When Do We Let Cities Die?

The WSJ article about representatives from rust belt cities meeting to find strategies to turn around their ailing cities is worth a gander. I hope they can bring a renaissance to this old industrial cities but it does beg the question, what is the metric used in deciding to let a city die?

That is an urban economics question and perhaps an urban policy question. How about a sociological question, when did people grow attached to their cities, when does nostalgia begin for the city we live in?



FYI: That is a picture of Bodie, California. A old mining town abandoned in the early twentieth century. It is maintain in a state of preserved decay. It is a fun spot to go in North Cal. Sphere: Related Content

Is Message Getting Lost On Health Care?

Have Palin "death panels", Norris home invasions and other items caused a digression from the message. Is it the cause of the President mistake saying true but negative things about the Post Office.



The Political Animal writes:

"Gibbs responded by noting that there's 'a tremendous amount of disinformation that's out there.' He added, '[L]et's be honest, you all, the media, tend to cover 'X said this, Y said this,' but some of you, but not everyone, does an investigation about whether what X said is actually true.'

And while I think Gibbs' answer was true, and a raised an entirely legitimate argument that responsible news outlets should take seriously, the question raised a more specific point: whether the White House has 'lost control of the message,' because the president feels compelled to respond to ridiculous right-wing lies that a painful number of Americans have come to believe."

Sphere: Related Content

Is Health Care Killing Specter?

A new Rasmussen poll shows approval for Senator Arlen Specter erodes further. In June Rasmussen reported that 53% of Penn voters favored Specter and roughly 43% did not. The new numbers are reversed, Specter’s favorable is 43% and unfavorable is 53%.

The biggest issue this summer is health care, is it killing his chance for reelection?

Specter has decreasing republican and democratic support. The survey shows that 80% of republicans would vote for his would be Republican challenger, Pat Toomey, and Specter would only draw 61% of the democrat vote. Where is the rest of the democrat vote going?

In the D primary Specter still holds a statistical lead over challenger Congressman Sestak but that lead has decreases six points since June.

Specter has run out of parties. He needs health care reform to work in the next year, not just pass it has to display some real improvements in the delivery of care and access to care. Is one year enough time to show significant improvements, Specter better hope so.

Sphere: Related Content

The Bush Cheney Split

The Wash Post's Barton Gellman has a story about the seperation of President Bush and VP Cheney.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him,' said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. 'He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times -- never apol,ogize, never explain -- and Bush moved toward the conciliatory.'

Sphere: Related Content

Art Break - Enjoy

Rwandan children are back home from school in their village...

Farid Sani
2008
Rwanda, Africa
Olympus E510 Sphere: Related Content

Megan McArdle On Privatization

McArdle writes today, "Perhaps surprisingly, I'm pretty skeptical of a lot of the efforts to outsource social services."

McArdle also is troubled by the Indiana experience with social service privatization.

After reading McArdle and thinking about the really dry post from earlier I made a connection that I should have made earlier this evening. Is there a social service more basic than health care.

This quote from McArdle could easily be made a bout health care:

"But the people experiencing any decline in the quality of social services are usually poor people who mostly don't vote. So the competition is merely to find a bidder who can cut services to the barest bone. For some conservatives, obviously, this is a feature rather than a bug. But when children or the developmentally disabled are involved, I don't think price should be our primary consideration in deciding how to provide services."

But perhaps we should expand it from children and the disabled. Sphere: Related Content

Where Does Stephen Hawking Live?

In England, of course silly. Finally Investor's Business Daily correct their editorial. Ryan Chittum wraps up the IBD's Hawking housing health care horrible fear mongering of health care reform at the Columbia Journalism Review.

Chittum writes:

"And if you correct a serious mistake, you have to be clear about what you’re really correcting, no matter how embarrassing or how much it kills your argument."

That may be a reason not to admit mistakes. Sphere: Related Content

Health Care Coffee On Fascination Avenue

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver holds Coffee with Cleaver. This looked like a nice event. The video shows no screaming and no real bad name calling. It just shows a bunch of people talking to each other, but they don't know what they are talking about. But it looked nice and maybe did some good.

This event is a brilliant idea, good job Congressman Cleaver.

By the way can you find the congressman in the video?



Fascination Ave is the street in the background. Sphere: Related Content

Yglesias On The Electoral Politics Of Health Care

Matt Yglesias wonders if certain Republican senators were under electoral pressure would they be more willing to deal in the health care debate. Sphere: Related Content

Daily Dish Quotes Of The Day

Quotes: of the day from the Daily Dish

“I don’t believe terrorists are super human. They are no more dangerous than the Crips and the Bloods," - Michigan state Rep. Jeff Mayes (D).

"If anybody did escape, they'd have a surprise. We're a community of hunters. Just about everybody has guns," - Standish City Manager Mike Moran.

Sphere: Related Content

Revisiting Privatization Of Government Services And Products (warning: very dry subject)

I need to rethink my position on privatization of governmental services or at least some types of services.

The Wall Street Journal reports on Indiana's efforts with privatizing social services. In 2007 the state contracted to pay a group of businesses roughly $1.34 billion to run social services programs for ten years. Unfortunately, there were many problems running essential programs. An example in the Journal article, "Naomi Mundy, a 59-year-old homemaker, said it took 15 months after she developed melanoma to get Indiana to pay her health-care benefits under Medicaid because of outsourcing snafus." Also, children were not enrolled in early child health care for up to six months. These are real problems.

There is generally two types of privatization of government services. The first is the one described above where municipalities pay firms to handle the delivery of services or the processing of recording keeping tasks among other functions. A primary benefit of this type of outsourcing is that the governments can't afford to upgrade the technology used to make tasks more efficient therefore missing out on the economies of scale resulting from automation and other technological processing. The cost of upgrading and training of staff to use the new technology is often much greater than the lowest bid price from privatization. The outcomes described in the Indiana experience is too great a problem to be offset by these fiscal savings. Critics of privatization, as the Journal reports, may be correct, these "problems show why government functions, particularly human services, shouldn't be turned over to private contractors."

