The Communist Origin of the Modern Conservative Movement VI

If you ask most people what purchase they made that took the longest to pay for most would tell you that it was their home but in fact it is not. An individual starts paying for his after 65 medical care when they are teenagers. That purchase is paid out of every pay check for the next 50 years, not only does the employee pay for 50 years but each of his employers must match those payment for those 50 years. It takes 15 years to pay for a house the biggest purchase most people make excluding one's medical care. The cost of health insurance has already exceeded wages in some cases with second wage earners now working for medical insurance only.

Health insurance is now by far the most costly benefit an employer can offer. Over the last 30 years, as the cost of health insurance spiraled out of control, it lowered the wages of the middle class. Employee wages and benefits come out of the same pocket. A choice must be made between benefits and wage increases, the more the cost of health insurance the smaller the wages paid. There has only been one 3% wage increase in the last 9 years in city I worked for. In that same period of time the health insurance premium increase 600% and the insurance policy went from a 100% insurance policy to a policy that makes a co-pay of an 80%. Some years the out of pocket expenses exceeded 40% of take home pay not counting the almost $2,000 insurance premium. Medical expenses are now rocketing toward 50% of take home pay and we have not even started talking about prescription drugs.

Health care has destroyed the middle class standard of living in America. The health care system has take the quality of life money, the money left over after expenses that paid for a vacation or nights out. It does not have to be that way. It isn't that way in other countries. The Patient Protection Act is a step in the right direction but it is only a small step and the republicans are trying just as hard to repeal The Patient Protection Act as they did the Social Security. The Republicans tried to repeal social security for twenty years and as recently as 2004 baby Bush tried to convince the public that the social security trust fund, held in US Treasury Bonds was just worthless paper. Imagine what China thought when the President of the United States said that US Treasury Bonds were worthless paper.

There is no reason to expect that the increase in the cost of medical care to slow in fact there are signs that the medical care is accelerating with recent hospital cost going up at a rate nearing 24%. We have to take control of the medical monster whether we do it when it has consumed 50% of our take home pay or 90% of our take home pay it has to be done. The Republican illusion of a free market for medical care is just that. If one has absolutely no choice to participate in a market it can never be free market. Most major medical expenses are spent by those whose only choice is living or dying. If consumers of Medical services had unlimited resources it might not be a problem but that is not the case.

The cost of medical care in America per person was a $147 in 1960 by 2009 the cost of medical care per person was $8055 (it increased 55 times). Even if the figures are adjusted for inflation into 2010 dollars they stand at $1082 for medical care per person for a year but by 2009 it had increased to $8,218. That is an increase of nearly "8 times over the rate inflation." Medical care was only 5.8% 0f GNP in 1960 but in 2009 it was 17.8 of GNP. (the above figures were taken from the web site "Just Facts." There is no other product or service that has gone up 8 times over the inflation rate. Gasoline would come closest it went from $.329 in 1966 to $4.30 in 2008 when baby Bush was president. But when 1966 cost of $.329 is adjusted for inflation it is $2.16 in 2008 dollars meaning gasoline only doubled after inflation was taken into account and gasoline is now selling below the inflation adjusted amount. If the $.329 cost of gasoline was adjusted to 2015 dollars it would cost $2.43 and gasoline is currently selling for a $1.76.

The web site goes on to blame the victim if medical cost went up it must be the patient causing the problem because medical insurance is not his money the consumers does not care how much medical care costs. The answer is more responsible patients who will demand lower medical costs. According to these people medical care should be bought on sale like other consumer products. If only people would check the medical adds and see where the medical care was cheapest. Didn't you see the section in Sunday's paper with the medical sales? I didn't either. The reason medical care has gone up 8 times over the inflation rate is that medical consumers just aren't careful with the insurance companies money. The answer is to make sure the medical consumer is careful with the insurance companies money. To do that they want to make sure the medical consumer has some "skin in the game." Read that as money, higher deductibles and higher copays. If the medical consumers is spending his own money he will surely check the Sunday Medical sales adds to find the cheapest price on medical care.

When you go to the hospital with a hart attack it should be like buying a car you should get the doctor down to lowest possible price before you get treatment. No doubt there is a best time of year to have a heart attack and the responsible medical consumer would put off having a heart attack to the slow season when prices are lowest. The insurance companies have found if people don't have the money to get medical care they will put it off. Since the insurance company has already siphoned up to $4,000 in insurance premiums that could have been used to pay for medical care there is little left when the patient needs medical care adding large deductibles and co-pays insures the insured will not seek medical care except in life threatening situations.

Make no doubt about it the insurance company best interests are that you die quickly without medical care. They keep the premiums and don't have to pay out. Your sudden death is the insurance company's controllers dream if more people would just be considerate and die quickly the cost of medical care might not go down but insurance company's profits would go up. The medical industry and the insurance companies will always blame the victim for the 800% increase in medical care over inflation but it is the doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies who have made billions. The consumers are the ones who have had to pay the higher and higher premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. The health insurance companies continued to make profits as the cost of medical care went up 8 times over inflation they raised prices and shifted costs to consumers, lamenting that was the only solution.

There was a time in America when there was no such thing as medical insurance and the medical market place was actually subject to at least some of the free market rules that other market were. The reality was that there was no point charging more than the market could bear. There was no possibility of collecting a medical bill that exceeded the net worth of a patient. This fact held medical costs down for years. Modern health insurance is relatively recent phenomenon in America. "In 1929 a group of Dallas, Texas teachers contracted with Baylor Hospital, for room and board and medical services in exchange for a monthly fee." In effect that is what medical insurance is you pay a monthly fee for medical services sometime in the future. The theory behind insurance is that it creates a large pool of money to pay for a slight risk of large loss you could not afford. Fire insurance is an example very few houses have a fire, in a given year less than one in a hundred have a fire and many of those are minor. So fire insurance can easily cover the loss. No one is pushing for a government take over of fire insurance because the free market works for fire insurance. Most of us will never experience a fire in our lifetime. I have paid fire insurance for 44 years and never had fire. How many can say that about health insurance claims. Where only a very few of us will have a claim for fire almost all of us will have not just a single claim but many claims for medical care in one year. With medical insurance it is not a question of whether you will have a claim but when and how many. There are in fact likely to be many claims for routine medical services in most years. In the 49 years I have had liability car insurance the insurance company ha never paid one single claim in a half century on me or my wife. The problems that are solved best with insurance are ones that have relatively few claims with a large number of people paying that will never have a claim.

