The public is evenly divided on the proposed health care reforms, with 49 percent opposed and 48 percent supportive, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The public also doubts that the reform will help control costs, with 56 percent saying that overall health care costs will go up. But 66 percent support requiring all large employers to provide health insurance coverage or face fines, and 53 percent support a public insurance option (72 percent support one limited to those who lack access to coverage).
The public still favors President Obama over Republicans in handling the economy (52 to 37 percent) and health care (50 to 37 percent), though the gaps have narrowed some during the year. And 61 percent of those surveyed think that GOP leaders mainly criticize Obama’s proposals without offering alternatives.
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Help me out here, CONs –
Just where does “filibuster” appear in the Constitution?
“Just where does “filibuster” appear in the Constitution?”
Just before the “Mandatory Health Care” section.
Funny, “Hud” –
I can find “…promote the general welfare.”
But not the filibuster thingy.
Help me out.
“But not the filibuster thingy.
Help me out.”
You will have to ask a Democrat; they are the experts at using it.
filibuster: A tactic used by racist democrats to hold up civil rights legislation for years:
He became a vocal and virulent segregationist in the Senate, playing to the conservative constituents in the Southern part of his state and his institutional constituents who hailed from the Deep South. He launched a 14-hour, 13-minute filibuster on June 9, 1964, that did not end until the next morning. At one point during the night, he engaged in a colloquy with Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.), whose Senate service record Byrd would break 40 years later, about whether the new civil rights law would violate a white woman’s 13th Amendment right not to be enslaved.
“Does the senator from West Virginia feel that when a woman of one race is required to give a massage to a woman of another race against her wishes, it is involuntary servitude?” Thurmond asked.
“The senator from West Virginia feels that unless the action is entered into voluntarily, even though the individual is being compensated for the personal services in the form of labor, it still constitutes involuntary servitude,” Byrd replied.
A former Ku Klux Klan organizer, Byrd once called Martin Luther King Jr. a “self-seeking rabble-rouser,” and he used his gavel as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia to press for welfare investigation in the majority-black city.”
I think we have a misrepresentation here. Almost all of America is for health care reform. It just so happens that Harry’s big spending special interest bill doesn’t improve or lower the cost of health care. It’s all about special interests, government takeover, and social justice. That’s what people are opposed to. Too many people putting politics ahead of real reform. This bill is a waste of the American people’s time and money.
November 13, 2009
Fewer In U.S. See Health Coverage as Gov’t
Responsibility For the first time this decade, more Americans (50%) say providing healthcare for all
is not the government’s responsibility than say it is (47%). (Gallup)
Support for Congressional Health Care Proposal Up to 47%, 49% Opposed (Rasmussen)
In U.S., 20% of Parents Unable to Get H1N1 Vaccine for Child (wait until gov gets it’s hands on calling all the shots)
Gallup
(everyone pull out your polls)
” It’s all about special interests”
No! Say it ain’t so?!
Healthcare Senator Baucus
“Since Roberts gets nearly 1/3 of his campaign donations from the insurance/health industry, I’m going to speculate he’s against this reform!
Campaign Contributions.”
I would imagine the democrat running the senate healthcare show is too:
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
As liberal protesters marched outside, Sen. Max Baucus sat down inside a San Francisco mansion for a dinner of chicken cordon bleu and a discussion of landmark health-care legislation under consideration by his Senate Finance Committee.
At the table on May 26 were about 20 donors willing to fork over $10,000 or more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, including executives of major insurance companies, hospitals and other health-care
firms.
“Most people there had an agenda; they wanted the ear of a senator, and they got it,” said Aaron Roland, a San Francisco health-care activist who paid half price to attend the gathering. “Money gets you in the door. The only thing the other side can do is march around and protests outside.”
As his committee has taken center stage in the battle over health-care reform, Chairman Baucus (D-Mont.) has emerged as a leading recipient of Senate campaign contributions from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage. Health-related companies and their employees gave Baucus’s political committees nearly $1.5 million in 2007 and 2008, when he began holding hearings and making preparations for this year’s reform debate.
