President Obama is in Green Bay today as part of his push for health care reform.

A story on the front page of the Washington Post has the following paragraph near the end:

Richard Cooper, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, says he thinks the variations identified by the Dartmouth researchers — due primarily to enormous hospital expenses — are often related to patients’ socioeconomic status. States such as Wisconsin have lower medical costs because they are predominantly white and middle class, he said. The notable exception is Milwaukee, with its “poverty corridor,” he said. “Nobody wants to talk about the fact that if you want to deal with health care you have to deal with poverty.”

The complete story is here.

The last sentence deserves extra emphasis:

“[I]f you want to deal with health care you have to deal with poverty.”

That’s a point we ought to raise in every debate about health care reform. Getting people to talk about it, and do something about it, ought to be a national priority – and a personal priority for everyone who cares about health care, everyone who’s dissatisfied with the status quo.

Citizen Dividends will reduce health care costs significantly. Every adult citizen will have added income, say $1,000 a month to ensure that they can afford food and shelter at least. Some of that money could also pay for health care.

I posted yesterday about hunger and a new book by Sasha Abramsky, and here’s a quote from a review of the book:

“The failures of our policies that led to this epidemic of hunger and poverty are evident across the country. Unemployment, lack of benefits, and wage cutbacks by major employers are forcing families to the food pantries.”

Also from yesterday’s blog, some data about poverty:

• In 2008, the official poverty line was $ 10,590 for a single person and $21,203 for a family of four. Census data shows 37 million Americans at or below these numbers.

Citizen Dividends of $1,000 a month would put everyone above that poverty line. To pay for it, and to prevent inflation, we’ll cut other government programs at the same time, and adjust the amount as necessary. We can eliminate hunger and debilitating poverty.

Here’s an earlier post about health care reform.

Income security for all, as I’ve written elsewhere on this blog and web site, updates ideas that were mainstream and moderate in the 1960s. Martin Luther King called for guaranteed income in his last book, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right.

In the 1930s, mass movements for guaranteed income security generated the political will for Social Security, and that history is document on the official web site of the Social Security administration. Mass demands for economic justice also helped power the Populist and Progressive movements of the 1890s, which resulted in many political reforms.

Give it to everyone – the hungry and homeless, you and other readers of this blog and our families, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey – because that will minimize the administrative costs and bureaucracy, while preventing political fights about where and how to draw the lines over who’s included. That will also create a baseline of economic justice and economic equality, thus making it easier for us to work together to solve our social, cultural, political economic, and environmental problems.

We will achieve this if we individuals and We the People demand it.

The complete plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen, is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site.

Please comment on this blog and help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

There are many lessons. One is that we depend on government. In crisis situations particularly, we rely on government to respond appropriately and inform us responsibly. President Obama and other officials mostly did that, with the notable exception of some excessive comments by Joe Biden, while the tone in the news media was at times somewhat hysterical. We have to be active citizens to ensure that our government is prepared and does its job.

Other lessons concern poverty. A piece in today’s Washington Post discusses the fact that poverty among Mexicans added to flu deaths. If Mexicans had sought prompt medical treatment, there would have been fewer deaths and perhaps no pandemic.

In the United States, poor people are also more at risk, and so are the rest of us, because many of the poor cannot afford to stay home from work. People who cannot afford to see  doctors are more likely to take their symptoms to work and perhaps infect others. More likely, also, to send kids who may be infected to school.

Recall the news reports of the past week. How did you respond? Were you worried? What did you think? Did you do anything differently?

Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine that we have Citizen Dividends, a basic income for every adult citizen, and even the poorest among us have some secure income independent of their jobs. That lest phrase is key: secure income independent of their jobs.

What would that mean for you and your family? Would you feel more secure, knowing that you can afford to stay home if you had symptoms? If your kids school is closed, would it be easier for you to make the necessary arrangements?

Two pieces about poverty reinforce the idea that guaranteed income will bring significant benefits to all of us, though neither piece talks about guaranteed income. First is a New York Times column by Judith Warner. Second is from USA Today about tent cities and growing poverty around the country.

We will all be safer and healthier when our neighbors, all of our neighbors, have some basic income security guaranteed. Citizen Dividends will promote the general welfare directly, efficiently. The general welfare includes public health. This is common sense, something liberals and conservatives ought to support.

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

Regarding swine flu: Is the Obama administration prepared? Are they doing the right things? What about the fact that Congress has not yet confirmed people to fill critical jobs, particularly Kathleen Sibelius for head of the Department of Health and Human Services? Her nomination is reportedly being blocked by Republicans who are concerned about her position on abortion. Links are here and here and here and here.

Regarding GM: Will it file for bankruptcy? Will it need more government bailout money? How many jobs will be lost, where, and how soon? Links are here and here and here.

These and similar news stories typically start with some big issue – swine flu, GM, jobs, government, the economy – and add details about individuals and families to supply human interest. That’s common for most issues and problems. Individuals and families, in other words, are only secondary, relatively passive, sometimes victims. Most of us seem to think of ourselves in that way, as relatively passive and sometimes victims.