Different problems have different solutions we know that the answer to all addition problems is not four. But when it comes to real life problems political ideology gets in the way and we try to make the answer to every problem four even when it is very apparent that it isn't. Political ideology is like religion it is based on belief, let the facts be damned. The number of claims on a medical insurance policy would quickly bury a fire insurance company or a car insurance company.

Where it is very unlikely that someone will ever file a claim for fire insurance it is the exact opposite for health insurance it is unlikely that you will not file a claim. A very tiny fraction do not file health insurance claims. In the end everyone's health deteriorates and goes downhill, only those who die suddenly escape large medical claims. This would equivalent to a fire insurance company knowing going in that if they insured a billion dollar worth of houses that they would have to replace every single house they insured. Insurance is designed to take care of a large risk when only a tiny fraction will have an actual loss.

There is no doubt that medical care costs in America are going out of sight when we are looking at 24% a year increase in hospital costs even when there is little to no inflation we can only imagine what those cost would go up during a time double digit inflation. In 1980 the inflation rate in America was 13.5% if the hospitalization cost went up an additional 24% we would be nearing a geometric progression of medical cost increases.

Everybody would like to get the cost of medical care in America under control. In actuality the Patient Protection Act was more about protecting the bottom line of hospitals and doctors. Medical insurance in America was simply unaffordable if you did not have company supplied medical insurance you could not afford to pay for insurance out of pocket. If you were laid off or became disabled you were faced with paying the COBRA rate for health insurance which was more than your unemployment. The cost of a decent health insurance policy is now more than 50% of the take home pay of many middle class Americans this left them with nothing to pay the huge deductibles and co-pays. The inevitable happened and many people went without insurance. In a free market those who can not afford to participate don't, if you can't afford a house you don't buy one, if you can't afford a car you don't buy one, and if you can't afford buy a TV you don't buy one. But if you or your child are faced with medical problem you have a choice between getting medical care or dying. Those without insurance continued to get medical care and the cost was passed on to those who had insurance or could afford to pay. When you went to the doctor you paid for your care and for the care of those who could not afford to pay. This cost was simply passed on to you and your insurance went up.

The theory behind the Patient Protection Act is that if everyone in America has health insurance the costs of the free riders will no longer have to be paid by those that are insured. Health insurance in America is now mandatory, it is the law of the land and you will pay a fine if you do not have it. In order to make sure everyone has health insurance the government will now subsidize the cost if you can not afford it and those making up to $95,000 a year will have to be subsidized to help pay for health insurance. The cost has once again been shifted. This time it has been shifted to the taxpayers. The theory was as more people are insured and able to pay their own health insurance there would be a large drop in the cost of medical services to others but it didn't happen we saw hospital cost going up this spring at nearly 24%.

Eisenhower once warned us of the Military/Industrial Complex and we now have an army that is ten times larger than any country on earth and that cost will cost us our future. But now we must worry about the Medical/Insurance Complex their lobby is every bit as powerful as the Military/Industrial Complex. The Medical/Insurance Complex successfully blocked national health care when it was the only reasonable solution.

The city of Huntington is self insured but pays Blue Cross to pay the actual bills. Blue Cross gets a 10% to cut to pay the bills. Some of the councilmen decided that it was hard to write a budget without knowing exactly what the cost of medical expenses would be. Just one person could make a large difference in the medical expenses. They decided that if they purchased medical insurance instead of being self insured they could budget the actual cost. Blue Cross told them that they would need 20% for an insurance policy instead of 10% based on the last years bills and if medical expenses went up they would charge that in the next year. The city elected to stay self insured and watched as medical expenses went up additional $2.5 million in three years.

The obvious way to cut the cost of Medical Care is to cut out the one thing that has nothing to do with medical care, health insurance is a giant parasite that is sucking the life blood out of our healthcare system. The administrative cost of health private insurance is 17%, the administrative cost of Medicare is 3% almost six times lower. Under the patient Protection Act the huge government subsidies are being used subsidize insurance companies. We needed national health care but ended up using billion of tax dollars, not to provide medical care but to subsidize private insurance companies. If the government is going to subsidize medical care than at least eliminate the middle man and pay for the medical direct to the medical provider. Why make the billionaires that own the health insurance companies richer with tax dollars. The law now mandates that billion of tax dollars must be given to the insurance companies under penalty of law.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act was compromise between those who believe that a medical misfortune should be just another opportunity to make an outrageous profit on those who have absolutely no choice but to seek their services. The right believes that health care is a luxury, like a TV or a car and only those who can afford to pay for it should be entitled to health care in America. On other side are those who believe health care is a moral responsibility of America. Hospitals in many parts of the country were built and owned by government. In Huntington we have two hospitals one hospital was built in 1956 and owned by taxpayers and named after the county it was in. The local doctors convinced the county that Hospitals should not be owned by taxpayers and should be a privately owned "nonprofit" where millions can be doled out to administrators and doctors without question. The other hospital was St Mary's a charity hospital founded 1924 by the Sisters of the Pallottine Missionary Society. This was started and run as a charity but now the nuns that ran the hospital are all elderly and there are very few young ones entering the order. The Hospital is now being sold to the other "nonprofit" hospital in town.

It is obvious that our grandparents and parents did not view health care as just another opportunity to get rich it was considered a community responsibility. Hospitals were established for the primary purpose of helping the sick not making doctors and insurance company CEOs multi-millionaires. When a doctor worked at a charity hospital he did not do it to become a multi-millionaire. The federal government also gave both hospitals money to help defray the cost of those who could not afford to pay.

