Jim Carnes: Why Alabama Arise supports Amendment 4
It’s past time for Alabama to tear down the policy legacies of slavery and segregation. And Alabamians can take an important step in that direction this fall by voting yes on Amendment 4. Alabama Arise favors an overhaul of the racist 1901 constitution, so adding new amendments is not something we take lightly. But Amendment 4 would improve the constitution by authorizing the Legislature to “recompile,” or clean up and reorganize, the document in certain limited ways during the 2022 regular session. Most importantly, Amendment 4 would allow the Legislature to remove racist language from the constitution. Examples of these provisions include references to separate schools for Black and white children and the prohibition of interracial marriages. This change would address one of the constitution’s original sins: its authors’ explicit intent to establish white supremacy in Alabama. Amendment 4 would make other structural changes to the constitution as well. It would remove language that is repetitive or no longer applies. It would consolidate amendments related to economic development. And it would group local amendments by the county to which they apply. How Amendment 4 differs from previous efforts Two other efforts to modernize the constitution and remove racist language have lost statewide votes in recent years. In 2004, voters rejected a proposed amendment that also would have removed language saying Alabama children had no right to a publicly funded education. Some conservatives feared that change could force lawmakers to increase taxes and boost public school funding. In 2012, Alabamians voted against another proposed amendment that many Black lawmakers opposed. The legislators cited concerns that it could undermine education funding and would not remove all racist language from the constitution. This year’s amendment would allow the Legislature to identify racist language for removal. Voters still would have the final say on whether to approve the new revision of the constitution. Rep. Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham, sponsored the amendment, which the Legislature approved unanimously in 2019 for a public vote this year. Coleman worked as an Arise policy analyst before she was elected to the House. Republished with permission of Alabama Rise. You can read more details in the full blog post here. Jim Carnes is Arise’s policy director. He grew up in Columbus, Miss., and graduated from the University of North Carolina. He worked as the communications director before becoming policy director in 2013.
Dr. Brian S. Christine: A nation on the verge of a single-payer system: Let’s fix health-care in America, not turn it over to Washington
In this “through the looking glass” election cycle, when the topic of health-care is brought up the conversation defaults to Covid-19… mask or no mask?… when will there be a vaccine?… will there be a vaccine?… did the administration handle/mishandle its response to the pandemic?… and so on. However, this myopic focus on the Coronavirus places our nation at risk of ignoring the critical issues concerning U.S. health-care that will affect us citizens long after the virus has abated. Health-care spending accounts for 18% of the nation’s GDP, and that number rises with each passing year. Health-care costs are hurting our economy and threatening the economic stability of American workers, with out-of-pocket spending outpacing wage growth. An astounding 53% of those insured in high deductible plans have less in their savings than the deductible amount. Twenty percent of Americans have put off care of a serious condition because they fear the cost of treatment, and 20% of Americans have been in medical collections. Over-utilization of testing and the performance of unnecessary procedures for nothing more than financial gain do occur and contribute significantly to the bloat of health-care costs. It can seem like an unfixable mess. We would do well to remember, however, that the U.S. health-care system can and does offer the very best treatments available anywhere on the planet. The education, skill, and commitment of its doctors, nurses, and researchers cannot be bested, but the system is hemorrhaging and is in need of revitalization and improvement. It is not in need of wholesale replacement. Our health-care system is sick, but we must not zip it into a plastic bag and dump it in the morgue. Politicians from the political left who want a single-payer system are more influential than ever before. The current war cry from Democrats speaks to the “catastrophe” of what a Justice Amy Coney Barrett might allow the Supreme Court to do to the Affordable Care Act, but the real threat to health-care in America lies in Medicare-for-all legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Two bills exist: H.R. 1384 sponsored by Representative Pramila Jaapal (D-WA) and S. 1129 sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Both of these bills force enrollment at birth. Both of these bills, if enacted into law, would make it unlawful for a private health insurer to sell insurance coverage that duplicates services covered under the national health plan and unlawful for an employer to provide benefits to an employee (or their dependents) that duplicates benefits covered under the national plan. These provisions are specifically designed to eliminate private health insurance and snuff out competition to a national Medicare-for-all system. Competition, transparency, and free market forces are exactly what are needed to improve U.S. health-care. Not a sweeping takeover. Not a Washington D.C. directed and controlled monolith that guarantees long wait-to-treat times and limited patient choice. We need to change how health-care is sold and delivered, and the changes should make it easier for individuals and employers to know exactly what services, drugs, and hospital visits will cost. Physicians, so long the ostriches in the health-care debate, must pull their heads from the sand and become active participants in reform. Simple changes, if enacted, would level a playing field that is very much tilted against the consumers of health-care, and would work to eliminate much of the expense that has nothing to do with patient care and wellness. If we are considering buying a suit or dress or eating at a restaurant, the price to be paid is a known quantity, but it is next to impossible