Dear Friends,

When it comes to issues plaguing Black and low-income communities, a White senator from the South is the last person we'd expect to go out on a limb and sound the alarm. Senator Jim Webb from Virginia just did exactly that when he boldly called out the over-imprisonment of Black folks and the serious problems with our prison system. Most importantly, he's demanding big changes.^[1]

Now it's up to us to seize the moment and create the pressure necessary to achieve true reform.

I've joined ColorOfChange.org in publicly thanking Senator Webb. Our praise will show other politicians that when they take risks and step out on critical issues like prison reform, we will have their backs. It will also show that everyday people stand with Webb and are serious about this issue. Can you join me? It only takes a moment. And then please ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://www.colorofchange.org/webb/?id=2513-143523

In recent years, politicians have lacked the courage to create meaningful prison reform. They've been paralyzed by the fear of being branded as "soft on crime." They've been held hostage by prison guard unions and industry lobbies. And the communities most affected--Black and low-income communities--have had a hard time getting a seat at the table and making our voices heard.

Our country has a clear problem. With just 5% of the world's population, America holds nearly 25% of the world's reported prison population. Our prison population has quadrupled since 1984, and most of the increase comes from people being imprisoned for drug offenses--mostly minor and nonviolent.^[2]

Despite the fact that there is no statistical difference in drug use between different racial groups, harsh drug laws have had a devastating, disproportionate effect on Black communities. While only 12% of the U.S. population is African-American, Black people make up 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced to prison.^[3]

It's surprising and encouraging that someone like Senator Webb is speaking out in this way. Webb is a White politician from Virginia, a Southern "law-and-order" state that has abolished parole and executed more people than any state besides Texas.^[4] He has nothing to gain politically from this--it's an act of true conviction.

By eloquently making the case for reform and calling for a National Criminal Justice Commission, Webb has created a major opening to address these issues. And it comes at a time when there are increasing signs the country is ready for reform. New York's governor and state legislature just struck a deal to reform the state's "Rockefeller drug laws"--some of the harshest laws in the country, and a great example of the failed status quo.^[5] A panel of federal judges has just told California it must reduce its prison population by a third to alleviate the torturous conditions stemming from overcrowding.^[6] And at the same time that more people are recognizing the deep injustices in our system, the economic crisis is forcing elected officials at all levels of government to realize they can't afford to keep directing so many taxpayer dollars toward law enforcement, jails, and prisons.^[7]

We need to make the most of this moment. Please join me in thanking Senator Jim Webb for his courageous stand and support his call for a meaningful commission. And when you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

http://www.colorofchange.org/webb/?id=2513-143523

Thanks!

References:

1. http://tinyurl.com/chxaup
2. http://www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.html
3. See reference 2
4. http://tinyurl.com/8mgyf2
5. http://tinyurl.com/da2xlw
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10prison.html
7. http://tinyurl.com/c36ubb

• By Dayo Olopade

Pop, politics and race collide in this month’s issue of EBONY magazine, which features a remarkable photograph of a dozen top-level, African American advisers (most of whom are women!) to President Barack Obama. It was never certain that the first black president would have a particularly black administration (though the campaign’s reservoir of young black talent was a hint). But this photo puts any doubts to rest.

Given the nation’s deep pool of management and political expertise, especially within the Democratic party apparatus, it’s all the more impressive that folks like Domestic Policy Adviser Melody Barnes, Attorney General Eric Holder, senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, Faith Office Executive Director Joshua DuBois, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and deputy Chief of Staff Mona Sutphen anchor this historic administration—which also includes Latinas like Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Asian-Americans like Energy Secretary Steven Chu and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. America, it seems, is being run by a legitimate rainbow coalition.

The issue also profiles hoopster LeBron James, South Carolina politician Bakari T. Sellers, and Bill Cosby as part of Ebony’s annual “Power 150” list of the most influential black Americans. And, to my surprise, it celebrates the record number of people of color in the White House press corps. Kevin Chappell, a friend at the White House, explains:

By: Hope Yen, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Blacks and Hispanics lag behind whites for higher-paying jobs at the largest rates in about a decade as employment opportunities dwindled during the nation's economic woes and housing slump.