The second form of privatization provides government with funds from firms that run government services but the firms retain the profit from the operating the service. For example, there has been much debate over the proposed plan to privatize state lotteries. In 2007 California lottery operation privatization could have brought the state nearly $37 billion dollars in exchange for leasing the operations to a private firm for forty years. After the firm pays the state $37 billion any revenue after other operating expense is the firm's to keep (they will be taxed of course). There are proposals to privatize tolls road, airports and other revenue generating government operations. This is an attractive option for state and local governments due to the massive deficits they face in the current economy. There are social problems that could arise from some of these proposals. There are associated social problems that can arise from lottery privatization. For instance, the incidence of lottery participation is highly concentrated in low income communities. The operating firm in its drive to increase revenue can target with advertising and increased number of vendors such communities and thereby create a disproportionate negative impact on that community. But there is also the long term fiscal problems created from this type of privatization. How much revenue is the state giving up over the 40 years. In the California proposal Lehman Brothers was a firm vying for the lease. If the net present value calculation was so advantageous that Lehman was willing to spend $37 billion how much revenue would California not receive over the forty years. I am pretty sure California is glad they did not deal with Lehman, or maybe not?

Privatization can be good and it can be bad. So can government, but we should probably leave vital social services in the hands of the people who may do it bad, but at least do it better. Sphere: Related Content

Amazing Pictures Of Asteroid Impacts Sites On Earth

From Wired.com

The Shoemaker crater in Western Australia, formerly known as the Teague crater, was renamed in honor of the planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker for whom the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 is also named. The age of the crater unclear, but it could be 1.7 billion years old, which makes it the oldest known impact in Australia. The brightly colored splotches are seasonal salt-water lakes. This image was taken by the Landsat 7 satellite. Sphere: Related Content

The Wife Of Famous Snowmobile Racer Is Less Popular

A sarcastic blog post from the LA Times. Andrew Malcolm writes:

"Palin, who plucked Sen. John McCain from political obscurity in Arizona as her GOP presidential ticket running mate last summer, enjoyed her highest popularity right after a rousing speech at the Republican convention in early September. She was at 57% then, but much higher among Republicans and conservatives."

Sphere: Related Content

Being Rude To Constituents Can't Be A Good Thing

Sheila Jackson Lee answered her cell during the town hall meeting while a constituent was asking a question. It is not only rude, it is stupid.

The Sleuth at Wash Post has the story. Sphere: Related Content

Be sure to drink your Glenn Beck

Do people like Glenn Beck or just the challenge of figuring out what he is talking about. This is a tweet from him a few minutes ago.

"I have made VERY powerful people VERY angry.They have tried to cover their tracks.They have failed.Will expose and ask 4 your help VERY soon"

What does this mean? Is he Little Orphan Annie to our Ralphie.


Be sure to drink your Glenn Beck, anything for a dollar.
Sphere: Related Content

Calls For Moderate Republicans To Correct Palin Lies On "Death Panels"

Greg Sargent at PlumLine blog has asked when republicans that support end of life counseling going to call Sarah Palin and her fellow travelers out on the lies about the HR 3200 life counseling provisions. He wants them to follow in the path of Johnny Isakson.

Ezra Klein sort of agrees and he adds names to the list.

Klein writes:

"I fear it would be difficult for Isakson to argue today, as he did in April of 2008, that 'you ought to be required to execute a durable power of attorney when you become eligible [for Medicare].' But that was the right policy then then and it's the right policy now. Encouraging individuals to set down their end-of-life treatment wishes when they're of sound mind and body is not a liberal idea or a conservative idea. It's simply a responsible idea. And that's why responsible members of both parties have advocated it."

Sphere: Related Content

Art Break - Enjoy

Linda Dumont "Purple Congress Avenue" Sphere: Related Content

Recession Over Says WSJ Forecasting Survey

Survey of economists by the Journal shows most economist think the recession is over. They also want to Ben Bernanke reappointed.

The WSJ report. Sphere: Related Content

Looking Abroad For Public Policy Insight

In many discussions of public policy governments and policy experts look to other countries or states for ideas and evidence of results of policy choices. Often public policy is copied from other governments and adapted to fit a new structure. For example in recent New York City transportation initiatives Janette Sadik-Khan looked to Copenhagen for policy direction. This is a very efficient way of evaluating and understanding policy options. It reduces the time, energy and pecuniary costs of formulating new policy proposals.

With that said, Alex Massie, writing the The Spectator, asks why "no-one sees fit to copy the American system?" He is of course asking about health care. I am sure some will answer this query with a response as dumb as "they're socialists." As if the rest of the world were socialists. Even if the rest of the world were socialists would that preclude them from acknowledging the positive efficacy of the American health system is there was such an effect. The power of its success would draw people to adapt a more American approach, but that doe not happen.

Massie writes:

"In Britain you worry what will happen when you fall ill; many Americans worry about what will happen if you fall ill. Will your insurance cover you? Often (but not always), yes it will and the best American care probably is better than the best British care, but there's a greater psychological security to the British system."

As Massie asserts Americans worry about what will happen if you fall ill while Brits worry about what will happen when you fall ill. It is a strange distinction but a very important one.

Sphere: Related Content

The Brits Won't Let Stephen Hawking Die

A defense of health care reform from afar. Hugh Muir writing in London's The Guardian newspaper offers this defense of the British NHS:

"So Barack Obama is facing the fight of his life (another one) as he attempts to reform the US healthcare system. The 'special interests' – doctors, healthcare companies – don't like it. The 'birthers' – crazy types who hope to prove he is not American – smell blood. The danger, says the Investor's Business Daily, is that he borrows too much from the UK. 'The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script … People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.' We say his life is far from worthless, as they do at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, where Professor Hawking, who has motor neurone disease, was treated for chest problems in April. As indeed does he. 'I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS,' he told us. 'I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.' Something here is worthless. And it's not him."