for a patient to know, beforehand, the actual price for a procedure or test from a hospital or clinic. Layers of opaque price adjustments that vary depending on insurance provider, confusing medical codes, and less than helpful insurer and provider bureaucrats who insist that contracted rates are proprietary secrets and actively hide this information, all come together and form a barrier that keeps patients from knowing, upfront, what costs will be. Price transparency and easy access to this information is absolutely necessary to allow consumers to research, compare and choose where and from whom they will seek care; this has been proven to lower health-care costs by promoting competition and encouraging efforts to attract patients through lower prices and increased quality of care. Routine price transparency would also help to eliminate price gouging by providers and would do much to prevent an insured patient from receiving a surprise medical bill. Robust legislation is needed to require providers to publish actual, true costs for procedures, tests, and hospitalizations. Prescription drugs account for about 10% of U.S. health-care dollars spent annually. Here, too, cost and pricing transparency could lower expenditure. President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders aimed at passing-on insulin pricing discounts to low income Americans, allowing the importation of prescription drugs from Canada where prices are substantially lower, and prohibiting secret deals between drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers that rob patients of drug discounts, are welcome and appreciated steps in health-care reform and improvement. As a practicing surgeon, I cannot stress enough that active involvement by physicians in efforts to lower cost and raise quality is long overdue. Doctors carrying out the hard work of identifying and policing those who over-test, over-treat, and over-bill will help to lower rising costs and restore confidence in a profession that, frankly, has lost some of its historic credibility with patients. A Medicare-for-all system would lack efficiency, would restrict patient choice, would guarantee longer waits for treatment, and would disincentivize individual practitioners and the medical tech and medical device industries, eroding their ethos of effort and innovation. However, these truths by themselves are no longer a sufficient argument to prevent a wholesale government takeover of health-care in America because our citizens are tired of rising costs and are terrified of economic ruin should they become seriously ill. Americans see their salaries and bonuses being consumed by escalating premiums and Everest-like deductibles. They
Casey Mattox: Senator Doug Jones is wrong to oppose Amy Coney Barrett
The nation recently mourned the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And as is his responsibility under the Constitution, the president has nominated a successor: Amy Coney Barrett. Judge Barrett has impressive credentials and has been widely praised by legal scholars, her students, and her colleagues. She clearly warrants confirmation. While Senator Richard Shelby has declared his support, Senator Doug Jones has already said that he will oppose her nomination. That’s a mistake, and Jones should reconsider. The Supreme Court is charged with defending the rights and liberties of the American people. All too often, government is prone to encroach on those rights, and we look to the Court to step in and draw a bright line to protect our freedoms. We know that not every nominee to the federal bench understands that role and is willing and able to fulfill it. So when a Senator refuses to even consider a candidate who is highly qualified to do just that, it’s a serious error. Our Constitution empowers Congress to write the laws that govern our nation. The executive branch is responsible for administering and enforcing those laws. And the judiciary both resolves disputes between private litigants and adjudicates constitutional disputes. While all three have an equal duty to act as a check and balance against the other, the judiciary typically has the final say. To accomplish that, we count on judges to set aside their personal policy goals and instead issue rulings based on the plain text of the law and the Constitution. This preserves the rights of all Americans to settle important policy questions for ourselves through our elected representatives at all levels of government. To paraphrase Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch in his confirmation hearings, a judge who likes every outcome he or she reaches is very likely a bad judge. We’ve already elected lawmakers – including Senator Jones. We don’t need the Supreme Court to do that job. We need the Justices to apply the plain text of the laws to the cases before them. Senator Jones should be among the last people to want the Justices to take over his job. Judge Barrett has shown throughout her career that she understands the role that judges should play in our constitutional system. In her work as a clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, during her time as a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, and in her current role as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, she has given every indication that she is prepared to fulfill that role on the Supreme Court. Beyond that, she has earned bipartisan praise for her intellect, work, and temperament. In all these respects, she is highly qualified for the position to which she is nominated. The Senate faces an important question. It would be a mistake to fail to confirm an extremely talented and capable judge to serve as associate justice of the highest court in the land. Amy Coney Barrett is such a candidate. Sadly however, Senator Jones has said that he refuses even to consider Ms. Barrett’s qualifications. Instead, he will vote against her if that vote occurs earlier than he would prefer. That’s a mistake, and we can only hope he will reconsider. A “yes” vote is the right one in terms of protecting our liberties and upholding the rule of law. So in the weeks ahead, when the Senate votes on Judge Barrett’s nomination, Senator Jones should join his colleagues in support of her nomination. Casey Mattox is vice president of legal and judicial strategy at Americans for Prosperity. He is a native of Collinsville, and a former clerk of the Alabama Supreme Court.