Many former Baucus staff members, including two chiefs of staff, lobby on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry and other health-care players and have been closely involved in negotiations on the legislation.
But Baucus, a senator from a sparsely populated and conservative Western state who is serving his sixth term, stands out for the rising tide of
health-care contributions to his campaign committee, Friends of Max Baucus, and his political-action committee, Glacier PAC. Baucus collected $3 million from the health and insurance sectors from 2003 to 2008, about 20 percent of the total, data show. Less than 10 percent of the money came from Montana.”
Examples from Baucus’s Glacier PAC include $5,000 from the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America and $2,500 from lobbyists with U.S. Strategies, which represents numerous health-care firms. Overall, half of the $110,000 in donations to the PAC from April to June came from health-care firms and lobbyists, including Schering-Plough, Medtronic and New York Life.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR200907
2003363.html?hpid=topnews
Secretary of Defense is not in the Constitution either
================================
How about all those czars? Where they be?
When WE Blog CONs bring up old historical acts of southern Democrats they conveniently ignore the tidal shift of politics post Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.”
They’re still the same ol’ obstructionist racist CONs; they just changed party affiliation.
Strom Thurmond? Phil Gramm?
Get a grip on reality, please. The Repubic Party is no longer “The party of Lincoln.”
If you believe that you’re only fooling yourself.
“American_Way” blithers –
“How about all those czars? Where they be?”
You’re desperate, “American_Way.”
There’s no such government job as “czar.”
Oops we need more money, now Botax proposal to add more bucks. My proposal, is that Congress has wasted their time and our money on ObamaCare let’s shuck the whole thing we would all be better off for it.
http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1109/Senate_bill_includes_the_Botox_tax.html?showall
Well,
Probably most if not ALL of the people against national health care are people who already HAVE health care.
It’s sort of like asking a well fed person if they care about hungry people. Some of them will and some of them will say that hungry people deserve to be hungry.
Just as Republicans believe that the poor who are ill or suffering should be allowed to suffer and die.
“Probably most if not ALL of the people against national health care are people who already HAVE health care.”
Probably?????
Is this a BJ Poll? How about BJ “Probably” does not know what is is posting about?
Can you support your “probably” with anything?
Once the public understands that hc will lower the natl. debt the polling numbers will change. Many are still suffering under the delusions set up over the summer by the tea bagger cons.
“Probably most if not ALL of the people against national health care are people who already HAVE health care”
————
Well duh. Sort of like most folks for free cars for everyone would be the ones without a car? Let’s use that analogy further. A government run health care plan is like the government taking away everyone’s new SUV and replacing them with an old Chevy Metro, and also giving old Chevy Metros to everyone without a car.
So then, no one really likes what their driving. But everyone has a car.
We can do better. Make the changes necessary in the current system to increase coverage for the uninsured such as in the current Medicaid system, increase competition by bringing back free market principles to health care. Improve our health care system, don’t have the government try to take it over and ruin it.
No sheat Monkeyhawk. Duh.
BTW: Democrats released the Senate Plan last night. It’s all over the AM dial this morning. Not good.
Going away to find and read it.
Sixty votes.
from the blip at the top: “And 61 percent of those surveyed think that GOP leaders mainly criticize Obama’s proposals without offering alternatives.”
The House DID vote on the Republican alternative:
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/18/the-republican-alternative
Outlander you are using a ‘common sense’ approach here. That is what MH has against Palin. He even counted how many times she used that term when talking to Rush.
Fixing a system to be more effective makes too much sense for the dems. They want to scrap the entire system. Build one from scratch. Cover everyone. Give us all better care. Cost us less money. And expect us to believe in fairy tales.
Where is the CBO getting its figures to tell us this folly will decrease our debt. That is what I want to know.
Also where did PB find this poll. That would be ABC again. The poll that never agrees with any other poll out there. Wonder why that is?
Tell me what you want your poll to show and I will find one that agrees with you.
The “free” market has proven that it cannot work in providing health care. It needs the competition that a public option would bring.
The ‘free’ market works for 90% of Americans. In judging any other program in anyones world this is a system that ‘works’. It is only in your world that this would be a ‘failure’.
