If I were running communications at the White House, I would have the president get right out in front of the American people and explain why we need health-care reform. I would have him explain why we need it now and the costs in dollar and human terms if we don’t do it. He has made an address to Congress, but he hasn’t said what happens to our country if we don’t have health care or what it costs us as a country to do nothing.

I saw the repercussions of doing nothing firsthand when I spent 15 years working in mental health and addictions. It is true that there is some end-of-the-line help for people, such as local mental-health clinics, state hospitals or locally funded versions of a state hospital, but these services are overwhelmed and are often the first to get cuts. Medications are often available for people on Medicaid, but many people do not qualify, as they are the working poor without health insurance.

In just this one area of health care, it is penny wise and pound foolish to not provide services as depression, anxiety and psychotic illness can slide out of control quickly if left untreated. Early intervention is the key to cost control later. Having worked in just this one aspect of health care, I saw what happens to untreated illness. Health professionals have screamed prevention and early intervention from the rooftops, and no one paid attention. But this week a study was released showing mortality increases for those that do not have health insurance.
The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health by Harvard University researchers and showed that Americans without health insurance were significantly more likely to die.

Earlier studies completed in the early ’90s showed a 25 percent increase in chance of dying without health insurance. The new study backed up that earlier research but showed that the risk of dying was actually 2.5 times higher than the earlier study found. This works out to a 40 percent higher likelihood of death without insurance.

There has been supporting data from other studies such as the congressionally funded Institute of Medicine, or IOM. This week’s study found that as many as 42,686 people died in one year because of lack of health insurance. That is almost 10 times the deaths experienced in the war in Iraq and close to what we lost in Vietnam. It is way too many mothers, fathers and productive Americans lost for no reason other than money.

What is astounding is that these statistics do not even consider the people unable to work because of illness or who need care from family members who then have to take off of work. This is not rocket science. How many people do you know who put off going to the doctor when they are ill because of costs? All of us know people who are facing those decisions.

Early intervention is the key in so many diseases, and President Obama’s plan allow 90 percent of people who do not have health insurance to be able to obtain it. It would allow people to get health care and tests that make a difference. Middle-aged people would be able to get a colonoscopy. Those with high cholesterol would be able to get find out if drugs would help, and people with diabetes would be able to stem the process of the disease before they lost limbs.

I am on the board of Lighthouse International, a non-profit dedicated to helping people with vision disabilities. We screened more than 100 people in the talk-radio industry during one of Talkers Magazine’s conferences. Almost one-third of the attendees had some kind of previously undiagnosed eye problem, such as a retinal tear or macular degeneration. Those are costly diseases, as many people can’t work if they can’t see. Lack of ability to pay means people won’t seek out care and get treatment while they still can.

Now is the time to make the facts and figures known to every American about the cost of failing to enact health-care reform. It costs in productivity, and if we are going to compete on the world stage, we must have what other developed westernized countries have: health care.

-Ellen

When I was in the drug and alcohol treatment business, my old boss, who was a whiz at modern management, used to describe unmotivated staff members as “fat, dumb and happy.”

Utilizing the latest management techniques, he would cajole, educate and motivate staff to a higher level of development unless it was hopeless. If that were the case, it was time for them to get off the bus and go elsewhere. Larry’s theory was that we had become way too comfortable and self-satisfied in our country, and it was time to get competitive and be uber-productive. It worked. While we were going strong we were at the cutting edge of addiction treatment.

I was quickly reminded of Larry and his management lessons when I saw some of the recent statistics on Doug Henwood’s Left Business Observer site. President Obama’s speech last Wednesday discussed fear and the goal of American’s to deal with our fear by shaping the future. Some of the data I saw shows a real need to be as industrious as we were in the years after World War II and to take a much more active hand in shaping our future. Growing up in the post-Sputnik era, I saw firsthand the technique to teach math change on a dime. Old math and science textbooks were thrown out, and local school boards moved to ditto sheets and quick printing until new textbooks could be written. No, this time the Russians haven’t put a satellite up in the sky, but our competition might as well have. The statistics are sobering, and it is time to do something different.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, has released its 2009 indicators report, and much of it is not pretty in regard to the good ol’ USA. Henwood has taken the time and effort to put graphs and numbers in understandable data.