Donald Trump, Joe Biden square off, in a way, in dueling town halls
President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden squared off, in a way, Thursday night, their scuttled second debate replaced by dueling televised town halls several channels apart. The odd spectacle, which deprived most viewers of a simultaneous look at the candidates just 19 days before Election Day, seemed fitting for a race unlike any other, as yet another campaign ritual was changed by the pandemic that has killed 215,000 Americans and rewritten the norms of society. The presidential rivals took questions in different cities on different networks: Trump on NBC from Miami, Biden on ABC from Philadelphia. Trump backed out of plans for the presidential faceoff originally scheduled for the evening after debate organizers said it would be held virtually following Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. The town halls offered a different format for the two candidates to present themselves to voters, after the pair held a chaotic and combative first debate late last month. But Trump had no plans to change his tone. On Fox Business, he said of the first debate that “some people said I was rude, but you have to be rude. The guy’s a liar.” In case anyone remained unaware of Trump’s tactics, Biden warned supporters at a virtual fundraiser that the president would go after him aggressively in the final weeks of the campaign. “We’ve got 19 days left and you know he’s going to throw everything but the kitchen sink at me,” Biden said Thursday. “And it’s going to be an overwhelming torrent of lies and distortions.” The president also repeatedly delivered pre-emptive attacks on NBC before the town hall, suggesting that he only agreed to the event because “what the hell, we get a free hour of television” and declaring that when the network hosted one for Biden ,“they asked him questions that a child could answer.” Trump joked that he wished he could watch Biden’s appearance Thursday night because “I wanna see if he can made it through the program.” The two men are still scheduled to occupy the same space for a debate for a second and final time next week in Nashville. But the cancellation of Thursday’s debate still reverberated for both campaigns. Trump and Biden battled on Sept. 29 in Cleveland in a debate defined both by the president’s constant hectoring of his opponent, which sent his support lower, and by its place on the calendar: just two days before Trump announced he had tested positive for coronavirus. Questions still remain as to when Trump last tested negative before that debate and whether he exposed Biden to the virus. The Democratic nominee has since tested negative multiple times. Trump was hospitalized for three days, and while he later convalesced at the White House the debate commission moved to make their second debate remote — which the president immediately rejected. What happened next set off infighting in the president’s reelection team: Instead of immediately suggesting a delay in the debates, Trump initially pulled out, only to later propose that it be rescheduled for late in October. The Biden campaign balked, having already moved to schedule the town hall on ABC. The debate was then canceled and the Trump campaign moved to schedule its town hall — which led to a fierce backlash for NBC News’ decision to host it at the same time as Biden’s event. NBC said it agreed to set up the dueling town hall after Trump was administered a coronavirus test Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Anthony Fauci and NIH clinical director Dr. Clifford Lane reviewed the test and Trump’s medical records, concluding with a “high degree of confidence” that the president was not shedding infectious virus. Critics of NBC questioned why the network scheduled Trump for the same time, making viewers have to choose if they were interested in seeing both candidates react live in a similar format. The network considered it important that Trump be given the same format, day of the week and length of time that Biden had on NBC last week — although he will have a different moderator. Savannah Guthrie will be Trump’s host after Lester Holt moderated the Biden event. And, as a postscript to the mess that the second debate had become on the day it would have been held, its would-be host, CSPAN’s Steve Scully, was suspended Thursday for lying when he claimed his Twitter account had been hacked earlier this month when he reached out to a former Trump aide for advice over the president’s attacks. As the pace of the campaign speeds up in its final weeks, the two candidates first took care of other electoral necessities Thursday: Trump appeared at his midday rally in battleground North Carolina, and Biden raised campaign cash at his virtual event. Trump spent much of the rally again downplaying the severity of the pandemic that, despite his efforts to change the subject, has become the defining issue of the campaign. “It’s going to peter out. It’s going to end,” he said of the pandemic — just as he had last winter — even as cases have continued to increase nationwide in recent weeks. The president’s appearance in North Carolina underscored the challenge confronting him in the final weeks as multiple polls have shown him trailing Biden nationally and in many swing states. Trump has spent much of the week on defense, campaigning in states he won in 2016, such as North Carolina and Iowa, where he campaigned Wednesday. But despite the polling, Trump predicted a “big, beautiful red wave” on Election Night, before referencing another one of his major challenges: A cash disadvantage to the Biden campaign, which just announced raising a record-breaking $383 million in September. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Europe, US reel as virus infections surge at record pace
