We'll get into the conversation about U.S. healthcare and the larger economic condition in a moment, but we wanted to comment on a subject that was addressed on the program but insufficiently and that is what is going on in Iraq with Al Qaeda extremists taking control of Fallujah and Ramadi. The extremists are Al Qaeda, yes, but more prominently they are Sunni Muslims fighting Shiite Muslims, a religious war that has been going on for 700 years as Republican Steve Schmidt noted.
He also said that it isn't the United States' fight and that it shouldn't get involved, an opinion that Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) concurred with, but also went on to say that it's not America's responsibility. We find it disturbing how the United States has dismissed an ever escalating conflict that it is indeed responsible for. We're not saying that the U.S. should become involved militarily again, but washing our hands of it, ignoring it in large part as we are, and letting Anbar province slip into chaos, disgraces the memory of over 1,300 American soldiers who died there. The Iraq War wasn't smart then and proves itself to be less so every day.
The rest of the world is faced with a vital region that is essentially leaderless and is facing a complete meltdown. The elected, dictatorial, and anointed leaders alike in the region are all so consumed with the fear of losing power that they are all just covering themselves with layers of radicals and weapons. The loss of this province as NBC's Richard Engel pointed out is directly tied to the Syrian civil war and gives radicals with a solidified geographical base of significance. The U.S. needs to openly push for someone in the region to step up and end the violence.
And as athletes from the world's countries gather in Sochii, Russia for the Olympics, our fear is that extremists will want to interrupt the games by violently calling attention to their cause - security needs to be top of mind for every country participating.
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After the joint interview with Dr. Delos Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic and Dr. John Noseworthy of the Mayo Clinic, we couldn't help but thinking how long overdue it was. They gave us the straight skinny on the Affordable Care Act, which is that it has increased access for individuals and is improving the quality of care. That's the good news, but the bad news is that we're not sure how much this is going to cost and whether it really will bring healthcare costs down. Dr. Noseworthy said that if the payment system were modernized that would do a lot to keep costs down. To us, that seems like a nonpartisan fix that should be happening now.
Also, Dr. Cosgrove stated it frankly, saying that hospitals were going to make less money - nothing that anyone in any industry likes to hear. Speaking of industry, the doctor explained that U.S. healthcare is not a system but a bunch of cottage industries, and that now the government is trying to create a 'system.' We don't know much about healthcare, but we do know that if the government is going to create a system, that indeed will cost a significant amount of money up front before you start saving anything down the line. With that said, getting access to all Americans while getting caregivers (i.e. hospitals) more or less on the same page is essential if you have a program like... we don't know... say, Medicare.
In addition to discussing the Affordable Care Act, we were relieved that the two doctors also did talk about Medicare, which desperately needs reform - a whopping 50 percent of healthcare costs. And while you think about that percentage, you try to make sense of it analytically unlike the other percentage that they pointed out, which was that 10 percent of healthcare is spent due to the epidemic of obesity in this country. That can only make one reel back in disgust.
And make no mistake, that disgust we mention is not toward the people afflicted with obesity; it's for the fact that we as a society have not given the people of this country the means to make healthier choices in their lives. U.S. citizens eat so much processed food because economically they can not afford healthier food.
This brings us to the economic topic of 2014, which is income inequality and will factor in prominently in every economic policy decision from extending unemployment benefits (something Congress should do) to raising the minimum wage (also something Congress should do, if only a little) to tax reform. We've arrived at an economic breaking point for the middle class in America where a stark choice in Washington needs to be made - are we as a country going to enact policies to bring more people into it or are we going to eliminate any kind of social safety net or contract or cohesion of a fabric. America is after all the precarious balance between those two directions. The first step in addressing such a grossly tangled problem as income inequality is to first acknowledge it and start the conversation so at least we're to that point.
In the more practical sense, like we said, Congress should extend unemployment benefits to the 1.3 million people the Director of the National Economic Council, Gene Sperling, cited in his joint interview with Jim Cramer.
There was mention of a bipartisan agreement for a 3-month extension, which is a good start as it at least gets families through the winter. Unnecessarily, Congress will have to keep extending them because it can not conceive of an answer to Mr. Cramer's central question is how are you going to help get these Americans into the in-demand skill jobs, jobs in this countries biggest growth industry as Steve Schmidt thankfully pointed out - energy. Without an answer to that question, there is no choice but for extension.
There is the other practical matter of raising the minimum wage. We all know that the minimum wage is entirely insufficient to keep up with the cost of living so most say raise it. However, there are many that say if you raise it to $10 per hour for example, that will cause businesses to hire less and even lay people off because of the increase in labor costs. Whether the data bears that out or not, for the sake of the argument, we'll concede it a valid argument. However, the underlying problem still exists so Congress could raise it incrementally so the shock, particularly for small businesses, isn't so acute. Simply just a thought from which a negotiation toward a bipartisan solution could stem.
Leaders and Kings need to think more about the hope and dignity of their people over which they hold power, as opposed to simply thinking about holding onto the power itself.
Round Table: Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), PBS
Newshour’s Judy Woodruff and NBC Political Director Chuck Todd
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