Julie Pierce from Michael Moore's Sicko Talks About Health Care
Submitted by JC on October 8, 2007 - 7:59am.
Here is a clip from the forum I hosted on universal healthcare and H.R. 676 at last weekend's Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference. This clip features Julie Pierce, who you might recognize from Michael Moore's latest movie Sicko. Later today I'll post clips from James Carville's remarks.
I'll be posting more clips over the next few days from the rest of the conference, including from the forum I hosted on the Jena Six, so be sure to check back soon!
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Testing...1,2,3....Test
Hmmm
Well ain't this just ducky...
It appears that unless you add a new comment, you can't see the other replies to the blog, even your own.
Very ingenous, Mr. Conyers. So unless, you want to respond to the post, you'll never know what other readers were thinking.
To the casual web surfer, it would appear that Mr. Conyers is merely granting America the opportunity to witness his tireless work on our behalf.
The casual surfer would never suspect that the majority of posters to this web site feel angry and deeply betrayed by the Democratic leadership in Washington.
By eliminating the comments from the opening page, it gives the impression that everything is just fine and dandy with John Conyers, the Democratic Party, and the people they purport to represent.
It appears that Mr. Conyers has finally heard enough about his failure to restore justice, oversight and the rule of law, or to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and would prefer that we not spread the disease of dissatisfaction to the other visitors to his site.
Fine. I was pretty much done with this site anyway.
I've already registered over at dennis4president.com, and will be writing the majority of my posts over there from now on.
Dennis seems to be the only candidate in the current field who is willing to challenge the status quo, unlike Conyers, Pelosi and Reid.
It's cycling faster...
If the message we have to say, is needed, and our intentions are true, I have faith that it will somehow get to it's intended receiver.
Mr. Conyers, you can play "public opinion shaper" games all you want, when the jig is up, it's up.
I received this complaint letter from colorsofchange.org(?), an activist group, this morning. They're paying attention even if Mr. Conyers doesn't like it.
Add your own name and address, print it, then send it snail mail. If Mr. Conyers wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, I'm sure they would welcome his voice.
Mark A. Jeror Sr.
(Address deleted)
10/8/07
Office of Disciplinary Counsel
4000 S. Sherwood Forest Blvd., Suite 607
Baton Rouge, LA, 70816
(225) 293-3900
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to request an investigation into the conduct of LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters over the last year with regards to several incidents, culminating with the prosecution of Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, and an unidentified minor. I am concerned that DA Walters has selectively and aggressively used his prosecutorial discretion in several cases over the last year and I believe he is unable to be an effective and impartial advocate for justice in LaSalle Parish.
In a statement published in a New York Times op-ed on September 26, 2007 that now appears on the Louisiana District Attorney Association website, Walters describes his role as District Attorney as one where he has to "...match the facts [of a case] to any applicable laws and seek justice for those who have been harmed. " What Walters ignores in this definition is the tremendous latitude prosecutors have to raise, lower, or dismiss charges as they see fit, under the doctrine of prosecutorial discretion. It has become clear that when Reed Walters is making decisions, white perpetrators in Jena receive a completely different kind of discretion than black ones.
When it came to prosecuting three white students for hanging nooses in the so called "white tree" at Jena High School after black students sat under it, Walters said (in the same New York Times op-ed) this act "broke no law. I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none." But Louisiana Revised Statute 14:107.2 creates a hate crime for any institutional vandalism or criminal trespass motivated by race. His discretion, not Louisiana law, is what led to a lack of charges in this case.
Similar discretion was applied after an incident on December 1, 2006. A black teenager, Robert Bailey, was attacked by a group of whites, beaten to the ground, and apparently hit with a beer bottle. Bailey suffered a gash to his head, and Walters could have prosecuted the group of whites with felony charges. Instead, Walters charged one man with a misdemeanor, but that person served no prison time. The others walked.