We are near the top in terms of income level, but still way too many Americans live in poverty. No, we are not in the category of the Sudan/Darfur type of poverty, but in Western World terms it is poverty. Poverty is defined says Henwood as less than half of the household median income. A poor household in the United States has an income 38 percent below the poverty line. What is truly amazing is our work ethic. In this sense, we are not “fat, dumb and happy.” Twenty-five countries were measured in regard to hours worked per year. The United States was first with 301 hours more than average, which equates to more than seven weeks of additional work. You might say that shows our productivity, but it also comes out to seven weeks of work time that parents do not get to spend raising their children. That translates into less time cooking nutritious meals, reading to children and helping with homework. It also means more stressed parents. It “trickles” down, as Ronald Regan used to say.

Working parents generate more daycare costs, but knowing what we know now about brain development, it is essential that young people develop neural pathways in the brain so they can learn more complex concepts in the later years. Only 58 percent of our 3 to 5-year-olds are enrolled in formal preschool programs while Mexican children have a preschool enrollment of 70 percent! France and Spain have a 100 percent and 98 percent preschool enrollment respectively. How can we possibly compete with countries that are teaching reading and reading readiness while our children are watching television as their parents are working those extra hours?

It is not surprising that our health care bill is going to break the bank. We are ranked 24th out of 30 countries in life expectancy, and we are the most obese of all the countries surveyed. Fat equals health-care problems, and that is expensive to treat. The United States is one of the only countries where people in their 20s are not taller than people in their 40s. That is one of the greatest indicators of lousy nutrition. School lunches, fast food from overworked parents and way too many choices from the processed food industry create an unhealthy country.

We also rank highest in lifetime prevalence in mental illness. According to Henwood’s statistics, we take the lead in all of the mental problems – anxiety, mood, substance abuse and impulse control.

So, by my former boss’s standards we are not fat, dumb and happy, but we are fat and not so smart. Along with health care reform, we need lifestyle reform, and we need it urgently. Other countries that we should be ahead of will outpace us. American society needs to change at all levels – as individuals, families and communities.

Congress comes back into town this week. Over the past five weeks, House and Senate members alike have probably spent some time with their families and a lot of time in their district offices hoping they would not be ambushed at town hall meetings by angry members of the opposite party. It must be fun to be a member of Congress, except when you are faced with angry constituents. Then you wonder why you ever ran for office. It is a job that comes with great responsibility. It means passing laws and putting forth legislation that advances America and moves it further down the road.

Given this responsibility, I think Congress should not go home in late October/early November unless they pass some major legislation in several areas. This may require that the leadership keep Congress in session no matter how much campaigning needs to be done or how much lawmakers are itching to get home to raise money for the mid-term elections. I propose the following agenda for the remainder of this year:

Limit spending

Of the 12 appropriations bills, none have been passed and five have been passed by the Senate with no conference reports completed. (Conference reports are what comes from meetings between the House and Senate). Congress often runs out of time to submit these reports and, therefore, the two chambers combine many of their bills into a huge omnibus appropriations bill. So much pork and projects are stuck into that kind of bill that it becomes too heavy to carry and too long for anyone to read. We elect Congress to spend money carefully, but this is no way to do so. I say, stay in and get the individual bills passed without having to revert to an omnibus bill.

Pass health care

There will be meetings taking place on both sides of the aisle about what citizens want for health care when Congress returns this week. All of the advertisements, tea parties and union outreach don’t change the fact that people want to afford health insurance. Our small company, the Talk Radio News Service, has been trying to obtain insurance for two years. Finally, we found a company that said it would insure us, only to then double the rates shortly thereafter. Public option or not, people want to be able to purchase health care at a reasonable rate.

It is interesting to note that former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a physician and former governor, said that the Democrats are unwilling to take on the trial lawyers right now in the health-care debate. That is too bad because everyone in the health-care industry, Democrat or Republican, agrees that there has to be some limits on lawsuits. Doctors can’t afford the malpractice insurance in certain specialties, and some of the awards are off the charts. Congress should not go home without addressing tort reform as part of health-care legislation.