“Just as Republicans believe that the poor who are ill or suffering should be allowed to suffer and die.”
Another lie by the BlueJay.
“The ‘free’ market works for 90% of Americans.”
Really? Well then the push for a public option should only have support of 10% or less right?
Not ONLY has the “free” market failed the millions who have no health care, million who DO have access to health care in the “free” market are unhappy with it. The “free” market is not serving the needs of Americans because Americans are supposed to serve the “free” market.
“Fixing a system to be more effective makes too much sense for the dems. They want to scrap the entire system.”
More fiction and myth making.
The reform bill is just that: a bill to bring about reform. Duh X 10!
Free market principles are not present in the current health care system. They need to be introduced.
Enact health care legislation that also includes how it is paid for and not increase the debt. Why not treat the insurance companies like we do utility companies? They must justify any rate increase and as such are limited on the profit they can make. Require them to offer coverage to everyone. Require everyone to obtain coverage with a subsidy for those under certain income levels. Pay for it with a national sales tax (exempting food and other subsistence items).
“Free market principles are not present in the current health care system.”
You’re kidding right?
If anything the “free” market is run amok in health care. Starting with the holiest of holies of the “free” market, “To the bottom line be true.” through the fact that your doctor may as well be an ad rep for big pharmaceuticals.
My Dad had Medicare and he never wanted for any treatment or service during his illness. We DID however, have to wait on one appointment behind three count ‘em three pharmaceutical reps.
The free market works best for those that actually work and not depend on others,and not spend their time crying about how unfair life ihas been to them
Letsbecivil you make some good points. I think you might be surprised if you look at the profit levels of insurance companies. It is much smaller that most companies.
What then is driving healthcare costs higher? To find this you have to start down the line at the things that have to raise before insurance premiums go up.
Doctors fee raise because their expenses go up. Some of this is because they pay their staff according to the economy. When pay scales go up in the private sector around them they in turn raise the pay of their employees. Inflation then will contribute to this. We love it when our real estate values go up but hate it when these increases are passed on to us in the form of increased rates.
Also fees go up when malpractice rates go up and these have raised higher and faster than any other factor. Why is this. Some doctors are neglient and deserve to be sued. Some people make a living off of suing anyone and anything. In turn malpractice rates go up then fees increase accordingly. Tort reform to stop these frivolous lawsuits would stop this massive increase and fee would go down or at least stabilize. Democrats have refused to even consider tort reform although it has been put forward by ‘those do nothing repubs’.
This same scenario will work for hospitals which are facing this same set of circumstances. For this reason premiums for insurance have gone up because payouts have gone up.
Insurance companies don’t decide on their own what to pay a providor. They use something called ‘usual and customary’ to find a prevailing rate in your community.
I will just say this that when someone tell you something will be better, be cheaper and it will cost you less – don’t believe them.
—————
BJ there evil ‘drug reps’ that you reference – well Obama is in bed with them. The deal has been struck that is why they are all for this. Research it and read what they got in this deal.
If the pubs were serious about reducing the natl. debt, they’d get behind the HC bill! But, their leaders view the dollars saved in debt equate to dollars lost by their corporate sponsors.
Phantom if the dems are serious about passing a HC bill they will listen to their constituents and realize this bill as written doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of surviving. It’s almost as if they really don’t want to pass a bill. Compromise – it’s the name of the game.
The public option or community plan as Reids plan calls it hasn’t got the votes to pass. Drop it.
People have said they don’t have confidence in the gov to manage their healthcare. Listen to them. Offer an alternative such as a medicaid plan with buy in for the improvished.
There are alternatives out there and the dems are just marching in lockstep ignoring what the public is saying very loudly. Still trying to lay the blame on the repubs. Refusing to see what is looking them in the face.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday night criticized Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) for voting against the Democrats’ signature healthcare bill.
“We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill,” Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
WTF?
Sen. Reid’s Government-Run Health Plan Requires a Monthly Abortion Fee
Posted by GOP Leader Press Office on November 19th, 2009
Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.
Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120).
