Confession: I am not one of those people who believes the answer to every question is "let the free market decide." I don't believe that the market does what's in the best interests of the people, either short or long term. See: the dominance of sport utility vehicles in the United States, effects on the environment, contribution to collapse of General Motors, etc.

Nor do I believe that insurance companies in America have the best interests of consumers at heart. Indeed, in such a hyper-capitalist nation, the corporations we hand our money over to often care zero about us, and one hundred about their bottom lines.

Proof positive comes from Reuters:

…Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators.

So, targeting HIV positive consumers in order to strip them of their insurance…and yet some lawmakers think it's ok to let these companies continue these practices and operate this way, essentially unchecked?

Not on my watch. Feel the same? Take action and make sure this kind of travesty stops.

Still think insrance companes have your best interests at heart?

You can't read this story in the Detroit News about Kirk Miller, a twenty-something who can't afford his health insurance, and tell me big insurance companies are managing our health care system just fine on their own. He's also suffering from a chronic blood disorder, making the emergency room his only viable treatment option.

After undergoing an emergency operation, Miller was to return for a follow-up surgery.

But on the morning of the scheduled surgery -- Jan. 6, 2009 -- Miller and his mother arrived at the hospital only to be told at check-in that the operation couldn't be performed because of his outstanding balance.

As if that weren't bad enough, the total had been misprinted.

Miller was handed a purple piece of paper with a balance that read: $31,910,348. He was later informed the total was an error. The balance should have read: $319,103.48.

The young man ran out of the hospital, crying. He admits he was "devastated." Who wouldn't be, seeing a six-figure bill and being denied care? He called the surgeon who was slated to operate, and luckily, that surgeon stepped up to the plate and found a way to treat his patient.

"I said this was a kid who came here to our hospital, received emergent surgery and this is follow-up care for his original surgery," Siegel recalled. "He should be allowed to have this taken care of."

In the end, it turned out Miller "only" owed just over $30,000 for the emergency surgery, which amounts to just a small portion of his total medical debt.

How much longer are we going to allow insurers to make it impossible for the sick to get the care they need, shifting the burden to taxpayers and hospitals just to keep their balance sheet clean?

It's time to stand up for people. Send your Congressperson a message and tell them to support meaningful healthcare reform for all Americans!

The climactic moment in the best non-Pixar children's film I've ever seen, The Iron Giant, comes when little Hogarth Hughes teaches his new pal, the Iron Giant, about what it means to be alive.

"You are who you choose to be," he says. "You choose."

Contrast that with the childish, oft-repeated statement made by the impish former President George W. Bush, "I'm the decider, I decide," and you sort of get to the crux of the abortion debate.

Who chooses? If you're pro-choice, you think everyone chooses what's right for them. If you're like two anti-choice Kalamazoo County Commissioners, John Zull and Michael Quinn, you think you're the decider, and you decide what's right for every Kalamazoo County employee.

In an eerie echo of the anti-choice Stupak amendment to the national health care bill, Zull and Quinn are attempting to foist their personal beliefs onto county employees by pulling their abortion coverage.

“Bottom line — this proposal is an invasion of privacy into our employees,” said Commissioner Brian Johnson, D-Kalamazoo, who argued the board had no right to “stick our noses” into county employee’s private health business.

You choose, Kalamazoo voters. Otherwise, those guys are going to decide for you.

Alright, first, let me just say that one of my pet peeves is the misuse of the word, ironic. So let's just review quickly.

It is not, as Alanis Morissette would have us believe, "like rain on your wedding day." That's just bad luck, and probably poor planning. It's also not "a free ride" when one has "already paid."

It is, says that great sage, Merriam-Webster:

3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony, tragic irony

Now, this is ironic – Sarah Palin, of all people, seems to have used "ironic" correctly, when she said in Calgary recently:

The vocal opponent of health care reform in the U.S. steered largely clear of the topic except to reveal a tidbit about her life growing up not far from Whitehorse.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," she said. "And I think now, isn't that ironic."

