Every day brings a new issue meant to undermine the Health Insurance Reform bill passed last week. AP raised a doctor shortage over the weekend in scary terms and now that has found an echo chamber in its syndication in under staffed local papers and Republican strategy rooms:
The implication being that Reform, not already predicted issues were causing this shortfall, including a small thing called "Aging Boomers", expanding lifetimes etc. is the culprit.
I'd like to ask a few obvious questions here to test this supposition:
Insurance vs. Care - now the reform bill will get 32 million people insured. Have these folks not been getting care somewhere already? How about:
Emergency rooms
Pro bono care
Convenient care clinics
Free clinics etc.
How many of these folks have not been getting any care? Not many, just at the expense of the rest of us at emergency rooms.
So getting insurance can channel these folks to better alternatives - like convenient care clinics and others that will evolve -and the doctors at these other options will be available as well to everyone.
Yes, we have an impending doctor shortage that has been predicted for years. If not for foreign doctors, many who are Indian - who make up nearly 25% of all US physicians -we would already have a major shortage.
One issue for non US nationals is that with medical tourism exploding, and national economies booming in places like India there are opportunities to return to their home country and practice in world class facilities near friends and family.
This issue is at least as acute for nurses as well.
Nothing to do with Health Insurance Reform and every thing to do with globalization.
These facts are really tough things to address. Rather than trying to scare people news organizations like AP actually should do some real digging and educate us all on the root issues of an issue like this rather than try to sensationalize it.
Seems like the Socialist healthcare revolution of Obamacare is relying on that known troublemaking organization - the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) - to help turn this nation into a Canadian and European clone in the Obama's hidden agenda of government takeover of healthcare.
What is this nation going to do now when the establishment insurance organization of every state, district and protectorate in the union is directly involved in the detailed policy and procedures for state level rules and implementation of Obamacare as required by the law?
"Through it all, state insurance regulators were focused on preserving the states' ability to protect consumers, and they were looked to as a professional and objective voice of reason by members of Congress. "
The NAIC charter has a radical agenda to help state insurance regulators achieve five primary and clearly revolutionary goals:
protect the public interest;
promote competitive markets;
facilitate the fair and equitable treatment of insurance consumers;
promote the reliability, solvency and financial solidity of insurance institutions; and
support and improve state regulation of insurance.
In fact the new law requires some really Socialist actions:
"... the NAIC to help the Department of Health and Human Services develop numerous other regulations, ranging from making sure that documents pertaining to benefits and coverage limitations be standard throughout the industry, to determining how health insurance can be sold across state lines while maintaining consumer protections."
The radical actions of this group are even focused on being sure- God Forbid - that the voice of the consumer - the most important person in reform and cost containment - is heard.
"To ensure that consumers' interests are at least taken into consider as the NAIC fulfills its mission, the organization several years ago established a consumer liaison committee. This year the NAIC expanded the committee to include 29 consumer representatives from across the country."
* Create a publicly accessible "plan of action" developed with input from consumer representatives * Fully incorporate consumer advocates into the NAIC health reform work plan * Prioritize their tasks based on the needs of consumers * Significantly expand consumer participation at NAIC proceedings.
Once again the reality of reform is solidly grounded in the systems and infrastructure established for the state based regulation of insurance.
This is really radical change that should be protested.
Reform within existing trusted organizations at the local state level - whether you like the bill or not - is not exactly socialism or a government takeover of the existing system.
Most importantly each candidate significantly underperformed their ticket's Presidential nominee. McCain won GA by 205,000 votes vs. W's 600K+ in 2004:
Chambliss - (-182,000)
Martin - (- 86,000)
Clearly Chambliss was not as popular as one would think with the state's white voters who did not vote for him, possibly due to the despicable ads he ran against Max Cleland, the triple amputee Viet Nam vet, labelliing him soft on terrorism.
John McCain was here in Atlanta today at a small rally for the devoted for Saxby Chambliss, who has been running negative ads on Jim Martin for the last week. Of course McCain denounced this ad in 2002but now once again is putting his moral compass aside for politics:
"I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield - it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible," McCain said at the time.
There was almost ZERO GOTV work here in Atlanta as McCain had no staff or office here other than the local party offices so we have a real advantage now. Celebrtities coming won't help Chambliss much and a new poll shows that in spades.
Our Obama team's from the general are all still together and were nearly all volunteer driven as only 20 or so mostly less experienced field organizers were left here after most were moved to FL, VA and OH.
In our area we had tons of volunteers join us, many from the neighborhood and all over Atlanta and they are all being contacted tonite. Our 3 GOTV HQ's were kept ready to reopen which the main one did today as well.
