’s health care reform. They denounce the program as “socialist,” or describe it as a “government take-over” of our health system.”

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) network television advertisements on the “cap and trade” legislation that passed the House and that is now under Senate consideration (the American Clean Energy and Security Act or ACES) touches a raw voter nerve in these uncertain times. The misleading ads dub the cap and trade proposals as an energy tax - one that supposedly can’t be afforded in a recession.