A very different and more dangerous form of discretion was applied three days later, when an assault on Justin Barker, a white student, occurred. Robert Bailey and five other black teens were arrested and charged by the police with aggravated second-degree battery, a very harsh charge under the circumstances. But Walters went even further and used his discretion on December 7th to increase the charges to attempted murder, later arguing that the students’ tennis shoes were dangerous weapons.
A week later, Walters announced that he would try Mychal Bell for attempted murder as an adult, another example of his discretion being aggressively used to bring harsh punishments only to certain young people. When Walters reduced the charges against Bell, he should also have taken the case back to juvenile court. His failure to do so is another example of an inappropriate application of discretion. The result was a conviction that could have ended with a 22-year prison sentence. The 3rd Circuit Court has already ruled that Walters' decision was improper, and nullified the decision.
Walters' misconduct extends beyond these instances of uneven application of his discretion. After black students staged a sit-in under the contested tree to protest the light punishment for the noose hangers, Walters came to Jena High School and told the student body that if they did not settle down, "[he could] make [their] lives disappear with a stroke of [his] pen. " This statement was confirmed by Walters during Mychal Bell's court proceedings, and clearly connects to the actions he took after Justin Barker was assaulted.
Walters' threats against the Jena 6 defendants were not limited to the school assembly. In December 13, 2006, he published a statement in The Jena Times reading in part "I will not tolerate this type of behavior. To those who act in this manner, I tell you that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and with the harshest crimes that the facts justify. When you are convicted, I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law. I will see to it that you never again menace the students at any school in this parish." There are clear problems with his public characterization, prior to any trials, of the young men who had been arrested for the assault on Justin Barker as criminals who had been menacing the school. The wording of the statement and an introduction associating his tirade with the "recent two incidents at Jena High School" created the impression that those accused of involvement in the fight were also suspected of setting the November 30th, school fire. The Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct 3.6(a) clearly state that: "A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter." His statements to The Jena Times clearly violate this code.
It seems clear from my knowledge of this case that there are ample grounds to conduct a timely and thorough investigation into Reed Walters’ conduct as District Attorney of LaSalle Parish. If you choose not to investigate DA Walters, I expect to receive a written explanation of why you deem that an investigation is not warranted. Otherwise, I look forward to hearing the results.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Mark A. Jeror Sr.
Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman
I had the opportunity of meeting with Col. Bowman in his home in central Fl.
I was there with Bob Adkins and we were showing him Bob,s voting system.
Our meeting lasted several Hours, was wide ranged, and very interesting,
I can personally say that Col. Bowman means what he says!
Preventing a Rogue President from Committing a War Crime:
Testing
Hmmm
A Rational National Health Care Bill.
Dear Chairman Conyers and fellow bloggers.
We all know the conservative's argument that bureaucracy in general tend to grow beyond it's original intent to consume an excess of resources. Instead of denying this, we should look at American health care in the same light. In this particular case, the Health Insurance industry has already surpassed what any past government bureau has ever done. It has grown to consume resources so much that it has actually spawned an entire second industry - medical billing. One advocacy group, America's Health Insurance Plans, boasts of having 1300 member companies. That's 1300 different sets of health standards and 1300 different billing requirements to which each hospital must comply. Not all American insurance companies are members. All totaled, there are some 1500+ Health Insurance companies operating in the United States. This constitutes a staggering level of inefficiency and results in an additional $6+ billion dollars wasted in the second industry they have spawned. Add to that all the profiteering that goes on between insurance and billing companies and we're talking about many tens of billions of dollars in purely bureaucratic market inefficiencies.
United Health (NYSE:UNH) CEO Dr. William McGuire, for instance, gets $1.6 BILLION worth of options (NOT including salary). Perhaps there are a few readers who find this in line with their own salaries, but humble me, I find it a bit on the side of extravagant. I would want to retain the traditionally high incomes doctors of all stripes earn. I would not want to discourage people from going through 12 years of college and internship to become doctors. A sufficiently high income should be commensurate to the years of effort the profession requires. But Dr. William McGuire, although a doctor, is not acting as a doctor; he's a CEO - of an insurance company that obviously makes so much profit that they can afford to give one man 1.6 billion dollars in options.