Create jobs

With the possibility that the national unemployment rate will rise to 10 percent or higher in the near future, there needs to be a real program to get people back to work. Shovel-ready projects are well and good, but they do not grow our economy. There are many ways to make sure we get jobs for people: One way is to make money available for training in high-tech jobs. Another is to stop bending to the will of the large broadband companies and to begin to encourage local communities to develop their own broadband accessibility. Broadband means jobs and the ability to compete worldwide. Congress needs to pave and pay for the road to the information highway. There are other ways Congress can help create jobs aside from infrastructure projects and government employment, but it is going to take creativity and both parties working together to do it.

Get serious about going green

There is too much back and forth about cap and trade. It might be way too political to pass this year. However, some of the oil-rich countries are realizing that oil can’t go on forever, and they are buying up our brain resources, in the process taking ownership of patents for technology developed by American citizens. This will make us beholden to those same oil-rich countries for green technology. Congress needs to start finding and funding those promising technologies so they are owned by Americans.

Spending, health care, jobs and green energy are just four areas that need congressional attention. Let’s hope our representatives stop carping and impeding legislation in the name of scoring points at the polls and start working on getting it all done this week when they arrive back in town.

In this day and age of neurobiology (understanding of brain chemistry and neuro-anatomy), it is shocking to have an organization such as the Heritage Foundation release a report called “Adult Time for Adult Crimes – Life Without Parole for Juvenile Killers and Violent Teens.” It is not “compassionate conservatism;” it shows a lack of knowledge in regard to basic brain development.

I am not so naïve that I believe if a juvenile commits murder at 16 years old, that the day he or she reaches 21 they should be a get-out-of-jail-free card. But life sentences for a child or teen that commits an act of even horrendous violence when they are a teenager? Why keep them in for life? It is highly improbable that a disturbed young person who is in the prison system 24/7 can control his or her behavior for years at a time to “fool” the prison staff that they are remorseful and non-violent when they actually are not. There are cases where people have been freed and then commit horrible crimes, but juveniles are generally studied and evaluated frequently while incarcerated. By the time they reach adulthood, the criminal justice system knows a lot about them. The offenders who remain capable of violence years after committing the crime should be placed in a humane and structured prison/mental hospital facility.

According to the Heritage Foundation report, 43 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government have laws allowing for life without parole for juveniles. Although I think these laws in themselves are horrendous, why, if it is law in a super majority of states, is this is an issue now? The Heritage report states that it is because there is coordinated lobbying going on to change this. Maybe that is true, but more likely it is another way for conservatives to get on the “tough on crime” bandwagon as it always stirs up the base. It worked in California and drove voters to the polls. California prisons are now filled beyond human capacity due to the three strikes law. They can’t afford to keep their prison system in operation, but the voters were happy that California would not be “soft on crime.”

This entire proposal ignores how these young people became violent in the first place. Authors Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley in their book about violent and murderous juveniles, “Ghosts From the Nursery,” studied incarcerated young people. They write, “We can see that there are many kinds of ghosts from the nursery. Some result from biological factors such as head injuries or learning disabilities. Others emerge from familial experiences such as child abuse, domestic violence, or the impact of maternal depression or rejection. As children grow older, larger societal factors, such as chronic community violence, may compound the damage from earlier experiences. One factor by itself rarely creates antisocial outcomes in human development … a majority take root in the nursery, where few people are looking.”

The fact is that most juveniles who commit crimes have been abused, dropped or shaken in their early years or may have some congenital form of mental illness. That does not translate to the notion that society should let offenders out to roam free. It does mean that giving a life sentence to a juvenile is not justice; it is barbaric.

A psychologist I know said the rental car companies are about the only entities that understand brain development. They don’t rent cars to people who are younger than 25. The part of the brain that makes thoughtful decisions is not fully developed until the mid-20s. Therefore, putting someone in jail for life at the age of 16 or younger makes no sense except to the “tough on crime” crowd.

My advice is for the authors of the Heritage Foundation report to spend some time learning and understanding the roots of violent behavior and to study brain development before they continue to tout “life without parole” for even the most violent criminal acts by adolescents. Our laws that allow 14-year-olds to be incarcerated for life are at odds with other Western countries and put us in the company of countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Hopefully those are not countries we want to emulate in terms of how they treat other humans. It is time our criminal justice system adjusted itself to what we know about human behavior and the brain. It is time we acted based on science and not just pure retribution.