The Medical/Insurance Complex has changed the way many people think about health care. Health Care is no longer viewed as a community responsibility where the government or a charity would build a hospital. In 1924 there were no multi-million dollar corporations coming to town to build hospitals. Why? There were no multi-million dollar profits to be made because health insurance was almost unknown a family could pay no more than their available assets for a sick child care. Hospital bills even for those that were well off were often a matter of charity.

Hospital and doctor bills remained reasonable because they could not collect what people didn't have. Health Insurance became more common during WWII when wages were frozen for years. An employer could not pay more but he could give more benefits and health insurance was given as an extra incentive. The early insurance companies were owned by the doctors and they would no longer have to depend on the limited assets of the patients. Health insurance created a huge pool of money that would literally bear unlimited medical charges. When it did run out it was only matter of filling the pool again by raising the cost of insurance. The doctors who owned the insurance companies could justify any cost their ego would permit and doctor's ego are limitless.

The Affordable Health Care and Patient Protection Act if nothing else serves to remind us what our parents and grandparents already knew that healthcare is a community responsibility not just another get rich scheme.

In free market theory making it a law that everyone had to have insurance would lower the cost of healthcare. In reality the cost of healthcare continues increase in the case of hospitalization last year the cost was increasing at nearly 24%. If tomorrow shoplifting could be eradicated the cost of merchandize would go down. Once the free riders are eliminated the costs in a free market would go down. Many of the free riders in the medical system have been eliminated but medical costs continue going up. Why? The medical market place is not a free market and will not act like a free market. The first and most important laws that governors a free market is that the consumer has to be free to chose whether to participate in the market or not. Consumers choosing not to participate in the free market for a service drives the price down. Consumers of Medical care do not have this option faced with a sick child parents must seek medical care for that child under penalty of law. People that purchase healthcare for the most part are a captive audience they have no choice.

Expecting healthcare, which is not a free market, to behave as one was just red neck right political ideology all you need is faith. Making it the law of the land that everyone must have health insurance created a much bigger pool of money to pay for health care. The thing about healthcare is that only a small fraction of the insured will need healthcare at any one time but everyone's money is in the insurance pool every year to be consumed by the medical industry. In the free market you have a single consumer making a single purchase but now in medical care we have three parties paying for medical services, the party receiving the medical service must pay, deductibles and co-pays, the insurance pays, and now the government pays because it must subsidize the health insurance for those making less than $95.000 a year.

Imagine going to a car dealer and telling the dealer you had insurance that when your car wore out the policy would pay a portion of the cost of purchasing a new car, you of course would have to pay the deductible and co-pays. Because car are so expensive and I make less than $95,000 a year the government would pay part of the cost. What do you think would happen to the price of cars when their were three parties paying for a car? Do you think that would be a free market?

The healthcare crisis in America was that America's middle class could simply no longer afford health insurance. Fewer people could afford health insurance every year. Health insurance companies were rapidly losing market share. Health insurance companies have one reason and only one reason to exist and it has nothing to do with healthcare, that reason is to make the largest possible profit and insure that their CEOs make multi-million dollar salaries. The top five for-profit health insurance companies' CEOs made over $10 million in 2014. Ranging from $10.1 million for the CEO of Humana to $15 million for the CEO of Aetna. Health Insurance stock reached an all time high in January of 2015.

When an industry starts losing market share because it can no longer offer a product that the middle class can afford they are in danger of going out of business. If we had set out in America to save the medical insurance industry who were offering a product Americas could no longer afford how would we go about? If middle class America could no longer afford health insurance someone else would have to pay. Now in America it not only requires two payers for a health care bill but we require two payers for health insurance, the insured and the government. Of course the insured pays taxes to the government so the government can subsidize the insurance company and make no doubt about it, it is the insurance company and the $15 million salary of Aetna CEO, Mark Bertolini, that is being subsidized.

The supply and demand curve tells us if you want to raise price you need to raise demand. The law of land mandates 100% demand by penalty of law. That is a utopian environment for any business and should drive the price through the roof. So let's see what Aetna CEO, Mark Bertolini, told his stock holders. In 2014 Bertolini said that insurance rates would have to be raised by 20-50% and in some areas by 100% before government subsidies kicked in. Blue Shield of California is also seeking 12-20% increase in premiums on 300,000 people and California was one of the states with the lowest health insurance costs prior to the insurance companies being subsidized.

This shows how powerful Insurance/Medical Complex is. Of course after Bertolini raises insurance premiums a 100% he can then justify doubling his $15 million salary. The medical insurance companies are responsible for Americans paying four times as much for medical care than any other country in the world. The insurance industry supplies no medical care, it has never delivered a baby or treated a heart attack, it is a parasite, that collects premiums, pays medical claims and takes its 20% cut of the top. The government can do the same at a tiny fraction of the cost and Bertolini would making only about $130,000 a year working for the government instead of $15 million.

Once upon a time in America people were morally responsible except for the criminal element. What now passes as good business practices would have been considered morally bankrupt. There is not a law against every crime. A half century ago a law was not needed to govern every economic transaction. For the most part people knew that it was immoral to take economic advantage of others even when they could easily do it. If parents have a child with leukemia it is just another opportunity for the CEO of the health insurance company to add big bucks to his $15 million dollar salary. If medical care for the child costs $500,000 health insurance premiums are simply raised that much to cover the cost and of course when the amount of insurance premiums go up the CEO salary goes up.

When did it become fashionable in America to look at disease as just another profit opportunity? America underwent a major paradigm shift in the 80s led by disciple of greed, Ronald Reagan. In the future America will be viewed by historians who study America economics in two time periods, as Before Reagan (BR) and After Reagan (AR). The American middle class ceased to advance after Reagan only the rich shared in the increasing GNP. The middle class produced more but actually had less to show for it. Gross pay which went up only slightly during the Clinton administration is only one measure of declining economics, the two other major areas of major economic impact after Reagan were health insurance and college educations the cost of both went up exponentially after Reagan. These impacted the middle class far more than just the lack of economic advancement over the last 30 year period.

It was not Michael Douglas' character in "Wall Street" who first said "Greed is good." It was Ronald Reagan who convinced American people that "greed is good" not only just by his word but by his deeds. Ronald Reagan and the right believed that greed was a superior governing force. Reagan shifted the paradigm, he believed that greed was not bad, it was an economic engine that would drive the economy. Reagan would have seen nothing wrong with health insurance going up 35 times. People could do without health insurance and that is the solution many Americans employed but to counter that our government now mandates that you must buy health insurance.