It's hard to find any reliable numbers for actual profits made by the health insurance industry. All I know is that it's over a hundred billion dollars per year. And that is just the profits. Add to that the cost savings of simplifying the system to the point where it can be mostly automated. The corporate bureaucratic bloat that we can eliminate through an automated national billing system would be even more billions of dollars. All that waste can be eliminated by a single not for profit insurance program. The cost savings potential is enormous - it's little wonder that we are the last nation to switch over. But then, looking at how capitalistic we are, it's no wonder we have not yet nationalized health care. And those plans designed to "address the problem" would only add to the problem.
By nationalizing health care the right way, we should see a significant drop in hospital mis billings as well - such as $100 tissue boxes and $17 aspirins. Once the inefficiencies are taken from the market, the cost of health care, no longer having to support such inefficiencies, would also drop significantly.
As it stands, about 31% of all health care expenses are consumed by these market inefficiencies. But here's the crux of the problem. Of all the universal health care proposals that have been bandied about, only one would save any of that money. HR 676, already sponsored by Chairman Conyers, can save some of that money, but it also allows these profiteers to continue bloating the system for their own profit. Perhaps HR 676 could be expanded into true universal health care, but that may have to wait for future battles. As it stands, all other health reform bills only buy into more of the same system that is failing us now. All they do is shift the onus of dealing with the market inefficiencies from the hospitals to the government while still leaving the wasteful process intact.
All the other proposals want to buy insurance from the insurance companies. Thus not only do they not save any money, but they might actually increase the bureaucratic nightmare - precisely what conservatives predict. This is clearly not the way to go about it. It is irrational to think that shifting the onus of from hospitals to government would solve any problems - it would only add to it. What is needed is a single not for profit insurance system that replaces all these profiteering companies. Only then will we see our health care system recover.
But from that multi billion dollar industry comes a multi million dollar lobby that will do all they can to protect themselves and their profiteering. Only a popular rebellion against the interests of these profiteers would be able to overcome the amount of money they put into protecting themselves and their profits. And then, only a liberal president would ever sign it into law. But not all is lost. The success of California SB 840, before Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed it, is an indication that such legislation can be passed nationally. All it needs is popular support similar to what Ca. SB 840 enjoyed when it passed both California houses in 2006.
As an aside, two other conservative talking points are freedom of choice and doctor waiting times. A single not for profit insurance program addresses both of these concerns. First, when all American doctors are in the same "network", then a patient is free to go to any doctor he or she desires. Thus; a federal insurance program would provide maximum freedom of choice - far better than any HMO in America. Second, waiting times are not likely to increase appreciably in America under a national health care plan as long as it maintains reasonably high doctors salaries. Here's why: when other nations nationalized their health care, many reduced doctors salaries. Many of their doctors left for greener pastures - including those who came to the United States. But even if we cut salaries, the impact is not likely to be anywhere near the experience of other nations.
Consider, we are the last nation to nationalize health care. If we cut doctor salaries, where are these doctors going to go? It's not as if they will be able to maintain their incomes in Azerbaijan or the Republic of Congo. They have nowhere left to move. Some will return to their country of origin, but most will likely stay right where they are.
So please, Chairman Conyers, redouble your efforts in promoting HR 676, a Rational National Health Care Bill. And please, dear readers, support HR 676 as the only Rational National Health Care Bill. Don't let this country get suckered into buying more of the same inefficient insurance from the same insurance companies that brought us the current market inefficiencies.. That would only make things worse.
Thank you for your time.
(Postscript: please feel free to repost or otherwise duplicate this message in part or in full anywhere you feel it appropriate - thank you)
Access
Just an access comment.