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Health

Shame Of America: Desperate Man Robs Store For One Dollar In Order To Go To Jail To Get Health Coverage

By Zaid Jilani on Jun 20, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Verone chose prison over pain.

James Richard Verone of North Carolina spent his whole life playing by the rules and staying out of trouble. Having worked as a delivery man for Coca Cola for 17 years, Verone was known as a hard worker and honest man.

Yet when he was laid off from Coca Cola three years ago, Verone was desperate to find work. He eventually found employment as a convenience clerk, yet he began to notice a protrusion in his chest. He developed arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, and soon the pain became too much for him to bear. He filed for disability, but he was denied any sort of coverage by the federal government.

So earlier this month, as the Gaston Gazette reports Verone drove to a local RBC Bank and told the teller he was robbing them for a dollar. He said he wanted to rob the bank in order to go to jail and get medical coverage:

Verone didn’t want to scare anyone. He executed the robbery the most passive way he knew how. He handed the teller a note demanding one dollar, and medical attention. “I didn’t have any fears,” said Verone. “I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police.” [...]

Verone says he’s not a political man. But he has a lot to say on the subject of socialized medical care. He suspects he wouldn’t be talking to a reporter through a metal screen wearing an orange jumpsuit if such an option were available in the U.S. “If you don’t have your health you don’t have anything,” said Verone. The man has high hopes with his recent incarceration. He has seen several nurses and has an appointment with a doctor Friday.The ideal scenario would include back and foot surgery and a diagnosis and treatment of the protrusion on his chest, he said.

Verone told the local press he would like to serve in prison long enough to be able to get out in time to collect Social Security benefits that he paid into his entire life. He also hopes to be able to retire along a beach some day. Verone says that he doesn’t regret landing behind bars and that he had no choice. Between continuing a life in pain and choosing prison, he is happy with his decision. “If I had not exercised all the alternatives I would be sitting here saying, ‘Man I feel bad about it,’” he said. “I picked jail.” The United States is the only wealthy country that does not offer comprehensive universal health care to every citizen; in no other rich country would anyone be faced with such a choice.

Security

RNC Chair Won’t Comment On GOP Afghanistan Divide: ‘I’m Not Going To Get Into The Weeds’

By Guest Blogger on Jun 20, 2011 at 5:46 pm

A growing debate has emerged in recent weeks within Republican Party leadership over the future of American involvement in Afghanistan. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said last week that “it’s time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can,” even though he couched it by adding that he would listen primarily to the generals on the ground. Former Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-UT) told Esquire, “If you can’t define a winning exit strategy for the American people where we somehow come out ahead, then…I don’t think that serves our strategic interests.” Huntsman and Romney joined fellow GOP presidential candidates Ron Paul (R-TX) and Gary Johnson (R-NM) in pushing the GOP toward supporting a draw-down in Afghanistan.

These comments prompted a backlash from hawkish Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) over the weekend. Graham said on NBC’s Meet the Press, “If you think the pathway to the GOP nomination in 2012 is to get to Barack Obama’s left on Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq, you’re gonna meet a lot of headwinds.” Similarly, ABC’s This Week, McCain criticized Romney’s drift toward a withdrawal position.

But the infighting within the Republican Party on Afghanistan doesn’t stop there. When asked about the leadership divide on Fox News this morning, RNC chairman Reince Priebus refused to take sides and wouldn’t even say whether or not he thinks the U.S. should begin a significant drawdown. “I’m not going get into the weeds on this issue,” he said. Yet over on MSNBC today, Priebus’s predecessor Michael Steele acknowledged that Americans are war weary and said that many Republicans have told him privately that the U.S. needs an endgame:

STEELE: Even at that time when I was getting slammed by the neocons in the party on this issue, I had a number of senators and congressman say “we agree with you but we can’t say anything because the republicans have hitched their wagons to this particular policy.” [...] I’m not an isolationist … particularly when it comes to protecting the interests of the American people but what is that interest we are protecting here? What is the upside for the cost that’s being expended right now? That is a legitimate question.

Watch it:

Nearly half of the GOP presidential candidates have called for some sort of with withdrawal, joining a growing chorus of Republicans in the Senate and the House who are calling for a winding down of the war. Given the diminishing support for continuing the conflict within the Democratic caucus, President Obama may have a tough time resisting pressure to draw down American involvement and maintain similar troops levels in the country as some military leaders have recommended.

