US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

A nice irony here is that the fiduciary duty that the corporate management owes to you, the shareholder, is the very reason corporations are legally obliged to pursue maximum profit above any and all other considerations.

yeah was thinking about this last week when stocks went up supposedly because of scott brown's election and its prospects for killing the health care bill. so wall street gets happy at the prospect of me continuing to get screwed by insurance companies, which in turn causes my 401k to go up. but in the long run does my stock appreciation actually compensate for the money i'm getting screwed out of? probably not. the house always wins, and we're supposed to be happy with what they leave us.

I'm more ambiguous about what you're saying, tipsy, because I think in the long run *I* will be more than compensated for the money I'm getting screwed out of. That could be illusory, but the perpetuation of the system depends in part on people like me thinking, ah fuck it, this is screwed but I'm gonna get mine so I won't raise a stink. The ambiguity is because it seems wrong for me to benefit personally from a screwed system, but is that silly? These are moral questions and I'm not sure what to think. Can't knock the hustle...

As a matter of fact there is jurisprudence that says shareholders have no right to be informed of certain political activities of corporations.

I think in the long run *I* will be more than compensated for the money I'm getting screwed out of.

it's hard to say. i mean, if you're a hedge fund operator or big-bank trader, then definitely. but if you're a working stiff, even a well compensated one, counting on gains in the market over time to offset all the lost wages to spiraling health costs, i mean, maybe. if you're lucky and cash out at the right time. but investment retirement funds are a lot riskier than i think americans appreciate, because we've grown up with this idea that the market always goes up. which isn't true. there are people in japan who've been plowing money into retirement funds for the last 20 years and a lot of them would have been better off burying it in a hole in the backyard. so there's all this risk in our theoretical future gains, but in the meantime we're getting nickeled and dimed (and dollared) by health insurance companies, bank fees, low interest rates, all these other ways that our system is set up to extract money from the working population and transfer it to short-term corporate profits.

I'm not really talking about wages, but rather the possibilities of employment that exist because of the way our system is financed. I get to do terrific things, and I am able to do them because universities are powerful engines of investment.

John Roberts may want to think about the fact many corporations have both executives and major shareholders who are not US citizens. IIRC, the major institutional shareholder in like 90% of the Fortune 500 is Barclays, based in the UK. So now, via a corporate vehicle, we're giving non-resident, non-US citizens a voice in US elections that they didn't previously have.

South Carolina Lt. Governor says of poor people, "Stop feeding them or they're just going to breed."

via a corporate vehicle, we're giving non-resident, non-US citizens a voice in US elections that they didn't previously have.

OTM. Multinational corporations with majority interests overseas will now be able to pump money into affecting domestic policy for their own gains.

SC Combat Veteran
I'm the "stray animal" thats has been fighting your wars, I'm the "stray animal" that voted absentee ballet, for you. I'm the "stray animal" that came home to no job, I'm the "stray animal" that swollowed his pride and filled out the unemployement forms for the first time in my life. I'm the "stray animal" that filled out the paper for help feeding my kids at school. I'm the "stray animal" that will fight on and on. I am the "stray animal" that will never vote for you again.

absentee ballet ♫

food is medicine, you fucking despicable savage. if a physician had said that children would have their medication discontinued if their parents didn't take a course in microbiology, he would be shamed, humiliated, and lose his job and/or license. that this can somehow be spun as a political view or "just one guy's opinion" is fucking monstrous.

cf drub rehab programs that withhold treatment (whether it is therapy or medication) when their patients (sorry, "clients") backslide. hey looks like your ailment isn't remitting or is getting worse. i know: let's STOP TREATING IT

http://www.gallup.com/poll/125327/Majority-Favors-Suspending-Work-Healthcare-Bill.aspx

"More Republican support."

How come other western capitalist countries function without the idea of a corporation being a person?

