By Winston Skinner

The Times-Herald

Coweta Democrats gathered at Carl Miller Park on Saturday afternoon -- munching on grilled hot dogs and hearing from 11 candidates for a variety of offices.

Saturday's alfresco gathering was one of the last opportunities for candidates to lay out their platforms and ask for votes prior to Tuesday's primary elections. The event had elements of both a party and a political event.

A table of goodies for children included jump ropes, a large rubber ball, card games and bubble solution. Many youngsters chose to cool off in the sprinklers nearby.

In addition to the hot dogs, slaw and baked beans, there were two cakes featuring the Democratic donkey.

The local event was awash in secretary of state candidates. There are five Democrats seeking the post. Gail Buckner of Jonesboro and Angela Moore of Decatur took turns working the crowd and passing out cards with information for voters.

Gary Horlacher of Peachtree City arrived early and visited with people as they arrived at the picnic. Horlacher noted he began his campaign a year ago in Carrollton, lives in Fayette County and was making one of his last campaign stops in Newnan -- after visiting all 159 counties in the state.

Horlacher said he had enjoyed talking with voters across Georgia. Regardless of what happens Tuesday, he said, "I regret zero."

Michael Mills of Atlanta also brought his secretary of state campaign to the picnic -- leaving only Georganna Sinkfield of Atlanta unrepresented.

Dee Crouch, chairman of the Coweta County Democratic Party, welcomed the approximately 140 people attending. Candidates spoke to the crowd -- starting with Frank Saunders of Midland, who is running for the Third District Congressional seat now held by Lynn Westmoreland.

Saunders was followed by Carol Porter, who is seeking the lieutenant governor's post. Porter and her husband, DuBose, injected some energy into the election earlier this year when she qualified to run for lieutenant governor after drawing accolades while speaking on behalf of her husband, one of seven Democrats seeking the governorship.

Also present for the picnic were R.J. Hadley of Conyers, candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Johnny Isakson; Ken Hodges of Atlanta, candidate for attorney general; Joe Martin of Atlanta and Brian Westlake of Decatur, candidates for state school superintendent; and Terry Coleman of Eastman and Darryl Hicks of Fayetteville, candidates for labor commissioner.

Beth Farokhi, who is running for school superintendent, and Rob Teilhet, campaigning for attorney general, sent representatives to the event.

Article forwarded to me by B. J. Doucet

Subject: Response to Obama-bashing

Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer

Before he'd served even one year President Obama lost the support of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right-wing agitator, now progressive writer and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President. Why?-- because he is succeeding.

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.

Obama's steady supporters will be proved right. Obama's critics will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.

The Context of the Obama Presidency

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe, the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully ignorant opposition - from both the right and left.

As the President's poll numbers have fallen so has his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008 election.

The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling "prophecy"-- snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then pretend you didn't have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was his fault:

# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was really two countries

# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was unnecessary and immoral

# The worst economic crisis since the depression

# America's standing in the world at the lowest point in history

# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of prisoners of war

# A health care system in free fall

# An educational system in free fall

# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)

# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left

# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration.

And those were only some of the problems sitting on the President's desk!

"Help" from the Right?

What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans were reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to "help" our new president (and our country) succeed?

They claimed that he wasn't a real American, didn't have an American birth certificate, wasn't born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist",
was secretly a Communist, was actually the Anti-Christ (!), and was a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted "death panels" to kill the elderly!

They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" to sound off against imagined insults and all government in general and gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) "commentators" from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who was trying to actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick!

And in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: "No!"

In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right, combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!

"Help" from the Left?

What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan that he'd inherited from the worst president in modern history!

Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President's economic policies had "failed" before the President even instituted them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won within virtually minutes of the President taking office, they'd been "betrayed!" (Never mind that Obama's vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other president's has been. Never mind that he signed a new hate crimes law!)