ANTI-
Didn;t you know? Jesse Jackson is the only expert on what the definition of a black man is.
It’s not just uninsured people. It’s underinsured people, which actually includes a good portion of the populace (including many of the content, who have never actually had to test their coverage). The situation we have now is one in which costs are rising out of control while, at the same time, insurance companies–which guard their bottom lines to an unconconscionable degree–are increasingly refusing to pay for much of it.
In short, the very purpose for which insurance was created is becoming obselete, as we go into a death spiral wherein increasing costs prod insurance companies to reduce/drop coverage, which in turn increases costs again.
The natural solution is a single-payer system (which would get back to the original “socialist” idea of insurance to begin with), but increasing competition (with removal of the antitrust exemptions and, hell yes, a public option) would be a good start. To the extent that means more start-up money from the upper-classes citizens, well, gee, too bad. They got huge tax breaks while the poor got sent off to fight Halliburton’s wars. About 3 trillion dollars was stolen from our economy (you think all those profits went nowhere?) and, since a collapsed economy came with the deal, I think those who weren’t ruined by someone else’s excesses (and yes, I know millionaires–and former millionares), the party is over.
It’s time to get to work.
I understand that some are pathologically opposed to anything that might be seen as helping someone they don’t like, even if it also helps people they might regard as more deserving–including themselves. At this point, arguing with such folks is a waste of time. Their failure of imagination and reasoning skills results in deep-seated prejudices that will not be amenable to persuasion.
The uncertainty in the country is a natural result of a “debate” that really hasn’t been a debate about the issues, for the most part. We could have a serious, fact-driven debate about costs, i.e., as to how much health care reform would cost as compared to the cost of doing nothing. Looking at the human toll, since some would believe that only monetary costs matter, it might require converting the human suffering, infectious disease and lost productivity into dollar figures.
THe problem, of course, is that, for many people, ideology drives “fact,” producing only the result they want to see (then of course there are those–including many of the participants here–who have no interest in facts to start).
Rage paints the picture that the poor where ordered off to fight Halliburton’s wars. And are being denied health insurance at the same time.
Not sure how this happened without a draft.
I guess that also means that there is virtually no unemployment and everyone as health insurance since last I checked, the military provides income and health insurance for those who fight wars.
So how exactly were the poor (who Rage asserts desperately need Health insurance) sent off to fight “Halliburton’s” wars during a era of an all volunteer army that provides some of the best health insurance, Rage?
But Rage is driven by facts. Did anybody find a fact in his post? Found lots of Rage’s ill thought out opinions, Facts….not so much.
“The situation we have now is one in which costs are rising out of control while, at the same time, insurance companies–which guard their bottom lines to an unconconscionable degree–are increasingly refusing to pay for much of it.”
Please describe the insurance companies “bottom line” that they guard to an unconconscionable degree
and what it should be reduced to.
I would agree that tort reform needs to be addressed. If the insurance companies were monitored the same as utilities it may or may not change the profits they are showing, but would give the public a comfort level they don’t have now. Tort reform is a difficult task, because as you say there are those that should be held accountable, but on the other hand those that bring suits without merit. Maybe a preliminary hearing to determine the validity of the case or require binding arbitration instead of lawsuits.
Don’t like a govt healthcare plan? Okay, how about this? We simply raise the minimum wage (and unemployment comp) so that everybody can afford BCBS, rent, utilities, reasonable groceries, work-related expenses, gasoline and a night at the movies once a month, for themselves and their families. Do that, and we won’t need govt healthcare!
By the draft of necessity and survival for you and your dependents.
“The natural solution is a single-payer system (which would get back to the original “socialist” idea of insurance to begin with), but increasing competition (with removal of the antitrust exemptions and, hell yes, a public option) would be a good start.”
————
Well, the single payer system has virtually nothing to do with the original “socialist” idea of insurance. Insurance is the voluntary spreading of the risk of loss among a large group so as to avoid catastrophic loss to one. In health insurance the concept has become simply a middle man paying the bills, even very small bills. This removes cost incentives and/or at least drives cost decisions above the level of the consumer of the services. So we have little in the way of free market forces.