Pollsters' majorities led by the nose via media buzz, so important to democracy

xpost i dunno specifically but we have a constitution (unlike the uk iirc?), most of it is really old and was interpreted by jerks, and courts have a lot of power here unlike in most of western europe. so what judges say goes most of the time, even when it's bad for almost all citizens.

should say interpreted/written but imo most of the problem is in the interpretation

wonder if scalia honestly thinks the 'founders' would have been in support of unfettered campaign spending by corporations

UK has a constitution but it isn't written down anywhere. Go figure.

Kennedy wrote the decision; Scalia only filed a concurrence.

(xpost)

Gallup could have asked 'should congress put on the brakes until they come up with a bill that covers more people and drives down costs' - then you'd get 'nation demands public option' headlines

of which there have been many in 14-point type on page A14.

Kennedy wrote the decision; Scalia only filed a concurrence.

yeah, but i don't think kennedy is a hardcore 'originalist' like scalia.

also i wonder what clarence thomas thinks about anything, but i'm sure i don't want to know the answer

Actually, Thomas is a stronger originalist than Scalia.

Well what else do you expect from the guys that recounts were stupid and decided W was president?

On Meet the Press, David Gregory asks Mitch McConnell the right question: What could Dems propose in health care policy terms that Republicans would support? McConnell:

"Put the CSPAN cameras in the room as the President said. You start with junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals. Interstate competition among insurance companies. And many of my members would be lookin’ — would — would be willing to look at equalizing the tax code. Right now, if you’re a corporation and you provide insurance — for your employees, you get to deduct it on your corporate tax return. But if you’re an individual on the individual market, you don’t. Step by step to work on the cost problem. That’s what Republicans are willing to do."

i think there are probably real reforms that could be made to the way malpractice is handled, but the way republicans fetishize "tort reform" makes me think they don't read articles like this one. (warning: includes the phrase "odor of her festering wound.")

i used to think that tort reform was a Major Issue in healthcare reform, but i dunno. we had a MD/JD guy come in and lay out the numbers for us and a vanishingly small number of cases ended up with any kind of punitive damages against the docs. wanna say that only 66% of cases brought passed muster to be put on the docket, only 10% of those resulted in any kind of settlement, and only [small number]% of those that went to trial found against the physician.

the problem isn't with the court, imo, it's with how the insurance companies (you again!!!) do their voodoo math and decide that docs need to pay five to six figures a year in malpractice insurance

which is the REAL reason docs circle the wagons on tort reform, btw. not because they are all living in actual fear of getting nailed with a huge payout, but because insurance alone can comprise 40% of their take home pay. obstetricians, for example, can expect to north of 100k/yr to insurance companies, surgeons close to that, ditto ER docs, internists and family docs considerably less, but still more than 30k i'd wager

in MN two of the four prongs of a malpractice suit (duty, breach, cause, damage) are assessed by a panel of third party experts before the case can even be filed (if that's the word), so frivolous lawsuits get filtered out pretty early on, like so many electrolytes thru a glomerulus

and the last two are usually pretty tough to prove, unless it's a horrible surgical gaffe or blown diagnosis. and even the latter gets hard because of comorbidities that ought to be managed by the patient (smoking, diet, EtOH, drug use, etc).

and, like, a neurosurgeon could do an operation on yr brain while he was off his tits and as long as nothing went wrong, it's not malpractice. fun!

Yeah, our malpractice talk last year said something to the effect of like, counting just the legal fees and settlements and all that (although I'm not sure if it also includes the costs of malpractice insurance), malpractice is responsible for about 1% of the total spending on medicine, and even if you approach the costs of defensive medicine using the most inclusive definition of services performed because of legal C'ingYA, it gets maybe up to about 8%. Which is still 8% of a lot of money, no doubt, but it is basically an adjunct issue instead of the solution to the healthcare crisis. I still would like to see the system become more like the Vaccine Fund, but with a loophole to provide for egregiously malicious conduct, though.

i imagine that out-of-court settlements probably drive a lot of the malpractice premiums?!? i don't do med/mal, so i am hardly an expert on that.

no but that is the thing: out of court settlements still only account for a small portion of cases---most docs never have to settle, nor go to court. what i don't know is how much $$$ actually gets paid out in settlements: could be that the settlements are actually larger than the average award won in court. or that all settlements taken together comprise the lion's share of all malpractice insurance payouts.