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how "disappointed" they were that they'd not all immediately been translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House! Where was the "change"? Contrary to their expectations they were still mere mortals!

And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay attention for longer than a nanosecond. "Governing"?! What the hell does that word, uh, like mean?"

The President's critics left and right all had one thing in common:
impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just couldn't imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren't as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their president. He hadn't consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!

The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality defining their ideas -- say, about what is possible in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation that voted Bush into office. Twice!

Meanwhile back in the reality-based community - in just 12 short months -- President Obama:

# Continued to draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Restored America's image around the globe
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to halt global warming
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and balances
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had failed to even begin
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor and patience
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the "blood of tyrants" needing to "water the tree of liberty"
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

# Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

Other than those "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR -- President Obama "failed"! Other than that he didn't "live up to expectations"!

Who actually has failed...

...are the Americans that can't see the beginning of a miracle of national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the smart-ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned "news" into just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted infantile country.

Here's the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the help of his lefty "supporters" or hate-filled Republican detractors!

The Future Looks Good

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.

Just because we didn't get everything we wanted in the first short and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.

PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president, please pass this on and hang in there! Pass it on anyway to ensure that his "report card" gets the attention it deserves.


Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author.
 

Article from the AJC:

Heath Care’s Achilles Heel:
Our Third-Party Payment System
By Rep. Jim Marshall
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
http://www.house.gov/marshall/11-02-09_ajc.html

Well, I’ve certainly ruffled some feathers by saying American health care’s third-party payment system suffers from Soviet-style inefficiencies. “Soviet-style,” now that’s cussing by American standards.

I chose the controversial reference to find common ground among Washington partisans embroiled in the health care debate. It’s worked with a few representatives, just not enough. And it has also put me in a position where, as dad used to say, I’ve got some explaining to do. That’s good. If more people understand our third-party payment system disaster, maybe we’ll do something about it.

All Americans would like to improve health care access and cost without harming quality. I certainly would. I’d like to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid and increase the number of insured Americans. “Isn’t bearing added cost worth it?” reform proponents ask rhetorically. “Not with my tax dollars,” opponents reply, often adding “And don’t make my health care costs more expensive. They’re already too high.”

That’s the gist of the battle. Most of the debate is surreal. We largely wrangle over false choices that ignore the central, catastrophic problem with our current health care system. It is not sustainable. It not only bankrupts individuals, it is bankrupting the federal government. No credible financial expert disputes this fact. Analysts predict America will lose its AAA credit rating by 2012. Dramatically lowering federal health care costs is not just required for generational decency, it is fundamentally necessary for national security.

So the question is not whether to reform; it is how to reform. And getting the right answer requires that we understand what got us in such a fix.

Over the past 60 years, America has migrated from a relatively efficient, free-market health care payment system, one in which patients and health care providers directly managed health care costs, to an inefficient, third-party payment system run by health insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid. Now most patients and their health care providers have only an indirect role in managing cost. This migration thankfully increased the percentage of Americans with reasonable access to health care. But as basic micro economic theory predicts, the third-party payment system path we chose to achieve this worthy goal has caused a dramatic increase in health care overhead, gross economic inefficiency, explosive cost growth and inevitable waste, fraud and abuse.

Don’t just take my word for it. You can find a thorough, readable description of how our health care system wandered into such a mess by reading David Goldhill’s article in The Atlantic entitled “How American Health Care Killed My Father.” Just search online for the title.

Making the needed payment system reform is very difficult and can only be done slowly. Without some crisis, it will only be legislated as a compromise that also involves expanding access. Instead of maintaining the status quo or moving toward a single-payer health care system, we should begin a migration to a health care system with millions of single payers, one in which most patients are the payers.

Unfortunately, the present House and Senate bills miss the opportunity to begin this critical migration. That’s why I oppose them. If these bills are defeated, then perhaps we can get reform that fundamentally changes the payment system, reform that can simultaneously improve access, maintain (or improve) quality and dramatically reduce costs.

