One New Mexico

09/26/2017

The Medical Community Says, "We Agree"

The following statement was jointly released on September 23, 2017 by the American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Hospital Association, Federation of American Hospitals, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association regarding the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson legislation.

We represent the nation’s doctors, hospitals, and health plans.
Collectively, our organizations include hundreds of thousands individual physicians, thousands of hospitals, and hundreds of
health plans that serve tens of millions of American patients,
consumers, and employers every day across the United States.

While we sometimes disagree on important issues in health care, we are in total agreement that Americans deserve a stable healthcare market that provides access to high-quality care
and affordable coverage for all. The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson bill does not move us closer to that goal. The Sen
ate should reject it.

We agree that the bill will cause patients and consumers to lose important protections, as well as undermine safeguards for those with pre-existing conditions. Without these guaranteed protections, people with significant medical conditions can be charged much higher premiums and some may not be able to buy coverage at all
We agree that the bill will result in dramatic cuts to Medicaid and a funding cliff in the future, fundamentally changing the
way that states provide coverage for some of our most
vulnerable citizens. This means that millions of patients will
lose their coverage and go without much-needed care.

We agree that the individual insurance market will be drastically weakened, making coverage more expensive and jeopardizing Americans’ choice of health plans. By not providing all
states with sufficient funds to support working families who need help buying coverage, millions will go without it.

We agree that the bill’s current implementation timelines are not workable. State and industry leaders will need to completely transform their individual insurance markets and Medicaid programs in little more than a year – an impossible task.

Health care is too important to get wrong. Let’s take the time
to get it right.

Let’s agree to find real, bipartisan solutions that make health care work for every American.

09/20/2017

Health care is back in the cross hairs

And Jimmy Kimmel is mad as hell about it.
We all should be--because even though Jimmy's a funny man, there's nothing funny about this.

Stand up. Speak up. Make a difference.

The late-night host unloaded on the Louisiana Republican, who said earlier this year that any health-care bill would have to pass the “Jimmy Kimmel test.”

09/20/2017

Some Things Are Simply Not OK

This is one of them.

"New Mexico is far and away leading the nation in the percentage of children living in poverty. More than a third of the state's kids live in homes with incomes below the poverty line, according to US Census Bureau data released this week. New Mexico's 36 percent mark dwarfs even the second place state, Mississippi."

New Mexico’s poverty rate is getting even worse for children under five years old, according to new numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. Now some child

09/09/2017

Who Will Get Amazon's 2nd Headquarters?

The Washington Post has gone through Amazon's RFP and come up with a map that shows the cities that could be in the running, based on Amazon's own criteria.

Some of the important criteria: an international airport; an educated workforce; a city and state with a strong economy capable of funding an attractive incentive package; a city with more than 1 million people.

Here's the story from the Washington Post. It makes interesting reading for us here in New Mexico. And it should make us ask a couple of key questions: How do we want to compete and grow? What investments do we need to make--not to attract Amazon, but to be the best New Mexico we can be? How fast is the world changing--and how do we move more quickly and nimbly to give our communities and our people a shot at a better future?

The list includes Toronto, Nashville and yes, Washington, D.C.

09/08/2017

Here's What Amazon Is Looking For

The big news: Jeff Bezos and Amazon have issued an RFP for HQ2--their second headquarters, designed to supplement their Seattle operations.

What do they want? A great institution of higher education. A highly educated workforce. An airport with direct access to Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Sustainable buildings. Lightning fast broadband and unfailing cell phone service.

Here's the RFP they put out. It makes very interesting reading. It also represents a serious "to-do list" of things we need to be investing in, regardless of Amazon.
With or without HQ2, we need to make the strategic investments in hardware and software to create our own 21st Century Economy.

09/04/2017

The Future of Organized Labor

Much of the time on Labor Day we reflect on the important and hard-won gains that unions and their members have achieved over the years. As the bumper sticker says, "Unions: The people who brought you the week-end."

But more and more we need to reflect on the future of organized labor. So much is changing in the world around work and the workplace. Soon more than 50% of people in the American workforce will be holding contingent jobs--part of "free agent nation." And with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, all kinds of jobs across the spectrum will be out-sourced--not to China or India, but to robots.

If the world of work is changing, so must the world of organizing and labor representation change.

In honor of Labor Day, here's an article from my old magazine, Fast Company, talking about one aspect of the future of organized labor.

Frustrated at labor’s longtime slump, Larry Williams Jr. created UnionBase, which he’s positioning as both a social network for union members and an organizing vehicle for unions.

09/02/2017

Ten Years Ago . . . .

Ten years ago the world banking system cratered, and then the world economy almost imploded.

On Wall Street, the men (and it was almost entirely men) who were essentially in charge of Western capitalism demonstrated their utter dis-respect for capitalism by turning our economic system into a high-risk, high-reward casino--in which they captured all the gains and made the rest of us eat all the losses.

So where are we 10 years later? What have we learned?

Almost nothing, I'm afraid.

On Wall Street the titans of finance have changed the names of their risky financial products and are back to finding ways to maximize their profits and game the rest of us.

In Washington, DC, with the election of Donald Trump, any hope of oversight, regulation and reform of the our financial system has been demolished. The Trump agenda is to let Wall Street be Wall Street.

