Why Hillary Clinton Should Offer Obama the Vice Presidency Now

Hillary Clinton should take the bold move of offering Obama the position of Vice President in her administration before the primaries. The fight over who the democratic nominee will be is fracturing the party, and the two of them running together is a compromise everyone could support. Aggressive primary campaigns are stupid, as they damage the party as a whole by fractionating the party and wasting resources that could be used in a general election. By agreeing to this arraignment before the primary they could avoid an aggressive primary campaign, and guaranty themselves the democratic ticket (as the vast majority of democrats support one of them). Some Obama supporters may not like the idea of him as VP, but his running as VP now would put him in a better position for him run for president in a future election.

All of the reservations I have about Obama running for president (mainly that he's young, inexperienced in foreign policy, and a little naïve) don't apply to him as vice president. He could learn a lot in that position, and then he could run for president himself at the end of her term. If he ran for president with the experience of being vice president for 4 or 8 years, there would be no questions about his qualifications, and he could be a much more effective president after having spent many years as VP.

The strongest argument against a Hillary-Obama ticket is that it may not be easy for them to win the national election. All of our previous presidents and vice presidents have been white men, and electing a woman or a black to either of those positions may be difficult. Can a woman and a black man win the presidency together? As a political pragmatist I can't avoid that question, and my answer is that combining their supporters may be able to outweigh the votes it would lose them. That is a question worthy of further investigation.

America’s Excess Oil Problem

Think the oil we put in our cars has nothing to do with the obesity epidemic? Think again. Instead of burning fatty oils in our bodies while we get around using man power, we burn oil from the Middle East to power our cars and let the natural fats in our bodies build up until they kill us. Riding a bicycle to school or work is the fastest why to get in shape and it is the most environmentally responsible form of transportation. Public Transit also forces you to walk and get at least some cardiovascular exercise while having only a minimal effect on the environment.

Why don't we encourage these forms of transportation more? Expanding their use will help reduce the obesity epidemic, decrease our dependence on foreign oil, and reduce air pollution. Kill three birds with one stone. Here's my plan: give everyone bicycle vouchers allowing them to purchases a bicycle at little or no cost to them. Then have public facilities for bicycle maintenance and repair so if a bicycle is damaged it can be fixed easily.

Next, we must improve public transit. Bicycling is great, but it isn't plausible in many situations, and it can't be used as anyone's sole from of transportation. A safe and efficient public transit system is imperative to reducing the use of cars in our culture. Improving public transit and encouraging people to use it can be done by imposing a gas tax on all personal vehicles within the area the public transit system servers; then using that money to fund the public transit system. The advantage to this is that the tax doesn't affect public transit vehicles themselves, or people who don't have access to public transit. Using public transit isn't nearly as good exercise as riding a bike, but it does force it's users to walk at least a little whenever they go out, which would do a good deal to help with the obesity epidemic. Even a little exercise everyday can go a long way in preventing obesity.

Last but not least, we have to stop subsidizing the suburbs. The suburbs must carry their own weight instead forcing cities dwellers to pay for their use of our services. If someone lives in a locality different locality than they work in, they should be forced to pay taxes to both locations unless they live within 5 miles of their work, don't own a motor vehicle, or in certain other extenuating circumstances (in these cases they would pay half taxes in each location). If people were financially encouraged to live closer to their work, it would be easier for them to use alternative methods of transportation which are healthier, better the environment, and don't unnecessarily deplete our fossil fuel resources.

The accident in Utah & the closure of the Bureau of Mines

My father is leaving for Crandall Canyon to help with the rescue effort. I'm a little distraught at the moment, so the clarity of the following might be sub par, but here's what I know about the situation…

The cause of this accident was poor judgment and poor oversight. In the words of an expert "They had no business doing what they were doing in that mine." Murray pressured his engineers into giving him the green light to mine more coal than can be done safely, but the full cause of this accident goes far beyond Bob Murray. Bush's secretary of labor is corporate hoar, who doesn't give half a fuck about worker safety. She let Murray get away with anything because of his donations to the Republican Party, and now at least 3 people are dead because of it, possibly 9. Capitalists will be capitalists, it's up to the government to stop them for killing and destroying things for money; that's what law is for. When capitalists aren't bound by law they will inevitably put profit ahead of lives. That's what wrong with our medical system and that's what went wrong at mine. The Republicans aren't adequately controlling the capitalists to keep them from hurting people and destroying themselves as capitalism will ultimately do.