The good news is that over 100 battle hardened Obama field organizers and directors are back now headed up by Alex Lofton who had organized the state last spring and summer including having 135 organizers and 250 Obama organizing fellows. He is an "A" player and the team that was here is excellent as well.
I attended an organizing meeting Tues. PM and as everyone went around the room many were back here to finish the job they had left in GA in trying to get Barack his 60th Senator and they are fired up and at least half were here before and know their areas and the volunteer groups they built. The teams we had are now being expanded and integrated with our reinforcements and a good mgmt. structure set up to GOTV. Literally as the meeting progressed people were walking in the doors constantly having driven in from OH, Fl, MI et al and were ready to go.
Phone banking started tonite and canvassing this weekend as we get focused on early voting which is the 24th-26th. 50% of the General election vote was early and that was without the large Obama paid staff that NC and FL had. If we had had them here we would have won the state for Obama.
In a week the Martin folks had gotten nearly 1100 emails volunteering from GA and all over the nation wanting to come help.
Veteran's groups are particularly fired up to take Chambliss down, one from NJ says they have 10,000 vets ready to help and 2 of my friends are the GA co-chairs for Vets for Obama, now Martin, and their statewide groups, and retired general and flag officers from around the nation are engaged to help via their perosnal networks as well.
It is going to be a tough fight but now that we have the cavalry here we will have a huge on the ground advantage and amazing enthusiasm and work being done.IF President Elect Obama came to help I believe we would win the election, but he cannot put his political capital on the line as a loss would be embarassing.If Hillary, Bubba or other notables would come it would help so we will see.
This will be very close and the ground game will tell the story and we will have the best one by far with a passion from the Vet community for payback on Chambliss. We'll keep you updated but it will be an intense 2 1/2 weeks.
Now that the election is over we need to make a few final comments on the unresolved issue of Trig Palin's parentage.
I still believe that Mooselini is not the mother but
what we learned from her during the campaign certainly opens another
explanation to some credibility.
In August we assumed Palin was a normal politician
and we learned she is an ignorant, incurious, inexperienced, small town
mayor whose appeal and image are all about looks and being like a
bitchy high school girl. The findings from the Legislatures 268 page
ethics report confirm all the behavioral issues in spades and recent
reports on her ignorance of the most basic civics, the role of the VP
et al tell the rest of the story.
Clearly Palin is a ruthlessly ambitious narcissist
who continues to focus on herself and not people who helped her or her
family. Her rogue behavior the last few weeks with the McCain campaign
shows her real stripes which we learned she displayed in throwing every
person in AK who ever helped her or got in her way.
Obviously the trip to TX at 8 months pregnant was
totally politically motivated for both the VP job she was lobbying for
and had hired a publicist to help her with. Alll the attendees were
governors that were on the VP list and the meeting was with oil/gas
execs and was very secretive. Clearly her pipeline agenda was furthered
here as well.
To her the trip and her behavior in flying home was
clearly worth the risk and we have seen now in her past behavior around
her ex brother in law Wooten, Walt Monegan and a number of questionable
ethics issues like expenses, office renovations et al that everything
is all about her.
As such the conclusion that Palin putting her unborn,
downs diagnosed child at risk was either purposeful or simply driven by
her ego and narcissism is at least a plausible option. Her intellectual
ignorance probably did not help here either.
2 months ago I refused to believe any adult would
purposely behave as she did and endanger an unborn baby. Now it is at
least an option that fits with the narcissistic, self centered, overly
ambitious woman we have learned a lot about.
I am not ready to say she endangered Trig's life on
purpose, she probably assumed that God would protect them or her witch
doctor preacher would....or not.
I doubt we will ever know for sure but it is clear
that Palin is capable of anything as long as it helps her further her
own blind ambition.
We have all read the stories on the poor McCain ground game but now the facts come out.
Quotes abounded as to how many calls they were making
etc and my suspicions were that these included robo calls and were in
all likelihood mostly robo calls. God knows that is all we got and we
got several a day last week here in GA.
From Marc Ambinder:
At the National Press Club on Wednesday, RNC chairman
Mike Duncan crowed about how the Republican National Committee and the
McCain campaign had contacted 30 million individual voters directly.
(This figure includes those robocalls.)
Impressive.
But the Obama campaign / Democratic National
Committee turnout program contacted more than double that amount --
about 68 million, according to a Democratic officials.
Now I have managed sales people all my life and this
strikes me like the difference in the ones that failed vs. the ones
that succeeded. it is pretty simple and a good analogy here.
The failures would count sales calls as those where
they left messages or left behind a brochure and could never understand
why they failed. Their sales pipelines would include things that were
wishes and hopes not hard and fast facts they got from their customers.
