Finally, Kinda, Sorta
Aug 7th, 2007 at 9:47 am by Susie
A reporter gets it almost right:
Susie Madrak, proprietor of the blog Suburban Guerrilla and the AP’s main source for its story, is not calling for a labor union for bloggers. She understands that bloggers aren’t employed by anyone, and that consequently collective bargaining wouldn’t work. What Madrak is organizing, instead, is very different: a kind of grass-roots insurance pool to pay for health emergencies of progressive bloggers — people without whom, she says, Democrats would not enjoy the political success they’re now seeing.
[...] Madrak is undoubtedly right that the Democratic Party has been boosted by lefty bloggers — the difficulty, though, is in putting a price tag on that help. How much would it cost to cover healthcare for influential lefty bloggers, and how much of that should Democrats pay?
These questions rest upon a fundamentally unknowable thing — the blogosphere’s direct impact on American elections — and when you conceive of funding bloggers’ emergencies, it’s this fact that trips you up.
All across the nation, though, officials and experts are imagining creative ways to cover the uninsured. Madrak’s plan is certainly unconventional, but little about healthcare isn’t. I’d put long odds on her success — the fact that the plan is too easily dismissed as a “labor union” is perhaps the foremost stumbling point. But it’s a long way from crazy.
I’m not trying to have people pay for bloggers’ health insurance, and I have no idea why this concept eludes reporters. I am trying to get bloggers affiliated with a large group so it’s cheaper.
I am also - that is, in addition - trying to put together a blogger emergency fund that will cover urgent financial situations for bloggers. Remember when I had pneumonia a few years back, had no health insurance and couldn’t work for a few weeks? You guys carried the weight and saved my life. (Bless you all.)
Well, under my plan, instead of donating money directly to someone like me, you’d contribute directly to this fund - and if we can legally structure it as a non-profit, you’d get a tax deduction. Bloggers with emergencies would apply directly.
So are we clear? We’re talking about two different things. I keep telling them that, and they keep missing it. Arghhh….
So we don’t know what bloggers are worth, huh? Let’s look at blogger contributions to the Democratic party. Last year, when the DCCC and the DSCC wrote off dozens of races to the Republicans, who still insisted who could win both the House and the Senate? Bloggers.
When the DCCC cut off funds or ignored certain races, calling them “unwinnable,” who targeted those races and brought in contributions from all over the country, making them viable? Bloggers.
Who helped make Howard Dean the chairman of the DNC? Bloggers.
Who believed in Dean’s 50-state strategy and helped fund it when Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer didn’t? Bloggers.
They can say whatever they want, but without our money and our enthusiasm, they wouldn’t hold Congress right now. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that they support the people who helped them get there.
FWIW, have you seen John Scalzi’s suggestion of contacting the NWU?
It’s in this thread, which does start with the misunderstandings fostered in the first article…
Okay…so you want to form a union so that you can negotiate for cheaper insurance and form your own “workers comp” fund. It must have really chapped your ass to receive charity from your friends.
I was grateful for their help. I wouldn’t say it “chapped my ass” - it bothered me that I didn’t have my own resources.
Why not make the pool all registered democrats (with proof required)? Might bring a bunch of independents into the fold and would make great politics for the Democratic party to be really doing something about the insurance mess.
I second the suggestion to contact the NWU.
Good on you for doing this. It will be a fitting memorial for Jim C and Steve G, among others.
Doesn’t it chap your ass that most of the media (including bloggers) got your story so wrong?
According to one article the NWU is definitely interested, but there’s nothing on their site yet, and they only have three “genres” of writing, none of which bloggers really fit (especially those of us who blog as a hobby and not for pay).
Susie, you might want to contact a comic organization called the Hero Initiative to see how they set themselves up. They exist pretty much to take care of indigent comic book creators, particularly the ones who toiled during the days before better contracts.
Hi, Susie:
I have been following your efforts to help progressive bloggers get affordable health insurance. It’s a wonderful idea. You’re right: It is absolutely shameful that people like Jim Capozzola died because of lousy (or no) coverage. And it is equally shocking that you had to literally fundraise for money when you yourself were sick with pneumonia.
When I read the AP story, I must admit that I was confused by the whole thing. But yesterday’s Salon.com posting (which, as you point out, “gets it right. . . kinda, sorta. . .”) made a few points that I worry about. For instance, it states: “Madrak says the fund would set up rules [about who is covered], and it would start very small,” and quotes you as saying, “Probably what we’d do is look to start something in the Northeast area — say, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston. We’d work out the kinks, and then try to expand and perhaps set up regional pools around the country.”
I’m not sure if this is what you actually told this reporter/blogger, but one possible problem with this idea is that insurance coverage is only really good when the pool of people being insured is LARGE. From what I understand, the larger the pool, the better the chance that the policy will actually pay benefits, when claims are filed.
In my HonestMedicine.com interview with SiCKO insurance company “hitman” Lee Einer (which you so kindly linked to from your site – see http://susiemadrak.com/2007/07/30/10/35/sicko-source-speaks/), Lee talks about this phenomenon. He points out that insurance companies tend to fight hardest NOT to pay claims on policies where the pools are small — although, I must admit that, when I asked Lee directly: “Which kinds of insurance companies try hardest NOT to pay claims?”, he answered, “Any kind” — inferring that MOST companies try their very best to deny as many claims as possible, so they can pocket the money.
The truth is that bloggers are in the same boat as many of us self-employed Americans, many of whom work very hard for causes we consider to be important, and –- like so many bloggers — don’t get the (health) benefits of their/our labors. Many of us who are self-employed pay enormous premiums for limited coverage with high deductibles. Others can’t get insurance at all, because of cost and/or pre-existing conditions.
In his HonestMedicine.com interview with me, Lee points out that the self-employed are the ones who are hurt most often by their insurance carriers. In fact, he told me that every single case that he described in SiCKO –- cases where he searched for loopholes, as if it was a “murder case,” in order to deny the claim -– were all cases of self-employed people. All of them had individual policies that didn’t stand by them when they got catastrophically sick -– even though they had faithfully paid their premiums for years.
So, maybe we need to get some kind of group together that is larger and includes all sorts of self-employed people who are doing good works. (I know, I know. How will we define “good works”?) Those people who either make no money (like bloggers), or very little money, from their good works. For instance, one of my friends runs a not-for-profit music school and, though he works at least 70 hours a week, he takes a really tiny salary for himself –- so that he can keep his school open. His school, by the way, has many outreach programs in poor neighborhoods. It also has a policy of never turning anyone away because of lack of funds. He’s one of the “good guys.” And on his own, he is “uninsurable.”
So, there are many of us out there who are either going broke paying premiums for a solo policy that will probably fail us when things go really wrong, or who can’t afford the premiums at all and/or have pre-existing conditions that make us “uninsurable.”
Now THAT would be a really BIG pool of people, wouldn’t it?! How would we get something like that going?
Or is it just easier to fight to get universal coverage for all?
Again, thanks for all the work you are doing, Susie. You’re amazing –- as is your blog.
Julia Schopick
http://www.HonestMedicine.com