Bad American

Finally a bulleted point article most Americans can understand easily.

From Sara Robinson in TomPaine.com

A few highlights:

5. You don’t get to choose your own doctor.
Scurrilously False. Somebody, somewhere, is getting paid a lot of money to make this kind of stuff up. The cons love to scare the kids with stories about the government picking your doctor for you, and you don’t get a choice. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

For the record: Canadians pick their own doctors, just like Americans do. And not only that: since it all pays the same, poor Canadians have exactly the same access to the country’s top specialists that rich ones do.

7. Canadian drugs are not the same.
More preposterious bogosity. They are exactly the same drugs, made by the same pharmaceutical companies, often in the same factories. The Canadian drug distribution system, however, has much tighter oversight; and pharmacies and pharmacists are more closely regulated. If there is a difference in Canadian drugs at all, they’re actually likely to be safer.

Also: pharmacists here dispense what the doctors tell them to dispense, the first time, without moralizing. I know. It’s amazing.

8. Publicly-funded programs will inevitably lead to rationed health care, particularly for the elderly.
False. And bogglingly so. The papers would have a field day if there was the barest hint that this might be true.

One of the things that constantly amazes me here is how well-cared-for the elderly and disabled you see on the streets here are. No, these people are not being thrown out on the curb. In fact, they live longer, healthier, and more productive lives because they’re getting a constant level of care that ensures small things get treated before they become big problems.

The health care system also makes it easier on their caregiving adult children, who have more time to look in on Mom and take her on outings because they aren’t working 60-hour weeks trying to hold onto a job that gives them insurance.

And the big one for ‘personal responsibility’ ‘Murkan types:

9. People won’t be responsible for their own health if they’re not being forced to pay for the consequences.

False. The philosophical basis of America’s privatized health care system might best be characterized as medical Calvinism. It’s fascinating to watch well-educated secularists who recoil at the Protestant obsession with personal virtue, prosperity as a cardinal sign of election by God, and total responsibility for one’s own salvation turn into fire-eyed, moralizing True Believers when it comes to the subject of Taking Responsibility For One’s Own Health.

They’ll insist that health, like salvation, is entirely in our own hands. If you just have the character and self-discipline to stick to an abstemious regime of careful diet, clean living, and frequent sweat offerings to the Great Treadmill God, you’ll never get sick. (Like all good theologies, there’s even an unspoken promise of immortality: f you do it really really right, they imply, you might even live forever.) The virtuous Elect can be discerned by their svelte figures and low cholesterol numbers. From here, it’s a short leap to the conviction that those who suffer from chronic conditions are victims of their own weaknesses, and simply getting what they deserve. Part of their punishment is being forced to pay for the expensive, heavily marketed pharmaceuticals needed to alleviate these avoidable illnesses. They can’t complain. It was their own damned fault; and it’s not our responsibility to pay for their sins. In fact, it’s recently been suggested that they be shunned, lest they lead the virtuous into sin.

Of course, this is bad theology whether you’re applying it to the state of one’s soul or one’s arteries. The fact is that bad genes, bad luck, and the ravages of age eventually take their toll on all of us — even the most careful of us. The economics of the Canadian system reflect this very different philosophy: it’s built on the belief that maintaining health is not an individual responsibility, but a collective one. Since none of us controls fate, the least we can do is be there for each other as our numbers come up.

This difference is expressed in a few different ways. First: Canadians tend to think of tending to one’s health as one of your duties as a citizen. You do what’s right because you don’t want to take up space in the system, or put that burden on your fellow taxpayers. Second, “taking care of yourself” has a slightly expanded definition here, which includes a greater emphasis on public health. Canadians are serious about not coming to work if you’re contagious, and seeing a doctor ASAP if you need to. Staying healthy includes not only diet and exercise; but also taking care to keep your germs to yourself, avoiding stress, and getting things treated while they’re still small and cheap to fix.

