For Serious, or for spite?

Oil Spill Polls

The most astounding number from the poll? 28% of Republicans said the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made them more likely to support drilling off the coast to an equal 28% who said it made them less likely to be supportive. 44% said it made no difference to them and that's understandable, but why would an oil spill make you more supportive of drilling?

Environmental catastrophes have the same affect on me. Seeing oil draped over the thousands of miles of ocean makes me think that since all the animals are dead the region is shot to hell, why not keep drilling? Maybe then gas prices will go down and I can start driving my new urban assault vehicle/suburban with the 300 gallon tank that's getting -3 miles to the gallon. Drill, baby drill!!!

Josh Ritter performs Change of Time at Record Exchange

The Return of the King—No, not Aragorn of Middle Earth, but Josh Ritter of Spud Land! Josh Ritter, an Idaho native, recently kicked off his tour with an amazing free concert at the Record Exchange in Boise, ID. Usually, sub-pop/folk/indie bands and artists bring the granola hippies out in droves, but this concert was different. The crowd was a melting pot of young kids, grandmas, hicks, skaters, families, tree huggers, teeny boppers, etc. It showed that Josh Ritter means something special to everyone in Idaho, and it made for a special concert.

Private Health Insurance: The Problem, The Solution, Or Both?

Imagine—its lunch time and you head to McDonald’s for a classic Big Mac Combo. You order your food, pay for it, and sit at a table. The waitress calls your number and you head to the counter, but before you can grab your meal she says, “I’m sorry sir, but you did not wait in the designated waiting area. Only customers who wait in the designated waiting area are granted access to our food. Since you did not comply with this policy McDonald’s reserves the right to deny you the opportunity of consumption. Good Bye!” She takes back the food as two gigantic bouncers dressed in black with insignias on their shirts that read, “MTF—McDonald’s Task Force,” escort you out of the building.

Such egregious customer treatment is inconceivable in the land of the free and the home of free-markets, or is it? Recently, congressional committees called out Wellpoint, the nation’s largest health insurance company (1 in 9 Americans get their insurance through Wellpoint), for the practice of rescissions. Rescissions are as the root of the word suggests, it means to cut a policies holder’s insurance coverage after they have paid for it. But this is not a random elimination of coverage; they cut it when you need it most. As soon as insurance companies discover that a patient has any type of serious or terminal illness—pancreatic cancer, aids, leukemia, etc.—they then peruse all of the patients past medical records, information forms, or any other type of document to discover errors, such as inconsistencies with weight or past addresses. If they find anything that does not align perfectly with their information they cut the policy. It’s like paying for a hamburger and getting kicked out of the door for unintentional gaffes.

Wellpoint’s most recent rescission offenses were exposed last month when federal investigators discovered that Wellpoint rescinded 90 women’s insurance policies after they were diagnosed with breast cancer. Each of these women had paid their premiums on time and none of them had trouble receiving coverage before they fell ill. However, as soon as the insurance claims were sent to Wellpoint these women discovered that they were suddenly uninsured. Many of them initially supposed that their policy had been cancelled by mistake. What they didn’t know was that Wellpoint had a software algorithm that automatically began the rescission process as soon as the breast cancer diagnosis was reported. This algorithm worked like a heat-seeking missile. It would find ambiguities in past information, lock in on denying coverage, and destroy the insurance policy. For example, one breast cancer victim was denied coverage because she did not report that she had acne as a teenager. Another was denied for not reporting her bone density issues (of which she was unaware). Another was denied for not mailing back forms that she never received because they were sent to the wrong address.

Wellpoint claims that the algorithms and the rescissions were done solely as a solution to prevent fraud. Yet federal investigators found that not one of these cases was denied for legitimate reasons. From these 90 rescissions alone Wellpoint made a profit of $300 million. The investigators also found that on average Wellpoint generates annual profits of $100 million from various types of rescissions. Since the news of these breast cancer rescissions broke, insurance companies (out of the goodness of their hearts, of course) have agreed to end the practice of rescissions.

Now, before we send every insurance company to the shackles, there are two ways in which their actions must be assessed—from a moral and an economic standpoint. From a moral standpoint, it seems safe to question their ethics. In my mind I envision the executives of these companies sitting in their mansions, merrily eating dinner with their healthy families, while blood slowly drips off their hands and into their veal and potatoes, the blood of all the rejected policy holders who died prematurely after paying a life’s worth of premiums—filthy pigs.

However, from an economic standpoint the verdict is absolutely not guilty, and here’s why. Each one of these insurance companies is established and operated like a well oiled machine; they are continually retuning what works and eliminating waste. We praise companies like Apple, Toyota, Google, and Starbucks for cutting costs and fast-tracking production. The reason why Wellpoint rakes in record profits every year is because they follow these same business models. If paying for someone’s breast cancer treatments is going to cost you $1.3 million over the next ten years, what is the quickest way to eliminate this expense? Eliminate the source. Insurance companies are just like every other publicly traded company—they are not the Boy Scouts, the United Way, or the Parish of the Holy Order of Saint Mary Magdalene’s First Church in Christ of Grand Rapids, MI. No, they are in the business of making money, of maximizing profits, and therefore their presumably heinous misdeeds should be put into perspective.