Those that succeeded actually were relentless in
directly talking to prospects and following up until they did. Messages
did not count. Their pipelines tended to be smaller but had facts to
back up their inclusion on a report.
Most of the Obama calls were in person and tracked in
detail as to whether messages were left, direct contact, number of
contacts etc.. I know as I made a lot of them online and in our office.
Sounds like a really well managed sales organization.
Meanwhile we see this latest where the RNC guy
"crowed" over their results and heard Rick Davis bragging about how
they mad 3-4X more "voter contacts: in Ohio the week before the
election than Bush did in 2004.
Hmmm, who won? I do not even think they realize that
their methodology, tracking and metrics were wrong and all along they
were kidding themselves, their supporters and the media that touching
people with recorded hate messages was productive.
I'll bet Rove and Bush actually counted things differently too...and they won as well.
You all know that I had predicted
an Obama upset in GA which did not happen. Bob Barr was a non factor,
Barack hit his non-white number of 30+% but only got 23-24% of the
white vote.
However we have some major discrepancies in vote totals in our largest county, Fulton, which is most of the city of Atlanta. While this would not change the Presidential results they would narrow the gap to 2-3% and help Jim Martin against Saxby Chambliss for Senate.
This was my email today to the
local reporter on the issues I determined in Fulton County, the largest
in GA. Something is clearly wrong here:
Cameron, you mention the larger
registration in Fulton County and the high turnout in 2004. Why are the
votes counted so far off that then?
I've created a spreadsheet
(attached) from the Secy. Of State's data by county and something in
the state's largest county, Fulton, is clearly wrong:
In one word - Alot! ....and the MSM is just plain ignorant in ignoring these factors as they still try to make this a horserace.
First, while the latest round of
polls - esp. Mason Doxon show a tighening in a lot of states of 2-3 pts
and the national polls have swung back 2-3 points from earlier in the
week. How can tis be happening? Simple. The timing of state polls lag the daily trackers by 3-4 days.
So by Tuesday the state polls are likely to have swung back a bit as voting starts and at this point 1-3 points is important.
Second, state polls generally do not have cell phone voters included. Selzer, one of the best local Midwest pollsters does and they show huge Obama leads in MN and IA and a tie in IN.
The cell phone effect impacts young voters and minorities the most and is worth 2.8 pts on average according tofivethirtyeight.com.
Third, party ID is 7-9 points to the
Democratic side and that alone if turnout holds as we are seeing in the
early voting this is a huge wildcard.
Fourth, early voting trends are now indicative of a strong democratic trend, huge African American turnout
and the young voters showing up in the states like GA,NC,NC,CO and FL
where we have the best stats. Most polls are using outmoded turnout and
voter demographics from prior elections and this easrly voting is
pointing strongly that these assumptions are not the foundation for
this election.
Fifth, the ground game
comparisons between the enormous Obama campaign resources and McCain's
haphazard, poorly organized efforts relying on local Republican state
parties are what it is all about now. McCain has scaled back his ground
game to run more ads and I guess robocalls.
GOTV is what works the last few days not ads to get
turnout not ads that people are tired of. A good ground game is worth
2-3 pts and a great one like Obama's is worth 3-4 pts. McCain has
neither. The vaunted 72 hour strategy of the Bush years is not as well
deployed and will not help McCain like it helped Bush.
Sixth, turnout is a function of the above and enthusiasm and McCain's supporters are not enthusiastic.
Early voting typically has been a Republican edge, especially in FL
where this year Dems have a solid lead. With lack of enthusiasm comes 2
issues - one is simply staying home if the election appears lost and
the second is soft support switching to go with the winner which Ed
Rollins, Reagan's campaign manager, on CNN just said is worth 2-3 pts
in an election like this.
Quantifying this impact is hard but again a point or two is deadly in close states.
Seventh and lastly, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE BRADLEY EFFECT. Any
reputable media outlets even discussing this is wasting good air and if
anything there will be an Obama Effect where people vote secretly for
him once in the voting booth, especially in the South.
Any combination of these factors creates an embarrassing defeat for McCain.
None of this means that we should let up at all but this election is headed to a blowout. Lots
of the battleground states will be tight but if any state is within
five points for McCain he is in trouble and any state where Obama is
leading in the final poll averages will go Obama's way.
My projection is that Barack will win 393 electoral votes - winning every battleground state including IN and GA narrowly, with ND and AZ still options for him.
Remember as theye say on the PGA Tour - "it's not an art show its a math contest" - and on Tuesday you will need your calculator to add up the Obama electoral avalanche.