Yes, Sarah, yes it is. Because you, on stage, don't get that we, the audience, know that your border-jumping for medicine does not square with your hatred of health care reform, which would give Americans access to the same kind of quality care our neighbors to the north enjoy.

Because while you and yours are stopping any attempt to keep insurance giants from using Americans as their personal profit machines, you're also pointing north with derision, as though affordable medicine (which you no doubt benefitted from as a child) and the guarantee that falling ill or having an accidents doesn't equal financial ruin is a bad thing.

It is ironic, and as the Canadian pop queen Morissette would add, "A little too ironic."

From WLNS TV 6:

One local group is speaking out against some of the state's highest paid people. It all centers on legislation over whether to increase state employee salaries. Progress Michigan, a government watchdog organization based in Lansing, says the group business leaders for Michigan is being hypocritical.

... snip ....

David Joos, CEO of Consumers Energy, is a member of business leaders for Michigan. He was awarded a 148 percent bonus in 2009 based on company performance. The group says CEO pay and benefits are beside the issue. They say they want fairness when it comes to taxpayers and how their dollars are spent.

You can watch the full report here:

"We have outsourced a substantial portion of our manufacturing operations to countries in Asia…"

The far right already has its Tea Party. Now, it's got a Mad Hatter.

Because you'd have to be mad, right, to think that what Michigan needs is a corporate CEO. Because those CEOs have done a lot for the country, and for Michigan, right?

Wrong.

Now it's clear that Rick Snyder isn't a "tough nerd" but another fat cat bonus baby. In fact, he's so far from the realm of reason that he thinks we won't notice that he, like Dick DeVos before him, sent thousands of Michigan jobs overseas.

You'd have to be a Mad Hatter to think that what Michigan's hard-working families want is to wave goodbye to more jobs, so big business can benefit.

How many jobs created and saved by the federal jobs program will it take to nudge the far right into action?

Hopefully, it's just 280,000. That's the number of construction jobs saved and created by the first wave of President Obama's federal jobs program.

But the way extreme conservatives tell the story, the jobs program is some kind of pariah, something to fear more than anything else.

And why not? I mean, if we end up with, heaven's forbid, a quarter million jobs created or saved in every industry touched by the next round of the jobs program, the results would be...positively apocalyptic?

Oh, the horror.

You know how sometimes the far right will accuse the President of attempting to ram legislation down their throats instead of listening to their feedback and involving them in a bipartisan conversation in order to pass, say, meaningful health care reform legislation? And you know how sometimes you know they're just grandstanding about that but whatever, you make a public attempt to get them more involved so everyone can be accountable for what is said and it can all be on the public record, like, say, television?

Well what if you gave the far right a chance to voice their concerns, have their concerns addressed, and did it in an open, transparent, public forum? Do you think maybe they'd be happy?

No. No, they wouldn't. Because getting what you want is great, unless the person giving you what you want isn't a member of your party.

"What? It is a public dialogue about important legislation, not Little Bighorn!"

Watch, enjoy, and happy Friday, super pals.

The Detroit News has covered Toyota's recent recall with great interest, reporting on each angle and development relentlessly. In fact, if not for its editorial board's insistence on taking a stance opposite whatever Governor Jennifer Granholm proposes, one could be fooled into thinking the News were a good watchdog for the Michigan consumer.

But then they go and do something like this:

…A few days prior to the governor's address, she returned to a constant theme of this state's Democrats: Ending protection against lawsuits for pharmaceutical firms whose products have been declared safe by the federal government.

The statute insulating pharmaceutical companies was adopted in 1995 in an attempt to develop Michigan as a site for pharmaceutical research.

Some would argue the intent was not to encourage developing a new industry, but a back-scratching to the big pharma giants bankrolling powerful lawmakers. Nonetheless, once reminded that Granholm wanted to, finally, allow Michiganders to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable when their products harm or kill, the News tossed out their canned opinion:

If the governor is interested in diversifying the state's economy, she will drop this sop to the trial lawyers.