Around the world the 10-year old aftershocks from our close call with financial collapse still reverberate. They will be made worse by Brexit; they will continue to reinforce rampant nationalism in nations large and small where people feel that they can't possibly get ahead in a system that only helps the rich get richer and the rest get screwed.

Every ten years, starting roughly four decades ago, we've seen our financial titans drive the American economy into the ditch. After every financial crack-up, politicians recoil in horror, the public expresses its outrage--the people in the middle and at the bottom absorb the losses, sacrifice their homes and their retirement accounts--and then we go back to business as usual.

Here's how to "celebrate" the 10-year anniversary of the onset of the Great Recession.

Go back and watch "The Big Short" again.
Read Alan Blinder's book, "After the Music Stopped"--about the real causes of the crash and the real remedies that we've failed to adopt.
Read Robert Reich's book, "Saving Capitalism."
Call and write your elected officials. Tell them it's the 10-year anniversary of economic disaster, and you still haven't been whole.

Let's not wait for the next time the financial titans drive our national economic car headlong into another tree.
Let's change the game, fix the problems and make our economy work for all of us.

‘While we were strong enough to deal with the crisis a decade ago, we are not in the same position today’

08/28/2017

What Is Wrong With DJT?

Three separate writers addressed the same question in today's New York Times.

The question (implicit, but worth stating here): "What is wrong with Donald J. Trump?"

One writer compared him to the Roman Emperor Caligula.
Another called him a "child king."

My favorite of the three described his circle of advisors as "a babysitters club."

After I read those columns, I turned on Meet the Press.

The question the panel was grappling to answer was: "What is wrong with Donald J. Trump?"

I think it's the question we all need to ask--and seriously try to answer. Because a President who's compared to an insane Roman emperor, a child king and a spoiled brat in need of baby-sitters is a dangerous, potentially catastrophic President.
And we'd better figure this thing out--now.

Some of the answers are funny. But the consequences aren't.

Rallies are fun, but nothing gets done, and Mr. Trump gets angry!

08/24/2017

Films of Resistance

Showing in Santa Fe!

Santa Fe filmmakers Glenn Silber & Claudia Vianello will present two award-winning films, ATOMIC ARTIST & EL SALVADOR: ANOTHER VIETNAM in one 80-minute double bill as part of the Jean Cocteau Cinema’s newest series “Films of Resistance” premiering this Friday, August 25th at 7:00pm for a limited one-week run. (Atomic Artist will run first, then El Salvador.)

ATOMIC ARTIST (27 minutes), filmed in Santa Fe, follows the life and work of Tony Price. Upon discovering the Los Alamos National Laboratory salvage yard, Price developed a love for the unique, highly machined metals, plastics & other “junked" materials, inspiring him to create his anti-nuclear “atomic art.” Darkly humorous and original, ATOMIC ARTIST is a compelling portrait of one artist’s response to the threat, and insanity, of nuclear war.

EL SALVADOR (53 minutes.) premiered at the NY Film Festival in 1981, but has never screened in a cinema in Santa Fe — until now. The film played a major role in alerting the public to the U.S. intervention in Salvador’s civil war, against a legitimate popular people’s revolt.

08/20/2017

How To Make Fun of N***s

There's nothing funny about N***s--and that's the point. They may strut around with their armbands and sw****ka flags, hoping to intimidate us--or even to anger us to the point where we engage in a confrontation with them.

But one small village in Germany has discovered the soft underbelly of the people who call themselves neo-N***s--and then has found a way to tickle that exposed underbelly and subject the strutters and jackbooters to ridicule. And at the same time, these good townspeople raise money for a good cause: the rehabilitation of the neo-Nazi marchers.

You can read about it in this New York Times column.

Don’t respond to fascists with violence. A German town offers some helpful tips.

08/16/2017

Disgust.

That's the only possible reaction to Donald Trump's press conference yesterday.

He won the praise of the KKK's David Duke. He legitimized the alt-right's version of events and espoused a version of moral equivalency that ought to appall Americans of every race, creed and color, every political leader in the land, every editorial writer of every newspaper and every commentator in every medium.

We now know what his slogan "Make America Great Again" was all about. We mistakenly thought the emphasis was on "great."

In fact, it was on "America"--his version of America, which excludes people of color, women, religious minorities, the LGBT community, and increasingly anyone who stands up to him and opposes his distorted view of reality. That includes journalists--whom he mis-labels as authors of "fake news" and even corporate leaders who speak out against his abhorrent statements on race and discrimination.

Our governor, Governor Martinez, is, last time I checked, still the head of the Republican Governors Association.

What are her views on Donald Trump's statements? Where is Congressman Pearce?

Silence is complicity. Speak up now--whatever your party affiliation, your organization's allegiance, your position or role.

This President is out of step with our nation's values, our aspirations and our laws. That's something we all should be able to agree on--and we all should say out loud.

It's time to ask, "What is wrong with Donald Trump?" Because clearly something is very very wrong.

Donald Trump’s press conference was a grotesque display of empathy for violent racists. At least it united the Republicans in disgust at their president

08/07/2017

The Future of the Democratic Party (And the Country) Is in Upcoming Gubernatorial Races

In case you didn't already know, here's the Washington Post on why the statehouses (and our Roundhouse) matter--a lot.

Republicans are at a high-water mark among governors. Can Democrats turn around their fortunes in the next 15 months?