I agree with Rage that we need to remove the anti trust exemptions; and additionally impose large deductibles in health policies coupled with health savings accounts. For poor people these would be at least partially government funded. This would help reintroduce competition into the system.
As to the rest of Rage’s post…, (just shakes his head)
Jed shows his greater goal. Equal result without equal preparation or effort.
lj,
All I’m saying is that if a person works full time, they deserve a living wage- not one that merely keeps them from dying. I’d also like to go back to the standard of one wage-earner being able to support a family. If capitalism can’t support that, then maybe it’s time has come to fade back into the trash heap.
A June 2009 poll by ABC News and the Washington Post found that 42 percent of respondents were “very satisfied” with their health plan and 39 percent were “somewhat satisfied.” Just 11 percent were “somewhat dissatisfied” and 8 percent were “very dissatisfied.” Meanwhile, a July 2009 poll by Abt SRBI for Time magazine found 53 percent very satisfied, 33 percent somewhat satisfied, 9 percent somewhat dissatisfied and 4 percent very dissatisfied. A Quinnipiac University poll found 49 percent very satisfied, 36 percent somewhat satisfied, 10 percent somewhat dissatisfied and 4 percent very dissatisfied.
Even a survey by a Democratic polling firm — Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps — found the same general contours. In that June 2009 poll, 44 percent said they were very satisfied, 27 percent said they were somewhat satisfied, 11 percent said they were somewhat dissatisfied and 14 percent said they were very dissatisfied.
Gallup asks the question somewhat differently in a survey conducted every November. Between 2001 and 2008, 20 to 28 percent of respondents rated their health care coverage “excellent” while between 39 and 51 percent rated their coverage “good.”
So, recent surveys generally indicate that Americans are satisfied with their current coverage, although it’s not always the “strong satisfaction” that Tuffin claimed, especially in the Gallup data, in which “good” outpaces “excellent” by roughly 2-to-1.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/01/americas-health-insurance-plans/strong-satisfaction-health-insurance-coverage/
Jed-
What you describe has never been in existance, and the government cannot “fix” it. People themselves must decide upon their acceptable standard of living, and their living wage. Not only, in my opinion, is what you describe not Constitutionally empowered to the government, it is impossible.
A kid at home works at McDonals. His “living wage” is one amount. A college student has another. A mother with three kids has another. SO, what is McDonalds to do? Decide their wage on a sliding scale, for living at home, versus living in the college dorm, versus a single mother with three children versus a married man whose wife works? Should the single mother with three children earn more than the single never married manager, who went to college, and worked up thru the system, because she has a higher requisite living wage? Government can never work out the variables. Nor is it their job, nor is it even within the enumerated powers.
However, I would also like to go back to the standard of one wage earner being able to support a family. It will never happen. People are still broke these days, but broke in a much higher life style than they are willing to give up.
lj,
Other countries seem to do an adequate job of ensuring workers rights to a living wage.
And of course we can’t do it if we let corporate interests write their own legislation as we have for quite a while. It’s time the people took back our country and let the corporations live with it!
Jed in our society we receive and pay wages based on the skill set we have acquired. If we are content to drop out of school and work at Burger King then we have choosen to not live the lifestyle that they could have by staying in school, going thru college or trade school and acquiring skills that can be used to earn a higher wage.
This is the individuals choice in the majority of cases. I’m sure you will have exceptions but overall this is how it works in a free society. Gov having only limited input into the wage structure.
Yeah and that’s got us millions of our citizens wasting their lives at Walmart. The “free” market is pay to play. Work or ingenuity has very little to do with it.
Same answer BJ. If you want a better lifestyle than that then get the skill set to earn the salary to improve your lifestyle.
BTW I am not saying a thing about the people who work at Walmart. I know a lot of them personally and they are happy with that lifestyle so you shouldn’t be putting it down.
“Work or ingenuity has very little to do with it.”
Sorry, I have to disagree.
100 years ago, one income was more than enough to pay all the bills for what today would be called a very large family.