College tuition at Marshall University has gone from a $104 semester in 1968, that I paid for mowing lawns to $3407 a semester now. Reagan solution if you can't afford it don't go that is the greed based solutions. In practice most college student take out large loans that they will take most of their lifetime to pay. The banks now step in and make huge profits on a service they don't supply another parasite industry having nothing to do with the service of supplying an education.

Reagan changed America from a country who made economic decisions on a moral bases to a country who made economic decisions based on greed only. This simple paradigm shift impacted middle class Americans far more than they would ever know.

The question Americans are going to have to ask themselves is, "Is greed Good?" The answer will be found in how America changed in the last 35 years and it will be relative to where you fall on the economic scale. For the rich there is no question that greed is good. The top 400 Americans now each have a yearly income of $344,844,000. Compare that to the average income of the top 1/100 of 1% before Reagan, it was $3,641,285. In this same period the average Americans income was static.

For the middle class greed has not been good, at least two main requirements for middle class lifestyle, a decent education and health insurance that protects them from the cost of a major illness are no longer affordable. The solution is to the health insurance problem is to have the government mandate the purchase of and subsidize the cost of health insurance for those making up to $95,000 a year and of course this mandated purchase is a substandard product that will not pay enough of a major illness to keep a family from bankruptcy. Real health insurance that pay enough to keep the patient from bankruptcy is now referred to as Cadillac Insurance and the government is going to tax it out of existence. What does it say about America when you tell Americans making up to $95,000 year that they no longer make enough to afford one of the basic necessities of life?

Every parent knows that even if they start saving when a child is born that they will never come close to paying for their child's college education and in fact most are still struggling to pay for their own college education when their child starts going to college. In America this is now a never ending circle of funding the banking system to purchase a few years of education. In some parts of the world a brides family would have to pay a dowry upon marriage but now in America the greedy have changed the custom and the groom now has to pay $300,000 to the banking system for his wife's student loans.

It has been very good for the greedy to make indentured servants out of a generation. In America at one time indentured servants were common. The typical term was five years to pay for their passage to north America. However children were kidnapped from France and England and taken to Caribbean their contracts were bought and sold repeatedly and some labors never attained their freedom. The average time to pay off a student loan for an undergraduate degree in America is now 21 years. Maybe we could just have students sell themselves as indentured servants for five years in exchange for paying off their student loans. After all the banking system has them indentured for 21 years.

The theory of greed that Reagan expounded was that the richer you made the rich the better off America would be. Reagan was a big believer in the Russian, Ayn Rand, who believed only the rich were real people all the rest were "as beast of the field" without sense enough to come out of storm. The more money the rich had the more "beasts of the field" they could care for. The right thinks the Russian, Ayn Rand novel "Atlas Shrugged" was the best road map for America and with Reagan help they sat about putting the Russians ideas to work in America.

It is easy for an ideologue to pretend that his ideology is a solution to every problem. He can point to the areas where his ideology works and reason because of it success in other areas that it will be a successful solution in all other areas. Homeowners insurance and auto insurance work because they have a small claims to premium ratio. The political ideologue is like a child putting down the answer 4 for every problem on her math test and that answer might be correct for one problem. Even the most ardent free market ideologue is now faced with the reality that after decades of free market health insurance the middle class can no longer afford it and the government must now subsidize the purchase of even a substandard medical insurance policy for those making up to $95,000 a year. In a free market the market place picks the best product, in the health insurance market real health insurance will be finned out of existence. Once the government decided to subsidize the medical insurance market one of the biggest health insurance CEOs, making $15 million a year, quickly claimed they needed 50% to 100% increases in the cost of health insurance.

If you went to the beach this year and your child was drowning and you were approached by a lifeguard who asked how much you would pay for him to save your child? If you hesitated he would say this is a free market and there is another lifeguard a couple of thousand feet down the beach he did not know what he charged but you could ask but your daughter might not last long. you would concede to pay any price he asked and soon lifeguards would be the some of highest earners in the country, after all they were in the business of saving lives and risked theirs in the process.

Lifeguarding is not a free market activity because of the emergency nature of the work. The buyer of lifeguard service is not only a motivated buyer he has no choice. Medical emergences services are similar in nature, a child injured in a car accident will not be taken from hospital to hospital to get three estimates. If the doctor asked how much you would pay to save your child? You would be willing to pay any price. The essence of the free market, the power to contract for the best price is gone.

The medical/insurance complex stayed under a measure of control until Reagan shifted paradigm, up until that time in America greed was considered one of the seven deadly sins by most Americans. Reagans message to America was not only that "greed is good" it was also that the middle class were free riders on the greedy' coat tails. Reagan sent a resounding message to America via the biggest tax cuts for the greedy in history. Income tax on the greedy were cut from 70% to 28%. That was a 60% cut in income taxes during Reagan term in office. By 1988 anyone making over $29,750 was paying the same tax rate as a billionaire. There were 16 different tax brackets when Reagan took office. When he left office there were only two tax brackets one of 15% for those making under $29,750 and 28% on those making over $29,750. Under Reagan the middle class paid the same tax rate as his billionaire friends. There is an old saying, "if you want less of something tax it." The converse is also true if you want more of something cut the taxes on it. Reagan tax cuts set off a tidal wave of greed across America that has not subsided to this day.

When Reagan took office greed became an admired American value. Reagan viewed life like his Russian hero, Ayn Rand, did. In Ayn Rand's novel the ungodly greed go on strike and disappear into an unaccessible valley and America descend into a Mad Max like world. Of course the ungodly create a paradise. One of life's lessons is that I learned is that I have never seen anyone that was irreplaceable. The narcissism that exudes from every sentence in Ayn Rand's novel, "Atlas Shrugged" is obvious the product of cult leaders mind set and indeed Ayn Rand was cult leader but her narcissism took in those who believed that they were the heroes of her novel. America will pay the price for letting this one Russian emigrate into America for generations. Those who are narcissistic are easily deceived and manipulated.

