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Tax Break Bill Would Aid Huge Defense Contractor

WASHINGTON -- In an age of budget cuts and hard choices, state lawmakers in Annapolis, Md., are pushing a benefit for the world's largest defense manufacturer that would lead to lower funding for other programs in one Maryland county.

The state Senate is set to vote Tuesday on legislation pushed by leading state Senate Democrats that would retroactively exempt Lockheed Martin from paying approximately $450,000 a year in hotel taxes to Montgomery County for on-site lodging facilities at the company's Bethesda-based conference center. Because the exemption would be retroactive to 2010, the county would also have to reimburse Lockheed some $1.4 million in previously paid taxes, money that would come out of the county's already tight budget.

The bill moved out of committee rapidly on Friday, as reported by The Washington Post over the weekend. Since then, opposition has been mounting: Some Montgomery County officials have voiced their displeasure -- although others back the legislation -- and progressive groups are pressuring legislators to drop their support for a bill that the groups see as unnecessary corporate welfare.

Lockheed Martin racked up $12.1 billion in earnings in 2012.

On Monday, the Montgomery County Council voted to oppose the legislation. Lockheed Martin had previously tried and failed to push the tax exemption through the council: Once it was included in County Executive Ike Leggett's budget, and another time Leggett (D) attempted to use state grant money to reimburse the company for past paid taxes.

"Lockheed Martin is an important company and I'm glad that they are located in Montgomery County, but this tax break is unwarranted," Montgomery County Councilman George Leventhal (D) told The Huffington Post.

"There's simply no reason why everybody else who comes to Montgomery County for a conference or a training and stays overnight should pay the lodging tax, but not people who are staying at their conference and training center," state Sen. Jamie Raskin (D), who represents parts of Montgomery County, told HuffPost.

If the legislation is enacted, the county will need to find savings in its budget immediately, according to Leventhal. "It would be $1.8 or $1.4 million [in a onetime payment] and $450,000 every year that would not go to fund Head Start, day care, police, fire and all the other functions of government," Leventhal said.

Groups including Progressive Maryland, Demand Progress and Montgomery County Peace Action mobilized opposition to the legislation over the weekend and held a demonstration in Annapolis on Monday night.

Lockheed Martin has already obtained an exemption from Maryland's state lodging tax. Therefore, the company argues, its facility should likewise be exempted from county taxes.

"Maryland state law currently recognizes that a commercial hotel tax is not appropriate for corporate training facilities with sleeping accommodations, such as Lockheed Martin's Center for Leadership Excellence," read a statement released by Lockheed Martin. "We welcome this new legislation that will ensure that the state's law is applied appropriately and justly throughout all Maryland counties."

The defense contractor also contends that it should not be subject to the county hotel tax because its conference center is almost exclusively used by its own employees. According to documents filed with the Montgomery County Council, Lockheed employees account for 99.3 percent of the conference center's hotel patrons in 2011 and 99.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

The 30,000-square-foot facility, built in 2009, hosts trainings and conferences for the defense manufacturer's employees and contractors. It includes a hotel for employees, whose lodging is paid for by the company. Lockheed can then seek reimbursement of those costs from the federal government as part of routine business in the execution of federal contracts.

Critics of the proposed tax exemption note that means American taxpayers are already paying for those hotel rooms.

"There is no basis to go back and give them past years' taxes back because they've already been reimbursed in part or in whole by the feds," Leventhal said.

When the exemption was previously before the Montgomery County Council for consideration, councilmembers asked Lockheed whether it was being reimbursed by the federal government for employee stays at the conference center hotel.

"There is a range of reimbursement for contract costs, depending on the contract vehicle and what the Federal Government has agreed to reimburse. That range can vary greatly -- for some contracts it's 50%, for others it might be 75% -- it depends," Lockheed Martin wrote in response to those questions.

"The fact that some percentage of those costs over time can be reimbursed by the Federal Government," the company continued, "doesn't reduce the need to lower our overhead costs whenever we can -- because that cost must still be paid by someone."

Over the past year, Lockheed Martin has doled out $30,000 in campaign contributions to Maryland state political candidates and entities, including $1,000 to state Sen. Mike Miller and $500 each to state Sen. Robert Garagiola and Del. Bill Frick, all Democratic sponsors of the legislation. The largest contribution was a $25,000 donation to the Democratic State Central Committee of Maryland.