Sphere: Related Content

Free Market Health Care Is The Real Death Panel?

Joe Conason discusses how the uninsired delay treatment because they can't pay for a visit to a doctor.

Conason writes:

"The ugly fact is that every year we fail to reform the existing system, that failure condemns tens of thousands of people to die—either because they have no insurance or because their insurance companies deny coverage or benefits when they become ill."

So who are the death panels? Sphere: Related Content

Senator Grassley Says We Should Not Have Government Policy That Pulls The Plug On Grandma

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley took that amazing and courageous position on a non issue today during his town hall meeting in the park.. In response to question about health care killing old people Senator Grassley said there are people in Washington that a bothered by old people being in hospitals connected to tubes and machines. He also said that we should not have end of life counseling. He said he would not name the people who want to kill old people.

Grassley had the opportunity to tell hi constituents truth. Perhaps he should watch the video of Arlen Spector from Lebanon, PA.

Sphere: Related Content

How Can We Expect Civil Discourse When...

Officials such as Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia use language in the health care debate like this:

"Folks, this is Obamacare," he said, holding the binders over his head.

"Let me start this by telling you what I think of this bill and (President) Obama," he said, and slammed the binders on the ground.

"This is a stinking, rotten fish, and they don't want you to smell it, and they want to shove it down your throat and make you eat it before you smell how rotten and stinky it is," he said.

He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

Sphere: Related Content

Why Do Politicians Insist On Taking Questions From Children On Important Issues

This question reminds me of George Bush town halls.
Sphere: Related Content

Rick Santorum Is Over 35 Years Old...

Former Penn. Senator Rick Santorum is planning a run for president. Sphere: Related Content

Is The Truth “Missing In Action?” Update

2parse blog has an excellent post in response to the Chuck Norris Column.

The sarcasm spill over the side when:

"Chuck’s anger reaches a crescendo as he asks:

How contrary is Obamacare’s home intrusion and indoctrination family services, in which state agents prioritize houses to enter and enforce their universal values and principles upon the hearts and minds of families across America?

…Government’s real motives and rationale are quite simple, though rarely, if ever, stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations… It is so simple that any socialist can understand it. As Josef Stalin once stated, “Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

I mean, whoa. Health care reform is secretly really about “Government” forcing its way into your homes and indoctrinating your children to become socialists!"

Sphere: Related Content

Is Barack Obama The Luckiest Cat

Niall Ferguson has an excellent essay in the FT. The Ascent of Money author sums up the beginning of the administration. Ferguson compares the President to Felix the Cat. He think Barack Obama has worked hard but has been really lucky. After six months of the worlds toughest job Ferguson is surprise that presidents popularity is holding up well considering what he has to deal with.

On the economy he writes:

"Consider the evidence that the economy has passed the nadir of the “great recession”. Second-quarter gross domestic product declined by only 1 per cent, compared with a drop of 6.4 per cent in the first quarter. House prices have stopped falling and in some cities are rising; sales of new single-family homes jumped 11 per cent from May to June. Credit spreads have narrowed significantly and the big banks are recovering, some even making enough money to pay back Tarp bail-out funds. The S&P 500 index is up nearly 48 per cent from its low in early March. Best of all, the economy lost fewer jobs in July than most pundits were expecting. Non-farm payrolls declined by just 247,000, half the number that were disappearing each month in the spring. The unemployment rate has actually declined slightly to 9.4 per cent."

But Ferguson gives credit where it is due:

"Credit where it’s due: although the gold medal for staving off depression goes to Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and the silver medal to China’s leaders for their even more impressive stimulus, the president deserves at least bronze. According to Moody’s, the ratings agency, the stimulus package has saved more than 500,000 jobs. Without the jump in government spending, GDP would still be in a nosedive."

Overall Ferguson's position is positive but he sees some road blocks that could cause a stumble for Barack Obama. Sphere: Related Content

Sandra Day O'Connor Is Still Working

Great story in the Wall Street Journal about Justice O'Connor.

"As a substitute judge, Justice O'Connor has heard nearly 80 cases and written more than a dozen opinions. In her 24-year Supreme Court tenure, she often provided the pivotal vote on such issues as abortion, affirmative action and religious freedom. Nowadays, she decides such matters as whether a drug dealer could escape punishment because a search warrant listed one household trash can instead of two."

Sphere: Related Content

Is The Truth “Missing In Action?”

During these “political hot August nights” Chuck Norris has been reading the health care bill. Bullshit, I don’t believe Chuck Norris has read the 1,000+ page bill nor has he done research. Anyway, he says he has done it and he thinks he has found bad things in there. Bad things that need some ass kicking, but has he really found things that are bad or is he trying to kick the truth’s ass?

The “dirty secret” of “Obamacare” is that “the government's coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care and development.” There is another dirty secret, Norris is wrong or lying.

Norris says that sections 440 and 1904 of H.R. 3200 usurp parental rights. Norris’s first error is that section 1904 is a provision to amend part B of the Social Security Act by adding section 440. This may be a minor error but on that is important to the claim that Norris is wrong or lying. Part B of the Social Security Act is designed to promote the safety of children in poverty, protect abused children, encourage that at-risk children are returned to families quickly and promote development of an educated child development and welfare workforce.

Norris writes:

“It's outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading ‘home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children.’ The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

The bill says that the government agents, ‘well-trained and competent staff,’ would ‘provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains ... modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices,’ and ‘skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development.’”

The first issue with these statements is that this section is about what a state program should contain before it applies for funding from the federal government. It is not a provision to be applied in communities. Norris is quoting from subsection (f) of subpart of the proposed amendment to the Social Security Act. Subsection (f) is titled Eligible Expenditures. Again in order to apply for funding the states need to fill these general requirements. The change to the Social Security Act does not mandate any action. This leaves answers to the questions Norris asks up to the states. Local control, I thought that was good.

