Medicare for All

I wrote the following to Golden, Collins, and King to urge them to cosponsor and support “The Medicare for All Act in the U.S. House (H.R. 3421) and U.S. Senate (S. 1655).” 

    I am a retired teacher with a Maine State Retirement pension. When I retired at 62, the only additional coverage I could get for which the MSR System would pay their share was Aetna, the company providing my health insurance at the time of retirement. I started paying about $350 a month from my own pocket, and the premium went up every year. At one points, I needed emergency surgery and was hospitalized for several days. When the bills started coming in, I discovered that I did not have the supplement plan I thought I had, but a catastrophic insurance plan that also provided some coverage for prescription drugs which I didn’t need. Aetna did not pay any of the co-pay expenses for the surgery and hospital stay. By this time my premium was up to about $450 a month. With the state’s share, my insurance was costing over $700 a month. Not only was I getting ripped off, the state was, too. As a taxpayer, I was cheated twice to pay for Aetna profits. 

     The whole experience was a nightmare with trying to figure out if I should blame the insurance company or the providers who kept harassing me with bills. When the collection agency threatened me, I paid the bill to get some peace of mind, but my trust in some of the health care providers involved in that has never recovered, and I don’t intend to recover trust in for-profit insurance. It is foolish for any of us to trust our health to companies whose only motive is profit. And it is foolish to trust providers encouraged by the way they are paid to compromise quality of care and to waste money for unnecessary procedures. 

     When I signed up for Medicare in 2003, I dropped Aetna coverage and picked up an Advantage plan. I don’t trust them either. They start you out cheap and then increase the premiums by 100 percent or more every year. The first one stopped offering the product I had after about 2 years. The next one I had started out with a payment of $0 per month and increased the premium to $50 per month the first year. I don’t even know how to calculate that percentage. The one I have now bombards me every day with emails, phone calls, and snail mail purporting to educate me about their benefits, or requesting my time and energy filling out surveys, or making appointments with me for wellness checks that they don’t follow through with. These profit-driven companies are subsidized by the federal government, and we are cheated again. 

    When I first began my experience with a non-profit Blue Cross/ Blue Shield decades ago, our insurance life was simple and worry-free. Faced with a life-threatening illness of one child that went on for several years and involved several hospital stays, we all—the patient, his family, and the providers—could focus on the medical problems of the illness, not on what we would have to sacrifice to pay for the treatment. We need a payment system that returns us to that simplicity, effectiveness, and trust. 

    We need what virtually every other industrialized company has, a single-payer universal system which would create a more friendly business environment for Maine by decoupling insurance from employment; level the competitive playing field for workers in the global market where most of the developed world governments have some form of universal, single payer insurance; relieve personal stresses faced by individuals trying to get affordable insurance; reduce the costs of health care by removing profits of the insurance industry and the rest of the Health Care industrial complex, by negotiating prescription drug costs, and by other necessary measures. Not least of the benefits of a universal, single-payer system is simplifying the health-care system, which in itself would reduce costs to the entire system. 

    All it takes now is political will. Please, cosponsor and support “The Medicare for All Act in the U.S. House (H.R. 3421) and U.S. Senate (S. 1655).”

Testimony Opposing Rezoning of Pickett Mountain Land for Metal Mining

 

I was born and grew up in Portage Lake near the Bald Mountain site considered for a mine like the one being proposed at Pickett Mountain. For more than a decade, I have been researching risks and benefits of metallic mineral mining and testifying in opposition to plans that pose unacceptable risks to the environment in Maine’s wet climate. In 3 minutes, I can’t talk about all the worries I have about this proposed mine, so I will focus on threats to waters surrounding the site.

Wolfden’s application lists numerous water bodies there. Recreational water areas within 3 miles of the Project Area include 1 lake, 4 ponds, and a river. Inside the Project Area are 29 wetlands, 22 watercourses, 8 vernal pools and 2 potential vernal pools. Mine infrastructure, the application says, will be sited at least 75 feet away from wetlands, streams, and vernal pools to avoid direct impacts to these resources during construction and mine operations. Within 3 miles is about the distance of a 1-hour walk even for me at 85. And 75 feet is about the length of my small backyard. Since water always flows downward with the force of gravity, how can those distances possibly prevent toxic pollution from reaching all that water? Wolfden promises the project’s water treatment approach will return clean, treated water back to the environment and  maintain current water quality within the project area and downgradient water bodies.¹

I have looked for and never found an example of a metallic mineral mine anywhere in the world that lived up to promises like that. At every forum on the subject I have attended over these years, I asked for an example of a mine that has not polluted surrounding waters with toxic chemicals. Every example given proves to be false when I follow up with research. Ann Maest in pre-filed testimony says the ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis Wolfden proposes “can in theory produce high-quality effluent.” The phrase “in theory” is important because, as she goes on to say, “Wolfden provides no example of a comparable mine that accomplishes the levels required.”²

If I had more time, I would talk about false promises made for economic and community benefits. Instead, I will close with these thoughts: metallic mine closures (Wolfden expects10-15 years for this one) leave communities economically, socially, and environmentally depressed.³ This kind of mining is among the dirtiest industries in the world.⁴  There has never been such a mine anywhere that lives up to promises of economic benefits and environmental safety. Please, do not rezone this area for a metallic mineral mine unless or until the technology and the social and political will can succeed in preventing toxic contamination of our waterways. Documentary sources are enclosed that support my opinions if you need them.

