THIS POST WILL BE FOR
Letters to the editor of the Alpena newspaper, which have not been printed.

I do not expect to get a lot of these letters to post, but if you want, I will post it here, if they do not contain profanity or other things I think violate common decency. Will not print things I know to be false, but will not say they are anything more than the opinion of the person who submitted it. Name of the author must be printed with the letter.
In the event a letter is printed by the Alpena newspaper after it is posted here, I will remove it from this site.

2. I am aware of three letters to the editor not printed so far this year, in addition to the one of Bill Freese’s posted below. Those are one from John, who longer lives in Alpena, who wrote about the Lafarge settlement with the EPA. One by Craig on the MDOT doing a traffic study for the Meijer’s store to be built on M-32 West of Alpena.

1. Letter submitted by Bill Freese, Director of the Huron Environmental Activist League (HEAL), follow an article at the end of December about Lafarge signing an agreement with the EPA to increase pollution control at their Alpena plant. After a complaint to the Alpena newspaper that they should have stated that this was a settlement of a law suit, and not an agreement, per se, they printed a mea culpa “editorial in the box,” that while not mentioning the complaint, or that the law suit had gone on for several years, corrected the idea given by the article that this was only an agreement. The editorial stated that Lafarge was spending millions of dollars to reduce pollution from the plant as a part of the settlement. In that article Lafarge spokesperson spoke about how proud Lafarge is of their environmental improvements. No one from the EPA was interviewed for the story, and no one from HEAL was interviewed for the story, although HEAL had a great deal to advancing the improvements at the plant over the years. Most improvements Lafarge has resisted.

Bill Freese’s letter:

December 27, 2013

Letter to the Editor
Alpena News
130 Park Place
Alpena,MI 49707

Dear Sir

Finally!!! After 20 plus years as a member and now director of the Huron Environmental Activist League we have reason to believe that the New Year will be better for the health of the residents and the environment of Northeast Michigan. That is why HEAL was formed and it is all we have ever wanted.

Compliance with the 2010 federal consent order by Lafarge and oversight by the state and USEPA might make it happen. We have heard that the new scrubbers and pollution control equipment will collect wastes that will require that they are sent to a regulated or a special disposal area like the one, as I have heard about, and think it was in Vickeryville Ohio. As for considering Lafarge as a good neighbor we will have to take a wait and see position. It might take some time but it could happen.

Bill Freese
Director of HEAL

Costs of Health Care

The costs of health care have risen for various reasons: There is more health care treatments and diagnostic methods available today, with new drugs, technology, science; the
U. S. population is older, and large health care providers are consolidating, among other reasons.

Many commentators are concerned that the growing part of the gross domestic product is taken by health care costs. Over the history of the United States shares of the economy have changed. For the first century of our nation, agriculture was the primary industry. Compare that to the post WWII economy, when we have gone from a nation where 90 percent of us lived on farms, to one where less than five percent of the population is involved in the initial production of food. However, far more persons are involved in the making, transporting, marketing of food products than ever before.

There should be no concern that the health care segment of the economy is growing and so crowding out other things. The share various activities hold of any economy be and flow. As health care grows asa share of the economy, so do those jobs, products and supporting activities. The question of health care costs growing is best seen as part of the declining standard of living in the United States. Wages and benefits have not gone up at the historic rate found between growing productivity and wages. This slows economic growth and then as costs of health care increase, the worker feels the loss of spending power in other things, since health care is a necessity.

When hospitals and other medical employers are forced to cut costs, due to lower reimbursements and other cost containment and reduction policies of government and private insurers, the easiest place to cut costs is often wages and benefits of health care employees, including doctors and nurses, as well as general employees who provide building and grounds maintenance, secretarial, and other services. So when such an employee hears that a person running for public office will find ways to cut health care costs, the employee ought to think of their own wages and benefits.

Answers to finding ways for citizens to receive health care ought to be driven by basic economics, and facts. The use of private insurance increases the cost of health care, due to the need of profit. In fact, under the Affordable Health Care Act (AFC), the profit insurance companies are allowed is regulated, so that if the profit is exceeded, the insurance company must give refunds to their customers. Medicare costs 20 percent less than private insurance due to their being no cost of profit. Medicare is the most economically efficient health care insurance in our country.