Census data released Monday show an increasingly educated U.S. work force whose earnings didn't always seem to match up with its potential.

"The lesson of most economic downturns is minorities are the last hired, first fired. They lose jobs more quickly, and they will be the last to recover," said Roderick Harrison, a demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that studies minority issues.

Among those 25 and older last year, 86.6 percent had graduated from high school, up from 85.7 percent the previous year. It was the biggest increase since 1992, with record percentages of people earning diplomas across all racial categories.

The share of people with at least a bachelor's degree from college also increased, from 28.7 percent to 29.4 percent, continuing a decades-long rise.

Blacks overall slightly narrowed the gap in 2007 with whites in average salary, but the pay disparity widened for blacks with college degrees. Blacks who had a four-year bachelor's degree earned $46,502, or about 78 percent of the salary for comparably educated whites.

It was the biggest disparity between professional blacks and whites since the 77 percent rate in 2001, when the U.S. fell into a recession due to the collapse of the tech bubble and the Sept. 11 terror attacks. College-educated blacks had previously earned as much as 83 percent of the average salary of whites in 2005.

Hispanics saw similar trends.

Those with high school diplomas earned about 83 cents for whites' every dollar, largely unchanged from a decade ago. But Hispanics with bachelor's degrees had an average salary of $44,696, amounting to roughly 75 cents for every dollar made by whites with bachelor's degrees - the lowest ratio in more than a decade - after hitting a peak of 87 cents to every dollar in 2000.

The numbers highlight some of the barriers for minorities, said Mark Mather, a demographer for the Population Reference Bureau. He said the pay disparities could widen further since blacks and Hispanics tend to be relative latecomers to the professional world and thus more vulnerable to layoffs in the current recession.

In 2008, a record number of workers filed federal job discrimination complaints, with allegations of race discrimination making up the greatest portion at more than one-third of the 95,000 total claims.

"It's clear education alone is not the full reason for the pay gaps," said Sarah Crissey, a housing and economic statistician for the Census Bureau.

Other findings:

-For the second year in a row, the number of women with bachelor's degrees exceeded that of men. The share of women with the degrees - 29 percent - was also nearly equal to men. Still, women with at least a bachelor's degree earned an average salary of $43,127, about 60 percent the amount earned by comparably educated men.

-About 92 percent of white adults had at least a high school diploma, compared with 89 percent for Asians, 83 percent for blacks and 62 percent for Hispanics.

-Black adults in recent years narrowed the gap with white adults in earning high school diplomas, but the gap has generally widened for college degrees. About 33 percent of white adults had at least a bachelor's degree in 2008, compared with 20 percent for blacks and 13 percent for Hispanics.

-More than half, or 53 percent, of Asian adults had at least a bachelor's degree.

-Workers with a high-school degree earned an average of $31,286 in 2007, while those with a bachelor's degree..... earned an average of $57,181.

-Foreign-born U.S. residents, which include illegal immigrants, were three times more likely than native-born to lack a high school diploma.

The census data came from the Current Population Survey as of April 2008. The figures for "white" refer to those who are not of Hispanic ethnicity. Since the government considers "Hispanic" an ethnicity and not a race, people of Hispanic descent can be of any race.

Congress urged to equalize penalty, correct racial disparity

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration joined a federal judge Wednesday in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine.

"Jails are loaded with people who look like me," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, an African-American, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said the administration believes Congress' goal "should be to completely eliminate the disparity" between the two forms of cocaine. "A growing number of citizens view it as fundamentally unfair," Breuer testified.

It takes 100 times more powdered cocaine than crack cocaine to trigger the same harsh mandatory minimum sentences.

Incorrect assumption
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, said, "Under current law, mere possession of five grams of crack — the weight of five packets of sweetener — carries the same sentence as distribution of half a kilogram of powder or 500 packets of sweetener."

Durbin said more than 81 percent of those convicted for crack offenses in 2007 were African-American, although only about 25 percent of crack cocaine users are African Americans.

Congress enacted the disparity during an epidemic of crack cocaine in the 1980s, but the senator said lawmakers erred in assuming that violence would be greater among those using crack.