My friend, Kate Taylor, turned 60 on Saturday, and I went to Martha’s Vineyard to celebrate with her. She has a birthday that coincides with the anniversary of Woodstock. Kate was 20 at the time, but being a musician from a musical family, she was part and parcel of the time. We sat around the breakfast table this weekend discussing the meaning and legacy of Woodstock. Just in case you haven’t been listening to your local rock station this week, Aug. 15 was the 40th anniversary of the music festival.

Most of the Woodstock generation, also known as baby boomers, came from the generation known as the builders. The builders have been defined by two major events in their lives: The Depression and World War II. Our parents grew up with the ethic of a moral war and a government that aimed to take care of its own with Social Security, the Works Progress Administration and the G.I. bill. Women got out of the house and worked in factories and desk jobs for the war effort. Men came home, went to college and were able to purchase homes. We were a prosperous nation and extremely powerful. The boomers grew up hearing of our parents’ hardships, but also of their faith in our government to wage wars that were necessary and to take care of our citizens.

For many of us, the first chink in the full cup was the JFK assassination. Other than a rather odd kid in my class who was saying to all of our classmates that this was a conspiracy, we all bought the line for a few days until we witnessed Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. It was too odd, even if we believed the view of the day: the lone gunman theory. Then came the Warren report, and it was the beginning of the end of blind trust in our government for the boomers. The Vietnam War and the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King also defined the boomers and the tail end of the builder generation.

The builder leaders, such as Martin Luther King and the Kennedys, gave us hope and inspiration to sit at the lunch counters and to march. On the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Smithsonian had an exhibit of a lunch counter and signs of protest. Included were the protest signs from movements spurred by the racial rights protests of the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Vietnam and women’s, gay and disability rights. Juxtaposing the marches was Woodstock, another defining moment for our generation. It not only defined our generation, like the protest marches, it also gave America another push toward knitting together our rich diversity.

When the heavy rains came to Woodstock, the U.S. military helped out. For a group of young college students who flashed peace signs and said, “Peace baby, pigs off campus,” it gave a new respect for our country’s institutions. For the tea baggers of the current right wing, America learned that there was “power to the people” and that we now had the numbers of citizens to make that difference.

Television and radio were ubiquitous, as transistor radios made news easy to access. Television spread pictures of what was taking place with all these young people. When food ran low, Wavy Gravy delivered the famous, “What we had in mind was breakfast in bed for 400,000 people,” which became a mantra of what could happen when people cooperated in a spirit of peace and fun. The Woodstock generation also learned to “seize the power,” and young people began to think about running for office. Woodstock showed our generation’s strength. One of my friends said that for him it meant being outside of the Pentagon for a Vietnam protest and handing wet rags to protesting vets so that they could withstand the tear gas.

Woodstock changed America, all of America. Rock music moved people, and every Christian rock band has Woodstock to thank. Forty years ago, Woodstock reflected the spirit of our country, and it still does today.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is a genius. You do not have to like him, but he designed the 50-state strategy that won the House majority and helped get President Obama elected. Everyone thought his scream scene in Iowa would write him off, and it did for president. But it did not stop his becoming chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His supposed confrontation with now-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is legendary, and there is much speculation that it prevented him from getting a plum job in the Obama administration.

However, Howard Dean has made his mark again and has penned his thoughts in a new book “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform” published by Chelsea Green. (I must make full disclosure here: Chelsea Green has also published one of my books.) He successfully makes his case and shoots down the naysayers. He does it in few words, and he makes his arguments elegantly.

Most important is his argument that “reform without a public health insurance option is not real reform.” He is 100 percent right on this. Many from my side of the fence are fearful that the Democrats are going to cave on this, and then we will be left with a partial solution that will take the country nowhere in the long run. Yes, the public option may look somewhat like Medicare, says Howard Dean, but the advantages in administrative expenses and cost control outweigh the negatives. The insurance companies are camped out on Capitol Hill trying to make sure there is no public option. They don’t want the competition and would like to be able to run their operations in the inefficient manner they have for decades. A public option where everyone, public and private, plays by the same rules would ruin their silent conspiracy. Contrary to the “socialist” health care mantra, it would provide for real competition.