Many health care workers cannot afford their health care benefits, due to being required to pay a share of the premiums and then pay co-pays and deductibles. And this is true of workers in other fields of work, including under Obamacre (AFC). The weaknesses of Obamacare will become apparent as hospitals and other health care providers see their revenues decline on a per patient basis.

A great disservice has been done to the medical patient by now referring to the patent as a consumer, making purchase decisions. Very few persons have the time, or education necessary to make good choices in the health care and health insurance “markets.” It is reasonable to call a person looking to buy a television, or a house a consumer. If they cannot afford a large television set, they can live with a smaller one, and perhaps even buy a used one at a low price; but, for a medical patient, buying less insurance hardly makes sense, because a person cannot predict what their illnesses will be, or when they will need it. No one would want less than adequate health care, but by placing patients in a market system, the patents, then chose between things they find hard to understand.

Will a patient really know if an x-ray is a good choice, or should they get the MRI, which costs more? If the doctor says, in this case an MRI is the recommended imaging needed, or perhaps he says a PET scan, or a CAT scan with contrast dye, or something else. But the consumer can only afford the lower cost x-ray. This is not like choosing the smaller television set. Whatever their condition is, may not be revealed.

As Franklin Roosevelt said, a necessitous man is not free. Those who plead the case of free market economics, talk about freedom and fairness. The market is not at all a fair place, nor a place a person seeks freedom. If a person is left to the market for health care his freedom is limited. Political freedom is a difficult thing to hold on to, but health is needed to enjoy the freedoms which we have. The political far right essentially argues that you are better, struggling with a painful hip, than to have a government program pay to replace the hip; because you are free of government.

The United States needs a combination of an increase in the minimum wage, and increases in the premiums paid for Social Security and Medicare. The increases in productivity need to be passed on through higher wages and benefits. Once these increase, economic activity and the standard of living can agin advance, and health care costs will be less of a burden on the average person. To this plan, we also need a Medicare for all program. This would come from the increased premiums paid through increased Medicare premiums, including from the wealthy.

Our health is a function of many things, but a large part of it we have some control over. Government paid for education on how to live healthier would lower health care costs. Much of this can be done though advertising and labels on products.

Mr. Barone,

I watched your 10/17 talk on C-Span. You explained the election of Democratic President, Obama, in contrast to the election of a strong Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Your explanation relied primarily on demographic changes. “Liberals” tend to concentrate themselves and Republicans tend to scatter. I am not certain that is true. Why did you not talk about gerrymandering and laws that make it more difficult for voters who lean to the Democratic Party to vote? Also, some states have reduced the number of polling places where Democratic voters are in larger numbers.
The politics of election laws is a substantial factor, because these can by large, set election results. As one Russian dictator put it, he did not care who gets to vote. Those who count the votes determine the winners.
Our country has a problem with a minority of wealthy persons and a minority of business interests, who work to undermine the democratic process, so that instead of having a government run of, for and by the people, monied interests run it, or in one word it is oligarchy. Consider the ALEC laws.

For those who live in Alpena, Michigan, you may be interested in the upcoming play at Alpena Civic Theatre, “The Firebugs.” That play will be after, “Things My Mother Taught Me.” Both plays are comedies, but The Firebugs has serious tones mixed with the humor, including making fun of itself. One piece of wisdom from “The Firebugs” is that the best lie is to tell the truth, because no one will believe it. “The Firebugs” relates to fascism and Nazism in Germany, but never specifically addresses those. It could as well have been written about the politics of the United States today, as the far right, through its marketing programs, like the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, and the tea party have great influence over our government, the news media, and our public mind. The arsonists in The Firebugs are not taken seriously, although the public knows fires are being set throughout the town by someone. The main character, Biedermann is cleverly browbeaten into helping the arsonists, while all the while, Biedermann never thinks the persons he is helping are the arsonists.
“Biedermann,” is a German word for common man.

STEPHEN FLETCHER LOSES ALPENA CITY COUNCIL RACE of 11-5-13

To readers, mainly not in Alpena, sorry I have not put out new comments on national/ international issues, but life has immediate priorities. This is about an Alpena election.