If the bill passes the state Senate, it will move to the House of Delegates for a vote before heading to Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) to be signed into law.

Lawrence Wittner: A Modest Proposal to House Republicans

Dear House Republicans:

In the heated debates over the federal deficit, you have said repeatedly that you want to cut it without raising taxes and, therefore, that you must reduce government spending.

If that is the case, I have a suggestion for you: Why not start by cutting the nuclear weapons budget?

According to the Ploughshares Fund, the current plans for nuclear weapons and related programs could cost approximately $640 billion over the next decade. This includes some $352 billion to $392 billion spent by the Defense Department (to sustain, operate, and modernize the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (for weapons activities, administrative costs, and naval reactors), roughly $97 billion for "missile defense" programs, and about $100 billion for environmental and health costs (i.e. managing and cleaning up radioactive and toxic waste resulting from nuclear weapons production and testing activities, as well as compensating victims of such contamination). I think that you will agree that $640 billion is quite a hefty sum and, as such, merits scrutiny by critics of excessive government spending.

Of course, if there were a good reason for this very large expenditure, it might be worth funding. But is there? After all, the United States today possesses some 7,700 nuclear weapons, about 3,000 of which are slated for retirement). Does it have a clear "enemy," as during the Cold War? Well, no, it doesn't. The nearest to possible enemies, in the view of some Americans, are Iran (which has no nuclear weapons) and China (which has a few hundred). Russia, to be sure, possesses about the same number as the United States, but - despite occasional tensions between the two nations -- Russia seems very unlikely to launch a nuclear attack against this country. Indeed, both nations recently signed a nuclear disarmament agreement (the New START Treaty) under which they are reducing their nuclear arsenals. And how many nuclear weapons are needed to "deter" another nation from attack? In short, the vast and enormously expensive U.S. nuclear weapons production complex is a Cold War dinosaur.

Even more striking, the U.S. government is formally committed to building a nuclear weapons-free world. Speaking in Prague on April 5, 2009, President Barack Obama proclaimed "clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." The nuclear disarmament momentum was continued by a U.N. Security Council "summit," chaired by the American President, that on September 24, 2009 affirmed its commitment to the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and established a broad framework for reducing nuclear dangers.

In these circumstances, prudent fiscal managers might well ask why this "big government" program should be sustained and expanded over the next ten years.

Furthermore, it is a program that undermines the very free enterprise system that you praise so lavishly. "Pentagon capitalism," as the late Seymour Melman (Professor of Industrial Engineering at Columbia University) once observed, corrodes business competitiveness. This cozy government-business relationship leads companies to depend heavily -- and sometimes exclusively -- upon the federal government for their income. Furthermore, the huge military contracts that keep many corporations alive are often awarded without competitive bidding. Comfortable with fat Pentagon contracts and minimum oversight, businesses learn that they can get away with huge cost overruns. In addition, there is the fact that nuclear weapons programs drain some of the nation's top scientific, engineering, and managerial talent from other, more productive areas of the U.S. economy. Also, of course, if this business product -- the nuclear weapons arsenal -- is never used, it will produce no economic benefit. And, if it is used, it will destroy the world, including the free enterprise system.

Finally, as Republicans in government, you might recall that every Republican President since the advent of nuclear weapons has publicly championed nuclear arms control and disarmament. And some of these presidents -- notably Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush -- actually presided over substantial reductions of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It was not Barack Obama but Ronald Reagan -- apparently your favorite modern president -- who, in a speech delivered on January 16, 1984, said: "My dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the earth."

So why not substantially reduce U.S. nuclear weapons spending? Then, of course, you would not have to cut government expenditures for child nutrition programs, for food stamps, for education, for the environment, for Medicaid, for Medicare, and for Social Security.

Or could it be the case that your real goal is to cut these programs?

Well, I'll be watching -- as will millions of other Americans -- to see what you do and, thus, what your priorities really are.

Sincerely,

Lawrence S. Wittner

Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is "Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual" (University of Tennessee Press).

Petition Calls For Top California Republican To Resign Over Rape Comments

Celeste Greig, president of the California Republican Assembly, is feeling the heat from progressive grassroots organizations calling for her resignation after she stated earlier this month that pregnancies from rape are rare.