Breuer said the best way to deal with violence is to severely punish anyone who commits a violent offense, regardless of the drug involved.

"This administration believes our criminal laws should be tough, smart, fair," Breuer said, but also should "promote public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system."

Walton said, "We were mistaken" to enact the disparity. "There's no greater violence in cases before me."

He added that jurors have expressed an unwillingness to serve in crack cocaine cases because of the disparity.

President Barack Obama had called for such a change while campaigning for the White House.

More treatment, lesser sentences
Breuer said the government should focus on punishing drug trafficking networks, like the cartels wreaking havoc in Mexico, and those whose crimes include acts of violence.

The Obama administration is also seeking to increase drug treatment, as well as rehabilitation programs for felons after they're released from prison.

Miami's police chief, John Timoney, also favored ending the disparity, commenting, "It's the same drug. It's just manufactured differently."

Cedric Parker, of Alton, Ill., said his sister, Eugenia Jennings, is serving nearly 22 years for trading crack cocaine for designer clothes. If she had been trading powder cocaine, the sentence would have been less than half of the time.

"She would be getting ready to come home, probably already in the halfway house. But, because she was sentenced for crack cocaine she will not be released from prison until 2019," Parker testified.

While politicians often support laws lengthening prison terms for various crimes, it is rarer to try to reduce sentences, in part out of concern they may appear soft on crime. But recently, some states have been moving on their own to temper long-standing "get tough" laws.

In New York last month, state leaders reached an agreement to repeal the last vestiges of the Rockefeller drug laws, once seen as the harshest in the nation. Kentucky enacted changes that would put more addicts in treatment, and fewer behind bars.

The Justice Department is working on recommendations for a new set of sentences for cocaine, and Breuer urged Congress to overhaul the current law, written in 1986 at the height of public concern about crack use.

Since then, Breuer argued, prosecutors' views of crack cocaine have evolved to a more "refined understanding" of crack and powdered cocaine usage.

He also suggested that until such changes are made, federal prosecutors may encourage judges to use their discretion to depart from the current sentencing guidelines. Such departures are rare in the federal courts.

President Barack Obama signs the bill into law. From left: Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL); Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY); Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA); Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO); Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA). (Source: White House)

President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday a bill that requires the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution to establish an oral history project related to the Civil Rights movement.

H.R. 586 was introduced into the House by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) in January 2009, and was passed by both the House in April. A Senate bill also won approval last month.

Specifically, the oral history project will collect video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights movement and for other purposes.

The law also encourages the Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, an arm of the Smithsonian, to solicit, and accept related donations of funds and in-kind contributions.

The new law authorizes the appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year 2010 and “such sums as may be necessary for fiscal years 2011 through 2014,” according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO estimates that the oral history project will cost $4 million over the 2010-2014 period.

Click here to subscribe to BLACK ENTERPRISE

Why we still need the NAACP.          

By: Adam Serwer |

As the full impact of the financial crisis was emerging, Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, took to the floor of the House to blame the Community Reinvestment Act for the crisis. “The government was goading these mortgage lenders, saying, ‘You’re redlining. You’re being discriminatory. If you don’t give loans out to marginally credit-worthy people we’re going to come after you.”

The act was a 1970s era law aimed at preventing redlining—the longstanding practice of banks refusing to lend to minority borrowers in neighborhoods that were outlined on maps in red ink. The Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with the crisis—most of the lenders who trafficked in subprime mortgages were outside of its reach. But conservatives, Bachmann included, were arguing that the government policy caused the financial meltdown by forcing banks to make loans to black people, who, once again, were being blamed for problems caused by racist practices designed to exploit them.

Even before Baltimore city officials followed the NAACP into court to file a lawsuit against Wells Fargo Bank, we knew that mortgage lenders had targeted minority borrowers, regardless of credit history, for predatory, high-rate, adjustable mortgages, that were designed to fail. But the sheer scale of the racism involved was only recently revealed by former Wells Fargo employees who testified in affidavits obtained by the New York Times. From the filings in the Baltimore case, we learned that loan officers referred to black customers as “mud people,” and to the subprime loans they sold them as “ghetto loans.” But it was the NAACP, whose relevance is often questioned, that filed the first suit against Wells Fargo.