There are other areas that Howard Dean, a physician, knows from experience. One is that we can cut costs of health care by prevention. One statistic he cites is that in one year $132 billion was spent on diabetes but only $70 billion on the prevention of all diseases. If all children were to receive recommended vaccinations then the costs of health care would fall by $40 billion over time. These kinds of interventions are easy to implement, and the savings could insure millions of people.

The other factoids that Howard Dean cites are nothing less than staggering. “Approximately one-third of individuals seeking medical care is likely to experience a medical error such as a medication mistake or the wrong lab results.” He also points out that only about half of the time does an American get the appropriate care.

Most of the readers of this column would never believe the above figures, but I have had direct experience with those numbers. I headed up an effort to get an alcohol and drug treatment center accredited by the hospital and treatment facility accreditation agency. It was an eye-opening experience.

There are a mind-numbing amount of rules and standards. However, real and innovative measures of outcome and treatment protocols are not the main focus of their accreditation procedures. This needs to be the focus if we are going to see differences in costs and be able to exact health care reform.

Dr. Dean also addresses what other countries have done and the results they have obtained. He is honest about wait lists and what the United States can do to not have a repeat of its mistakes. He also points out 11 myths that we are hearing over and over again from those opposed to real change in our system. He points out that citizens will have more choice, not less, that we will strengthen our employer-based system, and that research into treatment effectiveness will mean that health care will not be rationed. He takes on the biggest boogey man that the GOP has been using: that health care reform will eliminate jobs. Not so says Howard Dean, Massachusetts corporations have not dropped coverage, and most large companies already provide coverage.

Boogey man by boogey man, Dean dissects the arguments. It is worthwhile to read what he has to say as he understands the arguments from both provider and political side. Just like he took on the 50 states to provide a win for the Democrats, he takes on the health care lobbies in the only way he knows how: clearly and concisely.

Stress And Suicide In The Military

One great thing about the current state of journalism is that it is impossible to sweep things under the rug. Some blogger somewhere is going to take up the cause. It is, however, information explosion, and so some things go unnoticed and do not receive the attention they deserve. There is one issue that has reached both bloggers and the mainstream press. It is psychological stress and military suicide. The New York Times is running a series of articles, and the House Armed Services subcommittee on Military Personnel had a hearing about it on Wednesday.

In a statement released by Chairman Ike Skelton’s office, the Representative addressed the problem not as an end point but as a chain of events. He said, “It is the final step an individual takes when they can no longer deal with the stressors in their life.” He said that it was important to determine why the suicide rate has increased and what stressors led to it.

Some of the testimony came from Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff for the Army. His main point was that they couldn’t just focus on reducing the number of suicides; they have to address the stress and anxiety faced by the military and the results of that stress such as increased substance abuse, infidelity and even reckless driving. The numbers are not pretty. Last year in the Army alone there were 140 suicides, translating into a rate of 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers. In January and February there were 41 suicides compared with 16 in 2008. By anyone’s standards that is a whooping amount of suicides.

My view is that part of the problem lies with recruitment. Recruiters are rewarded with how many bodies they can bring in to the all-volunteer military. I once asked the head of recruiting for one of the military branches if he had one wish for training potential recruits before they signed up for active duty what would it be? He replied, “financial literacy.” He said they get credit cards, get a girlfriend or wife and start charging. Soon they are up to their necks in debt, and it adds huge pressure to their military service.

In the Air Force they found that young enlisted men with a rank of E1 to E4 and between the ages of 21 and 25 have the highest risk of suicide. That is not surprising given that brain development is more complete by age 25. The pre-frontal cortex, which helps reason over impulse, is more fully formed by then. There is a reason car companies don’t rent cars to people younger than 25 without a surcharge. The young adult brain is just not fully developed.

Other factors in the Air Force suicide rate include relationships gone awry and poor coordination among professionals. Weekends were the prime time for suicides, and there was also poor communication between the treating mental health providers and commanders. There is always tension in the military between confidentiality and the need to communicate with supervisors. This is now being addressed so that soldiers can discuss personal issues without being worried about facing discharge.