Ten years ago Newt Gingrich & the republican congress shut down or defunded the Bureau of Mines (USBM), a part of the department of the interior, responsible for mine safety research. Previously the government had taken a carrot and stick approach to mine safety by doing safety research themselves (through the USBM) and using MSHA to enforce safety regulations. Now with the Bureau of Mines gone, mine safety has been deteriorating, and catastrophic mine accidents are becoming common place. In the words of the Director Gram "The abolition of the U.S. Bureau of Mines brings to a close 85 years of commitment to improving the health and safety of the Nation's miners."
That commitment is clearly dead and buried with bodies of too many American miners and rescue workers who've died since the bureau was shut down. Another report discusses how the USBM was working on developing safety technologies that could have prevented many of the recent mine tragedies,

"HEALTH, SAFETY AND MINING TECHNOLOGY

The Health, Safety and Mining Technology (HSMT) program pursues fundamental scientific and engineering research in order to provide new technology to protect the Nation's miners, who are employed in one of the most hazardous of all occupations. Injuries and occupational diseases to workers are costly to the Nation in terms of compensation costs to current and future generations, economic growth in the raw materials sector of the economy, and the Nation's industrial competitiveness.

The research program focuses on solutions to the health and safety hazards that confront miners and other workers in the mineral sector of the economy, including exposure to dust, falls of roof, proximity to large equipment in confined space, and the potential for fires and explosions. This program also concentrates on long-range activities to devise new mining concepts that will safeguard miners with mechanisms that rapidly warn of, or suppress, hazards in advance of mining, thus enhancing productivity. Implicit in this program is the conservation of natural resources and environmental protection. The HSMT program is divided into seven research areas: Occupational Health, Ground Control, Human Factors, Mine Safety Systems, Mine Disaster Prevention, and Advanced Mining Systems.

Ground Control

The long-range goal of the Ground Control program is to produce technology to forecast impending catastrophic failure, maintain structurally sound and stable mine openings, and reduce injuries and fatalities caused by ground failure. The objectives of the Ground Control program include:

oDetermining the critical geological and geophysical criteria to be used to identify potentially unstable and hazardous zones in mines.

oDeveloping and demonstrating mine-wide monitoring systems to collect and analyze critical geomechanical and geophysical parameters in real time.

oDeveloping artificial support technology to enhance stability of the mine roof.

Enhanced efficiency in achieving Ground Control goals has occurred through consolidation of ground control technologies from two distinct, yet integrated, Ground Control subprograms-- geosensing and geocontrol. Technical products used within the geosensing subprogram will be integrated into operating systems to help miners detect imminent ground failures during active mining and delineate the structural and dynamic characteristics of the rock mass to allow implementation of effective controls. The geocontrol subprogram will focus on providing engineering solutions to mitigate or eliminate identified ground hazards.

Mine Safety Systems

The Mine Safety Systems program addresses the hazards to mine workers created by the operation and design of the physical systems that make up a modern mining operation. Today's mine is a very complex operation with large excavation equipment, fastmoving haulage vehicles, conveyor and hoist systems, high-voltage machinery, complex ventilation schemes, and sophisticated control and monitoring systems. Despite all of this mechanization, the mine worker is still the essential component in any mining operation. When these workers operate and interact with the mining machines in the harsh environments of underground or surface mines they are exposed to many hazards. These hazards historically are a factor in 55 percent of all mining fatalities and 25 percent of all mining injuries. To solve this problem, new technologies will be developed and applications of existing technologies will be pursued to remove or mitigate the safety hazard. The objectives of the Mine Safety Systems program are--

oTo reduce injuries resulting from mobile powered-haulage and transport equipment through modification of existing systems and the design of inherently safer systems.

oTo improve safety in the use of high-voltage power systems.

oTo reduce the injuries associated with the use and maintenance of the mechanical systems used in mines.

Mine Disaster Prevention

In mining, no other accident can have broader consequences than those involving fires, explosions, or outbursts of methane gas. Research under the Mine Disaster Prevention program strives to develop technologies and strategies that will either prevent the occurrence of these mine emergencies or enable miners to survive them. The program focuses on the avoidance or elimination of fires and explosions through early detection, containment, and suppression; the prediction, measurement, and removal of dangerous methane accumulations; the development of protective breathing equipment and efficient escape tactics; and the safe and optimal use of explosives. The objectives of the Mine Disaster Prevention program are to--

oDiminish mine worker exposure and vulnerability to the hazardous circumstances associated with fires and explosions.

oDesign reliable life-support apparatus and escape strategies for safe, expedient evacuation from mine emergencies.

oControl hazardous methane accumulations in all phases of underground mining.

oFurther the generation of safe and effective blasting practices and products for mining."

All the deaths which occurred in that mine were needless and preventable. The blood of these rescue workers is on the hands of Newt Gingrich, who single handily shut down the Bureau of Mines with a number of back handed political maneuvers. I propose we renew our commitment to our nations miners by refunding the Bureau of Mines (which continues to exist as a statutory agency with zero funding) to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Hate Crimes in Junior High

Several years ago two of my friends were victims of a hate crime in their junior high, and nothing was done about it. Their classmate beat the shit out of them in front of two teachers who watched and did nothing. This happened after over a year of physical and physiological abuse by their classmates. Why was this ignored? They were gay. Had this attack happened anywhere else, it probably would have been prosecuted as a hate crime, but since they and their attackers were so young it was ignored completely. They have never recovered emotionally.