Next, Norris makes an argumentative mistake in relation to child development. Norris asks:

"Are you kidding me?! With whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts'? From what field and theory of childhood development? As if there are one-size-fits-all parenting techniques! Do we really believe they would contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education, or would they merely universally indoctrinate with their own?”

The outrage is very compelling, but unfortunately the standards and benchmarks for developmental psycho-social and physical skills are practically standard no matter what your parental philosophy. These standards of developmental benchmarks are not values they are clinical conclusions. So Norris outrage is misplaced.

This issue Norris raised about parenting practices are more complicated. Even well educated people in the field of child development will not be familiar with all philosophies of parenting. They also don’t need to be for this program to work. The nature of this provision is voluntary. I think people who participate in this program are very likely not to have a well-defined parental philosophy. Hell, I am a parent and could not articulate my philosophy. Perhaps caused by years of playing shell-shocked Vietnam vets Norris has become paranoid. I only mention that because he does not think this is voluntary, even though it says voluntary. Norris writes:

"Does that imply that this agency would just sit back passively until some parent needing parenting skills said, ‘I don't think I'll call my parents, priest or friends or read a plethora of books, but I'll go down to the local government offices’? To the contrary, the bill points to specific targeted groups and problems, on Page 840: The state ‘shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families.’

Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle- and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this ‘prioritized training not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?”

In case you want to look at this stuff he is quoting from pages 838-839 of HR 3200 not page 840. To answer his question in order, No, No, No, No, No. To elaborate, research shows that families in poverty have tougher times parenting. Evidence show that many low income parents do not read to their children, don’t encourage a proper diet or don’t have the resources of middle and upper income family. It is not that poor people are worse parents but the hurdles can be more difficult without resources.

Lastly, maybe I have become too sensitive to people calling others Nazis or socialist, but does Norris compare proponents of health care reform to Stalin? Norris writes:

“Government's real motives and rationale are quite simple, though rarely, if ever, stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. That is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational methods and materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple that any socialist can understand it. As Josef Stalin once stated, ‘Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.’”

I am glad that Norris likes kids. I would hope that he was fonder of truth, facts, reading, context and comprehension. Sphere: Related Content

Man Brought A Gun To The Presidents Town Hall Today

Matthews gets upset with this man and the fact that he brought a gun to a presidential event.

Sphere: Related Content

White House Upset By Reference To Obama Daughters

The White House is upset by the use of the Obama daughter's on a poster advocating healthy lunches in public schools. Politics Daily reports:

"One day after the posters went up, White House Associate Counsel Karen Dunn and Deputy Associate Counsel Ian Bassin called PCRM President Neal Barnard to request he pull the campaign, according to The Post."

Did this organization, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, cross some line in referring to the President's daughters in the ad? My initial reaction is that they did not. I may not be seeing all the issues surrounding the use of the use of the duaghter but they are part of the image of the President. It does seem appropriate to highlight the disparity of choices between the privileged and those not privileged.

I am wrong?
Sphere: Related Content

Yglesias On The Brits Silence Regarding Lies About NHS

Yglesias writes:

"It honestly strikes me as strange that all these bizarre health care scare stories come from friendly, well-known English-speaking countries like Canada and the UK. You would think that to get away with weird lies about the horrors of 'socialism' that people would need to at least pick more obscure countries; talk about how rotten everything is in Portugal or something."

Sphere: Related Content

Meteor Shower Overnight

Space.com:

In North America, the best time to watch will be between midnight to 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 12, but late Tuesday night and also Wednesday night could prove fruitful, weather permitting.

Thanks Heidi
Sphere: Related Content

Cash For Clunkers Environmental Victory?

NY Times reports today:

"'What we ended up with,' said one senior Obama administration official, who would not speak on the record because he was being critical of his own administration’s environmental bona fides, 'is a program in which you trade in old clunkers for new clunkers.' Less discussed is the second critique of the program: It rewards drivers who chose to buy gas guzzlers a few years back, but not those who spent more to buy fuel-sippers (although in recent years those who purchased efficient new hybrids got generous tax credits)."

We should not be fooled, Cash For Clunkers was a program to help the auto industry clear inventory. There will be a environmental benefit but it could have been greater. It has been reported that the under the program trade ins have had 50% benefit in term of MPG. Cash for Clunkers has proved that with an incentive people will buy a more fuel efficient cars. That is great, but why not make threshold hold greater than only five MPG. Why not require consumers to purchase cars with at least a ten MPG improvement? Why not encourage people to purchase used fuel efficient hybrid?

Previous Cash for Clunkers posts here. Sphere: Related Content

Barack Obama Is Literally Hilter

We have proof now. Check it out.



Found through the Daily Dish Sphere: Related Content

What Have Governemnt And Taxes Ever Done For US

Dan Schreiber writes a good column at Smile Politely. Schreiber writes:

"There must be something about being out of power that frees you from the traditional constraints of logic, decency or sanity. A significant minority of the country seems untethered from all three since Obama was elected."

He goes on:

"To be fair a lot of these crazies are the same people, and not all of them are Republicans. Moderate Republicans, if there is such a thing these days, have at least stuck by their old mantra: the government can't do anything right, so it shouldn't be involved in healthcare."

The great service that Schreiber performs is to bring the wisdom of Monty Python to the debate. What have taxes done?

Sphere: Related Content

Socialized Medicine Should Not Be Cut To Create Socialized Medicine

This is a strange argument. I don't want to piss off anyone but haven't seniors sacrificed and been rewarded. GI Bill, Veterans health care, medicare and discounts on Wednesdays. I understand the sacrifice argument in relation to military service, I don't care for it, but I understand it. But what is the sacrifice of surviving the Great Depression or for raising strong families. Is raising a family a sacrifice? I've sacrificed heavy drinking to raise a family, so what.