Each branch of service is engaging in suicide prevention programs. In Iraq they deal with post traumatic stress right away, not when someone gets home. Programs are set up so that there is immediate intervention before the trauma is replayed over and over by the less-advanced part of the brain.

There are some issues that go right back to engagement strategies, including too many back-to-back tours of duty and the fact that National Guard duty has become synonymous with active service. It was never intended to be that way, but it functions that way. The other problem is young wives who have not had parenting education and are raising children as a single parents because their loved ones are on active duty across the oceans. This puts enormous stress on them and their husbands who are alone and enlisted.

The military is doing its best to try and address these problems and has engaged in the lives of these soldiers in ways that have been previously unheard of. However, little of the testimony on Wednesday dealt with recruitment. It was a glaring deficit in the hearings and must be addressed by a more complete assessment of incoming recruits.
There also needs to be less focus on getting bodies in and more focus on finding recruits who can handle stress, as well as financial and family problems. It is time our military began to look at what happens before someone enters the service, not just after. The other option is the draft, and some liberals including Chairman Charlie Rangel thinks that would make a military more like the rest of America. It is worthy of consideration and may make a stronger and healthier military.

Before I launch into my analysis of the health care reform debate, I’d like to introduce myself to you, the talkradionews.com users. I am a native Washingtonian who grew up in nearby Montgomery County, Md., and attended the University of Maryland. Before coming to Talk Radio News Service earlier this summer, I worked for several years as a producer for a news/talk station in Washington. I can safely say that I am somewhat familiar with what goes on in our nation’s capital. I enjoy covering politics (and sports as well) and I really enjoy getting a chance every so often to play the role of correspondent. I also enjoy blogging, something I haven’t done a whole lot of lately (I’m working on convincing our web guys to start one on this site). Having said all that, this is my initial foray into the world of op-ed writing. So don’t worry, if you think this column is terrible, well…..um…..hey, did I mention that Ellen will be back on Monday? All right, now that we’ve taken a minute to get to know each other, on with the show…

I am one of the millions of fortunate Americans who receive health insurance through their jobs. I understand, however, that for every Geoff Holtzman, there’s a man or a woman out there who would like to be covered, but isn’t. I also understand that even some folks who ARE employed don’t have insurance because it’s too expensive for their employer to provide and it’s too expensive for them to buy on their own. In fact, I used to be one of these people back when I was working two part-time jobs, before I landed my first real full-time gig. We as a nation have a huge problem on our hands, I get it. This is why, even though I align myself with most conservatives, I feel it is important for Washington to do something about reforming the system. Maybe not today, maybe not even by the end of the week. But, ideally by the end of 2009, so this issue doesn’t die in an election year.

I applaud President Obama for taking initiative on this issue. For God’s sake, our country has needed health reform since the 60’s. However, I think he’s been hurting reform efforts more than helping them of late. And as a result, his approval ratings, both on the way he’s handled health care reform and as a whole, have slipped recently. In my opinion, Obama started off with the right approach. He told Congress he wanted legislation (albeit by the August recess, but whatever), he laid out a few items he wanted included on the table, and then he basically let Congress go to work. I think most Americans appreciated this approach as opposed to the way the Clintons tried to shove Billarycare down Congress’s throat. But, to paraphrase the administration that came before Obama, he hasn’t stayed the course.

Lately, he’s been touring the country, campaigning for reform like it’s 2008 all over again. Mr. President, please, we get it. We get the fact that you really really really want health care legislation passed. We understand what it will do for you, both in 2012 and for your legacy. But you’re smothering us. Listen, this thing has a good chance of passing by the end of the year, regardless of whether conservatives rail against it or Blue Dogs take time to address fiscal concerns. You need to stop stumping. Trust me, every time you go out and try to “sell” this plan to the public, they see it as exactly that, a sales pitch! What you ought to do is take your foot off the gas and let your operatives take care of winning hearts and minds in Congress. Rahm Emanuel’s closed door meeting with members of the Blue Dog coalition in Nancy Pelosi’s office that produced a subsequent compromise should tell you something.

