The McScam

McDonald's, one of the icons of an industry that has been destroying America with its menu full of sodium, cholesterol and fat, admits it all but exploits its employees.

In a nation that fails to provide basic health care to its citizens many employers provide health insurance as a benefit to its employees. Companies that are in the low-wage service sector only provide the illusion of health coverage. Many of these plans offer attractive low rates but cover almost nothing. McDonald's admits as much.

Health care reforms which are soon to take effect mandate that 80% of premiums be used by the insurance company to cover paying medical expenses, leaving the remaining 20% to cover the overhead such as salary, profit and advertising. McDonald's is threatening to drop its coverage because the policies it offers its employees do not meet that requirement, nor will it meet the requirements of no annual or lifetime coverage caps. The coverage it offers its hourly employees caps its annual limit at $2000, which as anyone who has ever dealt with illness or injury might cover an x-ray in the local ER, but fail to cover much else. If you get seriously ill, say cancer or other catastrophic illness, chances are you will end up on Medicaid to cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat your illness.

The rabid right are trying to use this as proof positive that the current health care reform is pure evil. That the rules are too overbearing and will hurt the quality of health care as we know it. We must remind them that we are currently mired in the mid 30s in health care worldwide, behind Costa Rica. Part of this reason is the very same insurance that McDonald's is trying to defend. We have employers that care more about profits than providing their employees a living wage or quality health insurance. We can do something about it.

If you want to send a message to companies that refuse to pay a living wages or provide benefits to their hourly employees, stop spending money there. Simple, stop hitting up McDonald's, go to a local family run stop instead, or In-n-Out Burger. Go to Starbucks for coffee rather than drop 99cents at McDonald's. Deprive them of the one thing the corporate beast needs to survive, your money. Do that and we can all help make a difference.

You Have Nobody to Blame but Yourself

Today the Senate, a/k/a "Where Good Bills go to Die", found itself once again ground zero for the gridlock that has plagued Washington since the President Barack Obama became president and the Republican party decided that they were going to sulk like petulant children and use parliamentary procedure to effectively grind our legislative process to a halt.

Like we have seen so many times before, the Republicans aren't the only ones to blame. Today Senators Blanche Lincoln and her colleague from Arkansas Mark Pryor stood with the obstructionists to bar the Defense Authorization bill from coming to the floor for debate.

Senator Lincoln finds herself all but voted out of office. Barring of course a great scandal involving her opponent and has only herself to blame for her dilemma. By standing side by side with special interests and opposing some of the ideas that are at the core of her party, she in effect gave the Democratic party and their supporters no reason to support her. That is the reason she faced a primary challenge from Bill Halter which received great support from the base of the party. While some people might say that a republican majority in Congress would have a negative effect on the nation as a whole, and it would. What good is a Democrat who is willing to stand with the Republicans and support bigotry or corporate interests? Blanche Lincoln turned her back on the base of her party and will have only herself to blame when she loses her bid for re-election.