Around the time of the NAACP’s centennial in February, writer John McWhorter expressed his frustration with the NAACP for continuing to focus on preventing discrimination against black people rather than on delivering social services to those who needed them. McWhorter wrote, “The issue is not whether there is ‘still racism’—of course there is; just as after you sweep off a patio, if you bend down and look up close there's ‘still dirt.’” But he insisted that the organization should focus on “the things that matter most,” such as the AIDS epidemic and better public education. Racial discrimination was no longer a force that could destroy the lives of black Americans trying to succeed.

The Wells Fargo case proves him wrong. The organized and insidious nature of the scheme to target black borrowers for subprime loans, regardless of their credit histories, affirms the very serious problem of continuing racial discrimination. The service organizations built to provide black folks with reputable loans and financial literacy training were overwhelmed by the volume and accessibility of institutions engaged in predatory lending.

The scale of the problem means that an organization focused on anything other than fighting discrimination would not be in a position to do very much about it. Predatory lending is a public policy issue—one that needs to be addressed through regulation at the state and federal level—and someone needs to be constantly advocating for those changes. That is the role of traditional civil rights organizations.

But the subprime debacle was made all the more tragic by the fact that those very organizations played a role in promoting subprime, predatory loans as a necessary recourse for communities that had long been denied access to credit. The argument seemed to be that the only available options were exploitation or no credit at all.

As Stephanie Mencimer reported for Mother Jones last year, Charles Steele Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference defended subprime lending in the pages of the Washington Post. The Post eventually noted that the SCLC had formed a partnership with CompuCredit, a company that issues subprime credit cards and payday loans. Steele wasn’t the only one with a relationship with CompuCredit. The organization appeared at career fairs and summits organized by Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition. Al Sharpton was appearing in commercials for LoanMax.

The NAACP took money from subprime lenders as well. Wells Fargo had been a sponsor of their annual convention. But instead of honoring the implied agreement between civil rights groups and the companies that donate to them by letting Wells Fargo off the hook or even publicly defending them, the NAACP took Wells Fargo to court.

There was little reaction to the NAACP filing a class action lawsuit against Wells Fargo for targeting black borrowers with subprime loans. The stereotype of the aging civil rights organization looking to shakedown another company with scurrilous charges of racism was probably part of the reason most people shrugged their shoulders.

But in filing suit against Wells Fargo and lobbying Congress to pass laws aiding homeowners facing foreclosure, the NAACP was doing exactly what it should have been doing as an advocacy organization. Today’s methods of advocacy are less dramatic than the days when Walter White strode the halls of Congress browbeating senators into supporting his anti-lynching bill, and the issues facing the black community are less daunting. But ultimately the nature of certain problems facing black folks hasn’t changed: They can’t be solved by services, only by better public policy.

Still, McWhorter may have a point. Is the NAACP being as effective as it could be? Its influence in Congress has waned with its membership. The organization could have addressed the subprime lending crisis earlier than it did. And it’s hard to take the organization seriously when they’re sending out complaints about there not being enough black characters on television while public schools are in shambles, AIDS is ravaging the black community, and black people are being incarcerated at an astonishing rate. We need service organizations to address all those problems. But we also need a strong, effective advocacy organization to push for better public policy when services just aren’t enough. Maybe we need a better NAACP. But we still need the NAACP.

Adam Serwer is a writing fellow at the American Prospect. His writing has appeared in the New York Daily News, The Village Voice and Utne.

Wrongful convictions of black men have become commonplace. But conviction of Troy Davis in Chatham County, Georgia is one of the most egregious and compelling cases in decades. You can help save this man's life.

By: Ben Jealous |

David Silverman/Getty Images

No, this is not an Onion Headline. Six months into Barack Obama’s presidency, the ultimate good ol’ boys club quietly comes clean and seeks reconciliation, justice and harmony for the American people. Better way, way, way, late than never.

By: Terence Samuel | 

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

Why the jolly, red-faced Republican hitman is delivering the best news for black folks on television.