(Deep breath)

Now, are there components of the legislation that bother me? Of course. I am wary of a public option. I don’t believe that it will make the health insurance industry more competitive. On paper, it makes sense. But its application will eventually bankrupt the private system, which will in turn do two things. First, it will cause enormous job loss. Secondly, it will create a single payer system. I can’t support a plan that does either of these things.

Do I support a co-op? Not necessarily, and for two reasons. First, the state of Massachusetts tried doing this in 2002. At first, it worked to bring more people into the system. However, eventually it led to massive costs and placed a huge financial burden on the state. (On a related side note, the beauty of the Massachusetts health care debacle is that you can blame both Democrats in the state legislature as well as Republican Governor Mitt Romney for being behind it.) Next, Blue Cross, one of the biggest health insurance mega corps in the country began as a co-op. What does that tell you? It tells me that at some point, a non-profit health insurance company is going to want/need to privatize, grow, and make some dough.

The only solution I’ve heard that makes sense to me so far is for Congress to get serious about tort reform. Why? Because the fewer number of medical lawsuits there are, the less doctors and physicians will charge their patients and/or order unnecessary tests, procedures and prescriptions in an attempt to protect themselves. Now, I am not a legal expert (can you tell?) nor do I pretend to be one, so I’m not going to elaborate on tort reform. But, that’s the purpose of op-eds, right? To get you all thinking…….

So, the bottom line is this: First, we need health care reform and we need it relatively soon. Next, President Obama needs to stop selling us on the idea of a public option and how it A) won’t negatively impact the private insurance industry and B) won’t increase the deficit by billions of dollars. And finally, Congress needs to come to terms that it might be time to start getting tough on lawyers in this country.

Does that make sense?

The Senate judiciary hearing room in the Hart building is a monument to power in our democracy.

In a series of seats fashioned like a horseshoe, senators sit with their aides behind them. Each seat has a microphone, and the Democratic chair sits in the middle with the Republican ranking senator sitting beside the chair. Next come the still photographers, then the witness table. Behind the witness sits their family members and sometimes their advisers. In back of them are a few more rows of seats and then long tables for the press to write longhand or type directly into their computers. In back of them sit the general public.

Unlike the older Senate hearing rooms, the Hart building has special balcony-type places for the radio and television journalists so they can do their reporting while looking down on the hearing room. With all of these delicately designed ways of holding hearings you would expect more from our democracy. In fact, we got a whole lot less this week.

I am referring to the Sotomayor hearings for Supreme Court justice. This is something that the American public has been part of for years, with much of the hearing the time being boring beyond comprehension. Sure there was the Clarence Thomas hearings and Anita Hill, but, in general, the hearings are a snore. This week was no exception to the snore rule.

Our Constitution provides for “advice and consent” by the Senate (Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 2) of Supreme Court judges. This provision was a compromise between the founders who wanted a strong federal government and those who wanted a stronger legislative branch. It has become a place to address the folks at home and enrich the political platform upon which many senators operate. In fact, if you were going to teach high school civics, it would be shameful to show a video tape of the “questions” that were asked by many senators. The Republicans used the hearings this week as place to make the Democrats agenda look radical, and the Democrats used their questions as a kiss up opportunity. Our Supreme Court reporter, Jay Tamboli, a lawyer by training, just shook his head at the missed opportunity for having a real discussion about law and justice.

I was in the hearing room during the last day of the Sotomayor testimony and was pretty horrified that intelligent people were asking such dumb questions. Much of the concern from the Republican senators focused on personal experience of a judge and if it should influence decisions from the bench. They acted as if it never happens in true justice. It was hard to sit there and not laugh. A grade school child could tell you that the Supreme Court is filled with ideologies that impact on final decisions. If they had only had some basic interviewing skills, the Republican senators would have asked more probing questions that were designed to really get information. They could have asked questions like, “Tell me a time that you made a decision based on law but that you personally disagreed with the outcome.” Instead they harped time and time again to her speeches which they felt showed she would be biased in her judgments.

Then JAG military lawyer Sen. Lindsey Graham used his time to deliver a long speech about Guantanamo justice and why people who don’t play by the rules should get more trial rights than those who do. He was referring to captured fighters who do not wear a uniform of country and thereby do not fully come under the Geneva Conventions. After several minutes of Sen. Graham’s monologue, I began to wonder where is the question and what does he expect Judge Sotomayer to answer.