– Sean Savett

NEWS FLASH

American Medical Association Endorses The Individual Mandate | MedPage Today just sent out this alert: “The American Medical Association’s House of Delegates voted this afternoon to endorse the concept of an individual mandate that requires most U.S. residents to buy health insurance, reaffirming the organization’s longstanding position on the controversial issue.”

Update

The Chicago Tribune adds: “The results of the vote were 326 in favor and 165 opposed. Without an individual mandate, supporters said people will wait to buy health insurance until they are sick, and that would lead to a spike in premiums for all.”

Climate Progress

New Jersey Senate Committee Rebukes Christie’s Attempt To Pull Out Of RGGI

By Brad Johnson on Jun 20, 2011 at 5:39 pm

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)

To great fanfare, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) announced that New Jersey would be pulling out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the northeastern cap-and-trade system for reducing global warming pollution and increasing green investment. There was only one problem — Christie doesn’t actually have the unilateral authority to withdraw his state from the compact. He is attempting to overturn by fiat the clear language of legislation passed in 2007 mandating New Jersey’s involvement. Today, the New Jersey Senate moved legislation out of committee that would reaffirm the intent of the existing law Christie wants to overturn:

This Legislature declares that Governor Christie’s decision to withdraw New Jersey from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), announced on May 26, 2011, is inconsistent with the intent of the Legislature as expressed in the “Global Warming Response Act,” P.L.2007, c.112 (C.26:2C-37 et al.), and P.L.2007, c.340 (C.26:2C-45 et al.), known as the “Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative” or “RGGI” implementing law.

The legislation now goes to the full Senate for a vote. The sister bill in the lower house has also passed out of committee.

Related Posts

Yglesias

Does Information Technology Make Us Work More Or Work Less

By Matthew Yglesias on Jun 20, 2011 at 5:29 pm

There’s a lot going on in Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery’s piece on “The Great Speedup” and the disjoint between productivity growth and wage increases. But I’m not sure I buy the implicit message of this factoid about people using information technology to keep themselves tethered to the office even when they’re not at their desk:

Obviously, this kind of digital overtime happens. At the same time, looking at our traffic stats here at ThinkProgress it’s evident that an awful lot of people are reading blogs when they’re supposed to be at their desk working. Not that I mind, you understand, it’s just a noticeable trend. And traffic really falls off during that week between Christmas and New Years when relatively few people are working. That’s not because nobody can access the Internet when they’re not at their office, it’s because the flipside of using digital technology to work even when you’re not “at work” is using digital technology to slack off when you are at work. Certainly I do both of these things—it’s neither rare for me to be reading an ESPN article during working hours nor to be reading a work email after hours. That’s the nature of modern life. Whether digital overtime or online slacking predominates is an interesting question, and I think that to get a real picture of what’s happening you need to look at both sides.

NEWS FLASH

David Tyree: I Would Trade Super Bowl Win To Stop Same-Sex Marriage | Last week, ex-New York Giants receiver and Super Bowl XLII hero David Tyree said that if same-sex marriage passes in New York, it would lead to “anarchy.” Now, in an interview with the New York Daily News, “Tyree told reporter Kenneth Lovett that if he could, he ‘probably would‘ trade the fourth-quarter catch he made as he jumped just over New England Patriots safety Rodney Harrison” that “extended the Giants’ winning drive and proved to be the backbreaker the G-Men needed to shock the world in a 17-14 upset.”

Alyssa

Books Are Not Spinach, Kids Are Not Stupid, And Parents Should Be Parents

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jun 20, 2011 at 5:23 pm

I really wish adults, from President Obama on down, would stop insisting that those damn kids turn off the television/video game console/computer and read a book instead. It’s not so much that I think books are bad — in fact, I think they’re pretty great — but this formulation’s an automatic loser, positing books as spinach.