Contrary to popular opinion s*** just doesn't happen in most cases. We are not "just leaves in the wind." We are responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in. This happened on our watch, when we were young adults both medical insurance and a college education were easily affordable and the affordable medical insurance was not a substandard product that paid only for a portion of medical care. These were not "leaves in the wind" the winds of time did not blow them to a place where the middle class can no longer afford them. The paradigm changed. This paradigm change had to do with who should pay for college education, the college student or the taxpayers. When I went to college I paid a small portion of my education and the taxpayers footed most of the bill because taxpayers had a vested interest in seeing the next generation get a good education. Contrast this with the paradigm that Russ Limbaugh pushes on his radio program. Rush believes that his multi-million dollar estate should not be taxed to provide any education whatsoever. He has no children and he believes he has no responsibility to provide even an elementary education. Of course if society had not paid for Rush's education we would not have to put up with him on the radio. So far the public schools have survived Rush's attack on the prevailing paradigm but the right has been extremely successful in cutting the taxes of the rich and shifting the cost to college students. It takes twenty-one years to pay for a college education in the 70s a loan was not necessary to go to a public college.

The one best examples of a paradigm shift is given by an author that I have long ago forgot. The example has a man on a commuter train and there are two children running wild on the train and their father does not seem to notice. The author was quite upset with the man who is not paying attention to his children. He goes over to give the parent a piece of his mind. The man apologizes for his children and explains he was coming home from the hospital where his wife has just died. The author's paradigm had shifted and he apologized. We all act out of paradigms whether they are right or wrong. A tape records voices, a movie camera records pictures and voices, but people not only record voice and pictures we project motives on those we record. We all act as if our paradigms are true but society's paradigms can be shifted once they reach a "tipping point." The paradigms of one generation may be rejected or changed by next. Marijuana is a good example when I went to college if you were caught with even a small personal amount you went to jail for at least a year. Now it is legal in some states. This is a paradigm shift. Is marijuana a dangerous drug or just another drug like alcohol? It is which paradigm we chose to believe.

Our social existence is built on paradigms the ones we chose to accept and the ones we chose to reject. The "tipping point" determines the prevailing paradigms. The skin heads have paradigms but they will never reach the tipping point. Reagan championed a tremendous paradigm shift in America in the 80s he bought the ideas of Ayn Rand, a Russian cult leader, to mainstream America. "The Virtues of Selfishness" is a book by Ayn Rand this more than anything defines her philosophy and this is what Reagan bought to America. Reagan and right believed that selfishness was the principal that should govern America. If each man did his best to achieve his best short term interest all of society's interests would be best served. Rand called her philosophy Objectivism. For the last 35 years we have suffered under "The Virtues of Selfishness" and the two most affected areas are medical care and college educations but these are just the first areas to suffer.

Alan Greenspan was one of Ayn Rand cult members her power to damage America life went beyond the grave. A philosopher's words don't follow them to their grave they are as close to immortality any human will ever get. "Never underestimate self interest as a motive." And philosophies appeal to people based on self interest.

The good news is the current paradigm can be changed it is not cast in concrete. The right was very successful in changing the paradigm in the 80s and they now refer to America as a center right country, in other words America's political center is on the right not in the center. Political philosophy can be reverse engineered. We must first understand how the prevailing paradigm was changed. We have to understand the time and the influential people who changed it. We have to understand direction the political winds were blowing. Even though the hard political changes took place in the 80s the roots of that movement go back into the 50s. Atlas Shrugged was released in 1957, and it had the message the rich could not wait to hear. It affirmed all of their narcissistic beliefs about themselves. The rich at the time believed every time there was a strike for better wages or more benefits that it was criminal act taking what rightfully belonged to them. The rich believed if you hired someone for 40 cents an hour they should still be happy to work for that 40 cents an hour 40 years later despite inflation, all the increase profit was theirs. The plot of Rand's book is a strike by the rich and in Rand's rich fantasy life her imagination out does itself. Rand believed America simply could exist without the rich, all others are simply beast of burden that are replaceable. Only the rich make a meaningful economic contribution and that is substantially the philosophy of the right today. They live in absolute fear of the rich going away (or on strike). They know it is not possible for a beasts of the field to make a living on their own.

Rand was not like Sarah Palin, she could actually look out her window and see the communist revolution taking place in fact the communist revolution made it possible for her to get a university education something that would not have happened before the revolution. Ayn Rand Russian real name was Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum. She was educated at Petrograd State University where she studied in the department social pedagogy, majoring in history. Her father owned a drug store with other family members before the revolution and the communists took it. Later he set up another drug store that was also taken. Her lifestyle had been severely impacted by the communist, no more vacations or nice houses just a dirty apartment complex. The communists (working people) simply took their business. This was a wrong she would never forget and would later avenge on the working class in America. Rand would view strikes in America as taking what rightfully belonged to the rich. In Rand's mind the rich should simply give as they saw fit, there should be no such thing as collective bargaining.

Why was Ayn Rand book so influential in America? Ayn Rand was one of the first cult leaders who had access to the new mass media of television. Cult leaders have a lot of charisma and find it easy to influence people. After Ayn Rand emigrated to America she found work in Hollywood as a screen writer. Screen writing is the art of manipulating people's emotions. This put Ayn Rand in the right circles, these people believed their job was to shape public opinion. Hollywood had made movies during WWII to influence how the American people felt about WWII. Hollywood just didn't make movies for entertainment they would define what America values were.
The title of Ayn Rand book was meant to evoke the image of Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Atlas of course was the rich, who carried the weight of the world on their shoulders but simply shrugged under it weight. The message of the 1168 page novel was that the rich were being used and abused by the middle class.

Rand saw herself as one of these creative people which were being abused by the tax laws. America was still paying for WWII in 1957 and the tax rate was 91% on a three million income. Rand was running in the circles of people that had large incomes and paid high taxes. Reagan pointed out one of his reasons for cutting the taxes by 60% on the rich was that his friend William Holden would only make one movie a year because he got a million a picture and did not want to pay more taxes. In the 50s people in Hollywood income was going up and so were the their taxes. These people were in the unique position of influencing public opinion and later elected one of their own, Ronald Reagan, to do something about it.