Last night, Cindy Johnson and her supporters, celebrated her win as a new City Councilmember. Shawn Sexton and his wife attended as they made election night rounds.

Steve Fletcher actively supported Mike Nunneley for City Council, even inserted comments in his Alpena News column to help Nunneley’s campaign. To no avail, a segment of the tea party supporting him and Anna Bass, the endorsement of Alpena Mayor Waligora for Nunneley and Anna Bass, what appears to have been stilted reporting at WATZ, a former Alpena Republican Party chair, Jesse Osmer also endorsed Anna Bass and Nunneley . . . . none of it worked. Possibly Anna’s comments to some voters that she did not want Nunneley to win, worked against this ticket of two. Anna Bass may be a liberal, but she was promoted as part of a ticket with Nunneley by the far right and a tea party segment.

Tea partier, Jesse Osmer sat at City Hall waiting for results wearing a soft grey bow tie. He had thought that voters needed to spell Cindy Johnson’s name exactly right, but that was not true. Variations are allowed so long as the voter’s intent can be determined. So even if Stephen Fletcher had voted for Cindy Johnson, spelling her first name with an “I” instead of a why, as he did in his column a week ago, then his vote for Cindi Johnson would have counted. Not a big crowd at the City Hall, WATZ reporter April Alhgrin and Alpena newspaper reporter, Steve Schulwitz. At the County clerk’s office was the Bay 108 reporter.

In the Alpena newspaper of today, 11-6-13, Fletcher announces he will no longer write a regular column in it. His attempts to promote the agenda of the Koch brothers, the Heritage Foundation, the tea party and other far right, so called conservative organizations and their propaganda, we he states efforts to make you think, not to persuade? He had written that savings is investment many times, but there are exceptions to that rule. He had written that Keynesian economics has been discredited is similar to saying that the earth being round had been discredited. Stephen writes that he may write an occasional column in the future.

Mayor Waligora had attempted to place the issue of Shawn Sexton on the city council agenda for Tuesday night, (11-4-13), however the City Manager and the City attorney advised against it. Matt Waligora wanted to make it look like Shawn Sexton had bullied Anna Bass to get out of the City Council race. One can take it as a matter of opinion as to how far a person goes before they are bullying, but I have not heard someone who was there say it was bullying. The strongest word was “discourage.”
As best I can put together the conversation from those who were there, Sexton was speaking with Anna’s mother, Chris at the Black Sheep restaurant. Chris is part owner of the Black Sheep. Anna’s boyfriend, Cooper wrote a letter to the editor in support of Anna. In the conversation it came up that Anna wanted Mike Nunneley to lose, and so she was running. No one reports foul language being used, but that voices were raised, although it is a bar atmosphere with lots of loud background noise. Anna Bass was within listening distance. Sexton said that if Anna wanted Mike Nunneley to lose, then she should get out of the race. You can imagine that Anna’s mother would object to this, but as a practical matter Anna did not have the experience or resources to win, so Shawn was giving good advice. One person there, said that Shawn Sexton told Chris that if Nunneley won, then Anna would be blamed due to taking votes others could have gotten.
A WATZ report about the statement of Julie Dietz about the incident was removed from their Internet site after the lack of objectivity in the reporting was complained about.
Bill Speer, editor/ publisher and the Alpena newspaper, had decided to give the write-in candidates very little coverage when they announced their candidacy, so voters knew little about Anna Bass and Cal Howard compared to Cindy, who had resources to get her message out. This also hurt the tea party / Fletcher group supporting Anna Bass and Mike Nunneley, even though it is clear that Bill Speer supports the far right.

Few citizens on Alpena know that a law suit over pollution from the Lafarge plant in Alpena, and many other cement plants in the United States is having hearings. You may never read about this in The Alpena News. The HEAL organization of Alpena is a party to the law suit.