When I was in elementary school, I absolutely smoked our town’s reading contest during Turn Off the TV Week (now Screen-Free Week) mostly because I didn’t grow up watching television, and had no sense that it was a satisfying experience in comparison to books. And this is what I’ve never particularly understood about parents who pretend they’re helpless to get their kids to read in the face of other distractions. If you value reading, read to your kids, and read them not just dry, lesson-oriented stuff, but the myriad exciting, compelling literature that’s written for children and young adults. If your kids are into a book series, read those books so you can talk about them with your children. The Hunger Games may not be Tolstoy, but it’s not bad! Obviously, it’s easy for television or the internet to be hypnotic, almost narcotic, but kids aren’t stupid, either: it is possible to teach a preference for good characterization and well-paced storytelling in any medium. If you think your kids are watching too much television, their consumption is something you have power over. If you’re worried about them spending too much time on the internet or playing video games, make sure they don’t have a personal computer or a console in their room. Go on vacations to places without televisions or video games and give everyone’s brain a reset. Visit a minor league baseball park, where tickets are generally inexpensive, there are people in goofy costumes, and the crowds are friendly. We are not living in the Matrix. It is possible to unplug.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go chase a bunch of parents who say they love books but have no idea how to promote reading off my lawn.

Climate Progress

NSF Study: Fastest Sea-Level Rise in Two Millennia Linked to Increasing Global Temperatures

By Joe Romm on Jun 20, 2011 at 5:21 pm

New research “points toward projected sea level rise lying at or near the upper range of current projections, more than a meter [100 cm, 39 inches] by the end of this century under business-as-usual carbon emissions,” says co-author Michael Mann.

The National Science Foundation news release for the study, “Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia,” explains

The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years–and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level….

“Sea-level rise is a potentially disastrous outcome of climate change,” says [co-author Benjamin] Horton, “as rising temperatures melt land-based ice, and warm ocean waters.”

The NSF-funded work is “the first continuous sea-level reconstruction for the past 2,000 years.”  The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study concludes, “Using an extended semiempirical modeling approach, we show that these sea-level changes are consistent with global temperature for at least the past millennium.”

The figure above is from a 2009 PNAS paper, “Global sea level linked to global temperature” by two of the authors of the new paper, Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Martin Vermeer of Helsinki University of Technology.  The new study “reinforces those projections in my view,” according to Rahmstorf.  “AR4″ stands for the lowball projections of sea level rise (SLR) that were made in the IPCC Fourth Assessment report.

We are currently close to the A1FI emissions pathway, though frankly, none of the IPCC models encompass the most dangerous of the amplifying carbon-cycle feed backs (the melting permafrost, see here), not do most SLR models encompass the staggering polar warming we face on our current path (see M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with Arctic warming of 20°F)

Even so, the recent scientific literature makes clear we are likely to blow past the AR4 projections by mid-century (see “JPL bombshell: Polar ice sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050“).

Co-author Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, explained the significance of the new research in an e-mail:

Read more

Economy

Sen. Al Franken: GOP’s ‘Hostage-Taking’ On The Debt Ceiling Is ‘Unconscionable’

By Tanya Somanader, Alex Seitz-Wald and Jeff Spross on Jun 20, 2011 at 5:05 pm

While a growing number of Americans support raising the federal debt ceiling, Republican lawmakers remain fastidiously committed to plunging the nation into an economic crisis that could bring about a bigger GDP drop than the 2008 recession. Ignoring the foreseeable danger, Republicans insist on holding the necessary increase in the debt ceiling hostage for destructive demands like a balanced budget amendment or crippling budget cuts. Last week, Tea Party Doyen Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) signaled that if any Republicans should go “the wrong way” and vote to raise the debt ceiling, he would work to oust them in 2012.

DeMint’s dangerous political posturing, however, drew scoffs from Sen. Al Franken (D-MN). Speaking with ThinkProgress at Netroots Nation this past weekend, Franken blasted DeMint and the GOP’s “hostage-taking” on the debt ceiling as an “unconscionable” gamble with the “full faith and credit” of the U.S.:

FRANKEN: I think it’s unconscionable. This is really playing with the full faith and credit of the United States government. We don’t know for sure what the effect would be, but we may be risking a worldwide depression by doing this. Basically, the world economy is based on the dollar and based on the Treasury. And for us to allow the default on treasuries would be, I think, an absolute disaster. This kind of hostage-taking to me is unconscionable.

Watch it:

Given the comprehensive nature of the consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling, “absolute disaster” may be putting it lightly. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently noted that even a short-term default could result in cuts to vital programs like Social Security, Medicare, and the military. The Wall Street Journal noted that, if Republicans hold out long enough, their failure could serve to negate all of the expected 2011 economic growth. The U.S default would also land a severe blow an already fragile housing market that is currently experiencing a downward spiral worse than that of the Great Depression. Be it “absolute disaster” or “unconscionable,” Franken’s characterization of this issue is undeniably more accurate than that of the GOP.

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