Early voting ended yesterday
and nearly 2 million Georgians voted, 60% of the 2004 election total
and 3X the 2004 early vote percentage!!! These numbers are so huge that
they setup a Democratic win if they can keep up the turnout on election
day which seems very likely.
GA - Final Early Voting Stats
Total - 1,994,990 (+227,000) - nearly triple the average of the last 2 weeks.
2004 General Election Turnout - 3.3 Million
African American/Latino/Asian - 700K/ 15K / 11K - 726 K - 82,000 African American votes Thurs. alone!!
833K (25%) African Americans Voted in 2004 - 88/12 for Kerry
128k Latinos (4%) voted in 2004 - 56/44 for Bush. If Latinos go 2-1 for Obama as the polls indicate this could add another 75-100,000 votes for Obama. Latinos will be election day voters it appears.
AA - 35.1%, 700K vs. 833K (25%) in all of 2004. A 40% increase thus far. If this 35% figure holds up that is nearly 400,000 additional AA votes alone.
Non White % - 36.5% - Holding steady - Target is 30%+ to win the election - this number is the key to watch and after 2 full weeks looks like a trend.
We are now at 60.2% of the total 2004 vote when 20.2% voted early an 300% increase.
1.45 Million more people have already voted early than in 2004.
As I blogged before our GOTV
office is in the middle of historic, all black and poor, SW Atlanta,
near Morehouse, Morris Brown, Clark and Spelman colleges.
One of the things that I have been doing is giving
Obama/Biden picture buttons that I bought to any child that I see. I
tell each of them that they can be President someday if they study hard
like Barack did and the parents or grandparents with them beam and
often tell me that the kids are on honor roll etc...Great fun..
If cars stop at the light in front of our office and I see kids in them I go up to the car and hand out buttons.
Yesterday I had 3 or 4 little ones (ages 2-4?) in car
seats and EVERY single one knew "Obama" by his picture when their Mom
asked them whose picture was on the button.
EVERY SINGLE ONE!!! ..."Obama"
One of my favorite stories was five year old twin
boys who when I went up to their car one of the boys saw my Obama
button, pointed at it and said - "That's my President" - and told me
that he had voted for Obama at kindergarten.
Imagine what Obama as President for 8 years will mean
to these kids as they go to school and start to learn about history,
government etc.?
Have I met a future President yet? Who knows but the
one thing that I think we can guarantee is that Barack Obama as
President will have a huge impact on black children ( and really all
kids) as a role model and that alone may be his greatest legacy 30, 40,
50 years hence when our future leaders trace their interest in politics
and public service back to the election of 2008 and Barack Obama.
Louisiana, the state of my birth, I was born in Lake Charles, may be going blue according to a local news poll:
NEW ORLEANS (KSLA) - A new poll you will see only on KSLA News 12
taken from October 24th through October 26th. The margin of error is
4.5 percent.
Meanwhile the race for the White House continues to tighten up, but
there's signs that traditional red states, including Louisiana, could
turn blue.
Renwick's poll shows Republican John McCain could be in trouble with Bayou State voters.
Until now, Louisiana was seen as a safe red state McCain, but Renwick's poll shows Democrat Barack Obama is coming on strong.
The poll shows Obama actually leading McCain 47 to 45 percent in
favorability among the 500 registered voters who took part in the poll.
"They're only separated by two points and this is supposed to be a
McCain state," Renwick said. "There should be a much greater
differential if this is a McCain state."
But when asked if the candidates for president were John McCain and
Barack Obama, which would you vote for today, McCain is ahead of Obama
43 to 40 percent, well within the margin of error of 4.5 percent.
Fifteen percent didn't know and three percent said neither.
RCP does not show LA as competitive with their average at McCain
+14, I had looked at LA earlier today as far as early voting and the
African American voting was going and found similar trends to what we
are seeing in NC and GA and actually mused that it might flip as well.
Louisiana's population is 32.5% black and in 2004 only 27% voted for
President. It also was 2% Latino four years ago and will be 3-4% this
year which is another good sign for a really close election
In early voting 36.3% of voters are black - a full 35% more than 2004.
267,000 voters have cast ballots thus far of 13.6% of the 2004 vote total of 1.956 M. In 2004 only 6.5% voted early.
If the voting percentages hold at 9% above 2004 that translates into at least 180,000 more Democratic votes.
Bush only won LA by 281,000 votes in 2004 and so far 58.6% of early
voters are Dems and 28.6% are Repubs with 11% other. With a strong
Senate race with Mary Landrieu leading handily and an Indian Republican
governor who knows what might happen.
We'll keep tracking the early vote here and see what happens.
This is an incredible video on our mission and HIGHLY RECOMMEND watching this. A great line in this is "we need a President that understands interconnecteness".