The point is that no one knows what a judge will do when they get on the court. Ever since Ruth Bader Ginsburg played it safe by not commenting on “hypothetical” cases, no one has been able to make headway with a potential judge. They can hide behind the fact that something might come up before the court in the future.

So, what can be done? There is no law that says there needs to be four days of hearings. If they know they have the votes to confirm, then they should hold shorter hearings and the chairman should limit it to real questions and stop the speeches.

They should put all the pro and con letters up on the Internet and let the American public call their senators with their comments. Senators should stop playing to their base with hostile or kiss-up questions. Everyone knows they accomplish nothing. Finally, we should treat this process as something that allows us to discuss important questions of the day, which could include the influence of foreign law on ours, the impact of current science on legal decisions etc. We missed an opportunity to make these hearings relevant and interesting. They turned out to be boring and dull, a missed opportunity to engage Americans in a meaningful and important process.

It is July 2009, and I am writing this from Warsaw, Poland. This is my third visit to this country but my first time back since the fall of communism and the first elections in June of 1989. The last time I visited in January of 1986 we were minded by a “guide” from the state-run “Intourist” who made sure she knew where we were. Shopping consisted of one state-run hard currency store, and there were no supermarkets. Everything was gray. It wasn’t gray because it was winter; the country had no color and not much motivation to add color in a country where individual ingenuity was not recognized. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops were stationed in Poland with the last troops pulling out in 1993.

Poland is a very different country now. It has joined NATO and is a member of the European Union. The old Soviet statues have been replaced with long-time Polish heroes. With the exception of a few really ugly buildings, the only remnant of the Stalin Soviet world is the large “wedding cake” building. The Soviets built this type of building in the capitals of all their satellite countries. Beyond that remnant, what the Soviets left behind is a complete distain of their leadership and a dislike of Russia.

The Polish people I have spoken with have great worries about Russia. They do not fear being invaded, but they worry about alliances that are being made around them.

They believe that as a small country they could easily be a pawn in international diplomacy and business alliances. There is also worry that President Obama could make deals with the Russians that will leave them less able to defend themselves economically.

I heard comments like, “The Russians are still trying to get themselves in the front seat of the car” and “We think Obama will sell out Poland to Russia.” There’s also is a concern that the United States does not understand that Russia wants to dominate the world. There is also fear that oil and gas pipelines from Russia to Germany will bypass Poland. In fact, the bottom line is that they just don’t trust the Russians. The Polish people are frantic concerning the missile shield, or lack thereof, in terms of American promises.

Propaganda by the Soviets before 1989 has made them wary of anything Russian. It may not be fair, but the high school history books glossed over the fact that almost 22,000 members of the Polish military were murdered by the Soviets in 1940, and it was made to look like the Germans did it. This has obviously been a wound that has smoldered over two generations. In the Soviet propaganda world, Americans were considered worse than the Germans and were also responsible for Poland’s potato blight because Americans supposedly wanted the Polish people to starve. It is a lesson in occupation and how long hatred can fester with a population that doesn’t welcome you.

Poland has changed in other ways, too. The government has made real efforts to recognize the Holocaust and preserve what is left of Jewish life before World War II. There is clearly anti-Semitism, although no one will admit it publicly. I saw and photographed a painting for sale in a small market with a very ethnic looking Jew counting gold coins with a horrible smile on his face. Individuals with ethnic hatreds are hard to change.

I did notice dramatic change in the 20-somethings. Most of the young people I spoke with were not in grade school at the time of the first democratic vote. They did not see solidarity marching in the streets, and the schools they went to were open and free. They could watch what they wanted to on television, and they went to high school and college with free access to the Internet. They had a different view than people who were educated under the Soviets, and they view Poland in a very different light.

I sat with a group of young people and asked them what would be their wishes for Poland. They said that they would like smarter politicians, someone to vote for, a country not taken over by foreign investors and more opportunities for work and advancement. I could have been talking to any young American. I knew at that moment that Poland had really changed; it was a country with the same difficulties and problems that we have seen in our democracy. Democracy is difficult, as the Polish people have learned, but a far cry from the days of Soviet domination.