Ayn Rand's message that they were entitled to their vast wealth fell on receptive ears. Now all of the clout of Hollywood could be bought to bear. Hollywood had close ties with the publishing world and Rand was a frequent guest on television programs, she was interviewed on TV by Robert Kennedy, Phil Donahue, she was on the Tonight Show, she was a celebrity. Rand told Mike Wallace that she was the "most creative thinker alive."

She was much more, she was a perfect storm she was at the right place at the right time, with a message a group of over privileged people badly wanted to hear. Ayn formative years were shaped by the Russian Revolution which was a major paradigm shift. Ayn understood that paradigm shifts were caused by philosophers.

The rights myth of the liberal news media is just that a myth. Ayn Rand got so much media attention for one reason, her political philosophy was the same as the people who were paying for the media. They saw themselves as special and even though they already had most of America's wealth they wanted the rest of it. When the Rand came along and told them they were entitled to it she was preaching to choir. All of our news media, newspapers, magazines, radio, and television is paid for by someone with a self interest. The people who are footing the bills are not liberal. They are not likely to buy time on news shows that do not reflect their political views. In the 50s how we got our news was in a state of transition, at one time newspapers had been the primary source of news and political philosophy but that was changing. The development of radio helped to spread the news but television was face to face and that was major change. The written word and even a voice convey only part of our message because important body language is left out of these transactions. Television was a leap forward especially to convey political ideas.

But there was a downside as the only political ideas that were going to see very much air time on the new media were those sponsors would pay to put on air. It is no wonder that Ayn Rand was such a frequent guest on television shows she would attract sponsor dollars. At one time the primary source of revenue for newspapers was the from the consumer so articles were not censored but as advertising revenue began to exceed the consumer's portion a big advertiser could object to the content of the news paper's editorial page and threaten to withdraw his advertising if the paper continued to support a particular political philosophy. It is said that our eyes and our ears are basically filters. We see only a small portion of the light spectrum and we hear only a small portion of sound waves, our news media now filters out most of the political spectrum. Since the 50s the political ideas that populate most of our news media are the right and farther right and the damage done to our way of life is evident.

"You stood here and watched the storm with the greatest pride one can ever feel--because you are able to have summer flowers and half naked women in your house for a night like this, in demonstration of your victory over that storm. And if it weren't for you, most of those who are here would be left helpless at the mercy of that wind in the middle of some such plain."

From the novel "Atlas Shrugged"

These two sentences relate the entire message of the Rand 1168 page novel. The message that the rich are not only unique but far superior to ordinary people. The ordinary man simply could not survive without the rich to care for him. It was not surprising that the rich would find Rand's book not only flattering but accurate. But rich only make up a small percentage of America population and they already held that opinion of themselves. To distort the prevailing paradigm a large portion of the population would have to believe the Russian novel was correct and that 99% Americans "would be left helpless at the mercy of that wind." It is hard to believe but some working people soon began to believe that was true, that they were "helpless at the mercy of the wind." Belief in Rand's paradigm started small but by the 80s it had reached a tipping point when Reagan and Rand's disciples took control of the Whitehouse. Remember a paradigm does not have to correct, you just need to believe it is.

The rich's belief in Rand philosophy is driven by their narcissistic self concept but what about those who are not rich? Why would they belief in such nonsense? We are back to the cracking twig in the jungle, fear. The emotional mind's calculation that gives us the world religions if there is one chance in a hundred thousand that Ayn Rand novel might happen it is best not to take the chance. Fear is a powerful emotion. Even in the booming 50s there were plant closings, the massive Studebaker-Packard plant in Detroit closed in 1956. This factory is the largest closed factory in the world a 3.5 million square ft. factory covering 35 acres, pictures can be found on the internet. Kaiser-Frazer stopped making cars in 1955. These closures were just growing pains in the auto industry. But another more serious problem was that automation was beginning to replace people on the assembly lines across America.

It was one thing to read about a factory closing in the newspaper but it was quite different to see it on television, To see those who were losing their job interviewed. Our mirror neurons are quick to pick up on the fear from the faces of those who lost their job. Those in Detroit who witnessed the closing of the 35 acres Packard Plant must have thought it was a scene from Rand's book where Rearden, one of her heroes, closes his steel manufacturing plant and runs off to the hidden valley. Fear is a tool often used to drive political philosophy and 1950s America with the recent advent of television it was a perfect time to use fear.

By the time Reagan was elected the Rand's paradigm had reached the tipping point and many Americans believed that America's rich were an endangered specie. The paradigm does not have to be correct but people will always act as if it is correct. In WWII Germany the prevailing paradigm was that Jews were evil and the root of many of Germany's economic problems. Once the German people believed this they had no trouble exterminate Jews like cockroaches. Six million Jews died because the Germans believed that belief in a different magical book made them somehow less human. During the French Revolution the prevailing paradigm was that rich were evil. The rich were roasted on a barbeques spit and fed to their wives. The paradigm had reached a tipping point in both WWII Germany and in France during the French Revolution. In America south during the 19th and early 20th century lynching of blacks was acceptable. That paradigm had to be forcibly changed by strict enforcement by the federal government. The idea that citizens had the right to string somebody up on the corner lamp post is unimaginable to most people today but it was a reality in America not to distant past. A lynch mob acted as judge, jury and executioner and there was no appeal process.

What happened in America when Rand's paradigm reached the tipping point? Reagan tax cuts heralded the biggest shift of wealth in American history. The middle class had previously shared in the growth in Gross Domestic Product (measure of all goods and services produced in America) but after Reagan only the rich benefited by the increase in the GDP. The middle class no longer benefited from the increased goods and service it produced. Reagan great economic theory was called "trickle down economics" that if most of the wealth of America was placed in the hands of the talented rich some of it eventually would "trickle down" to the other classes. (Classic Ayn Rand.) Movie actors should probably stick to acting and leave economics to someone who has actually opened an economic text book.