On October 24, 2013, Oral arguments were held in the challenge to EPA’s weakening and delaying air toxics standards for cement plants, and to its decision to allow plants to avoid paying monetary penalties when they violate their emission standards. The Court usually takes a few months to decide cases like these, so a decision is likely in 6-12 weeks. If you want to listen to the arguments, you can at http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/recordings/recordings2014.nsf/D9E85A5438637B4F85257C0E00659D0D/$file/10-1371.mp3

Earthjustice PRESS RELEASE of October 22, 2013

Oral Arguments in Case Challenging EPA for Weakening and Delaying Cement Plant Rule

Delay will allow cement plants to release an additional 32,000 pounds of mercury

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments in a lawsuit that challenges a decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to weaken and delay Clean Air Act protections against toxic pollution from cement plants. The suit also challenges EPA’s decision to allow plants to avoid paying monetary penalties when they violate their emission standards.
By the EPA’s own calculations, the delay will cause between 1,920 and 5,000 avoidable deaths and will allow cement plants to release an additional 32,000 pounds of mercury into the environment. Cement plants are among the nation’s worst polluters, emitting vast quantities of particulate matter, mercury, lead, and other hazardous air pollutants.

WHAT:

Oral arguments on standards for toxic air pollution from cement plants. James Pew and Seth Johnson, Earthjustice attorneys, will argue the case on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, Desert Citizens Against Pollution, Downwinders at Risk, Friends of Hudson,
Huron Environmental Activist League (HEAL of ALPENA, MICHIGAN),
Montanans Against Toxic Burning, PenderWatch & Conservancy, and Sierra Club.

WHO:

Earthjustice attorneys James Pew or Seth Johnson available to speak after the oral argument: (202) 667-4500 Ext. 5214 or Ext. 5245.

WHEN:

Thursday, October 24, at 9:30 a.m. ET

WHERE:

USCA Courtroom

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

333 Constitution Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20001

BRIEFS AVAILABLE BY REQUEST: Raviya Ismail, Earthjustice, (202) 745-5221; rismail@earthjustice.org.

Medical Management Advice

One comment I have heard several doctors make in the last months is that there is no reason to do a particular medical test, because even if the patent has the condition being tested for there is nothing they can do for the patient. This is almost always a false statement.

One a person is diagnosed with a new condition there are often adjustments that can be made to the persons life, and medical treatment that will benefit them, even thought they do not qualify for surgery or other treatment. This includes activities, diet, financial planning and medications.

Once a new medical condition/ disease is identified in a patient, there medications should be reviewed in light of that condition. Ask the doctor to do this, and as your pharmacist to do this. Perhaps a medication is not recommended for a person with that condition or disease, even though it was the right choice before the patients condition changed. And go on the Internet doing a word search for each medication the person presently takes plus the name of their condition/ disease. Also check to see if there are any new drugs for the condition/ disease. Do not assume your doctor will be up to date on all the new medications and treatments for any conditions. Medical science is changing rapidly.

How is the far right political agenda explained? It is often contradictory, and self defeating. The free market is not a fair market for labor.

A large part of it is a national labor negotiation. The FR wants wages set by the market regardless of inflation, working life time span, cost of housing, or health care, or retirement.

Like some employers the FR will tell you that we can no longer afford the pay and benefits you have been receiving; that is entitlements are not sustainable, and we must compete with other countries wages and health care. Really?

One problem with Social Security and Medicare funding has been interest rates. The deposits in those systems can only be invested in U. S. government Treasury issued debt, which are paying very low interest rates. Another problem with that is the premiums for these programs should have been increased years ago, but the FR obstructed that, which increases the problems of funding.

We can afford both programs and an increase in the minimum wage, even though U. S. citizens are living longer. And we do not need to increase the age of retirement to collect benefits. What we need is a stronger economy, but by keeping wages and benefits low, we are taking our nation down the economic scale. The FR propagandists/ apologists, (Heritage Foundation, George Mason University, Hillsdale College, Claremont, CATO Institute, and others) paid for by a few very wealthy persons well understand human behavior, and how we favor instant gratification over long term investment.

These far right organizations say irrational things like the growth in health care spending will crowd out other parts of the economy. The false idea they spread is that there is something finite about the economy, or never said, but they want you to think there is a limited amount of money, and so what one part of an economy takes is at the cost of another. If health care spending grows, then more health care owrkers have jobs and spend money, growing the economy making room for more economic activity. Our economy has had secotrs grow and shrink over the decades and centuries. At one time as much as 90% of the populaiton lived on farms and we had an agricultural economy. WHat if we never added the vast number of manufacturing industries in American, because someone told us that this would crowd out agriculture! What happens is that knowlwedge and technology advance. We have need for more jobs right now due to job loses from technology, robots, computers, advances in communications have reduced the need for many jobs. Why not increase the jobs in health care?
Health care will advance and become for cost effective as improvements are found.