Get it? While the pages of the paper can be filled with reporting on Toyota's recalls, which would not happen were it not for the power of the people to hold the carmaker accountable in court if the cars malfunction and harm people, the editors can lament the desire of consumers to regain a similar power over pharmaceutical giants.

What's wrong with accountability? What's the problem with businesses being good corporate citizens and, GASP, responsible for the effects of their products on the people forking over a sizeable amount of money for them?

You can't make this stuff up, but you can certainly find out about it by taking a poll, which is what the namesake of the blog DailyKos did. Lucky for you, me, and people who believe the President was born in the United States (as his birth certificate proves), the poll is published for our perusal.

So when we call the right "out of touch," we don't just mean out of touch with America. We mean - and the polls bear this out - out of touch with reality.

In case you need convincing:

Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?
Yes 21
No 24
Not Sure 55

A full 76 percent of self-identified Republicans believe it's at least possible that ACORN managed to steal the election from John McCain. That's mystifying, and begs the question: how do they afford the tinfoil for all those hats?

We also learn that 63 percent of those polled believe the President is a socialist. Of course, he must be a socialist. That's why we have…this great…single-payer health care system? Oh. No, no we don't.

Another 30 percent believe the President is a racist who hates white people, with an additional third joining the fold to note they don't know. For the record, I also don't know if Sarah Palin is shopping a coffee table book called "Cooking Caribou In The Buff," but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

Remember the old days, when there were facts? Not just the belief that birth control is abortion (it's not abortion any more than menstruation is) or the belief that the president wants the terrorists to win standing in for fact and driving an entire, whackadoodle movement.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop has a knack for doing nothing. In fact, he has presided over the Say No Senate for more than two years. A time period that is most notable for yearly budget debacles and a general resistance to progress.

Also, he seems to be an unabashed opportunist. A recent article from the Free Press says as much:

Measured by the same standard, the initiative Bishop announced last week is a non-event. It risks nothing politically. It is fraught with constitutional and practical hazards that make even Dillon's comprehensive overhaul look simple by comparison. And it signals only the GOP majority leader's willingness to vilify a weakened labor movement with whom his party has long been at odds.

In fact, the most notable thing about Bishop's initiative is how timid it is by comparison with bolder and more comprehensive proposals advanced by other conservative groups, including Business Leaders of Michigan, the statewide mouthpiece of corporate CEOs that succeeded Detroit Renaissance.

And here is the knife in the heart:

Bishop has demonstrated that he is more interested in placating traditional Republican constituencies and scapegoating public employees than in advancing the reform discussion.

Like most Michiganders, I have watched as your last round of "reforms" contributed to growing hardships and deficits in schools, more of our needy getting sick and dying for lack of health care services, and public safety being slashed, all so you can claim to have never raised taxes on Michigan's hard working families.

But my mom always said (well, she still says it), "Angela, even God gives us second chances," so I figured I'd give you the benefit of the doubt when I heard you unveiled a new "reform" plan.

So when I finally got my trembling little hands on your "reform" plan yesterday afternoon, the first words out of my mouth were curse words. In fact, Mr. Bishop, I was so upset that as I gestured wildly in a display of "WTF? Again?" to the person nearest me, your "2010 – Year of the Reform" cover page slashed my pinky finger wide open.

This bleeding heart liberal started bleeding on your handout before I made it to the stash of bandages in the office.

But back to your strangely sharp, thick-edged cover sheet. Your "reforms," as you have taken to calling your budget cuts (nice use of doublespeak, by the way) are disappointing, at best. At worst, they're exactly what I'd expect from you.

$1.2 billion from public employees, some of which can't be accomplished without a popular vote? Another half billion from Medicaid – which evidently you feel didn't shoulder enough of the burden last fiscal year, as you now plan to cut more "optional" services. Obviously, you learned nothing from the elderly woman in Alpena, who died for lack of dental coverage.