Coronavirus cases around the world have climbed to all-time highs of more than 330,000 per day as the scourge comes storming back across Europe and spreads with renewed speed in the U.S., forcing many places to reimpose tough restrictions eased just months ago. Well after Europe seemed to have largely tamed the virus that proved so lethal last spring, newly confirmed infections are reaching unprecedented levels in Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and Poland. Most of the rest of the continent is seeing similar danger signs. France announced a 9 p.m. curfew in Paris and other big cities. Londoners face new restrictions on meeting with people indoors. The Netherlands closed bars and restaurants this week. The Czech Republic and Northern Ireland shut schools. Poland limited restaurant hours and closed gyms and pools. In the United States, new cases per day are on the rise in 44 states, with many of the biggest surges in the Midwest and Great Plains, where resistance to masks and other precautions has been running high and the virus has often been seen as just a big-city problem. Deaths per day are climbing in 30 states. “I see this as one of the toughest times in the epidemic,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease specialist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. “The numbers are going up pretty rapidly. We’re going to see a pretty large epidemic across the Northern Hemisphere.” MORE ON COVID-19: – The Latest: NCarolina virus numbers head in wrong direction – UN: Europe’s pandemic restrictions are absolutely necessary – COVID spike arrives late, hits hard in rural Kansas county – London faces new restrictions as city sees higher virus risk Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert, said Americans should think hard about whether to hold Thanksgiving gatherings. “Everyone has this traditional, emotional, warm feeling about the holidays and bringing a group of people, friends, and family, together in the house indoors,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We really have to be careful this time that each individual family evaluates the risk-benefit of doing that.” Responses to the surge have varied in hard-hit states. In North Dakota, Republican Gov. Doug Burgum raised the coronavirus risk level in 16 counties this week but issued no mandated restrictions. In Wisconsin, a judge temporarily blocked an order from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers that would limit the number of people in bars and restaurants. South Dakota on Wednesday broke its record for COVID-19 hospitalizations and new cases and has had more deaths from the disease less than halfway through October than in any other full month. Despite the grim figures, GOP Gov. Kristi Noem has resisted pressure to step up the state’s response to the disease. Wisconsin hit a new daily high for confirmed infections for the second time this week. In Missouri, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 reached nearly 1,450, another record. Dr. Marc Larsen, who oversees the COVID-19 response at Kansas City-based St. Luke’s Health System, said the system’s rural hospitals are seeing surges just as bad as in Kansas City. “Early on in this pandemic, it was felt that this was a big-city problem, and now this is stretching out into the rural communities where I think there has not been as much emphasis on masking and distancing,” he said. New cases in the U.S. have risen over the past two weeks from about 40,000 per day on average to more than 52,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. (Cases peaked in the U.S. over the summer at nearly 70,000 a day.) Deaths were relatively stable over the past two weeks, at around 720 a day. That is well below the U.S. peak of over 2,200 dead per day in late April. Worldwide, deaths have fallen slightly in recent weeks to about 5,200 a day, down from a peak of around 7,000 in April. Dr. Hans Kluge, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe office, urged governments to be “uncompromising” in controlling the virus. He said most of the spread is happening because people aren’t complying with the safety rules. Europe’s financial markets fell sharply Thursday on concerns that the new restrictions will undercut the continent’s economic recovery. Stocks were down slightly on Wall Street. In France, which reported over 22,000 new infections Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron put 18 million residents in nine regions, including Paris, under a curfew starting Saturday. The country will deploy 12,000 police officers to enforce it. Italy set a one-day record for infections and recorded the highest daily death toll of this second wave, adding 83 victims to bring its count to nearly 36,400, the second-highest in Europe after Britain. Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak In Britain, London and seven other areas face restrictions that will mean more than 11 million people will be barred from meeting with anyone indoors from outside their households and will be asked to minimize travel starting this weekend. European nations have seen nearly 230,000 confirmed deaths from the virus, while the U.S. has recorded over 217,000, though experts agree the official figures understate the true toll. So far in the new surges, deaths have not increased at the same pace as infections. For one thing, it can take time for people to get sick and die of the virus. Also, many of the new cases involve young people, who are less likely than older ones to get seriously ill. Patients are benefiting from new drugs and other improvements in treating COVID-19. And nursing homes, which were ravaged by the virus last spring, have gotten better at controlling infections. But experts fear it is only a matter of time before deaths start rising in step with infections. “All of this does not bode well,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington. “Rapid increases in cases like we’re seeing now are always followed by increases in hospitalizations and deaths, which is what is likely to occur across much of Europe and the U.S.