A ploy put forth by the far right is to cut benefits only for younger persons, say those under 55 for Medicare benefits, and this they say is to save Medicare for future generations. Silly. This sounds like labor negotiations where union contracts give a two tier pay and benefit scale, so that new employees get less than the long term employees. The strategy is that older persons vote in higher numbers, so if they can be convinced there is a problem, and that the solution will not affect them, then they will sell out the younger persons. This is why older pesons need to be better educated in how Social Security and Medicare can be saved with full benefits for younger persons.

Cutting government regulations, cutting things like worker safety and services which otherwise protect human health saves employers a lot of money, which is not passed on in increased employee pay and benefits. It does not even in the long run benefit the employer, since competition winnows away the increased profit.

Wealth has grown in the United States, but concentrated, and the FR right says this is out of fairness as set by the market place. But human labor is the one necessity of industry or all kinds, for which the true costs need not be paid.

The cost of human labor, including the creative efforts of humans would, if set the same as other things, would include the cost of making the human ( raising them to maturity and their education, health care et cetera), and the cost of maintenance ( health care, continuing education, living costs), and retirement ( with equipment there is a cost of disposal, not truly analogous, but we put horses out to pasture at least) or maybe we send the horse to the glue factory to get one last measure of profit out of the creature, but we should treat humans better. They cannot work all their lives in many fields of work. It is not right that a person not get a retirement.

The employer will say that he does not owe a person a living. Even just compensation theories, philosophies and ethics systems allow for just compensation to be in part defined as what the employer is able to pay, but not what the employer wants to pay.

But if we think that if say, the cost of materials were too high an manufacturer would not make certain products, so it should be more the case not that we value jobs no matter what is paid, but that jobs be linked to the value of the labor, and not that the labor be valued at what the product sells for. If a product cannot be made at a saleable price based on a remunerative rate of pay, then, it should not be made. There is no good argument for poverty wage jobs.

Jobs as a goal in themselves, with no demand for a living wage, is nonsense, and a sure way to lower the standard of living.

The United States now has zero and some negative real interst rates for government issued debt instruments. Banks are paying what is a negative real interest rate on certificates of deposit.

I am concerned about whether the Federal Reserve economists include the costs of low interest rates in their models. Please consider that much health care is paid for by insurance, and that insurance rates go up when interest rates go down, since insurance companies must invest in low risk instruments paying intest. Insurance in general is more expensive now due to low interest rates and is therefore a cause of higher business costs due to less income earned by insurance companies on the money they hold.

Health insurance is a major cost that employers find difficult to deal with. The standard of living is lowered as employers make their employees “pay for more of their insurance.” Really this is a pay cut, whether it comes out of the wage or the benefit. So as employees pay is reduced this way, their buying power is reduced.

AS insuance rates for coverage of all kinds costs more due to low interest rates, individuals, organizations, and business, will purchase less coverage, and perhaps go without insurance. This means that when there are damages, the individuals and others who would have been compensated, will receive less or nothing. Large amounts of savings and investment will be lost, and so a small business owner who might have rebuilt after a fire, will not rebuild. And persons who lose thier houses then lose their most valuable asset and holding of savings. The cost of uncompensated losses has short term and long term results. An injured person may become a reason another person does not work, in order to care for the injured person.

AMERICAN COMPETITION

American competition is legendary, real, a force no one disputes, but that is not the direction the political far right is arm twisting America toward.

The FR [Far Right] are the people who support Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Claremont College, George Mason University, Hillsdale College, the TEA Party and others of the same vein.

The political far right are Republicans in name only. They do not in any sense represent the Republican Party, but have over taken it, and left the party with no leadership and no reason, but the destruction of government for the pleasure of a part of the very wealthy, who have managed to convince a few good persons that what protects the common person from the over reach of government is the elimination of government. But have traded that evil for the greater evil of over reach of the fascists.