Then there's your "school reforms," which is Bishop-speak for "outsourcing jobs," meaning bus drivers and janitors will be asked to take a third or a fourth of their current wage for their same job with worse benefits. That's great for the economy.

You, Mikey Blue Eyes, already know the kicker, but I'm going to type on my still-smarting Spiderman Band-Aided pinky anyhow. You and yours will take a hit of…$5 million. In the form of pulling the lifetime benefits of only some lawmakers. And that "some," making a sacrifice so laughably small it just has to be your best joke yet, doesn't even include you.

Oh, Mike, I haven't the heart to finish this letter. But just so you'll have plenty of letters from people like me, who listened to their moms and gave you even the most ill-considered of second-chances to at least, for heaven's sake, say cuts when you are making cuts, I told all my friends to write to you, too.

If you're part of the far-right and even Glenn Beck doesn't trust you, then you have done something seriously wrong (or good?).

Remember that scene in "Jurassic Park" when the glass of water begins to ripple moments before the Tyrannosaurus Rex bursts through the park?

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's recent decision to grant Consumers Energy an air quality permit for a proposed coal-fired power plant is another ripple forecasting the imminent danger to clean energy jobs in Michigan, threatened by that terrifying dangerous dinosaur: dirty coal plants.

Consumers and the DEQ would have us believe that their dinosaur, set to stomp down on Bay City and raise ratepayers bills by 30%, is not really that scary, because in exchange, they're agreeing to phase out a few other dinosaurs they already need to phase out. Yay.

People, one dinosaur is one dinosaur too many.

Those are the four words used by Phil Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, describing what facets of the financial industry he'll be investigating.

Angelides is charged by Congress with answering two big questions for American taxpayers outraged by the excesses of Wall Street bankers: what caused the meltdown of our financial sector on 9/15/2009, and how exactly did it come to be that the citizens of the United States ended up footing the bill for the banks' comeuppance?

The target of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 may have been symbolically financial, destroying the entire World Trade Center complex and damaging several nearby banking buildings. But the actual destruction of the American economy and financial markets took place 9/15, when, saddled by bad debt, bad bets and sketchy practices, the markets collapsed under their own weight, taking the American economy with them.

This weekend, venerable New York Times columnist Frank Rich argued that while the nation is focusing on stopping terrorism of the sort that brought down the buildings housing financial markets, we are wide open – still – to the financial weapons that brought our economy to its knees a little over a year ago.

"What we don't know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack. Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin. Without that reckoning, there will be no public clamor for serious reform of a financial system that was as cunningly breached as airline security at the Amsterdam airport. And, without reform, another massive attack on our economic security is guaranteed."

It gets worse. As Americans are asking themselves how long they can make it on unemployment checks, executives at Goldman Sachs are preparing for an average $585 K bonus payout, funded by tax dollars. Other banking big wigs are wondering whether there bonuses will be six, seven or eight figures.

But it's not going to end unless we demand it. The federal government is set to form an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency to put, at long last, the interests of consumers ahead of bankers. And that scares the "too big to fail" bankers to death. The revolving door between banks and government allowed banks to operate unchecked, creating the conditions that led to 9/15, and now allowing the same banks to profit at our expense, while raising our rates.

Those days are over – if we fight for it. Big Business is, predictably, fighting the agency's creation tooth and nail. Even in our own backyard, state legislation to protect consumers from greedddy banks and businesses has been stalled by Big Business ,funded lawmakers like Andy Dillon, making the fight for our rights, and for the economic future of our nation, even more pressing.

Take action today by signing our petition of support. We can't afford another bailout, and we shouldn't have to, either.

Ladies and gentlemen, climate change is shaping up to be the battle of the century, the millennium, and probably the history of the planet. This fight is bigger than the aching, brokenhearted Rocky Balboa taking down 'roid-ridden boxing-bot Ivan Drago and, ultimately, Communism.

Drago, in a lot of ways, is eerily representative of the Climate Change deniers. That cold, glassy stare when Apollo Creed dies in the ring? Shade of Sarah Palin rehashing blatant falsehoods like a Denial-Bot, chief among them that there is no proof that human activity has contributed significantly to global warming.