• By: Adam Serwer | 

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

Pat Buchanan is a man of many bigotries. He’s praised Hitler’s “courage,” argued that black folks should be grateful that slavery took them out of Africa, fretted that Hispanic immigrants would cause the U.S. to “lose the American southwest,” compared homosexuality to alcoholism and appeared several times on a “pro-white” radio show. Buchanan’s incendiary views prompted Jamison Foser of Media Matters to ask, “What would Pat Buchanan have to say to get himself fired from MSNBC?”

The Black Informant

Dear friends,

CNN's Lou Dobbs has been using his show to give life to conspiracy theories claiming President Obama wasn't born in the U.S. The question was put to rest long ago, but Dobbs is pretending that this extremist nonsense is a legitimate national conversation.

Dobbs, intentionally or not, is stoking the fires of racial fear and paranoia in the same way that the McCain/Palin campaign did when they cast Obama as "not one of us." Even after being called on it, he refuses to stop.

CNN claims to be "the most trusted name in news," yet it is allowing one of its hosts to give legitimacy to debunked, racist conspiracy theories. Will you join me in calling on CNN to dump Dobbs -- and ask your friends and family to do the same? It takes just a minute:

http://www.colorofchange.org/dobbs/?id=2513-143523

For more than a year, folks on the far right have been claiming that Obama is not a U.S. citizen, that he was born in Kenya, and that as a result he can't be president. The theory has been repeatedly debunked. Not only has the state of Hawaii produced a birth certificate several times, there were also birth announcements in two separate Hawaii papers when Obama was born, placing his birth in Hawaii--for most reasonable people, that would remove any doubt.

Members of Dobbs' own staff have said they're uncomfortable with his insistence on pursuing this story, but Dobbs insists on claiming there must be something to it because "Obama refuses to produce the long-form of his birth certificate." Other news outlets have refused to give the idea any credence. The head of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, had this to say about the claim: "It's racist. It's racist. Just call it for what it is."

Dobbs and race

Lou Dobbs has a history of attacking immigrants by spouting hateful rhetoric and lies. He once claimed that "the invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans" through "deadly imports" of diseases like leprosy and malaria. This kind of rhetoric feeds anti-immigrant hate, which has led to horrors like the beating death of Luis Ramirez in Pennsylvania and the shooting death of 9-year old Brisenia Flores in Arizona earlier this year. Dobb's role in creating this environment has led organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to call on CNN to reign in Dobbs in the past.

Now Dobbs is going after Obama by giving voice to the same kind of xenophobic rhetoric, stoking the deep-seated fears of angry right-wing extremists who, as CNN analyst Roland Martin has said, can't accept the fact that their president is Black.

Dobbs may not like Obama. But it's a real problem for him to use his powerful position as a moderator of discussion about the news to validate a dangerous falsehood that's rooted in racism.

Several watchdog groups have demanded action on the part of CNN. The head of the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote CNN last week asking that they fire Dobbs based on his recent actions9. Media Matters and others have launched efforts to hold CNN accountable as well.

CNN has the opportunity to live up to its description of itself as the most trusted cable news network. Or it can start to look like FOX, where the legitimizing of extremist propaganda is part of doing business.

I've joined ColorOfChange.org in calling on Jon Klein, the president of CNN, to take Dobbs off the air. Will you join us, and ask your friends and family to do the same?

http://www.colorofchange.org/dobbs/?id=2513-143523

Thanks.

Here are some links to more info:

Lou Dobbs Show, CNN, 7-23-09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvYcFgXCJrE

"Mob scene or campaign rally?" ColorOfChange.org, 10-14-08
http://www.colorofchange.org/united/message.html

"(Still) Challenging Obama's birth certificate," Politics Daily, 11-24-08
http://tinyurl.com/m2xhue

"CNN chief addresses Obama birth controversy," LA Times, 7-25-09
http://tinyurl.com/mk4rfd

"On Television and Radio, Talk of Obama's Citizenship," The New York Times, 7-24-09
http://tinyurl.com/mb467j

"CNN's Immigration Problem," Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, 4-24-06
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2867

"Broken Record," Intelligence Report, Winter 2005
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=589