Third, there’s a somewhat larger awareness that stress leads to big-ticket illnesses — and a somewhat lower cultural tolerance for employers who put people in high-stress situations. Nobody wants to pick up the tab for their greed. And finally, there’s a generally greater acceptance on the part of both the elderly and their families that end-of-life heroics may be drawing resources away from people who might put them to better use. You can have them if you want them; but reasonable and compassionate people (ed. - my emphasis here since this is something conservatives have trouble understanding since they lack basic human qualities) should be able to take the larger view.

The bottom line: When it comes to getting people to make healthy choices, appealing to their sense of the common good seems to work at least as well as Calvinist moralizing.

Couldn’t have written it better. Folks, link the main article to your favorite places anytime you hear any pompous right wing ass start bloviating about the Canadian system. Then you can use what’s in this excellent article to shut them the hell up quick.

PART 2

Debunking the Free Marketeers - Sara Robinson

Government-run health care is inherently less efficient — because governments themselves are inherently less efficient.
If anything could finally put the lie to this old conservative canard, the disaster that is our health care system is Exhibit A.

America spends about 15% of its GDP on health care. Most other industrialized countries (all of whom have some form of universal care) spend about 11-12%. According to the WHO, Canada spends a bit over 9% — and most of the problems within their system come out of the fact that it’s chronically underfunded compared to the international average.

Any system that has people spending more and getting less is, by definition, not efficient. And these efficiency leaks are, almost entirely, due to private greed. There is no logical way that a private system can pay eight-figure CEO compensation packages, turn a handsome a profit for shareholders, and still be “efficient.” In fact, in order to deliver those profits and salaries, the American system has built up a vast, Kafkaesque administrative machinery of approval, denial, and fraud management, which inflates the US system’s administrative costs to well over double that seen in other countries — or even in our own public systems, including Medicare and the VA system.

Not incidentally: one of the benefits of single-payer health care is that it largely eliminates the entire issue of “fraud.” You can only “cheat” a system that already views its primary business as rationing and withholding care. In Canada, where the system is set up to deliver health care instead of profits, and medical access is considered a right, this whole oversight machinery is far cheaper and more compact. In general, the system trusts doctors and patients to make the right choices the first time. As a result, people generally don’t have to lie, cheat, and grovel to get the system to deliver the care they need. They just go and get it — and walk out without a moment’s dread about the bills.

Shareholder profit, inflated CEO salaries, and top-heavy administration — all of which serve to work against the delivery of care, not facilitate it — are anti-efficiencies that siphon off 20-25% of America’s total health care spending. These are huge sums; yet it’s mostly money down a gold-plated rathole. In the end, it doesn’t provide a single bed, pay a single nurse or doctor, or treat a single patient.

Make sure you read the rest and bookmark it when the Kevin O’Briens of the world start mouthing off.

Or at least the financial equivalent of it. But I suppose O’Brien, like most other troglodyte right-wingers, wouldn’t mind Berkeley actually being bombed.

Pain Dealer

But first of all, anyone who writes paragraphs like this:

The council also voted, 8-1, to give Code Pink its very own parking space right in front of the recruiting station and a free protesting permit once a week. Code Pink is a group founded by empty-headed women who imagine that war is always the fault of the United States, and that if we would just be nicer to al-Qaida and the Taliban, tolerance would bloom and we could all stamp out global warming and AIDS together.

Is not just a complete idiot, but a willful and hate-filled one as well.

And, of course, such a writer (for I won’t call him a journalist for he doesn’t deserve the title), is a continued embarrassment to local journalism. However, I can’t say Kevin O’Brien is an embarrassment to the Pain Dealer since (1) they’re obviously so proud of his work to have continued to employ him for so many years and (2) they have so many other embarrassments to the craft on their staff that once must believe the PD believes in operating against the best practices of journalism and the needs of the community at large.

If one could not find humor in the daily embarrassment that is the PD, it would be cause for great sorrow instead.

In any case, I realize that picking apart a typical Kevin O’Brien column is akin to shooting the proverbial fish in the barrel. But every now and then, it has to be done, if only by me.