As adults we would like to pretend youth don't become aware of their sexual identity until they reach highschool, but this is simply untrue. No matter what a child's sexual orientation, junior high is often a confusing and difficult time in one's life. Schools completely ignore youth of that age are beginning to come to terms with their sexuality. Youth are afraid to discuss this issue with adults, because of the judgmental attitudes many adults see as socially appropriate when discussing sexuality with children that age. Ignoring youth's sexuality doesn't change the reality of it, but it creates an extremely judgmental environment of ignorance, insecurity, and peer pressure, which results in unplanned pregnancy, STD transmission, low self esteem, and suicide.

Given adult's prudish attitudes about the sexuality of children in that age range, any display of alternative sexuality is scorned. Many adults, both liberal and conservative, would like to imagine that there are no LGBT students in Junior high. We forbid the subject, ignore the abuse of children who don't follow proper gender roles, and allow hate crimes against the few students who do come out. This has catastrophic consequences for too many young people, and it needs to stop.

As adults, we must put children's safety ahead of our prejudices, and start taking the issue of rampant homophobia at the junior highs level seriously.

A Unique Plan for National Healthcare

The single payer system I propose is different from every other single payer system in the world because it would have three levels of public insurance, deductible, basic, and premium. Premium public insurance would be available to everyone at a higher tax rate than basic public insurance. All types of insurance would cover all preexisting conditions, prescription drugs, any and all medically necessary tests or procedures, and cover preventive care (Basic and Premium with no deductible). Premium insurance would have lower copays, not require referrals, and have a few other perks compared to basic insurance. Since the cost of premium insurance would be based on percentage of income, not charged at a flat rate, it will be an option for everyone. Deductible insurance is discussed below. In creating several levels of public insurance we solve the debate over lower taxes vs. more benefits by letting each individual chose for themselves which they prefer.

Insurance would be mandatory. Everyone pays a 3% tax for the public insurance program, and a higher tax rate depending on the plan a person uses. If a person has private insurance the 3% is all they pay, because it's not unlikely they would get dropped by private insurance and begin using a public program, and this would act as a progressive tax on the wealthy who would be more likely to have private insurance. Deregulate private insurance, let them drive themselves out of business, pick their insurance pools, drop people at will, etc. Anyone not covered under private insurance is immediately covered by basic public insurance (or their preselected type of public insurance) at a higher tax rate.

Each type of public insurance would set it own tax rate based on it's costs. Premium public insurance would be provided for free (subsidized by the general population) to certain groups, such as children, the elderly, the poor (people currently receiving Medicaid), and people with some serious chronic illnesses (including Cancer during treatment). The 3% base tax would be used to help pay for this.

The 3 Levels of public insurance. All levels cover any & all types of medical treatment required for any disease or condition, including mental health coverage.

1) Deductible insurance

• ✯ The government pays for medical expense over a 5% of a person's annual income
  
• ✯ A medical savings account containing the deductible would be required for this to prevent people from walking out on hospital bills
  
• ✯ After deductible is reached you continue paying the deductible rate & get basic healthcare, or pay less 2% more of your income (or the difference between premium and basic healthcare, whichever is less) to get premium care. 1 year after you reach you deductible you start paying the normal rate for either of those plans.
  

2) Basic Public insurance

• ✯ Pick your primary care physician, and get a referral to for specialists
  
• ✯ Copays around 20$ for appointment with you PCP (primary care physician), 35$ for a specialist
  
• ✯ 20% of any prescription under 125$, all prescriptions over 125$ cost 25$
  
• ✯ Higher fees for other tests & services, none above 50$
  

3) Premium Public insurance

• ✯ Pick your PCP specialists do not require referrals, but there would be limits on how often you could see a specialist in the same field without a referral (physicians could refer themselves if they wanted to see a patient often)
  
• ✯ 15$ copay for any dr. appointment
  
• ✯ 10% any script under 100$, $10 for anything 100-175$, $15 for anything 175$ +
  
• ✯ Fees for other tests & services stay below 20$
  

Emergency Rooms
Charge a 100$ fee for inappropriate emergency room use, 20$ for "non-critical care" (if someone was directed there by a doctor, or has a serious enough condition to warrant going to the ER), no charge for catastrophic accident use of the ER (if a persons would be unable to work for a period time after being admitted, or their were other significant economic consequences).