"CNN's Martin: Birthers' "I want my country back" comment means "How is this black guy all of the sudden running the country?" Media Matters, 7-22-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907220041

"Major Civil Rights Group Demands CNN Remove Lou Dobbs From The Air," Huffington Post, 7-24-09
http://tinyurl.com/lafpuw

"CNN's Dobbs Problem," Media Matters
http://dobbsconspiracy.com/

via www.care2.com

Scott P

Okay, here is the deal. If you are attempting to stop healthcare reform for fear of SOCIALISM then I would like you to sign the petition I created to pledge your support to refuse to use the Medicare you already have or to promise to never sign up for it. That's right, Medicare is a government run insurance administered by private insurance (unfortunately) to private doctors and hospitals much like the evil public option in the healthcare bill will be. Not everyone seems to know this as, Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) told The Washington Post that, at a recent town-hall meeting, a man stood up and told him to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

I was once told by a family member who was complaining about his Medicare coverage that he had to sign up for Medicare and couldn't choose private insurance. Not being 65 yet, I took his word on it. I have since done some research and learned (that's right when you are told a fact you can actually take the time to ascertain its correctness) he was wrong. Medicare is entirely voluntary, although you will face a late fee if you sign up for part B or D after you are initially eligible. But since you are opposed to socialized medicine I am sure that you will never ever sign up.

Did you know that most of our medical research is also "publicly funded" i.e. socialized through the National Institutes of Health (NIH)? Much of our basic drug research is funded by….the GOVERNMENT! I guess you will also have to swear off using any drugs or receiving any service funded by the NIH, after all you would hate to use SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. If you have employer based insurance you pay your premium pretax which is obviously a form of government subsidization or SOCIALISM. I guess you should also demand the government stop subsidizing employer based health care via tax breaks. (For those not following…imagine if you didn't get the tax break and then when you went to the doctor the government covered portions of your doctor visit up to the amount that would not have been collected by taxes i.e. they are pay for your healthcare). This comes to almost 200 billion a year in government subsidies.

Why am I so angry you ask? In a recent blog posting I stated that my insurance was over 10% of my salary. Since that time I have obtained a raise and yet my family premium is now over 20% of my salary through the same insurance. I work for a small business with less than 10 employees and the cost of providing insurance is prohibitive for my company. Luckily I am also in grad school so I can buy insurance from the school. They raised my rates significantly this year and also put in a new maximum payout for prescription drugs which my wife's one medication will nearly surpass by the end of the year. It is only thanks to savings that I currently have insurance. I have no credit card debt, my mortgage is less than the average cost of rent, both cars are paid off and anyone that knows me can verify that I do not spend money on gadgets, clothes, etc. In other words I am a hard working part-time student with a family who spends his money conservatively and yet I can barely afford healthcare.

Note on Small Businesses: The self-employed and small businesses with fewer than 25 workers constitute only about 30% of all workers, but they represent almost half of uninsured workers, or close to 17 million people. These small businesses have the highest rate of uninsurance and constitute the largest percentage of uninsured workers. If you include the spouse and dependents for this group, a significant number of the uninsured are workers or dependents of workers in small businesses

I have never been unemployed for more than two-three weeks despite multiple layoffs when I worked in IT during the dot.com bubble and yet I have been without insurance more often than I can count on one hand. Each time I lost a job I was offered COBRA but the high premiums were jaw droppingly difficult to contemplate paying at the exact moment I lost my job. When I finally found a new job, I usually remained without insurance for another 90 days (the probationary period). On one such 90 day period I tore my meniscus the very day that I was eligible and signed up for insurance. I was more than a little lucky. It was bad enough that the torn knee made me lose a month of work (I became a server when I returned to college) but if I had to pile massive healthcare bills on top of money I lost it would have been a disaster. I dare say that I probably would have spent all the savings I was using to finish my bachelors to pay for medical bills.