Perhaps this is somewhat related to fact that back then, there was no income tax along with about 100 more taxes to pay for “vital” government services that people used to provide for themselves based upon individual needs and priorities.
Government health care is going to be just one more means for Government to take from you while giving you a pittance in return. Just like it has been doing for decades.
The solution?
Work a few extra hours per week to compensate for the lower wages. This has to happen since your employer will be taxed to pay for rationed health care for everyone who didn’t want it enough to pay for it.
“Other countries seem to do an adequate job of ensuring workers rights to a living wage”
And how do you qualify that statment?
Work or ingenuity has very little to do with it.
Spot on response from a suckling of the State who’s cognizance of terms like Work and Ingenuity have atrophied.
They don’t have a clue what those terms mean since they’ve never really needed to use them to get what they need and want.
Very simply put, any business that can’t pay the people keeping it in business a living wage deserves to be out of business! Sorry about that granny.
Cbo report says only a few mil. would go with the public option, most would stay with their private ins. and see reductions in premiums, the benefits for deficit reduction would reach out 2 decades, what’s not to like?
Of course if we’d go with the Repub plan, we could pay more and have more uninsured.
Nailed it Jed.
Then Okie would have to get GASP! a job and work instead of stealing the labor of others on pain of sending them back to jail.
Jed
Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:42 pm | Permalink
Very simply put, any business that can’t pay the people keeping it in business a living wage deserves to be out of business! Sorry about that granny.
—————–
Jeb when you realize that you have made a really stupid statement it’s enough that you realized it on your own. You don’t have to apologize to me about it.
Jed-
Would you please describe for me, in some sort of monetary terms, what you define as a living wage, and what you think the ramifications for purchased goods and wages/salaries above that would be. Since the last two parts, of necessity, are best guesses and speculation, I would be most interested in what you think a living wage in dollar amounts would be, and to whom it should apply.
BlueJay
Posted November 19, 2009 at 3:42 pm | Permalink
Nailed it Jed.
Then Okie would have to get GASP! a job and work instead of stealing the labor of others on pain of sending them back to jail.
—————————————————
Nice little Socialist utopia you have going on in your head. The Government plan isn’t remotely close to your dreams, so why do you support it?
And the only one’s who are going to jail are those who don’t buy it.
BlueJay
Posted November 19, 2009 at 3:42 pm | Permalink
Nailed it Jed.
Then Okie would have to get GASP! a job and work instead of stealing the labor of others on pain of sending them back to jail.
—————————————————
Bluejay why do I have to get a job when you don’t?
I’m self employed okie. I COULD be like you and use others to make me money. But I have principles.
Oh and Kia? I will take Government over the “free” market every time. At least with Government you get a vote. The “free” market leaves you at the mercy of folks like okie. You’ve lived that haven’t you? That’s why you are in Kansas instead of California?
Granny,
There’s no such thing as a “free market” that lasted more than ten minutes before somebody figured out how to scam it. You certainly found a pool of near slave labor!
lj,
Living wages vary wildly across the country- in NYC or LA it’s much higher than here. Standards need to be set locally and strongly enforced. A basic living wage should include enough for a reasonable apartment, utilities, groceries and clothing, work expenses and a few bucks extra.
lj,
Living wages vary wildly across the country- in NYC or LA it’s much higher than here. Standards need to be set locally and strongly enforced. A basic living wage should include enough for a reasonable apartment, utilities, groceries and clothing, work expenses and a few bucks extra.
So Jed,
in this geographic area, what do you think a living wage is? One that would be mandated. I guess that would be the “minimum wage” under the minimum wage laws for the state of Kansas. And would that be a wage able to support one? or more than one?
lj,
It should be a wage that would support a family of three, including healthcare, rent on someplace habitable under city codes, all utilities, clothing, groceries and work expenses including gas, and enough extra for one night out a month. That’s the bare minimum a person should earn for a fulltime job, no excuses. Any employer that can’t do that for those who make his money has no business being in business. Any employer who can but won’t should be guilty of a misdemeanor on a first offense and a felony on the second, with increasing penalties including mandatory jail time for subsequent offenses.