As to the paragraph above, suffice it to say that in a straight up debate on any aspect of the Iraqi War or militarism, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin would wipe the floor with O’Brien, rendering him a red faced sputtering raging idiot. Think Bill O’Reilly in one of the rare cases when Fixed News actually has an intelligent guest slip by and call O’Reilly out on live TV. You get the idea.

This is why I’ve never heard of O’Brien actually engaging anyone in debate one on one publicly. If I’m wrong, and this actually has happened, please let me know. I would think ol’ Kevin would be scared to death to actually debate anyone who knows his/her history and current events straight up.

In any case, back to what passes for a column.

Berkeley, being a community of leftists, as rare in this country as an honest politician, does not want the Marine Corps to recruit in their community. This is their right, actually. As a disclaimer, I served in the Army Reserve, my father was a Marine (deceased) and I worked for years for the Cleveland Battalion of Army Recruiting.

And let me tell you this straight up: all recruiters lie through their teeth. They have to. Or it’s the end of their careers.

So please, please don’t write me about military recruiters - I worked with them for almost 10 years and I know the real deal. And I was in public relations. And yes, many times I couldn’t stand to look at myself in a mirror, trust me on that. I’m  nothing if not honest about my mistakes.

But of course, one can’t strike out against this country’s overweening love affair with militarism without driving the flag waving nutbars like O’Brien out of the woodwork. How dare the citizens of Berkeley make the Marine recruiters feel unwelcome!

more:

That sounded pretty good to Berkeley’s municipal Peace and Justice Commission (no kidding, there is such a thing) and its City Council, both of which have a beef about the military’s treatment of homosexuals - meaning neither of which would survive 10 seconds of Sharia law.

Notice O’Brien won’t use the word “gay” due to his own barely veiled homophobia. You know, Ms. Goldberg, hate of any kind on the pages of your already embarrassing op-ed page is bad form.  Perhaps O’Brien would like to impose a little “American Sharia” on those hoMO-Secks-ualls.

The actual wording of Berkeley’s resolution dis-inviting the Marine recruiters as quoted by O’Brien:

“The United States Marine Corps [are these not 'the troops'?] is being used as one of the means of perpetrating and prolonging illegal, unconstitutional and unnecessary wars of the United States. Military recruiters [are these not 'the troops'?] are sales people known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service . . .”

Absolutely factual. Sorry, Kevin. And I can spend all night telling just how recruiters lied to “the troops” even when I went into the service in 1987.

Actually, even the drill sergeants knew it. During the very first Drill Sergent’s time in basic training (time for Drill Sergeants to instruct the troops or hand out mail or whatever) at Fort Jackson, SC in 1987, our lead drill sergeant looked out at all of us privates sitting there and asked for a show of hands of our platoon of how many of us had been lied to by our recruiters.

About 80 percent of the hands went up. Drill Sergeant Robinson nodded and acknowledged this. No surprise.

O’Brien’s solution to this temerity:

It’s true that South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint says he’ll introduce legislation to whack $2.1 million earmarked in the Senate appropriations bill for projects in Berkeley. Good. But even if it passes, it won’t be enough.

Berkeley shouldn’t get another federal cent until its City Council rescinds any city policies encouraging or condoning interference in the work of military recruiters, apologizes to the Marine Corps and expresses gratitude for the Marines’ contribution to preserving freedom here and around the world.

I shouldn’t have to school the assistant editor of the PD’s op-ed page but. . .

OK, Kevin, meet Marine General Smedley Butler:

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope…. [and] the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it…. I must face it and speak out.”

In “Time of Peace,” Common Sense, Nov. 1935, Butler said:

“There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its ‘finger men’ (to point out enemies), its ‘muscle men’ (to destroy enemies), its ‘brain men’ (to plan war preparations), and a “Big Boss” (super-nationalistic capitalism).

It may seem odd for a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested….

I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket…. I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents….

Our exploits against the American Indian, the Filipinos, the Mexicans, and against Spain are on a par with the campaigns of Genghis Khan, the Japanese in Manchuria and the African attack of Mussolini. No country has ever declared war on us before we first obliged them with that gesture. Our whole history shows we have never fought a defensive war.”