While their business savvy is laudable, does it qualify them as great candidates to run our entire healthcare system? With the passage of the recent healthcare reform bill, by 2014 every American must buy insurance through one of these profit-maximizing companies. This bill ensures that these companies will get approximately 32 million more policy holders. The only downside for them is that the law declares they can no longer discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, nor can they practice rescissions. Does this bill include strong oversight to ensure that they will not violate these conditions? Of course not. Will insurance companies find a way around these regulations? Of course, and they already have. The day after the healthcare reform bill was signed into law insurance companies found a loophole. It turns out that the bill does not guarantee that children with preexisting health problems qualify for coverage. There is a reason why insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals love this bill; it promises them increased profits while providing weak regulations to deter them from taking advantage of the American people.

Since insurance companies currently do everything possible to avoid covering us when we are sick, what makes us think that they will suddenly have our best interest in mind when we are mandated to rely on them? Won’t they have less incentive to cover us when we are stuck with them regardless? In a recent Reuters article regarding Wellpoint’s deplorable rescissions, they said, “The revelation is especially striking for a company whose CEO and president, Angela Braly, has earned plaudits for how her company improved the medical care and treatment of other policyholders with breast cancer.” It is obvious that these companies are not in business to represent our needs; they are in business to make money. It is unconscionable, however, that those who are supposed to represent us would turn us over to such companies, like a piece of meat to ravaging wolves. Is this what Obama meant when he said “Change we can believe in?” By relying on the problem to fix the problem it has only exacerbated our healthcare debacle.

No One Could Have Seen This Coming

Over the past year and a half there has been one message coming out of Wall Street regarding the economic collapse, "No one could have seen this coming." It was a freak accident, a curse from God if you will. Investment banks and hedge funds caused the collapse, admitted their own incompetence, and are now reaping the benefits of it. Bank executives made fortunes, hedge fund managers can now retire in their 30's, and investment banks are allowed to continue unsafe and unscrupulous practices. Therefore, if they were the main beneficiaries of the actions leading up to the economic downturn, yet had no idea what they were doing, there can only be one explanation. Either they are in inept beyond measure or their nefariousness knows no bounds.

In a new podcast put out by This American Life called "Inside Job," questions of knowledge and motives are raised and shocking insight is uncovered, revealing the truth behind the role of Wall Street in our current economic downfall.

Click on the link, listen to the story (choose 'stream episode'), and ask yourself, "why isn't more being done?"

Inside Job

Dr. Socialist or: How Obama Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Corporate America

Fear and trepidation consumes the air, the sound waves are buzzing, the people are scared.

Word is there is a Socialist in our midst; he has come with a doomsday device to transform our politics.

He will spread the wealth and take our guns; he will steal our property and our loved ones.

While eating our children he will end fighting abroad, no more killing foreigners for fear of Jihad.

Yes, there is a Socialist in our midst, we must do something, quick, inform the President!

My dear President, did you not hear? There is a socialist I’m afraid, a socialist quite near.

Since you are in charge, what shall we do! Where shall we run, what has this world come too!

The President then said, as calm as a cat, “Yes you are right my friend, it is time we should act.

Gather your clothes, enough food to feed three, we will run for the hills, for this cannot be.

But before I leave, before the socialist can mold, there are some things I must do, there is precedence to uphold.

Although I promised to close Guantanamo Bay, and execute the offenders of that aweful 9/11 day,

I will leave it open for another day or two, let the innocent rot and the military prosecute.

Iraq I will close, but only in theory you see, for if this war should end, how would the defense contractors get money?

But in Afghanistan, oh, we must be tough! I heard there are still a couple Al Qaeda there, is 40,000 troops enough?

And do worry my friends, if the socialist is in our midst, there will be no escaping the government wrath, we will find him quite quick.

For his house will be wire tapped, I guarantee you that, if there is even a socialist pin drop we will be there in no time flat.

For I am in this for the people, the healthcare bill you see! Everyone will have healthcare now, it won’t be too much money.

Just debt for the next eternity, a few bonds here and there, but hey at least the insurance companies are happy, thank God their pockets aren’t bare!

The final act I must perform before we all run to our mothers, is to make sure that Wall Street’s needs are met, that they are safe beneath the covers.

Money they need to avoid a collapse, so money they shall get. A trillion in interest free loans, perhaps, I hope they don’t object.

For while the rest of you were loosing jobs and homes every single day, Wall Street bankers faced the greatest challenge, for their 10^th yacht they could not pay.

The idea that they caused the crisis is a non-issue you see, for I have retained those who failed to see this all coming, but they swear they did their job perfectly.

So a slap on the wrist, a cut in bonuses perhaps, these are negligible details since I got my million from Goldman Sachs.

So yes, yes I do agree. A socialist in our midst? This cannot be.

We must take action, we must not delay, but before we do anything, let’s see what Wall Street has to say.

Andrew Bird w/ Priscilla Ahn - Meet Me Here At Dawn (Cass McCombs Cover)

Andrew Bird, who usually pushes the limits of what can be done with an array of instruments and electronic transformations, perfected this cover by stripping down his approach. He is a true virtuoso. Enjoy.