If Palin is the android-like Ivan Drago, that makes RNC head Michael Steele the even more dogmatic spouse of Ivan (played by a pre-plastic surgery Brigitte Nielsen.) To wit, Steele embodies the Mrs. perfectly by pulling the old Cold War word twisting game when opining about global warming:

We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process.

Fair enough, Mrs. Drago, some places are getting colder. Over time, as the science has borne out that greenhouse gases are changing our climate in many different ways, we have taken to calling this economic and environmental threat climate change. (Note the absence of air quotes.)

But wait! There's more! Mrs. Drago continues:

Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? Not very long.

Fact: Greenland was named as such because, as Mrs. Drago understands, sometimes you have to give something ugly, like a pig, something pretty, like lipstick, to entice people to look at it. In the case of Greenland, calling a vast, largely ice covered hunk of land something more inviting helped attract settlers. Kind of like calling a simpleton "the former Governor of Alaska," you know?

Or like calling ideologues who don't believe science, um, leaders.

All I wanted for Christmas, besides for Nebraska defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh to win the Heisman (#defensewinschampionships #offensewinstrophies), was to be able to enter a bar without coughing (#smokingbanforthewin). While Mark Ingram went home with the trophy, I did get my smoking ban.

Since I'm batting .500, I'll go ahead and revise my list and add on another early gift: for the companies I do business with to not retain the explicit, legally-gifted (#CliffTaylorFail) right to screw me out of my money.

Well, thank goodness: Senator Gretchen Whitmer has just thrown her name and her support behind the House of Representatives' plan to give the Michigan Consumer Protections Act some teeth again. The House will pass the plan this week.

That's fabulous news, especially (#clichealert) in this economy. In all seriousness, the problem is real. Nearly 75% of the over 13,000 consumer complaints received by the Attorney General in 2008 weren't covered by the Michigan Consumer Protection Act due to the gutting of the legislation by the Supreme Court. Oh, the irony!

The plan the House is set to pass this week would restore the Consumer Protection Act and apply it to all the businesses and industries it originally covered, giving folks like us the tools we need to hold companies and businesses accountable. It also levies stiff fines on businesses engaging in fraudulent practices (#punishment).

I may have gotten robbed this past Saturday, when the dominant Suh was passed over for college football's biggest award, but as long as the Senate does the right thing and passes these bills, I'll have some recourse next time a business tries to pull the reverse on me (#can'tfoolmetwice).

Let's hope the Senate continues the trend it started with the smoking legislation and continues to pass laws that benefit all Michiganders.

The smoking ban went to the Governor less than an hour ago and the press statements are already pouring in. Rep. Joan Bauer (D-Lansing) hit the send button on this statement around 3:30 today:

"This is truly a historic day for the state of Michigan. I am pleased that the House and Senate have worked together to pass a comprehensive smoking ban that will protect Michigan workers from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke in the workplace. The message from the public on this issue has been very clear and the Legislature heard that message and responded. I am proud that Michigan will become the 38th state to pass smoke free legislation."

Coupla things: first, I am elated that we've finally got a workplace smoking ban in place. Even as a pack-a-day smoker when this legislation was first introduced, I agreed with the plan. Why? Well, I smoked because I wanted to. But I hated others' cigarette smoke hanging in the air around me like big clouds of doom, I hated not being able to take my child to certain "family style" local restaurants because the smoke was so dense, and I hated the idea that other people had to breathe my smoke. Hell, I didn't even like breathing my smoke, I just liked the nicotine. Second, I'm not sure I feel good that Michigan is the 38th state to get around to the ban. Entire countries have managed to enact bans before us (in all fairness, Greece probably didn't have a "Say NO" Senate). 38th out of 50 is the kind of finish that leads to a fire sale in sports (unless you're our beloved Tigers, then a fire sale is a "just because" kind of event). Third, and I hate to be a jerk on this (ok, I am fine being a jerk on this), this ban is not comprehensive. Gaming floors for Detroit's casinos, cigar bars, tobacco shops, and a few other places are exempt. So it's good for everyone – unless you're a blackjack dealer. Then, well, you have to find work at a non-smoking casino. Sorry.