Since 1981 the year Reagan took office the real GDP went from $6.5873 trillion to $16.3336 trillion.(in 2009 chained dollars) In that period the GDP increased 250% but middle class wages remained the same after they were adjusted for inflation. Reagan answer to Rand paradigm was to make the rich richer at the expense of the middle class. It has been 34 years since Reagan first took office and they were the worst years in history for the American middle class. Just because a President goes out of office doesn't mean the prevailing paradigm goes with him. Reagan has been out of office since 1989 but no president has been able to undo the damage he did and in fact Baby Bush cut the taxes on the rich further with the richest among (read that billionaires) now paying the lowest tax rates. If Hitler had died in of a heart attack and someone replaced him they would not have stopped killing Jews in Germany only military force by other countries stopped the gas chambers.

The American middle class may not have been lynched or sent to the gas chambers but we have been economically lynched. We have patiently waited for all the wealth Reagan told us would trickle down only to hear a giant sucking sound as the middle class watched college educations and medical care become unaffordable. The rich used their increased wealth to buy the political system and award themselves even more tax cuts in every state in the union. We will have to change the paradigm and rid ourselves forever of the ghost of John Galt (Ayn Rand's primary hero in "Atlas Shrugged." "Atlas Shrugged Part I" the movie was released in 2011, a box office failure that wasn't shown in most theaters, but none the less Atlas Shrugged: Part II was released in 2012, followed by "Atlas Shrugged : Part III Who is John Gault? in 2014. The box office on "Atlas Shrugged: Part I" was only $4,627,375 but it took $20 million to produce. Such large failures seldom have sequels. The fact that what was a best selling book in 50s can and no longer get an audience tells the paradigm is changing.

Many on the right thought the "Atlas Shrugged" movie would be an earth shattering event but it ranked among Hollywood's worst failures losing $3 for every dollar it bought in at the box office. I was sure that the sequels would never be made but I guess the rich decided to underwrite the losses anyway. When the first movie came out it had its own official internet site and I could not resist arguing with a few of the red necks. The original movie only played in a limited number of theaters and I would have had to rive a number of miles to see it and since I had read the entire 1168 pages of the book I didn't figure I missed much. Reading Wikipedia summary of the movie it looks like the movie was true to the book accept for changing the start of the disaster. The plot is that in in 2016 America gasoline is $37 a gallon instead of the $1.59 I paid yesterday, and rail travel becomes the main mode of travel. In the 1940s travel by train was important mode of travel but now the vast majority of people only train ride was in an amusement park. I won't bore you with the rest of the plot which justifies creating a permanent underclass.

I must admit in a world where the rich and talented are used and abused by ordinary people it is hard not to feel sorry for hedge fund managers making $5 billion a year and paying a 1/5 of the tax rate I am paying this year. The "Atlas Shrugged" movie had been in the works for 40 years but when it came to the big screen it was an even bigger failure than the backers could have ever imagined. The first sequel had a one star rating from the internet site Rotten Tomatoes.

It is not 1957 in America anymore. We no longer live under a cloud of fear that there will be an atom bomb strike any day. School children no longer drill for an atomic war cowering under their desk. Fall out shelters are no longer being built and you no longer see the symbols on large building that designated them as fall out shelters. In a climate of fear it is easy to incite more fear. Ayn Rand was also addicted to drugs "Atlas Shrugged" and her other main novel were written in a drugged induced state. If you look at pictures of Rand on the internet she has the look of someone you would avoid in a crowd. The fact that the right would so quickly garb on to the political philosophy of a drug addicted Russian has a lot to do with the climate of fear in America at that time but America is yet to shake off the Russian ideas. Rand's stories will always be retelling of her fathers drug store be taken by the communists. She never made peace with the ordinary people who stole her childhood but it was the ordinary people in America that paid the price.

The steep drop in natural gas prices had an unpleasant side effect in WV. The coal fired power plants that could switch to cheep cleaning burning natural gas switched. The market for coal tanked and many coal minors lost their jobs. This is simply the free market at work if natural gas is cheaper than coal it will be the preferred fuel for new power plants. The coal miners blamed Obama and WV elected the first republican legislature in more than 80 years. To be sure EPA issued new regulations requiring coal plants to cut down on the amount of death causing pollutants that were spewed into the air each day. Pollution can and should be measured in the number of deaths it causes. The tri-state area downwind from a coal fired plant has one of the highest rates of cancer in America. If the people that died from the pollution keeled over and died immediately it would be easy for most people to connect the two but when they breath dirty polluted air for twenty years and die most people don't associate the deaths with pollution.
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Chronic exposure to air pollution particles contributes to the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease as well as lung cancer, WHO said.
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Three million people a year die prematurely because of air pollution worldwide. To put that context in last century 6 million died in the Holocaust, air pollution is killing the same number of people every two years. Every tens years there are 30 million people killed by air pollution and it is expected to get worse with 6.6 million a year killed by air pollution by 2050. The Holocaust was considered one of the worlds greatest tragedies but killing three million people a year with polluted air is considered a right as long as you make a profit.

We kill 200,000 people in America each year and that number would be 400% to 500% higher without an active EPA but when it is a choice between your high paying job and 200,000 people dying most people will chose their job. Graph showing by far the biggest concentration of air pollution particles from power generating plants is in the eastern part of the US where many coal fired power plants abound. I wonder if the coal miner knew that burning dirty coal would cause his child to die 20 years earlier, would he still fight stricter pollution regulations on coal fired plants? You can never underestimate self interest and self interest tends to be in the here and now. The future is intangible but what we do now will come back to haunt us.

Big coal and the republicans would eliminate the EPA or make it a toothless tiger with no power to enforce regulations against air pollution.
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"The sky resembled no sky on earth so much as Victorian vision of hell: dark even at noon, with roiling plumes of dark smoke. So foul was the Manchester air in 1848, at the height of the industrial revolution, that mothers. it was said could barely make out the outlines of their children across the street."