The FR each year works hard to convince the public again that the economy is bad, that we must all sacrifice to make it work, by giving up pay and benefits, et cetera. Because the the economy is bad, say the FR, we must cut taxes and government. But each year they say the only way we can improve the economy is to cut taxes and government. How many years can this go on? We are at the lowest rate of federal taxation since President Eisenhour. Objectively, there is no link between tax rates and growth of the economy. If anything, in the long run, tax rates so low we cannot repair, replace and build be infrstructure, do basic research and subsidize education and health care, will bring our economy down. This is general accounting is referred to is delayed maintenance. Delaying what needs to be done is building a debt.

The FR teaches that for America to compete we have to lower our costs, which sounds good until that means raising the age for Social Security, and raising the age for Medicare, and pushing to privatize both programs, and cutting regulations that protect us, and eliminating the Federal Reserve, and other things.

Imagine that Saks Fifth Avenue clothing store and Cartier jewelry store decided the compete the way the FR wants America to compete. Saks Fifth Avene store looks at how Walmart has so many more customers and so drops their prices to Walmart prices. They go out of business, because they cannot compete based on that standard. What they sell is much better than what Walmart sells, and ought to sell for significantly more. The United States for a time claimed the highest standard of living on Earth. No more. There was a time, in the 1950’s and 60’s when it was said that each generation in the United States would live at a higher standard than the last. No more. The FR is bringing us down.

So how many will lose paychecksas a result of the 2013 Federal govenrment sequester? The FR (TEA Party) cebrates this, since they are cut government people, who do not want to answer to the persons who’s lives will be affected when we cut government programs, nor answer to the loss to the economy. This goes against what the FR teaches. They think that cutting government is good for the economy, but cutting, or in Europe they call it austerity, has led to slower economic growth and recessions in Europe. The FR claims that President Obama is following a Europeon plan, when it is the FR who are pushing austerity (cutting government) in the United States. Government is an important part of our economy. As we cut government, we cut the economy. Then the FR keeps teling us the only way to turn the economy around is to cut government and taxes, but that slows the economy.

The FR’s push to end Medicare as we know it and privatize Social Security is a way to cut wages and benefits that employers pay. If Social Security and Medicare is taken from paychecks then wages need to be higher to take care of daily expenses of the employees. But the real purchasing power of minimum wage has gone down since 1988. The real (inflation adjusted) median wage has gone down for decades. Fewer Americans can afford new cars.

The FR says they want to save Social Security and Medicare before these programs go bankrupt. First, the programs will not go bankrupt, but have low balances so that they cannot pay full benefits. Second, the reason the programs are going bankrupt is that the FR has refused to allow funding for the programs to increase by any means, instead they have insisted that benefits be cut, or that these head in the direction of privatization. More accurately, the FR should be saying that we are intentionally withholding increases in funding these programs so we cna eliminate benefits and force privatization of them.

The United States of America is rich enough to afford health care for all citizens, and a single payor system through the government is the lowest cost way to do it. The FR wants private insurance companies to make money more than they want all Americans to have health care coverage. By changing to a single payor syste, or Medicare for all, we can expand coverage to morecitizens and give citizens more and better health care, and pay doctors, nurses and other heallth care wokers better pay.
Human behavior is such that people think of today and immediate and short term needs and short term gratification. So when cutting taxes is waived in front of them they easily forget and do not think of the need for covering long term expenses and savings for retirement and health care. Long term expenses are things like infrastructure and research. And think of the expenses of not having regulations.

Soial Security and Medicare funding can be increased by raising the cap on income, and by increasing payments premiums. And we can afford it, unless we get caught up with the FR’s version of competition. If we increase the minimum wage to cover the increases plus adjust for inflation, things will work. The FR will say that businesses will close and people will lose jobs. I disagree. We want and can have a higher standard of living. We cannot do so by living like a third world country. Our industries and businesses will change as increased benefits and pay are mandated. If the FR believes in competition, they never otherwise complain about businesses going out of business, due to competition.

Much of the political differences of the last few decades has been over what a just wage is, including pension (Social Security) and health care (Medicare). It is not about what the Founding Father’s envisioned for America. That talk about patriots and the Constitution is being used to manipulate people who will never take the time to read writing of the time period in which the Constitution was contemplated and written, such as the Federalist Papers or other documents, letters, newspaper articles on the 1770’s, 1780’s and 1790’s.