Profit
The fundamental problem with our current system is that profit is being made by denying people care. I have no problem with people making profit by providing quality healthcare services to patients, and I believe the profit motive can serve as an incentive to provide high quality care. Under a single-payer/multi-provider system, medical establishments make profit while working for the greater good. This involvement of profit is in everyone's best interest, as it increases patient chose and quality of care.

I have no objection to the government using tax money to massively subsidize biomedical research and the development of new treatments for illness. So I don't mind using tax money to pay high drug prices, if everyone who needs the drugs has access to them after they are developed.

Economic Proof we Need National Healthcare

Let's look at health care in terms of supply & demand for a moment. There is a concept in the economics called elasticity, it is a way of measuring how people react to a change in the price of a good. The definition of elasticity is elasticity= (change in demand)/ (the change in price) or (elasticity) /(change in demand) = (the change in price), thus if change in demand = 0 then change in price = infinity. The elasticity of healthcare, at least of emergency care is approaching zero, so hypothetically the price will be approaching infinity. Since there is no such thing as infinite money, health cost clearly can't equal infinity, but they cans behave as if they are approaching it. Mathematically cost approaching infinity would appear as an exponential rate of increase, and that is exactly what the data shows occurring in healthcare prices. It is possible for policies to temporarily reduce the rate of increase, but healthcare costs can never truly be controlled in this manor. It is impossible to control the cost of healthcare so long as it remains in the open market; the laws of supply and demand will inevitably push health care costs upwards towards infinity. The only solution is a system where market pressures do not affect healthcare costs, meaning a single payer system or something similar to it.
Graph of exponential increase in costs of American healthcare

Let's look at what that means in reality. Individuals never, or almost never truly pay for their own health care; a situation which is inevitable when you have a vertical demand curve. So who does pay for it? If you have health insurance from your employer they pay for it. If you don't you'll probably clear out your bank account quickly, then start relying on credit cards or loans. People often borrow more than they would expect to make in a life-time, putting much of it on credit cards or paying a high interest rate because of a reduction in credit caused from the money have already borrowed. This forces people so far into debt they have no choice but to declare bankruptcy, and by that point they have no or few assets left, so the bank and/or the credit card companies end up paying the bill. The people who do have the kind of money it requires to pay for their own health care almost always have it invested in the stock market, they would take the money from the stock market, then start borrowing money. You cannot get blood from a stone; individuals almost never have the money it takes to pay for their own health care, so one way or another someone else ends up paying for it.

If individuals aren't really paying for healthcare, the money just passes through their hands as it goes from one point in the economy to another, who is paying for it? The answer is Visa, banks, and corporations. The result is increased interest rates, which reduce investment and slow the economy overall. We are already paying for healthcare collectively; the money is essentially being deducted out of the economy at random, and in a way that is much more likely to cause an economic slow down than if the money were taken out of the economy in rational & predictable fashion by taxes.

A divide by zero equations in such a crucial sector of our economy is extremely destructive both socially and economically; as is seen in the level of medical bankruptcies and the humanitarian crisis which our health care system has created. Excessive healthcare costs increase interest rates outside Federal Reserves control, reduce investment, and weaken the economy as a whole. Using taxes to pay for health care is better for the economy because taxes can be structured to take the same amount of money from the economy, but allow control over where and how the money is deducted, minimizing the effect on economic growth. The zero elasticity of healthcare makes it a market failure.

From looking at healthcare in purely economic terms it is clear something must be done about it. Even the Republicans will have to admit this sooner or later, as the situation can only get worse from here.

Who am I?

I am a young woman and a political activist in my hometown of Pittsburgh. I used to work for a political organization called ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), they paid me to travel all over the city (mainly to lower income neighborhoods) and talk to everyone I met about politics. It was a wonderfully rewarding and educational experience that did a great to shape my current political convictions. I am a political pragmatist, which means I support half solutions.

I started paying attention to politics when I was 8 years old and Newt Gingrich took over congress. The first political demonstration I remember was march for children in 1995. I've been involved in many political demonstrations since then, from the protest against Bush's inauguration, the marches against the war in Iraq, and many others. I also lead the day of silence at my school for 3 years.

I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. I respect each person right to believe what they chose so long as they hurt no one. Religious fundamentalist and bigots force their view on others, and almost always cause them harm in the process. I am open minded, but I hate religious fundamentalists (from all religions) and bigots; other than that, I value diversity in all it's forms.

I am a pacifist. I believe violence has no place in a civilized world; that it only severs to create anger and hate, and rarely solves the underlying problems it's use was meant to address. Peace is not an end to be achieved through violence, it is a means to that end as well. The only cases where I can support violence is to stop heinous crimes against humanity. In all other cases, I support nonviolent tactics, such as civil disobedience, and protests. I believe in using the democratic process as a means for change. Progressive change must occur in the minds and heart of the people. All the guns and bombs in the world cannot force people to care for one another.