thing is, going to court is expensive, and i think lots of docs with otherwise fairly strong cases get strong-armed by their insurers into settling, just because it is the most financially expedient choice for everyone.

another thing i don't know: who's paying the lawyers? is the insurance company only responsible for the settlement/damages, or are they footing the bill for the lawyer, too? if they're paying for the lawyer, then i'd wager that they strongly urge anyone without an airtight case to just go ahead and settle---the cost of a $500/hr mal lawyer could quickly outstrip any settlement.

as i said, i don't do med/mal or insurance defense work so what i know is strictly second-hand. but out here (northern NJ/NYC metro area), insurance companies are NOTORIOUSLY stingy w/ outside counsel.

and yes, the insurance company often does pay the bills for any outside counsel (if they don't have in-house attorneys working on settlements and litigation). the doctor is free to choose his own lawyer (as opposed to an attorney selected by the insurance company), but the malpractice carrier may not pick up any portion of that lawyer's bill.

yeah, that sounds right to me.

"Put the CSPAN cameras in the room as the President said. You start with junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals. Interstate competition among insurance companies. And many of my members would be lookin’ — would — would be willing to look at equalizing the tax code. Right now, if you’re a corporation and you provide insurance — for your employees, you get to deduct it on your corporate tax return. But if you’re an individual on the individual market, you don’t. Step by step to work on the cost problem. That’s what Republicans are willing to do."

insane lols at this--republicans have no desire to deal with obama on any issues--obstruction as a political strategy has worked pretty fantastically well for them so far why would they stop now?

Max: YA RLY. He just has to give them some of the things they said they wanted, without being overly concerned about whether or not Rs actually vote for those things - then there is a treasure trove of credibility with Inds to be had for saying 'they asked for XYZ and we compromised and accepted XY, which they failed to vote for even though it makes them look like partisan pussies who think you the people are too stupid to notice.'

The best part about that SC LtGov story is that when he was backpedaling he said:

There's no way that I was trying to tie animals to people

on malpractice, i read one proposal by a doctor's group to basically nationalize malpractice insurance, like flood insurance. don't have time to go search for the link right now, but it laid out a case for why it would be a lot cheaper, easier to administrate and would lead to fewer drawn-out court fights. sounded sensible, but i haven't researched it or anything.

I think that is like the Vaccine Fund C-L mentioned maybe?

<3 4ever: http://www.hrsa.gov/Vaccinecompensation/

Obviously a medical malpractice version of this would be on a much much much bigger scale, with much much more potential for complications, but as a model it just seems like the easiest thing.

http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/no-sex-please-were-just-kids/

obv not that big of a deal in these troubled times but ~lol~

jeez

What will the Supreme Court's campaign finance ruling really change?
By Nathaniel Persily
.......
The future is also uncertain because this will not be the Roberts court's last word on campaign finance. By treating corporations as a mere species of individual associations, the court has cast doubt on campaign finance regulations that treat corporations as posing a special threat. Most notably, the ban on soft money, which prevents corporate and union contributions to political parties and candidates, might be the next restriction to fall. If corporations are like individuals, how can Congress completely ban soft-money contributions from one while letting the other give within limits? The case RNC v. FEC, now working its way up to the court, poses a very similar question. Given the tone of Citizens United, we should expect a bold response.

http://www.slate.com/id/2242558

Pretty good article here.

re: gbx's article, a friend took me on vacation with him and his parents. in the car, his dad driving, we were in back seat of the volvo, about 7th grade or so. some book that i was reading had the word "fellatio" in it. i pointed it out to my friend, who got a puzzled look- "what is that?" he said. i silently mimed it and he broke up laughing and immediately _yelled_ "HEY MA! WHAT'S FELLATIO?!?" i imagine i went white as a sheet, his mom replied, seemingly sincerely "i don't nicky, what is it?" i don't remember his non-response, or anything else, but... my point is you see what happens when youngsters have access to explicit dictionaries?! they could embarrass somebody.

spending freeze, what a crock of shit