I'm hopeful that we'll have smoke-free casinos soon, too. Once our lawmakers see the world does not collapse around them when bars and restaurants go smoke-free, they'll see that casinos can bite the bullet, too.

It never ceases to amaze me. The health insurance industry has hit a new low in their battle against healthcare reform.

Actually, it's just what you'd expect from the health insurance industry, who care for nothing other than their bottom line. Yes sir, tried and true practices meet social media, virtual astro-turfing:

Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.

Can't get enough people at the rally? Rent buses and pay people from all over to come! Need letters sent to lawmakers not already in your pocket? Pay Farmville addicts in virtual dollars!

Another day, another virtual dollar.

If you haven't had a chance to read Nolan Finley's latest hatchet job on established science, please, take a moment and read his column in last week's Detroit News.

Not that anyone should be shocked by Finley's shilling for the status quo. A quick survey of his blog and columns reads like a right-winger's hit-list: federal health care reform is "snake oil" and foreshadows a government takeover; state revenue increases are bad, and he claims Gov. Granholm has long "coveted" a sales tax increase; so, shock and awe, he doesn't believe in climate change.

Here's Finley's beef:

The president promises next month's international palaver on climate change will be marked by aggressive action to combat global warming and a firm commitment by the United States to shoulder its share of the responsibility.

Translation: Obama will pledge the United States to curbing its appetite for energy, and thus its economic growth, will make reducing emissions a higher priority than creating new jobs and will agree to transfer $1.6 trillion of our wealth to China, India and the other booming developing economies.

Ok. As my friend Dan says, "I see what you're saying, but no." Curbing our appetite for energy means bringing it to a level we can provide for, ourselves. Mr. Finley, imagine the only food you have to eat is the food you grow in your own garden. Problem: you're not a gardener, and it takes a little time to learn. Solution: adjust your appetite.

Here's my favorite part, though. Climate change deniers, their heads stuck firmly in the sand and bums up in the mercury-laced air their favored power sources, coal plants, produce, will often revert to two blatantly incorrect criticisms of clean energy policy: 1. it will cost jobs and, 2. climate change isn’t real anyway.

On jobs, Mr. Finley, enacting the federal Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act alone will create at least 1.9 million jobs nationally. Here in Michigan, where you and I both live, we're already seeing jobs – and an entire new industry – being created by making a commitment to clean energy technology. We have wind turbine manufacturers; we have the upcoming production of the hybrid-electric Chevy Volt, and the advanced battery technology production plant in Brownstown, Twp. Here, Mr. Finley, not China.

Something else to consider: when our expendable income (that's play money, sir) isn't impacted by wildly volatile heating, electric and gasoline costs, we can spend more money right here in Michigan, giving a desperately-needed shot in the arm to our economy. All good things, Mr. Finley, despite your stubborn refusal to see the benefits in any kind of change.

Maybe you would have been one of the folks who thought that the advent of the Model T was bad because it meant the death of the horse-and-buggy industry, and therefore America's wealth. That's pure speculation, because I don't know you, sire, but I think I know your kind.

Your kind are like the Swiftboaters, who torpedo good ideas and good people because both challenge your motto: "The Status Quo is Good Enough For Me, And You Too." Your kind do things like hack into a research centers email servers, release said emails as "damning" evidence of the fraud of climate change when, in reality, climate change is proven science. Like gravity, the scientific force that makes your kind want to put their heads into the sand.

When you come up for air, Mr. Finley, take a look around: glaciers have been melting for 18 consecutive years, temperatures have been rising for 50. The American Physical Society, American Geophysical Union and U.S. Global Change Research Program, to name just a bare minimum, have all found that climate change is real, and needs to be addressed.

But hey, why look at the facts when you have all those grains of sand to stare at, right?