McCaskill Switching Parties?

After voting as a Republican on war funding, FISA, free speech, and opposing important environmental work in the Everglades, Senator Claire McCaskill (?-MO) has announced her intention to vote with the Democrats and to support a public option. And it seems pretty clear: "I support public option for health care reform. I want people to have a choice between public and private."

Of course, the votes have not yet been cast, and it's entirely possible that McCaskill will rejoin her Republican colleagues, but, as of now, it looks like she may be putting her Tiffany WWJTD (What Would Jim Talent Do?) on eBay. Stay tuned . . .

Ignoring John Stossel

The Star's Prime Buzz is trying to draw attention to a special involving John Stossel that will be on TV sometime soon. No links, intentionally.

John Stossel is undeserving of attention. He is an immmoral libertarian, with a flair for dishonest mock journalism. I'm saddened that the Star is promoting the man.

Stossel had the gall to do a story lying about a local victim of death by denial. If you're interested, the victim's widow did a fine letter addressing Stossel's integrity here.

Looking Down Ballot - Proposition B - Better Home Health Care For Missourians

Proposition B, on first glance, looks like a good idea. But when you take a more careful, analytical look at it, you realize that it's a great idea.

Here is the language that will appear on your ballot in less than two weeks:

Shall Missouri law be amended to enable the elderly and Missourians with disabilities to continue living independently in their homes by creating the Missouri Quality Homecare Council to ensure the availability of quality home care services under the Medicaid program by recruiting, training, and stabilizing the home care workforce?

The exact cost of the proposal to state governmental entities is unknown, but is estimated to exceed $510,560 annually. Additional costs for training are possible. Matching federal funds, if available, could reduce state costs. It is estimated there would be no costs or savings to local governmental entities.

While I often get accused of being verbose, even I see no need to expound on the merits of helping people live independently in their homes.

When I see a measure so obviously correct, I can't help but wonder if anybody is opposing it, and, if so, why? Thank Goodness I read Big Muddy Politics regularly, because that blog managed to find and destroy the anti-Proposition B argument. In a nutshell, the best that the Missouri Chamber of Commerce can come up with is the fear that the home health care workers might - gasp! - unionize, and that better home health care for Missourians could, possibly, cost a little more than bad home health care.

Believe me, I understand the differences of opinion concerning some unions, and a good-faith (but deeply flawed) argument could be made that some unions have created conditions that have led to off-shoring of manufacturing jobs, I am at a loss to explain why it would be a horrible thing to have a home health care work force that is well-trained and decently paid. Only a pathologically knee-jerk anti-worker reactionary could oppose increasing the qualifications, training and wages of one of the few groups of Missouri workers whose jobs are immune from being exported! (Though, to be fair, the Missouri Chamber's fantasy world probably would include herding retired blue-collar workers onto cargo ships to be exported to third-world countries if the lowered cost of care would reduce corporate pension obligations.) Incidentally, those same well-qualified, well-trained and decently paid home health care workers are the very same people who will be taking care of our grandparents, parents and even ourselves when we want to stay in our homes.

Vote "Yes" on Proposition B. It sounds like a good idea because it is a good idea.

Agreeing with Grisamore on Organ Donation

Readers with a good memory may recall a high-tension series of exchanges involving Jeff Grisamore, a state representative from the Lee's Summit and Greenwood area. Through the various comments and emails exchanged with Representative Grisamore, I grew to respect him, though we are close to political polar opposites.

In today's KC Star, Representative Grisamore writes of the loss of his not-quite-one-year-old daughter five years ago, and the comfort his family gains from the knowledge that her organs and tissue are being used to research Prader-Willi Syndrome, the disease which took her life.

I admire the Grisamore family for thinking of hope for other families at the time of their daughter's death, and I agree with Representative Grisamore in his request that you consider filling out the the advance directive on the back of your driver’s license and let your family know what you want.

I'll even go a little further and strongly recommend that you download the Missouri Bar's FREE Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care and Health Care Directive, and its accompanying HIPAA form here. Don't let the lengthy name of those documents intimidate you - they are tremendously easy to fill out, and come with step-by-step instructions.

Bad Sam, Good Sam, and Kids Hurt by Fear and Dogma

As written here back in July, SCHIP represents an instance where the Bush administration is going out of its way to harm children because of its dogmatic need to prevent government from offering solutions to people.

Now that he is actually wielding his pen as a sword to cut off access to health care for children, the right wing has been forced to try to reframe the debate into terms that are somehow less heartless. Sam Graves attempts to explain his blind support of all things Bush in this morning's paper, with a truly despicable attempt to blame his support of harming children on his (bogus) fear that some of the children helped might be "illegal immigrants". Mr. Graves, when your hysteria about brown people reaches the point that you cannot stomach the thought of their sick children getting necessary medical care, you've gone around the bend.

It takes a sick mind to deny millions of children health care because you don't want the brown ones to get it.

A less disturbing but more humorous argument being trotted out has the benefit of actually being Bush's true motivation. The REAL reason we can't allow SCHIP to work is that it works. If we help the children with a state-sponsored health care, people will see that "socialized medicine" is actually a sensible and workable approach.

Let's go back to Graves:

according to the Congressional Budget Office, the expansion of this government-run health-care initiative would likely mean that 2 million kids who already have private insurance would opt for their states’ government-run health-care program. In Missouri, that would involve a waiting period. That isn’t fixing a problem, it’s increasing government.

WHAT?!?! For years we've been told that single-payer health care is the worst thing in the world, but here's Sam Graves telling us that if we allow people who live in the shangri-la of medical insurance to cross over into the pit of despair that is government-sponsored health care, they will actually make that choice? It would appear that the medical establishment and their Republican hired hands have been lying to us all these years. Shocking!

(Hint to right-wing commenters about to poke a hole in my argument by pointing out that the state-sponsored health care is cheaper - here's a friendly caution to be careful with that argument - it could be a rhetorical trap . . .)

In the face of Sam Graves' embarrassingly weak defense of denying kids health care, it's good to know that Missourians have Sam Page, a genuine doctor with a thorough understanding of the health care system. Not surprisingly, he disagrees with Sam Graves, and sent me a press release that calls him on his heartlessness:

"It is shameful that our state's leaders are willing to sit silently while politicians in Washington deny access to health insurance for Missouri children," said Representative Sam Page.

Sam Page, physician and a Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, is urging Missouri's U.S. Representatives who voted against the SCHIP expansion to change their votes in order to override the president's veto, but warns the state should not be reliant on national policy.

In Missouri, our citizens and especially our children are already losing healthcare coverage at a rate three times the national average. The SCHIP expansion that received strong bi-partisan support in congress would bring nearly $1 billion in new healthcare funding to Missouri.

"We cannot continue to allow our children to suffer from illnesses that could be prevented if families had affordable access to doctors," said Page. "In the Missouri House I fought against the Medicaid cuts in 2005 and I have worked on Healthcare Committees to restore those cuts. As your Lt. Governor, I would not sit silently while politicians destroyed a child's opportunity to lead a healthy life."

Sam Page supports allowing children the opportunity to lead a healthy life. Sam Graves does not. No amount of spin, no amount of brown people fear-mongering can explain away the contrast.