Works Cited with some notes

1.     1.  “Pickett Mountain Mine Rezoning Application, ZP 779A – Wolfden Mt. Chase LLC.” Land Use Planning Commission. October 12, 2023.                           https://www.maine.gov/dacf/lupc/projects/wolfden/wolfden_rezoning.html

2.      2. Ann Maest. “VII. Water Balance,” pp 29 ff. https://www.maine.gov/dacf/lupc/projects/wolfden/pre-filed-testimony/ZP779A_Intervenor2_PreFiledTestimony-PartII.pdf

3.     3.  “Blocking Destructive Mining.” Sierra Club. https://www.sierraclub.org/wisconsin/issues/mining  Mining “generally leads to brief spurts of inequitable economic growth followed by inevitable crashes and periods of depression.” Wisconsin “challenged the mining industry to give one example of a metallic sulfide mine that had been safely operated and closed without polluting the environment. Predictably, the industry has failed to identify a single example to this day.” “In a 1995 report, Wisconsin’s DNR confirmed the inherent destructive nature of mining, writing: “There are no ideal metallic mineral mining sites which can be pointed to as the model approach in preventing acidic drainage industry-wide.” In 2023, these statements still apply.

4.     4.  C. Thomas.  “Global Study Reveals Extensive Impact of Metal Mining Contamination on Rivers and Floodplains.” University of Lincoln. 22 September 2023. https://news.lincoln.ac.uk/2023/09/22/global-study-reveals-extensive-impact-of-metal-mining-contamination-on-rivers-and-floodplains/  “A groundbreaking study, published today in Science, has provided new insights into the extensive impact of metal mining contamination on rivers and floodplains across the world, with an estimated 23 million people believed to be affected by potentially dangerous concentrations of toxic waste.”

      "Dirty Metals.”Earth Works. June 16, 2004. https://earthworks.org/resources/dirty_metals/  “This report will show you what lies behind that stupendous lode of copper and tantalum, gold and platinum. We’ll explain how the mining of these and other metals damages landscapes, pollutes water, and poisons people. We’ll show you why modern, industrial mining is one of the world’s most destructive industries.”

Video LUPC mining hearings in Millinocket available at

https://www.youtube.com/@mainedeptofagriculturecons3702/streams 

            My testimony is in the last video (1st day of testimony) at 9:46.

Observer

 

After reading rave reviews, I expected to learn things from Observer about quantum mechanics that I didn't already know from my Google study. I am disappointed. The science of this sci-fi novel is superficial and sparse. From beginning to end, I could not suspend disbelief in the major premise, extrapolated from findings that observers always affect the outcome of scientific experiments, that a chip implanted in the brain could allow  a person to create a real "branch of the universe" in a universe of multiple universes in which all possibilities and  deepest desires  are made "real," The implantee visits beloved dead, interacts with them, talks, has sex, murders, etc. Just like in the universe we see.

I also found characters and their relationships superficial, predictable, and unbelievable. The surgeon who does the implanting, Caroline, is the only skeptic of the premise. She argues the experience of the branch universes her patients create is illusion or hallucinations, But she immediately abandons her skepticism and demands to be implanted  when her lover is killed.

Finally for this review, I am disappointed in the role of consciousness in the novel. I must admit, beyond the sum total of thoughts, feelings, and awareness of individual experience, I don't know what consciousness is. In this novel, it is treated as an a priori assumption that consciousness is some kind of vague universal stuff or energy that makes us all one with each other, the universe, and eternity. It reminds me of Sam Harris’s defense of hallucinogenic drugs and sounds more like religion than science.

I know, we shouldn’t expect sci-fi to be restricted to existing science and many of the classical sci-fi writers have been prophetic about things that turn out to be true in science as it evolves. I love Ursula Le Guin and Italo Calvino, but because of the reviews I expected more and better current science from Observer.

All that said, the novel is page-turner-thriller entertainment, and I suppose it should deserve at least 4 stars for that if I weren't so disappointed in my expectations.

Metallic Mineral Mining unsafe Anywhere in Maine

 Kudos to Earth Justice for filing their petition to stop the rezoning effort by Wolfden to mine Pickett Mountain. Supporters of the petition say a metallic mineral mine there could put at risk an “important place not only of ecological significance, but also cultural and historical significance.” The risks cited in the BDN article, “Conservation groups trying to stop mining project at Pickett Mountain,” apply to every place in Maine where a metallic mineral mine has been or could be proposed. Everywhere, acid mine drainage leaking into Maine waters threatens fish habitats and thus the fishing industry, an important economic driver in our state. Everywhere, “Mining threatens the tribes’ cultural connection to the land” in that the tribes as original occupants of Maine have those connections every place.  Everywhere in Maine’s wet climate—growing wetter every year—mining threatens toxic pollution of our waters. Let us hope this petition begins a public reexamination of economic and cultural costs of metallic mineral mining anywhere in Maine.   