On Monday, advocacy group the Courage Campaign said it will deliver over 28,000 signatures calling for Greig's immediate resignation to the California Republican Party headquarters, the Raw Story reports.

The petition, collected on MoveOn.org's petition site, SignOn.org, addresses Greig directly, stating that, "Rape is indeed traumatic, but it can produce pregnancy. That's biology. Your suggestion that the chance of pregnancy is lower is offensive and denies scientific reality."

The petition calls for all politicians who make incendiary remarks about rape to resign, but makes specific note of Greig.

"Celeste Greig (and other factually challenged politicians) need to resign from their high profile political positions so policy can be made based on science, not ideology," it reads.

Greig made her inflammatory remark about rape earlier this month, while attempting to criticize former Republican congressman and 2012 Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin over comments he made about "legitimate rape" rarely leading to pregnancy, because "the female body has ways to shut the whole thing down."

She said Akin had made an "insensitive remark," but proceeded to agree with Akin's claim that pregnancies rarely occur as a result of rape.

"The percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it's an act of violence, because the body is traumatized," Greig said.

But she admitted, "I don't know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don't know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act."

Akin's comments were repudiated by women's advocacy groups, progressive organizations and doctors alike, as studies have shown that pregnancies are conceived by rape with disturbing frequency.

Related on HuffPost:

• Naked Protests

  Hundreds of nude and semi-nude cyclists demanding that authorities stop the hostilities bicyclists face from motorists, hold up their bikes in unison at the start of their "Naked Bike," protest in Lima, Peru, Saturday March 10, 2012. This is the seventh consecutive year of the annual protest in which cyclists take to the streets in Lima to bring attention to the unsafe conditions for cyclists in the Peruvian capital. (AP Photo/Karel Navarro)

• British police officers stop model Sophie Barrett, who as part of a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) demonstration, stripped down to nothing but panties and paint markings that mimic a butcher's diagram of animal body parts, protesting the meat industry by standing behind a poster that reads, "All Animals Have the Same Parts: Abolish Meat" at the Piccadilly Circus in central London, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

• As part of a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) demonstration, model Sophie Barrett, stripped down to nothing but panties and paint markings that mimic a butcher's diagram of animal body parts, poses for the photographers as she protests the meat industry by standing behind a poster that reads, "All Animals Have the Same Parts: Abolish Meat" at the Piccadilly Circus in central London, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

• Half naked and caged activists of the animal rights group 'Igualdad Animal' (Equality Animal) symbolically sit in cages to denounce the slaying of animals to make fur coats, in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

• Half naked and caged activists of the animal rights group 'Igualdad Animal' (Equality Animal) symbolically sit in cages to denounce the slaying of animals to make fur coats, in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012.(AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

• Olivia Munn

  Olivia Munn unveils a new naked Anti-Fur bullentin board on Jan. 12, 2012 in Los Angeles, Calif.

• Naked Protests

  An activist of Ukrainian women's right movement FEMEN shows a red card as she poses bare-chested with a message written on her back reading "EURO-2012 without prostitution" as she protest during the start of the countdown marking the beginning of the official start of UEFA EURO 2012 on June 8, 2011 in Kiev, which will be hosted in Ukraine and Poland and planned to start on June 8, 2012. (Sergei Supinsky, AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  Policemen arrest and cover an activist of the Ukrainian feminist movement FEMEN activists on December 17, 2010 during topless protest in front of the Cabinet of Ministers building against the absence of women in Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's newly reorganized government. (Sergei Supinsky, AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  Topless members of FEMEN, a Ukrainian women's rights group, clashed with a security guard outside the Georgian embassy in Kiev on July 18.

