The Battle of Baraboo – Privatizer Greed v. Seniors’ Health Care

Jim Hightower's Lowdown

Photo courtesy wiscnews.com

Baraboo, Wisconsin is known as home base for the Ringling Brothers Circus. But even that extravaganza of acrobats and clowns could not surpass the dazzling tent show playing out in Baraboo this month, starring the Sauk County Board of Supervisors. Only… you couldn’t have seen it, because the tent was zipped-tight to keep the public out.

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The Baraboo spectacle is one of several now playing across the Badger State, produced by health care profiteers trying to privatize county-owned nursing homes. These locally-controlled public entities get 5-star ratings and are treasured by families in rural Wisconsin – so people overwhelmingly oppose privatization. Thus, to somersault over local democracy, corporate tricksters have joined with right-wing county officials to impose autocratic control.

Back in Baraboo, for example, people lined up at the tent to speak against any move by supervisors to sell the People’s senior nursing center. But terms of the sale had already been negotiated in secret, supervisors had decreed that the buyer would not be revealed until after the sale was approved, and the board’s discussion about the sale was held in closed session.

Adding to the mayhem, Wisconsin’s Republican nominee for US Senate astonished people by declaring that old people in nursing homes should not even be allowed to vote, since they “only have five, six months life expectancy.”

Crazy, yet the right-wing’s Baraboo sellout succeeded, right? Not so fast. One, any maneuver affecting the county budget requires a two-thirds vote of supervisors – not the bare majority this clown trick got. And, two, while devious supervisors arrogantly blocked the democratic will of the people, feisty locals are not surrendering to corporate greed and devious politicians. The Battle of Baraboo continues! Stay tuned!

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Interested in learning about how locals in Baraboo are fighting this fight? Our good friend is releasing a new season of his podcast, “To See Each Other,” next week. In it, you’ll find some heart-pounding moments of intrigue, along with what it takes to fight a good fight. You can subscribe here (ITunes), here (Spotify), or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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