Source: https://eedition.bangordailynews.com/olive/odn/bangordailynews/default.aspx?olv-cache-ver=20230313061121)  

Lithium Mining Harms the Environment

“The Greenbushes lithium mine is an open-pit mining operation in Western Australia and is the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine."  https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/greenbushes-lithium-mine-gm1399997488-453704172 

LD 1363, “An Act to Support Extraction of Common Minerals by Amending the Maine Metallic Mineral Mining Act,” ought NOT to pass. This bill would allow open-pit mining of spodumene, the metallic mineral that contains lithium used in batteries to power consumer electronics and electric vehicles.

Inspired in 2012 by proposals to mine for precious metals at Bald Mountain in my home town area, I have been researching risks and benefits of metallic mineral mining for more than a decade. Early on, I asked proposers, “What is an example of metallic mineral mining operation that has not caused serious pollution?” One geologist when confronted with evidence that his example was in fact contaminating surrounding waters said, “Well, it depends on which scientist you believe.”

Through the years since 2012, including through the passage of the 2017 law, questionably said to be “the strictest in the nation” (I haven’t seen evidence for that), I continued to ask and still have not found one example of a mine that has not caused serious pollution. The 2017 law is not strict enough either. It allows contamination of ground water in the “mining area,” unlimited 3-acre open pits, and has other problems harmful to the environment and human health. That law should be strengthened or replaced with a regulatory framework that prevents harm rather than tries to punish it after environmental harm occurs such as one proposed by Ralph Chapman, scientist and 4-term member of the Maine legislature.

With LD 1363, I ask again for an example of a lithium mining operation safe for the environment. Again, I find no satisfactory answers and alarming evidence of environmental destruction from lithium mining. An incident reported by the Institute for Energy Research November 12, 2020, provides a striking image of environmental contamination caused by lithium mining:  In Tibet, “May 2016, dead fish were found in the waters of the Liqi River, where a toxic chemical leaked from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium mine. Cow and yak carcasses were also found floating downstream, dead from drinking contaminated water. It was the third incident in seven years due to a sharp increase in mining activity.”   

And at the same site, “In Australia and North America, lithium [. . .] mined from rock [. . .]requires the use of chemicals in order to extract it in a useful form. Research in Nevada found impacts on fish as far as 150 miles downstream from a lithium processing operation.”

Guillermo Gonzalez, a lithium battery expert from the University of Chile, in a 2009 interview says about lithium mining, “Like any mining process, it is invasive, it scars the landscape, it destroys the water table and it pollutes the earth and the local wells[. . . .] This isn’t a green solution – it’s not a solution at all.”  

By providing exemptions in the law for lithium mining, LD 1363 would further weaken the current Metallic Mineral Mining Act and should not pass into law. Instead the legislature and the Board of Environmental Protection should focus on how to prevent known harms to the environment and human health that come with all metallic mineral mining.

Sources:

Full text of the bill  

Testimony:  https://legislature.maine.gov/bills/getTestimonyDoc.asp?id=10016951

Research:  https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/the-environmental-impact-of-lithium-batteries/

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact

 

 

SAGE Class on Election Issues 2022

Would you like to dive down beneath the surface of political advertising dominating the media and study major crises facing our state and nation this election season?  SAGE (Seniors Achieving Greater Education) is sponsoring Election Issues 2022 focused on major problems confronting voters. We will be discussing and evaluating proposed legislative solutions. Classes begin 10-3 and meet weekly until 10-24 for 2 hours each session. It is a hybrid class available via ZOOM and also in person at UMPI. For the full brochure listing other classes click here. You will find forms and instructions about how to register on the last 4 pages of the brochure. For questions about the class or the instructor, message Moore Bowen on FB. 

Instructor bio: Alice Bolstridge, Ph. D. in English Literature is a retired English instructor and a long-time volunteer activist for solving social problems through the legislature. 

Prospective Schedule

 

On the War in Ukraine

I do not understand the purpose of a Facebook post about U. S. culpability in causing the war in Ukraine. Is it supposed to somehow bring about peace in Ukraine? Or is it to defend the Russian government for waging the war? Or is it just to persuade us that the US government sucks, too, and should back away from defending Ukraine?

 I asked these questions in a comment. One person responded  that the post is meant to look "behind the curtain of propaganda" and to apply "critical thinking skills" to the US involvement. The value of that, she said, should be obvious.

 I still don't get what I'm looking for.. I want to hear  What do we do with what we learn about the war, about the world-wide rise of autocracy and its use of forced or violent oppression, including in US? As a pacifist, I really want to know the answers to these questions. If there are answers.

 It seems this thread is a fight among people with common values for peace and democracy. Could it be that in seeing the problem as dualistic (Ukraine vs Russia or US vs Russia or east vs west or leader vs leader etc.), economic and class systems that cause world conflicts and war mostly get lost? Might it be more useful to focus on the systemic problems and seeking solutions to them? For alternative analysis of the problem and possible solutions, see Richard Woolf "Democracy at Work,."