• Naked Protests

  Protesters wearing diapers demonstrate in Valencia on June 19, 2011, blaming bankers and politicians for causing a financial crisis that forced the country to adopt painful spending cuts. Similar demonstrators were also held in Madrid and Barcelona. (Jose Jordan, AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  Code Pink for Peace demonstrator Jay Marx protests the resignation of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley and the detention of U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning in front of the U.S. State Department March 14, 2011 in Washington, DC. The demonstrators stripped their clothing off to protest against the treatment of Manning, who has been allegedly held naked in a Marine Corps base in Virginia after being accused of leaking information to the Wikileaks website. (Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  A naked protester climbs a tree in front of the Big Ben at the Parliament Square during a May day demonstration in central London on May 1, 2010. (Ben Stansall, AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  A naked demonstrator is arrested during clashes in the surroundings of the Congress in Valparaiso, at the same time Chilean President Sebastian Piñera delivers his annual message to the nation on May 21, 2011.(Claudio Santana, AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  Indian policemen arrest a Tibetan activist wearing only his underwear during a protest in New Delhi on April 13, 2009. Tibetan students organised a naked protest at the Chinese embassy against the ongoing situation in Tibet. A court in Tibet has condemned two people to die for their roles in violent riots in Lhasa last year, China's state media said on April 8, the first death sentences reported over the deadly unrest. (Prakash Singh, AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  Naked demonstrators ride their bicycles at the Zocalo Square, in Mexico City, on June 13, 2009, as part of a worldwide naked cycling protest against cars, gas emission and agressive drivers. Nude cyclists are expected to ride through the streets of cities around the world, to highlight the vulnerability of cyclists on the road and protest against oil dependency, organisers said. (AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  A naked man talks to a police officer near the Bank of England in London, on April 1, 2009. Angry protestors smashed through police lines and broke into a bank in London's financial district on Wednesday, amid ugly scenes on the eve of the G20 economic summit in London. Riot police on horseback had to force back demonstrators who attacked a branch of the state-controlled lender Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in central London. (Bruno Vincent, AFP/Getty Images)

• Naked Protests

  South Korean prostitutes in underwear and covered in body and face paint, douse themselves in flammable liquid in an apparent attempt to burn themselves after a rally in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 17, 2011. Hundreds of prostitutes and pimps rallied Tuesday near a red-light district in Seoul to protest a police crackdown on brothels, with some unsuccessfully attempting to set themselves on fire.

WATCH: GOP Rep Spars In Boxing Match

In what was surely one of the biggest boxing matches to come through Wantagh, N.Y., Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) stepped into the ring on Saturday night for a fundraiser to support a local boxing gym, Newsday reports.

King, 68, squared off against a local accountant and former kickboxing champion, "Irish" Josh Foley, 31, at Mulcahy's Pub. The match, which ended in a draw, attracted about 400 people to the pub.

"Great fight," King wrote on his Facebook page after the match. "More importantly, I survived!"

The event raised the eyebrows of government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which pointed out that House rules prevent members of Congress from favoring specific businesses.

"Is it the most serious ethics violation in the world? No," the group's director Melanie Sloan told Newsday. "But you're not allowed to do that."

"Lending my time to a local gym and pub in the community in which I have absolutely no financial interest is part of my job as a congressman," King said, according to The Hill.

PIX11 reports that there was one notable spectator missing: King's wife, Rosemary.

"It's her birthday and she hates boxing," King told the Associated Press ahead of the match. "She's already told the police not to bother to come and get her if anything happens to me."

Watch a clip of the boxing match above.

Also on HuffPost:

• Rudy Giuliani And The Price Of Milk

  While running for president in 2007, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani <a href="http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/04/giulianis_price.html">told</a> a reporter at a Montgomery, Ala., supermarket that he estimates "a gallon of milk is probably about a $1.50, a loaf of bread about a $1.25, $1.30, last time I bought one." It must have been a few election cycles since his last trip: The grocery store's website listed milk for $3.38 and bread up to $3.49.

• Dan Quayle And Single Mothers

  During George H.W. Bush's reelection campaign in 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19920521&id=b1tWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NfADAAAAIBAJ&pg=6921,388223" target="_hplink">scoffed</a> at the "Murphy Brown situation," referring to a television character who had a child out of wedlock. Quayle called the Brown story "totally unreal," adding, "A highly paid professional woman [with a baby] ... give me a break."

• Martha Coakley And Shaking Hands

  In a display of aloofness that many political observers say led to her defeat by Republican Scott Brown, Democratic Senate candidate and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley erred in <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0110/Coakley_not_sweating_it.html" target="_hplink">brushing off</a> the idea of ramping up her campaigning. When asked whether she was being too apathetic, she referenced one of Brown's ads and fired back, "As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?"

• Spiro Agnew And Poor Neighborhoods

  Republican vice presidential candidate Spiro Agnew, branded as Richard Nixon's go-to guy on cities, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/18/us/spiro-t-agnew-ex-vice-president-dies-at-77.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" target="_hplink">vowed</a> in 1968 to avoid poor neighborhoods. "If you've seen one slum, you've seen them all," Agnew said.