I could be wrong, let me know.

Sphere: Related Content

Frum Questions Conservatives Inconsistency On Health Care

David Frum asks conservatives:

"America’s seniors seem already to have intuited Tom Coburn’s warnings. For all the angry talk of socialism, what seems to irk many older voters is that the Obama plan implies less socialism for them.

The question for conservatives: If President Obama is willing to volunteer to put his hand into this beehive… why not let him? Don’t we also want a less expensive Medicare program? Indeed, without Medicare savings, the national tax burden must inevitably rise by at least four or five points of GDP as the baby boomers retire. History is full of ironies, and it may be that the success of the Medicare portion of Obama’s health plan is the essential precondition for the next Republican tax cut."

Sphere: Related Content

Will The Extreme Ideas And Tatics Of Health Care Protests Give Victory To Democratic Reforms

Mark Ambinder writes at The Atlantic:

"But Democrats are beginning to notice that opponents of health care reform have discredited themselves. They ramped up much too quickly...There were plenty of activists who really wanted to know about health care, and some who were probably misinformed -- scared out of their chairs -- to some degree, but the loudest voices tended to be the craziest, the most extreme, the least sensible, and the most easy to mock.

The American people remain anxious and confused about health care reform. That is an underlying reality that Republican activists are so eager to exploit. But doing so required a certain restraint -- and a willingness to traffic in at least approximate truths -- and an ability to make distinctions within their own ranks about which tactics were valid and which tactics were venomous."

Ambinder conintues:

" As usual, in a pattern that the left patented during the Bush administration, the organized right lost control of its message. Lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, were being asked to respond to non-sequiturs (would you support a health care reform plan that grows the deficit? Health care grows the deficit right now, so it's a nonsense question, one that is easy for politicians to answer)."

Sphere: Related Content

"No Homo" Update

Alyssa Rosenberg responds to Jonah Weiner with, "As long as we feel the need to clearly delineate between straightness and gayness, we're relying on separation for our own comfort."

Nick Catucci at New York Mag responds to Weiner, "The idea that this phrase represents the glimmers of a new awakening in hip-hop certainly makes sense when you consider that for gays to be considered equals, they must first, in some primordial stage of social understanding, be understood to even exist." Sphere: Related Content

Excellent Report By ABC News

Sphere: Related Content

Art Break - Enjoy

Mixed Media Collage from artist Josh Goldstein. Sphere: Related Content

History Of The "Death Panel"

Patricia Murphy of Politics Daily track the history of the "death panel" stupidity. Sphere: Related Content

Should Health Care Reform Really Be Distinct Two Debates

Eugene Robinson of the Wash Post writes in his column today:

"reform is being sold not just as a moral obligation but also as a way to control rising health-care costs. That should have been a separate discussion. It is not illogical for skeptics to suspect that if millions of people are going to be newly covered by health insurance, either costs are going to skyrocket or services are going to be curtailed."

"We should be having two debates. One should be about the obligation to ensure universal access to health care, which will directly benefit millions of struggling families and make this a better society. The other -- a more complicated, difficult and painful discussion -- should be about the long-term problem of out-of-control health-care costs, which would be a looming crisis even if President Obama had never uttered the word 'reform.'

Conflating the two has made the nation's nerves jump and its skin itch. And now, anything can happen"

Sphere: Related Content

Rachel Maddow Is A Terrorist?

Sphere: Related Content

Johnny Isakson On Health Care Reform

Ezra Klein talks with Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson about health care. Highlights:

Ezra Klein: Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?

Johnny Isakson: In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.

This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.

How did this become a question of euthanasia?

I have no idea. I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

You're saying that this is not a question of government. It's for individuals.

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.

Sphere: Related Content

You're A Bad Person And Cal Thomas Likes Jim Carrey Movies About God

I love when commentators try to use movies, mediocre movies even better, to prove a point. The wonderful Cal Thomas in his syndicated column today writes:

"In an age when we think we should be free of burdens -- a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse -- getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible. But by doing so, we assume an even greater burden: the role of God in deciding who gets to live and who must die. Anyone who has seen the film "Bruce Almighty" senses how difficult it is to play God."

The work of Jim Carrey can teach so much. For those who have not had the "pleasure" of Bruce Almighty here is the synopsis from IMBD:

"Bruce Nolan, a television reporter in Buffalo, N.Y., is discontented with almost everything in life despite his popularity and the love of his girlfriend Grace. At the end of the worst day of his life, Bruce angrily ridicules and rages against God and God responds. God appears in human form and, endowing Bruce with divine powers, challenges Bruce to take on the big job to see if he can do it any better."

Cal's point is that being god is tough. So don't try. I think that is good advice.

Enough of the jokes. Cal Thomas believes that people who don't believe in god want to kill people. Thomas writes:

"Few from the 'endowed rights' side are saying that a 100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor should be given extraordinary and expensive care to keep the heart pumping, even after brain waves have gone flat. But there is a big difference between 'letting go' and 'snuffing out.' The unnatural progression for many on the secular left is to see such a person as a 'burden.' In an age when we think we should be free of burdens -- a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse -- getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible."

Secularists, as Thomas calls them, would rather "snuff out" older sick people just to be rid of a burden while the "endowed rights" people value life let go of old people. I don’t understand his distinction between letting go and snuffing out. The result is the same only the demonization is different.

Earlier in his essay Thomas asks, “Are we now assigning worth to human life?” I think that is an interesting question. Don’t tell Cal that we have been doing that for years. Stanford economists say it is about $129,000. An interesting conversation of philosophy could be had if you were not talking to someone who believes in god. Thomas says that life has “its own predetermined value, irrespective of race, class, IQ or disability?” That is non-starter in the conversation but also not the point when it comes to health care, the issue that Thomas is trying to address.