The true power of Citizen Dividends is in transforming the political discourse. Providing everyone with a guaranteed basic income is a way to put individual citizens first – real people, unique individuals and our families, not “people.”

This is especially important with regard to jobs. Everyone will have an income for food and shelter, guaranteed, independent of any job.

Regarding GM: Everyone who works for GM, directly or indirectly, will have an absolute financial safety net regardless of what happens with GM, its suppliers, dealers, and so on.

Regarding swine flu: Everyone will have an income as they cope with the uncertainties. Consider, for example, people who work in a shopping mall or commute through a train station that might be closed to prevent the spread of the disease. Or the challenges for parents who have to adapt if their kids go to a school that’s suddenly closed.

Citizen Dividends will give each of us and all of us more resources and much greater freedom to cope.

Both sets of issues, in addition, illustrate the massive size and complexity of government. Our federal government, according to the Constitution, is supposed to “promote the general welfare.” The most direct and effective way to do that would be Citizen Dividends – providing for each citizen equally, generally, unconditionally.

There’s nothing in the Constitution about ensuring the welfare of GM or any other corporation. And, though it clearly serves the general welfare for our government to be responding to the swine flu outbreak, that response is potentially being thwarted by an unrelated concern.

Citizen Dividends will restore political power to ordinary individuals, because each of us and all of us will have more freedom to participate as citizens. We’ll be better able to organize and demand the government we want and deserve.

Citizen Dividends will bring a Peaceful, Positive Revolution, and that’s the title of my recent book, which is available from Tendril Press.

Steven Shafarman

When everyone has a guaranteed basic income, we’ll be much more able to stop the spread of the disease. And much better prepared to cope with whatever happens. If it becomes a pandemic, in particular, basic income can be a critical component of public health.

In this case, moreover, to get the maximum benefits from the basic income, it ought to be universal. We in the United States will benefit directly if Mexicans also have basic income. And Guatemalans. And Canadians, Chinese, and so on.

Before I write about why this is so, here are a few headlines that, by themselves, tell a large part of the story;

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu New York Times

Mexico Takes Powers to Isolate Cases of Swine Flu New York Times

U.S. Steps Up Alert as More Swine Flu Is Found  Washington Post

In Mexico, Young Adults Appear Most at Risk: Capital Grinds to a Halt as Suspected Deaths Rise to 103 Washington Post

Swine Flu Outbreak Could Deepen Mexico’s Recession Washington Post

Suppose there is a pandemic here in the United States, and government orders the closing of airports, train stations, shopping malls, and other public facilities. What will happen to the people who work in those places or commute through them? How will they cope with the lost income and other disruptions in their lives? What about their families? Their communities?

Imagine that for your family, your neighbors, your community, your town or city. Imagine that for your workplace, company, industry.

What if public facilities stay closed for a few weeks, or a month or longer?

Now suppose we have Citizen Dividends and everyone has some guaranteed income independent of any job. At the very least, there will be much less fear about how to manage financially, much less stress about how to pay the bills.

Secure income independent of any job will give people the resources to adapt by, for example, working from home by computer and phone, homeschooling the children, rescheduling vacations, planting gardens, organizing community support networks.

Containing a pandemic will require everyone’s cooperation, and Citizen Dividends will affirm that we’re all in this together.

Steven Shafarman

Obama has pledged to enact health care reform this year: “When times were good, we didn’t get it done. When we had mild recessions, we didn’t get it done. There’s always a reason not to do it. Now is exactly the time for us to deal with this problem.” Here’s evidence: worsening economic conditions are causing 14,000 people to lose their health insurance every day.

Health care reform, regardless of the specific plan, will be much more likely to succeed and much more likely to pass Congress when everyone has a guaranteed income for food and shelter at least. Just about everyone – liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, doctors and insurance companies and public policy advocates, proponents of insurance reforms and advocates of single payer “Medicare for all” – agrees on one point: reducing the costs of health care is essential for any plan to succeed. We have to find ways to cut costs.

Income security for all will reduce the costs of health care. That’s because poverty is closely correlated with poor health. When everyone has at least a basic income for food and shelter, more people will eat better, sleep better, take better care of their loved ones. People will have money to invest for routine and preventive care. That will mean fewer visits to the emergency room, which is currently where a lot of very poor people receive their primary care. Emergency room medicine is extremely expensive.

There will consequently be far less urgency about reforming the system. We’ll be more able to take the time to allow individual states to experiment with their own programs to achieve universal care. Current attempts in Massachusetts, Hawaii, Maine, and other states are getting only mixed results, but those programs are sure to be much more successful when everyone has income security. They may be able to refine their approaches, and one of them may be the model for national reform. National reforms often start with individual states.

If Obama and Congress are able to agree on some national plan this year, great. We can then enact income security for all, and thereby make that plan much more successful at both improving health outcomes and controlling costs. If Obama fails, income security for all can be the first step toward a new model for national health care.

Steven Shafarman