Many Americans assume the new health care reform act will benefit mostly the poor and uninsured and hurt everyone else, according to polls. As Matt Yglesias wrote, “Basically, people see this as a bill that will take resources from people who have health insurance and give it to people who don’t have health insurance.” Those who still oppose the reform say that people ought to pay for their own health care.

We all believe in the virtues of hard work and self-reliance, but these days it’s a fantasy to think that anyone but the mega-wealthy will not, sooner or later, depend on help from others to pay medical bills. And that’s true no matter how hard you work, how much you love America, or how diligently you take care of yourself. The cost of medical care has so skyrocketed that breaking an arm or leg could cost as much as a new car. And if you get cancer or heart disease — which can happen even to people who live healthy lifestyles — forget about it. The disease will not only clean you out; it will leave a whopping debt for your survivors to pay.

And the truth is, we all pay for other peoples’ health care whether we know it or not. When people can’t pay their medical bills, the cost of their health care gets added to everyone else’s bills and insurance premiums. When poor people use emergency rooms as a doctor of last resort, their care is not “free.” You pay for it.

Another common fantasy about medical care is that the “free market” provides incentives for medical companies to develop innovative new drugs and treatments for disease without government subsidy. It’s true that private enterprise is very good at developing profitable health care products. But not all medical care can be made profitable.

For years, the U.S. government has been funding medical research that the big private companies don’t want to do because there is too much cost for the potential profit. This is especially true for diseases that are rare and expensive to treat. An example of a recent advance made possible by government grants include new guidelines for malignant pleural mesothelioma treatment developed by MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers. Another is a blood screening test developed by mesothelioma doctors like thoracic surgeon Dr. David Sugarbaker. The health reform act provides for more dollars for such research, from which even many of the tea party protesters will benefit.

The biggest fantasy of all was that people who had insurance didn’t have to worry about health care costs. But the fact is that in recent years millions of Americans have been bankrupted by medical costs, and three-quarters of the medically bankrupt had health insurance. And yes, insurance companies even dumped hard-working, law-abiding patriots. But the health care reform act will put an end to that, and now America’s hard-working, law-abiding patriots are more financially secure, whether they like it or not.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law one of the more controversial bills from the recent legislative session, one allowing guns to be carried into houses of worship….[The] bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.

I don’t know about you, but if I know there’s a guy with a gun sitting in the pew behind me, I’ll be skipping services for a long, long, time.

The simple solution to security concerns? Hire an off-duty policeman and be done with it.

Grow up Louisiana.

You can disagree if you like, but if we’ve learned anything from the last two years it’s that you cannot overestimate how b@tsh#t crazy the Republican leadership in Washington really is.

So it might be better to argue that Obama has sold out; but be aware that your protest (non)vote in November may in fact change the course of history — in a very, very bad way.

I won’t be in the history books anyway, only you. Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them — Franklin, Washington, and the horse — conducted the entire revolution by themselves.

But the truth is that, when the outcome of the debate for declaring independence still hung in doubt, it was Adams who moved the Continental Congress in the direction of freedom.

This excerpt from the movie captures that moment (followed by a depiction of the first reading of the Declaration of Independence).

I see a new nation ready to take it’s place in the world. Not an empire but a republic — and a republic of laws, not men…

How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children…

My judgment approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I have and all that I am and all that I hope in this life I am now ready to stake upon it.

While I live, let me have a country. A free country!

Happy July 4th and may we keep this Republic we have been given — a republic of laws, not men.

• Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport
• Parking Facilities
• Solid Waste Collection
• Building Maintenance
• Transit Operations
• Parks Operation and Maintenance
• Libraries
• Public Works and Community Development Services
• Vehicle Fleet Maintenance/Management
• Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Operations and Management

No way, baby. Shareholders want one thing: more profits. And the only way you get that is by generating higher revenues and/or lowering expenses. Nothing else matters.

At least with the present system, if it’s crappy, you can throw the rascals in City Hall out on their ear and put better people in.

Not so with government for the shareholders. You’re stuck with the private, for-profit system UNLESS…you represent a big enough block of shares to toss out the board of directors. That costs money — lots of money — to buy the shares.

So there it is: to get better city services, you have to buy shares AND pay for the services.

OR you can stick with what you have and vote to toss the rascals out. Not necessary to buy shares. Not necessary to pay to vote.
Privatization: Not necessary.

Once upon a time, we actually had government by the shareholders. That’s basically what our country was back in 1789: white property owners had the right to vote. No one else did. That was wrong and, over time, we extended the vote to most everyone else. Now they want to turn back the clock to 1789.

No way.

Apple accused of ‘discrimination’ over iPhone 4

Apple fans flocked…to buy the iPhone 4 after it went on sale on Thursday.

But there have been complaints an antenna in the lower left corner can become masked when held by a left-handed owner, causing a drop in signal strength.

Are you freaking kidding me?

Get a Droid on Verizon. At least you’ll be able to make a phone call. Even with your left hand.

Chris Cillizza:

Petraeus moves from Tampa, Florida — home of U.S. Central Command — to Kabul, Afghanistan. ‘Nuff said.

Anyone know who gets credit for that move? Let me know.

As for the politics of it, his seat might go Republican in the fall and it might not. Depends on the available candidates and the resulting campaigns.

The (Democratic) governor of WV will have a lot to say about the framework of that campaign when he names Byrd’s successor in the coming days.

Clearly, you could have a repeat of the Coakley-Brown fiasco in Massachusetts. Or you could get a candidate who understands that Byrd’s legacy is much loved in WV. If that candidate appropriates his legacy — and campaigns hard to protect it — s/he will have the best chance of winning.

Prediction: look for Bill Clinton to campaign hard in the fall for the replacement.

As for the KKK, it’ll get mentioned in his obituaries as the opening act in his long and storied career. But this will also get mentioned:

If the United States leads the charge to war in the Persian Gulf, we may get lucky and achieve a rapid victory. But then we face a second war: a war to win the peace in Iraq. This war will last many years and will surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In light of this enormous task, it would be a great mistake to expect that this will be a replay of the 1991 war. The stakes are much higher in this conflict.

People laughed him off the stage (while mentioning the KKK) for saying that. Turns out he was exactly right and had we listened — and followed his advice — we’d be much, much better off today than we are.

And don’t you forget it.

…orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times. And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.

The stimulus of 2009 was too small. The overall bill was slashed and then larded — as a sop to Republicans — with the largest tax cut in history (which Republicans then voted against!). The result was a stimulus that was about one-third of what it needed to be. The result? Our economy was pulled back from the brink but unemployment remains way, way too high. And now we’re beginning to teeter back into the abyss.

But further stimulus is almost impossible because the pendulum is swinging the other way and deficit-cutting is the main focus. Those aren’t aren’t deficit hawks circling up there, my friend: those are buzzards.

Fact is, if cutting taxes on the rich is the way to create jobs, where were the jobs that should have resulted after the massive (unfunded) tax cuts of the last ten years? Job creation was non-existent. And you can’t credibly argue that $1 trillion-with-a-T in tax cuts weren’t enough.

Keep an eye on Europe. The movement toward severe austerity budgets — ratified by the G20 this past weekend — will probably not raise the confidence of the markets. It’s as if the markets know that the best, quickest way to drive the economy forward is to bring down the unemployment rate — how ever you can do it.

And since corporations are unable — or unwilling — to do it, then government has to provide the stimulus.

What do you think?