The question that needs to be asked is not what is life worth instead what is the priority for scarce health resources worth? Should we distribute the resources to people with dim prognosis such as the “100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor” or Terry Schiavo at the expense of a sick person with a positive prognosis? That is the question we need to answer. To confuse this important question with ideas about god and the false profundity of “god made us and also makes the rules about our existence” only delays the answers to these questions.

This is an economics issue not a god issue. Even though “it's on the money…In God We Trust” does not mean that god creates the money.

P.S. Cal, please reconcile the contradiction between all life is valuable and the death penalty.

P.S.S. Cal you still ignore suffering of ill people. Why do you do that you big pious lug?

Sphere: Related Content

Hillary Clinton Got A Little Angry In Congo And Rightly So

If the commentary about Bill's success in North Korea upstaging her got her angry and then the insult in this video, I can't blame her to the attitude. Except to say that she is our top diplomat.

Sphere: Related Content

Lindsey Graham On Health Care Reform

Ezra Klein talks with Senator Graham about the current health care reform debate. Here is two interesting exchanges:
First:

Klein: "Walk me through your thinking on that. The public option would be competing on a level playing field with private insurers, it's limited in who can purchase it. Why can't this be the compromise?

Graham: My belief is that no private-sector entity can survive over a long period of time competing against the government. The public option will be written by politicians. It will be generous. Nobody in my business worries about the bottom line. Eventually, the public option will dominate the marketplace because the political forces in the public sector are different than the economic forces in the private sector. Eventually, the private sector will give way.

You know, we already have Medicaid and Medicare. The private sector covers the middle. If a public option becomes part of that mix, you'll have the whole deal covered by the government. That's why I'm against it. And what I'd like to do long-term is enhance the options available to the retirement community and reform Medicare.

We need to come to grip with the fact that our entitlements programs are unsustainable. We talk about one trillion dollars for health-care reform, but what about the 36 trillion unfunded liability on Medicare? Do you know that 78 percent, I think it is, of Part B premiums are subsidized by the government? Every American on Medicare pays $96 a month. That's 25 percent of the cost of the service. Why should the government subsidize my health-care premium when I retire? I'll have money available. I think we should look at that.

If you could start from scratch, would you scrap Medicare?

No! Medicare was a safety net for those seniors who couldn't afford coverage. I buy into the idea of everyone having health coverage. You can have the public-private partnership in retirement. You can have a government-run system for those who are needy. But above that it's best for the private sector to cover people. There's still a government role. Look at the Wyden-Bennett bill. The government helps people buy their health care in the private sector. To me, that's proper. I don't mind helping people be covered in retirement. We're not going to get rid of Medicare and there's no reason to get rid of it. We just need to be sure it's a well-run program and we can afford it."

Second:

"The car example is interesting. When I go to get a car I can walk out of the dealership of I don't like the prices. But if I have a pulmonary embolism and am on a gurney, it's hard to comparison shop, or to have anyone do it for me. And so we generally give that power to the doctor.

Can I be my own critic here? Lindsey Graham is wrong when he suggested a health care purchase is the same as buying a car. I realize that. We have an entitlement mentality to health care that we don't have with a car. There is no belief in America that everyone deserves cable television. When someone says they don't have cable TV, I don't worry much. If they don't have health-care coverage, I do worry. We have to understand that a hybrid system has to be built around health care. Most Americans understand we're going to cover the poor and the elderly and the downtrodden. Every American family should have some form of coverage so they don't become bankrupt if it becomes sick. But we also got to be okay with the idea that health-care choices and spending still is real money. That's the problem I think. Real money is still being used here."

I like Senator Graham. He does come across as forthright in this exchange. But he is incorrect or perhaps just being unclear. Graham says, "No! Medicare was a safety net for those seniors who couldn't afford coverage." In reality Medicare cover all senior regardless of their ability to afford coverage. He also says, "I don't mind helping people be covered in retirement. We're not going to get rid of Medicare and there's no reason to get rid of it. We just need to be sure it's a well-run program and we can afford it." It sounds as if he may be hinting at means testing. Is that a good idea? Sphere: Related Content

"The Anus of America"

A picture from a Huff Post story about a health care event.

It is kind of makes the Hitler comparison seem reasonable. I am kidding.

Here is a link to the 10 Most Offensive Tea Party Signs at Huff Post. Sphere: Related Content

The Breast Feeding Doll

I saw this doll on The View, yes I watch The View, I'm home their on so. Is the breast feeding doll necessary? Do young girls need to pretend to be mothers so realistically? Is the a psychological benefit to a child playing with this doll?

Sphere: Related Content

A Gun Is Dropped At Arizona Congresswoman Event

A report from Arizona.
Are people taking the words of the following nut seriously. Lets hope not.

The following is from a previous post.

Sphere: Related Content

Should Employees Be Paid For Off Hours Work?

Reporting by Wall Street Journal about current litigation between T-Mobile and some employees. The suit claims that the employees are owed wages for time spent answering call and messages from managers and customers during off work hours. I hope the employees win. Sphere: Related Content

10% Unemployment, Maybe Not?

Nate Silver thinks that unemployment won't hit 10%. I would agree with his conclusions based on his numbers. As a previous post stated the improvement in unemployment was very much helped by the number of people actively seeking work declined. I think this is the important passage in Silver's prediction:

"In order for unemployment to hit 10 percent, a net of roughly 1 million more people would need to become unemployed, assuming no change in the size of the labor force (which is a big assumption and one we’ll examine in a moment). This almost cetainly won't happen. Last month, 247,000 jobs were lost according to the payroll survey, and 155,000 more people became unemployed according to the household survey. (What’s the difference between these two numbers? We’ll discuss that too in a bit.) Given that the numbers are improving, it’s hard to see how you can squeeze another million or so job losses of 150-300K per month -– you’d need the employment picture to completely flatline for another 4-5 months, or for what now seems to be a fairly robust trend to actually reverse itself.