• Gerald Ford And Tamales

  While visiting the Alamo in 1976, President Gerald Ford <a href="http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/No-one-told-Ford-tamales-need-to-be-unwrapped-1536700.php" target="_hplink">bit</a> into a tamale through the husk, a faux pas later deemed the "Great Tamales Incident."

• George H.W. Bush And Grocery Scanners

  President George H.W. Bush caught flak for <a href="http://www.snopes.com/history/american/bushscan.asp" target="_hplink">appearing awed</a> by a supermarket check-out scanner while touring a grocers convention in 1992. It turned out the president was being shown a new bar code technology, and the convention worker who was alongside Bush later said it's "foolish to think the president doesn't know anything about grocery stores. He knew exactly what I was talking about."

• George W. Bush And Gas Prices

  In 2008, President George W. Bush <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/business/worldbusiness/03iht-assess.4.11654214.html?_r=1" target="_hplink">said</a> he had not heard predictions that gas prices could soon hit $4 a gallon. At the time, the national average was $3.29 a gallon.

• John Kerry And Cheese Steak

  In 2003, Democratic presidential contender John Kerry <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/244119/bloombergs-john-kerry-cheesesteak-moment-thomas-shakely#" target="_hplink">ordered</a> Swiss cheese on a cheese steak while campaigning in South Philadelphia, straying from the traditional favorite topping, Cheez Whiz.

• Michael Dukakis And The Tank

  Democratic presidential contender Michael Dukakis <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/the-photo-op-that-tanked" target="_hplink">tried</a> to one-up Republican opponent George H.W. Bush on national defense by striking a pose in an M1 Abrams tank.

• Mitt Romney And Wawa

  Mitt Romney has had his fair share of seemingly out-of-touch statements this election cycle, admitting he likes to "fire people" and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/mitt-romney-sandwich-computer-wawa/story?id=16587170#.T-Ca3XBfaUc" target="_hplink">expressing amazement</a> at the touchscreen ordering system at convenience store Wawa.

• Barack Obama And The Private Sector

  President Barack Obama is not exempt from the "gotcha" moment. In June, he <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/08/obama-doing-fine-private-sector_n_1581874.html" target="_hplink">described</a> the private sector economy as "doing fine." The gaffe immediately elicited comparisons with his 2008 Republican opponent, John McCain, who said that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong" in the midst of a crippling financial crisis.

Preeti Vissa: America's Racial Wealth Gap is Fixable

America's yawning racial wealth gap gets mentioned only rarely in political and policy discussions -- perhaps the only thing rarer is for a political leader to suggest that this problem can actually be fixed. But a recent study from Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy suggests that it is indeed fixable -- if we forget most of what we think we know.

First, some numbers: According to U.S. Census data, for every dollar of wealth a U.S. white family has, the median Asian family has about 63 cents, the median Latino family has seven cents, and the median black family has less than a nickel.

Many believe this gap comes from personal attributes and choices like laziness or choosing not to save. As one commenter on a conservative website put it recently, "This [racial wealth gap] may be no more than the result of different tendencies in different cultures with respect to saving money."

It's comforting to believe that America's staggering wealth gap exists only because "those" people are lazy and irresponsible. Reality is more complicated.

The fascinating study from Thomas Shapiro and colleagues -- which got some coverage but deserves far more attention -- followed 1,700 families from 1984 to 2009. They looked at how much wealth these families managed to accumulate and what factors contributed to differences between racial groups, and the results were startling.

Unfortunately, the researchers didn't have data for enough Asian and Latino households to produce reliable comparisons, but they were able to compare white and African-American families. In 1984, the white families were worth about $85,000 more than the black families. Over time, both groups gained wealth, but 25 years later the gap between white and black families had soared to over $236,000.

What perpetuated and expanded this gap was a web of what the researchers termed "opportunities and barriers in workplaces, schools and communities that reinforce deeply entrenched racial dynamics in how wealth is accumulated." Those opportunities are shaped by policy, meaning we can fix them.

Those barriers and opportunities revolved around things like homeownership, income, unemployment and inheritance. The biggest factor by far was years of homeownership, which accounted for more than a quarter of the racial wealth gap in these families.