Class dismissed.

It’s completely understandable that the average news browser doesn’t quite know who or what to believe in when it comes to global climate change.

Independent (UK)

Nine ways in which the Earth could be tipped into a potentially dangerous state that could last for many centuries have been identified by scientists investigating how quickly global warming could run out of control.

A major international investigation by dozens of leading climate scientists has found that the “tipping points” for all nine scenarios – such as the melting of the Arctic sea ice or the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest – could occur within the next 100 years.

The scientists warn that climate change is likely to result in sudden and dramatic changes to some of the major geophysical elements of the Earth if global average temperatures continue to rise as a result of the predicted increase in emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.

Most and probably all of the nine scenarios are likely to be irreversible on a human timescale once they pass a certain threshold of change, and the widespread effects of the transition to the new state will be felt for generations to come, the scientists said.

“Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change. Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic [man-made] climate change,” they report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Pretty much jives with what a lot of us have been hearing and reading. Now comes this:

The New York Times

Suppose that the pessimistic forecasts of global warming are accurate. Suppose that the planet’s temperature rises according to the high-end scenario of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and that we experience the economic and social impacts (like hunger, malaria and coastal flooding) projected by the much-publicized Stern Review sponsored by the British government.

Does that mean our best course of action is to quickly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases?

That’s the question addressed in a new report by Indur Goklany for the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank that has taken issue with many of the dire predictions about global warming. What’s interesting about this report is that it works from the assumption that the dire forecasts are accurate, even the Stern Review, which has been severely criticized for exaggerating the economic costs of global warming. (See, for instance, the critiques by the Yale economist William Nordhaus in the journal Science and in this article article from the Journal of Economic Literature.) Dr. Goklany accepts the Stern Review’s grim numbers and looks at the I.P.C.C.’s various scenarios, which project different levels of warming and sea-level rise depending on the the rate of economic growth, energy use and other factors.

“The surprising conclusion using the Stern Review’s own estimates,” Dr. Goklany writes, “is that future generations will be better off in the richest but warmest” of the I.P.C.C.’s scenarios. He concludes that cutting emissions will do much less good than encouraging sustainable development in poor countries and policies of “focused adaptation” to deal with disease and environmental problems like coastal flooding. For a fifth the cost of the Kyoto Protocol, he calculates, these adaptation policies could yield more immediate and also long-term benefits than would a policy that entirely halted global warming (which would cost far, far more than Kyoto). He argues that this path isn’t merely an economic but also a moral imperative:

For the foreseeable future, people will be wealthier—and their well-being higher—than is the case for present generations both in the developed and developing worlds and with or without climate change. The well-being of future inhabitants in today’s developing world would exceed that of the inhabitants of today’s developed world under all but the poorest scenario. Future generations should, moreover, have greater access to human capital and technology to address whatever problems they might face, including climate change. Hence the argument that we should shift resources from dealing with the real and urgent problems confronting present generations to solving potential problems of tomorrow’s wealthier and better positioned generations is unpersuasive at best and verging on immoral at worst.

This particular view seems to believe that if we allow the current rates of consumption and exhaustion, future generations will be able to develop the technological know-how to achieve a quick fix.

In short, the ‘technology will save us’ theory, expanded to a few generations.

Willing to take that risk? I’m not. Especially in light of the information hard science provides us from the Independent story.

Dr. Goklany, from what I’ve read, also doesn’t take into account the rise of new strains of viruses and bacterias that are coming from a newly warmed environment. There are several vectors affecting the sustainability of life of earth and I believe the balance is delicate in nature, as do many scientists. Goklany seems to see the world as durable for the sustainment of enough human potential and capital for at least a few more generations.

This is playing ‘beat the clock’ with the future of humankind. And what Western nations are going to be “encouraging sustainable development in poor countries?” Wanna bet on THAT?

And in the end, irreversible is, well, irreversible.