Note, however, what I stipulated earlier: assuming no change in the size of the labor force. Ordinarily, about 125,000 additional people each month enter the economy. So it’s not enough merely to break even on the job creation numbers; you have to be slightly into positive territory to avoid seeing the unemployment rate go up as a result of these new job-seekers."

Sphere: Related Content

The Beatles Fans Say "Hello, Goodbye" To Abbey Road?

Officials in London want to move the crosswalk at Abbey Road road made famous by Beatle's Abbey Road album cover. Apparently too many people can't take picture without getting hit by a car. Sphere: Related Content

Ben Stein Dismissed From NYTimes Gig

The NY Times has ended Ben Stein's column after his conflict of interest as a spokesperson for FreeScore.com. Of course Stein disagrees with the Times position. He states that he was fired for being critical of President Obama. Stein wrote a column about finance and economics.

Stein says:

“But somehow, these people bamboozled some of the high pooh-bahs at the Times into thinking there was a conflict of interest. In an e-mail sent to me by a person I had never met nor even heard of, I was fired. (I read the e-mail while having pizza at the Seattle airport on my way to Sandpoint.) I called the editor and explained the situation. He said the problem was ‘the appearance’ of conflict of interest. I asked how that could be when I never wrote about the subject at all. He said the real problem was that FreeScore was a major financial company and I wrote about finance. But, as I told him, FreeScore was a small Internet aggregator, not a bank or insurer."

Sphere: Related Content

Art Break - Enjoy

Interesting image as painting, collage and photography are applied together.

Found at Art MOCO Sphere: Related Content

Are Gays Into God More Than Straights?

David Gibson writes about the level and reasons of gay participation in the church. Gibson writes:

"Moreover, the process of coming out as a homosexual is often seen as analogous to the Christian pilgrimage of self-discovery and acceptance. "I have a theory that once you discern one call -- that God has created you to be gay -- that you are more adept at understanding God's call in other ways, as into ministry," said Kansfield."

How will this idea be received by the church? Sphere: Related Content

Massive Recession Creates Opportunities For Some

The Washington Post profiles The Five O'Clock Club, and a firm that consults firms on mass layoffs and counsel the recently unemployed. An interesting story. Will this firm layoff after the recovery? Sphere: Related Content

Is Barack Obama Funny?

Matt Bai of the NY Times thinks so. Sphere: Related Content

Opposing Hyperbolic Symbols

Robert Wright at The Daily Dish writes:

"In Palin’s fantasy, the death-panel 'bureaucrats' were going to pick winners and losers based on a judgment about their “level of productivity in society.' Well, if you view income as a gauge of a person’s productivity in society—and God knows there are Republicans who do—then the quality of health care is already correlated with 'productivity in society.' Obama’s plan, by making health care more affordable to lower income people, would make that less true."

He Goes on:

"And if these opponents of health-care reform are going to conjure up images of fascism to caricature the pro-reform side, it seems fair to conjure up a comparably hyperbolic symbol of their side of the argument—social Darwinism. As Herbert Spencer put the social Darwinist credo, 'The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many ‘in shallows and in miseries,’ are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.' But I guess a picture of Herbert Spencer on a placard doesn't pack quite as much punch as a picture of Hitler."

Sphere: Related Content

"Caja Grande Tienda" WalMart's New Store

The Wall Street Journal Reports today on the opening of The Mas Club. WalMart's new big box store targeting Latinos. Sphere: Related Content

The Newest Member Of The Truth’s “Death Panel”

William A. Jacobson, a conservative professor of law at Cornell University, has taken the task of defending Sarah Palin on the use of the term “death panel” and the claim that Barack Obama would kill her son with down syndrome. Palin wrote on her Facebook page:

“The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

Jacobson defends Palin on the use of two terms “death panel” and “level of productivity.”

In his defense Jacobson states that Palin is explaining a concept developed by Ezekial Emanuel, a bioethicist, written in a paper titled “Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions,” published in The Lancet in January 2009. Jacobson writes:

“While Emanuel does not use the term ‘death panel,’ Palin put that term in quotation marks to signify the concept of medical decisions based on the perceived societal worth of an individual, not literally a ‘death panel.’ And in so doing, Palin was true to Dr. Emanuel's concept…”

Neither Palin nor Jacobson took the time to describe the scope and aim of Emanuel’s paper. The scope of the paper and the preceding research is to examine existing concepts of distributing scarce medical commodities, such as organs, vaccines or even hospital beds efficiently. Efficiency in terms of this proposal is a measure of survivability or the expected life of the recipient of the scarce resource. I don’t want to get very deep in discussing the Emanuel paper. You can read it from the link provided at the bottom of this post. Emanuel evaluates three systems for distributing the medical resources and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. He also proposes a new systems he calls Complete Lives. Complete Lives as Emanuel describes, “prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles.”

The discussion that Emanuel has engaged here is not a simple one. It has inherent life and death questions. As well as issues of fairness. Unfortunately Palin criticism is simple and ignores the question of scarcity. She does not ask the question “Who gets the heart for transplant?” Instead she tells us that a proposal, not legislation, by an academic bioethicist, is going to kill her parents and her child. She ignores that fact that if her father gets the heart someone doesn’t. Scarcity means not everyone gets some. The “death panel” as she calls it would take into account age and prognosis. That is practical. As cold as it sounds I want bioethicists to make statements such as:

“Ultimately, the complete lives system does not create ‘classes of Untermenschen whose lives and well being are deemed not worth spending money on’, but rather empowers us to decide fairly whom to save when genuine scarcity makes saving everyone impossible.”

Jacobson writes:

“Put together the concepts of prognosis and age, and Dr. Emanuel's proposal reasonably could be construed as advocating the withholding of some level of medical treatment (probably not basic care, but likely expensive advanced care) to a baby born with Down Syndrome. You may not like this implication, but it is Dr. Emanuel's implication not Palin's.”