If you are a TEA Partier, please take the time to read the Federalist Papers, and take note when the discussions do not lien up with what you are being taught by your leaders. Then read standard economics books and compare to what Friedrich Hayek writes in his book, The Road to Serfdom. Very few economists agree with the political agenda, which Hayek sets forth in what the FR calls a book about economics. A large part of the strategy of the FR is to discredit the best authorities of our time.

Alpena Regional Medical Center’s executives have offered considerable wage and benefit cuts to two groups of registered nurses. Some nurses say the cuts are so extreme, that they could hurt patient care by making it unlikely that experienced nurses could still make a living.

With pay cuts of as high as 50 %,and increases in employee contributions to health care insurance premiums, local businesses could feel the loss as nurses have far less pay to spend. The pay would be so low that some nurses will qualify to put their children on state health care for poor people.

As quoted in a February 11, 2013 press release from the Michigan Nurses Association:
“We’re not talking about people skipping trips to exotic locations because of the pay cut – we’re talking about people losing their homes or not spending money at local campgrounds,” said Deb Naylor, RN, a nurse manager at the hospital with 25 years’ experience who lives in Alpena. “It will cost some part-time nurses more than they’re making just to pay for insurance. It won’t make sense for them to stay, and we’ll lose the competent, experienced nurses who are the reason people get exceptional care at ARMC.”

The Press Release goes on as follows:
Last month, after the passage of the so-called “Right to Work” law, the hospital issued an unprecedented contract offer to MNA’s home care nurses and nurse managers at ARMC. (The Michigan Nurses Association also represents a third unit made up of the staff nurses in the hospital.)
Despite reporting being in good financial shape as recently as last month (1), the hospital has demanded extreme concessions from the nurses. It proposes to:
Enact wage cuts of up to 30 percent as part of making hourly nurse managers salaried.
Cut home care nurses’ pay by up to 50 percent by paying per visit rather than per hour.
Make part-time nurses pay 50% of health care premiums for themselves and 100% for spouses or children.
Eliminate retiree health care.
Eliminate sick days for home care nurses.
“These changes will break the nurses, plain and simple,” said Pam Wade-Craner, RN, an ARMC nurse for 24 years who lives in Ossineke. “A home care nurse in our rural community is often the difference between a patient staying at home and going back in the hospital. Our patients rely on us, and we don’t want to abandon them or our community. But no one can afford to work, especially as long and hard as home care nurses do, for nearly half the pay.”
Lisa Foust, RN,a home care nurse who lives in Alpena, said nurses will be forced to compromise care by rushing through visits.
“Home care is much more complex than stopping by someone’s house and taking vitals,” Foust said. “Each patient has complex and individual needs, plus there is paperwork and travel. If nurses have to rush through visits just to earn more than minimum wage, the quality of care will go way down.”
“In more than 20 years of working at ARMC, I have never seen employees treated like this,” said Pari Greene, an RN from Presque Isle.
“We have no problem paying 20 percent of our health care costs and working with the employer on other financial issues, if there is a legitimate need,” said Kelly Girard, RN, an emergency department and ICU nurse manager who lives in Alpena. “It just seems totally unjustified at this time; the way they’re treating us now is unlike the positive relationship we’ve always had. These wage reductions will make it difficult for me and my family to utilize local businesses and services. I’m concerned for our community.”
The nurses said there are already ARMC employees who can’t afford the hospital’s insurance and have to enroll their children in state health care. They worry that the severe wage and benefit cuts will force more to do that.
Jenny McClendon, RN, leader of Unit I with 185 MNA nurses who work at the hospital, praised the other nurses for speaking out.
“It’s disturbing that Gov. Snyder’s so-called ‘right to work’ law apparently sent a signal to some employers that it is now open season on Michigan workers,” McClendon said. “When an employer tries to hurt its nurses, they are also hurting our families and our whole community.”

Monday, February 11, 2013
The Press Release gives as CONTACT: Dawn Kettinger, 517-721-9688 (cell); dawn.kettinger@minurses.org

A SIMILAR STATEMENT IS MADE ON THE FACE BOOK page
http://www.facebook.com/minurses