And homeownership, sadly, has a huge racial component. Decades of what Shapiro and colleagues term "racial segregation by government design" (and not just in the Jim Crow south, but often enforced by federal agencies like the FHA) lowered demand for homes in black neighborhoods, reducing the equity black homeowners could accrue. Because whites are five times more likely to inherit money than blacks, or otherwise help family members with downpayments, whites on average bought homes and started building equity eight years earlier than African-Americans, generally with lower lending costs.

Shockingly, factors that should help everyone helped whites far more than blacks. Take education, for example: "Similar college degrees," the researchers write, "produce more wealth for whites." A number of factors contribute to this, including the fact that African-Americans are more likely to graduate college burdened by debt.

This is discouraging, but much of it can be addressed by smart policies. We can enforce lending standards and fair housing policies to lessen the effects of segregation and predatory lending. We can help low-income families and families of color attend college and graduate without massive debt. We can use the minimum wage and equal pay provisions to reduce the income gap, and strengthen employer-based retirement plans.

But the first step is to recognize that the racial wealth gap didn't just happen. Policies created it, and policies can fix it.

Follow Preeti Vissa on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Greenlining

Wendell Potter: Want to Help Fix Health Care? Start By Watching a Movie Tonight

I'm often asked what I think of Obamacare.

I tell people it's as good as far as it goes. It will provide coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, and it will make many of the most egregious practices of the health insurance industry a thing of the past, like dropping people from coverage when they get sick and charging older people up to 10 times as much as younger people for the exact same policy.

But I always add that Obamacare is just a start. That's because even though the law does much good, it doesn't address many of the structural problems that make our system unique, but not in a good way. So even though millions more Americans will have access to care when Obamacare is fully implemented, the question is, access to what?

You'd think that the country that spends the most on health care -- that would be us -- would have the world's best health outcomes. Far from it. We rank near the bottom among developed country in most measures, life expectancy and infant mortality.

So we have much more to do, but we can't rely on our politicians to do what needs to be done next. Which is why I hope you'll watch a movie on CNN tonight (8 p.m. and 11 p.m., ET).

Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare describes how health care in America has turned into a business. How the quest for money has hurt the quality of care provided to patients and how it has kept millions of us from having access to even mediocre care.

As former U.S. News & World Report reporter Shannon Brownlee says in the film, the big corporations that control our system don't want you to die, but they don't want you to get well, either. That's because there isn't nearly as much money to be made keeping you from getting sick and curing you as there is from keeping you on medications for the rest of your life and keeping you coming back to the hospital for expensive tests and treatments.

On the one hand, Escape Fire is a compelling and convincing indictment of a health care system controlled by special interests that profit from the status quo and that spend millions of dollars every year to make sure nothing happens in Washington that would be harmful to their bottom lines.

On the other hand, however, it offers hope and shows how we can make our system less costly while also making it much more rational and patient-focused.

Among those you will meet in the film are Dr. Andrew Weil and the doctors who have graduated from his Center for Integrative Health at the University of Arizona. They are breaking the model of health care delivery that has resulted in patients being able to spend only 10 minutes with their doctors -- if that much -- and not really getting the help they need to get well.

You'll also meet Dr. Dean Ornish, whose groundbreaking work on the food we eat and the things we do has saved the lives of countless thousands of people who have changed their diets and their behaviors -- and without costly medications and invasive procedures.

And you'll meet Sgt. Rodney Yates as he is being transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., after being injured in combat in Afghanistan. His journey to recovery -- and from addiction to a long list of painkillers and other medications -- is a kind of metaphor of how we can change our system if we refuse to be bound to keep doing things just because we've always done them.

Dr. Don Berwick, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, inspired the name of the film by telling about a deadly wildfire in Montana in 1949. Several firefighters lost their lives but one survived when he came up with the then unheard-of idea of setting another fire in a circle around him as the wildfire approached. It turned out to be the smartest thing he had ever done. When the fire reached him, it jumped over his "escape fire," saving him from almost certain death.

Berwick suggests we need to apply the same kind of thinking to solving the many problems that Obamacare will not, that escape fires are just waiting to be discovered that can make the U.S. health care system truly the best and most cost-effective in the world.

Escape Fire tries to shift the conversation away from the partisan bickering to the issues that what really matters: How do we create a sustainable system for the 21st century.
Watch it and then join the conversation.

This was first published by healthinsurance.org. /

Follow Wendell Potter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/wendellpotter