Historically black school renames hall honoring KKK leader
A historically black university in Alabama has renamed a dormitory that honored a one-time governor who also led a Ku Klux Klan chapter nearly a century ago. Workers at Alabama State University removed the name “Bibb Graves” from a residence hall on Wednesday. The building had carried Graves’ name since 1928, when he served as the head of a state government that constitutionally mandated white supremacy. At least two other state schools also have renamed campus buildings that honored Graves, who was known as a pro-education, progressive governor despite leading a KKK chapter in the capital city. Klan membership was so large at the time that politicians used connections in the racist terror group to win votes. Alabama State President Quinton T. Ross Jr. said the idea of replacing the building’s name had been discussed at least as far back as when he was a student at the school, located a few miles from the Alabama Capitol. “Many of our alumni have asked for this to happen,” he said in a statement. Alabama State trustees voted to rename the building earlier this year during the national discussion generated by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The school has yet to decide on a new name for the residence hall. Troy University has renamed its Bibb Graves Hall for the late Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who grew up near campus and died earlier this year. The University of Montevallo, near Birmingham, voted to rename buildings honoring Graves and Braxton Bragg Comer, who worked to maintain remnants of the old plantation system as governor. Graves served two four-year terms as governor beginning in 1927 and 1935. He resigned from the Klan and denounced its violence in the late 1920s, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Alabama officials trying to combat virus vaccine resistance
With a possible vaccine for COVID-19 still more than two months away, Alabama health officials said Thursday that they already are working to combat the reluctance among some to accept an immunization that’s become politically divisive. Small amounts of vaccines currently in trials could begin arriving by the end of the year, and a communications program to overcome hesitancy by some to receive the shot is a key part of the planning, Dr. Scott Harris said at a briefing on the program. Treatments for the new coronavirus have a “political dimension” that, when combined with longstanding resistance to vaccines and historical distrust of public health by groups including Black people, will present a challenge to getting as many people as possible to accept vaccination, he said. The Department of Public Health, which Harris heads, is in contact with medical practices and groups, faith leaders, local officials, and legislators in hopes they can help pave the way for acceptance, he said. “We have a lot of our staff interacting with different groups,” he said. Even with the expected reluctance among some to get vaccinated, initial supplies will be small and the first doses likely will go to older people, those with health problems that make them more susceptible to the disease, and health care staff working in places like nursing homes, he said. “I don’t think there’s any question that vaccine will be a scarce resource,” Harris said. The vaccine will be free to everyone but likely not widely available until next spring, he said. Alabama has recorded about 170,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, caused by the new coronavirus, and about 2,760 people have died. Caseloads and hospitalizations that fell after the state required face masks in public haven’t gone up as badly as feared since schools began, yet they’ve also not decreased. “We believe we’ve sort of leveled out,” said Harris, although some statistics have shown a slight worsening in recent days. The state got a jolt Wednesday when the University of Alabama said football coach Nick Saban — who has actively supported face masks and other pandemic safety precautions — had tested positive for COVID-19. Still, health officials said masks, social distancing, and hand washing are the best prevention for the illness and will remain important until vaccines are widely available. The state’s mask regulation continues through Nov. 8, and Gov. Kay Ivey could extend it again at that time. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