From the book "Did Man Create God" by David E Comings, MD
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In 1948 in Donora, Pennsylvania, severe industrial pollution created deadly smog that asphyxiated 20 people and sickened 7,000 others. During the 60s people dying because of air pollution was common and we are not talking about people dying 20 years early. When a temperature inversion forced the smog closer to the ground people with breathing problems simply died. Those deaths were considered an acceptable cost of big coal "right" to pollute the air we breath.
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The American Lung Association (ALA) defines pollution (formerly referred as soot) "as the most dangerous, and deadly of the widespread outdoor air pollutants." Particle pollution is microscopic and made up of a complex mixture that can include ash. soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols. In the eastern US many of the particles come from power plants use coal to produce electricity. In the western US, many come diesel trucks, buses and heavy equipment as well as agriculture and wood burning," according to ALA. "Breathing particle pollution year round can shorten life by one to three years. It causes many other health effects, premature births to serious respiratory disorders even when particle levels are very low. It makes asthma worse and causes wheezing and coughing, and respiratory irritation in anyone with sensitive airways. It also triggers heart, strokes, irregular heartbeats and premature deaths. "

From the internet site "Water and Air Pollution"
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If pollution was so bad that we could not make out the outlines of our children across the street because of air pollution it would be hard for the anyone to support the Republican position of more air pollution for all but when the air pollution that is killing us is literally microscopic it is easy for the republicans to say, what air pollution? Do you see any air pollution? If you can't see it won't hurt you. We spend billions on health care trying to purchase just a few more months of life but at the same time we let big coal cost everyone one to three years of their life.

Republicans have made big promises to big coal that they will roll back pollution regulations on coal. The Republican congress wants to strip the EPA of any power and bring each and every air pollution regulation up for vote where they could secure the highest bribes for voting down each and every regulation. Why bother with medical insurance if we are just going to allow big coal to kill us anyway?

The Republican party's pro dirty air and premature death position, has made it the darling of both big coal and the miner's unions. It is highly unusual to see both management and unions support the same political agenda. WV has a higher than average union membership. When unions start telling their members to vote Republican dirty air is a shoe in. Look for Republicans to turn back air pollutions regulations thirty years and increase death by pollution to over a million a year. In a country where government is for sale to highest bidder Big Coal will get what it is willing to pay for. The Republican party claims to be pro-life but when it comes to dirty air they could care less how many people suffer and die with dirty air induced lung cancer and other lung aliments. This demonstrates the Republican party has never been pro-life or they would not be advocating dirty air that is killing 200,000 Americans each and every year. The anti-abortion position was just something they could exploit for votes it had nothing to do with life at all. What type of idiot would advocate killing people with dirty air when there is an alternative? Someone who is on the take and lining his pockets with campaign contributions.

In the future they will no doubt be able to plot on graphs where the prevailing winds take the pollution the deaths will increase the closer you get to the source of the pollution. On my way to Athens Half Marathon in Ohio each year I drive past the biggest coal fired power plant in Ohio, the James E Gavin Power Plant. Just to the east of it down wind of the power plant was a small 140 year old town named Cheshire. In 2002 American Electric Power purchased the entire town to avoid a number of complaints about pollution. A few residents chose to remain. The prevailing winds should be plotted and health studies done at different distance from coal burning plants to see how severe the health effects are. The studies should also be done on the older power plants which are far dirtier and scheduled be shut down under the new regulations, the republicans hope to keep them operating by rolling back the EPA regulations, once the cause and effect has been strongly established the damage parties should bring suit for damages. The republican party is not pro-life they pro death as long as someone makes a good profit on those deaths and can make large campaign contributions.

The republicans were carried into office by the pro air pollution vote and the anti Obama vote. WV may be the most racist state in America with one county voting almost 90% for Hillary Clinton. I have never seen another competitive presidential primary where one candidate got nearly 90% of the vote. Once the Republicans took control of the state Senate and House in WV they set their pro pollution agenda in motion. The Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey, another Republican, sued the EPA. The Federal Appeals Courts put the clean air act on hold this week until the case makes it to the Supreme Court. Morrisey is another dirty air breather who thinks all the children in WV should be raised on dirty air instead of mothers milk.

Yesterday the WV House passed another Republican priority. "The Religious Bigotry and Ignorance" bill sailed through the House. This bill legalize discrimination as long as it is done for religious reasons. There are none so ignorant as those who chose to be ignorant. This bill has been pushed by the Republican Party all across America. The bill would mandate that all gay people be required be required to sew a large pink G on their clothing so that the religious right could pick and chose who their imaginary God wants them to do business with. Well it is not quite that bad yet but don't think for a moment that they would not do that if they could. After all they have to think of their immortal soul and what would happen if God found them doing business with a gay that didn't look like a gay. Wasn't that the eleventh commandment? Thou shall not do business with gays. The one thing the pink letters might do is make these businessmen who don't want to do business with gays realize how much business they do with gays without realizing it.

Evolutionary scientists use reverse engineering to understand people. Most of mankind traits have an evolutionary reason to exist, they serve a purpose. Religions are a problem because they are very obviously false and what good does it do for someone to believe in a false belief? Even the most devoutly religious across the world will tell you how utterly ridiculous all other religions are other than their religion. Their religion is the one true religion. Our minds evolved to separate what was true from what is false. If we were faced with tiger and decided it was a rabbit we would have no descendants. Our survival depends on discovering what is true and what is false in our environment.

____________________________________________________ "The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."

H L Menken
____________________________________________________ " In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine the truth, and that illness and misfortune are caused and alleviated by spirits, ghosts, saints, fairies, angels, demons, cherubim, djinns, devils, and gods. According to polls, more than a quarters of today's Americans believe witches, almost half believe in ghosts, half believe in devils, half believe that the book of Genesis is literally true, sixty nine percent believe in angels, and ninety six percent believe in God or a universal spirit."

From the book: "How the Mind Works" by Steven Pinker
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Religious freedom is freedom is the freedom to believe in the most outrageous nonsense that you can find but it does not give you special exemptions from the laws of the land. It does not give you the freedom to remake society in the image of your imaginary god. You can do on Sunday whatever you want to do short of human sacrifice which is by the way part of your religious tradition but Monday morning you have to live in the real world. Freedom of religious worship is not the freedom violate the laws and principals the country was founded on.