Yes, you read that right. Done correctly, health care reform can actually pay for itself and provide better access and coverage by gradually eliminating the repeated and growing problems with gross waste, fraud and abuse that inevitably plague our third-party payment system. I’m afraid the current House and Senate bills only make things worse by further cementing us to this unwise payment system, adding costs and hastening federal bankruptcy.

In his thoughtful health care address to Congress, President Obama said “I am not the first president to deal with this issue, but I am determined to be the last.” He might indeed be the last, but only if he insists upon reform of our third-party payment system.

Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) represents Georgia’s 8th District.

The following is a response to Dee Crouch's, Chair of the Coweta County Democratic Party,  message to Mr. Marshall regarding her concerns about healthcare:

From: jim.marshall@mail.house.gov [mailto:jim.marshall@mail.house.gov]
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 5:54 PM
To: Dee Crouch
Subject: Responding to your message

Dear Ms. Crouch:

Thank you for contacting me about the healthcare reform effort. By now you likely know the House passed both the Senate bill and a Reconciliation bill. And you also probably know I voted against both.

These healthcare reform bills are well intended, and I am pleased that they will help millions of Americans. I am a cancer survivor with high blood pressure and cholesterol. Obtaining health insurance and paying for it would likely be a challenge for me unless I am employed with a large company or the government. Too many Americans are in similar circumstances. We should be able to help them. But we should not do that as part of a "reform" that simply does more of what has gotten us into this mess.

We have eliminated normal market forces from health care over the past sixty years. This has caused massive inflation in healthcare costs, making all of us poorer since the excess cost is paid through taxes, insurance premiums, lower wages and stunning increases to our national debt. On average, consumers now directly pay only twelve cents of every dollar spent on health care in the United States. The balance, eighty-eight cents of every dollar, comes from "third party payers," that's Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance. It is this third-party payment system that causes us to pay twice what we should for the quality of care we receive. Just think about how much the overall price of dinner goes up when ten friends agree in advance to split the tab equally. Now imagine ten strangers agreeing to do so.

Cost is the problem with access to healthcare. Lower costs would increase access. Unless we migrate away from our third-party payment system and gradually recreate a normal market, we will continue to have problems with cost and consequent problems with access. Alternatively, we could move to a single payer system that would be far less satisfactory for patients and providers but at least we then might be able to control shared cost. Our worst choice is to maintain or grow the current system.

I discussed my ideas on healthcare reform in a 14 minute interview on C-SPAN that you can find at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/289862-4. I also enclose a copy of an op-ed I've published concerning the third-party payment system. As you can see from this op-ed, I believe we can increase access, maintain (or improve) quality and dramatically lower costs without increasing taxes so long as we gradually migrate away from our third-party payment system. The current reform bills do not do this.

If we just do more of what we've been doing, we will bury future generations in debt. And we would be the first generation of Americans to do that. Healthcare costs explain, by far, the largest portion of our catastrophic debt problem. They dramatically worsen our economic competitiveness and greatly hamper our ability to meet other priorities critically important to America's future. We must get healthcare costs under control. I hope I am wrong, but I do not believe the cost containment initiatives included in the current bills will be effective. Government regulation of healthcare already is costly, clumsy, inefficient and inequitable. Add to these deficiencies the fact that serious cost containment initiatives will also be extremely painful and disruptive, hardly a recipe for success in a democratic society.

Migrating away from the third-party payment system is the only practical solution to its disastrous costs. Doing so would probably improve care. It would surely reduce costs dramatically with time. And it would certainly be far more satisfactory to patients and providers. Americans would embrace a market based solution if our political leaders could get past the partisanship, acknowledge the real problem and chart a realistic course for addressing it. America's future is greatly threatened if we cannot do this. The current reform bills are a tragic missed opportunity.

 Please let me know if I can help in any other way.

Very truly yours, m 


  

Enclosure

JM:i21