Later after leaving that job for one without health insurance I attempted to obtain private insurance. Not only were the rates/deductibles far too high to be useful but it excluded any further medical service for my knee. Luckily, my wife's job started offering insurance because less than a year later I started suffering from shin splints as an after effect of my torn meniscus. If I had taken one of those private insurance plans I would have been up the creek without a paddle. According to The Common Wealth Fund 73 percent of people who tried to buy individual coverage in the last three years did not end up buying a plan. What more evidence do you need to see that the invisible hand of free market guiding private insurance companies has become all thumbs?

I have also had experience with public insurance. My father was in the Army and I grew up with free medical coverage that was always top notch whether I went to Bethesda Navy Hospital for a major concern or to the local military primary care unit (PRIMUS). Did I sometimes wait an hour or two in the waiting room with the flu? Yes, I sure did but I have done that with private insurance too even when I had an appointment (PRIMUS did not give appointments). Military insurance was so vital that when my parents split they delayed divorce to make sure they were married long enough to guarantee my mom military healthcare after the divorce.

I am not alone in the world of hardworking people who can barely afford their health coverage. Despite common misconceptions that this plan is designed to help only the lazy and the shiftless (which is not that high a number if you consider that prior to the current Great Recession our unemployment rate rarely topped 5%) the large majority of un or underinsured are the working middle-class who make too much for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.

Although one might presume that most people are uninsured because they have no job, this is not the case. 73% of the uninsured worked during the year, with an overwhelming amount working full-time. Some industries are less likely than others to offer health insurance. Farmers and agricultural workers, construction workers, the self employed and small business worker and those who work in service industries such as hospitality and retail have higher rates of uninsurance.

The numbers of working uninsured are only likely to rise as employers drop or reduce their health plans. The percentage of people covered through employer based insurance went from 64 percent in 2000 to 59 percent in 2007. This is partly due to employers dropping coverage and partly due to the rising cost of premiums which were not met with rising salaries. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average annual premium for family coverage increased from $5,791 in 1999 to $12, 680 in 2008—a 9 percent annual increase. How many workers do you think earned a 9% annual increase in pay? If this continues it is impossible not to see how companies will suffer from this cost burden when they go up against foreign companies whose workers do not need such plans.

Even if you do not lose coverage at your job you may lose your job, decide to leave for a new job and be stuck without insurance unless you can afford COBRA (how free market is that to make you stay in a job for fear of losing health insurance) or you could get divorced from the spouse you depend on for health coverage.

Keep in mind that if you have COBRA and move out of the area, and your former insurer has no coverage in your new location, then you are back in the individual market, which is no market at all. The same goes for if your company goes out of business and your plan is by default terminated. COBRA is no guarantee of anything.

There are problems in our healthcare and I admit to not having all the solutions but if your only goal is to stop reform without offering a substantive solution then you are ignoring the problem.

America DOES NOT have the best health care in the world. Despite spending the most money on healthcare by, over 17 percent of GDP, the World Health Organization still rates our health care as lower than Switzerland which spends 10.9, Germany which spends 10.7, Canada which spends 9.7 and France which spends 9.5.

We were 37th in overall performance and 72nd in overall level of health with a higher infant mortality rate than all other developed countries. Does that sound like the best to you? It is time for change. Immediate change. We do not need to "slow down." Universal healthcare has been an issue since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, how much slower can we go? We've watched the rest of the industrialized world provide universal healthcare successfully for the last four decades it is time we figure it out how to do it too.

So please, if you are opposed to healthcare reform because you fear SOCIALISM then sign my petition asking for you, the signers, to be removed from or prevented from obtaining Medicare.

Fear tactics about long lines, hip surgeries that never happen, death panels, etc. are the same type of hysterical exaggerations that were used in the fight against Medicare back in the 1960s. I figure if you are going to use the same arguments used against Medicare against a new public option for all then you should renounce your ability to sign up for Medicare. I am sure the private market will give you what you deserve.

Read more: politics

via www.care2.com

Join Me at i5

Why Should You be A Part of iNVITE5?

Why not?  Advertisers spend millions of dollars guessing how to communicate with you.  After years of casting wide nets to capture market share, they have finally figured it out.  Ask you, the valued consumer.  The result?  Invite5.  Through this revolutionary internet tool, advertisers pay you for your valuable opinion instead of spending the money on guess work.  Be a part of the revolution!!!