Organ donation is as close as we get to a zero-sum situation. We already withhold medical treatment from people. Let me correct that, we can’t withhold a heart that has already been given to someone. I did not read anywhere in the Emanuel article the call for withholding treatment from people with Down Syndrome. What I did read was prioritizing people by age. The term “instrumental value” may give people pause, include Palin, because it can be a measure of future usefulness. But it is a concept that many support inherently in the statements that support our troops, first responders and our leaders.

After defending Palin on Jacobson writes:

“Certainly, no Democrat is proposing a ‘death panel’, or withholding care to the young or infirm. To say such a thing would be political suicide.”

Should he not turn his criticism at this point to Palin. She is putting out this idea that the President is forming “death panels” to kill old people and disabled babies. He does not, instead he writes:

“But one interesting concept which is central to the concepts being discussed is the creation of a panel of "experts" to make the politically unpopular decisions on allocating health care resources.”

At this point Jacobson takes the role of Sarah Palin as fear-mongerer. He is referring the MedPAC program developed in 1997 to advise Congress on how to cut costs of Medicare. The President has spoken about this program many times. Barack Obama has said in a letter to the Senate:

“I am also open to your ideas about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created by a Republican Congress. Under this approach, MedPAC's recommendations on cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a fiscally responsible way.”

Will MedPAC allow the government to kill the old and disabled babies? Jacobson writes:

“Will such a commission decide to curtail allocation of resources to those who are not deemed capable of ‘complete lives’ based on prognosis and age, as proposed by Dr. Emanuel? There is no way to tell at this point since we do not have a final Democratic proposal, or know who would be appointed to such a commission.”

No legislation. No Proposal. He is correct. There are five bills in congress but no proposal. The Complete Lives idea is not a proposal, Emanuel writes:

“Accepting the complete lives system for health care as a whole would be premature. We must first reduce waste and increase spending. The complete lives system explicitly rejects waste and corruption, such as multiple listing for transplantation.”

Jacobson is wrong about not knowing who is on the commission. Here is a link to MedPac and here is an announcement of who is on the commission.

It is disturbing that a law professor at Cornell University would defend the misleading statements by Sarah Palin. And in that defense imply that Barack Obama is considering the Emanuel proposal as a cost cutting measure.

William Jacobson the newest member of the truth’s “death panel.” Sphere: Related Content

Maybe Blagojevich Would Do Your Kids Birthday Party

Rod Blagojevich is available to speak.

Sphere: Related Content

Fox News Succeeds While GOP Fails

Is there an inverse relationship between the GOP approval ratings and Fox News viewership?

Gawker reports:

"Fox News posted an astonishing 50% jump in profit last quarter amid a disastrous advertising recession, and it's basically the only thing making money in Rupert Murdoch's empire. Why? Because the GOP has cratered.

Fox News' viewership is up 45% over the last year, and it's easy to see why: The ascendancy of a charismatic black Democrat has driven frightened, paranoid, enraged, nativist zealots into the ideological embrace of an outlet that habitually reconfirms everything they already believe. Watching Glenn Beck's spell-binding sermons on Barack Obama's racism is comforting to people who believe that their way of life—namely, one in which fatherly white Christians protect us from danger both internal and external—is under attack. So they do it more frequently. Tuning into Hannity et.al. becomes a life-affirming political act."

Sphere: Related Content

Art Break - Enjoy (New Blog Feature)

Amazing Photography at gallery.xemanhdep.com

Found through pourmecoffee Sphere: Related Content

Hypocrisy And Thoughtlessness The Skillset Of Congressman John Sullivan

At a Tulsa Republican Club event Oklahoma Congressman John Sullivan said:

"This is a scary time in Washington. It's a very frightening time. I see Barack Obama is creating an enemies list of people who oppose this miserable health care plan. I think that's frightening. That's from a guy that can't even show a long-form birth certificate. I think we all ought to be prepared to fight that."

He went on to say,

"Everyone demonizes the other side. We need to all sit down and focus on these vital issues. That's the only way we can address these very, very tough issues."

The way to stop demonizing people is to demonize people then tell us how demonizing people does not accomplish anything. It sounds as if Sarah Palin wrote this speech for the congressman.
Sphere: Related Content

Truth And Facts Are Now Before The "Death Panel", They Are Going To Die

Harold Pollack delivers a much needed spanking to Sarah Palin & Michelle Bachmann. Their unconcerned with truth and facts. It is apparent their only goal is to mislead and scare people into believing that Barack Obama and democrats are "evil" actors working toward killing Americans and destroying the United States. My Previous post on this very topic is here Palin invites the scorn she deserves when she writes:

"The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

"

Pollack answers:

"Third, people genuinely worry that comparative effectiveness research (CER) is a stalking horse for rationing or for curtailing care for the sick, elderly, or disabled. This is a misplaced concern. I recently noted an Institute of Medicine CER report. None of the identified high-priority items involved anything approximating the rationing of life-saving or life-extending care. End of life care ranked 28th in their chart of priority areas for CER research. This may be a mistake. Better approaches to palliative care often look very good when evaluated against the standard benchmarks of medical cost-effectiveness.
Fourth and finally, publicity-seeking politicians subtract a lot from these conversations. Palin, Bachmann, and others score cheap points by scaring people and by spreading falsehoods. Their disrespect goes beyond their own political base to those whose views they so recklessly misconstrue.

These people are a disgrace and should to be ignored. Unfortunately that is not going to happen while Palin and Bachmann continue to use shocking terms such as "death panel."

Sphere: Related Content

Want To See The U.S.A. Win They World Cup 2010?

Well you better get moving says the NY Times. You may need to pray as well. Sphere: Related Content

Leap The Digital Divide To Save Primary Education

Will technology reduce costs of classroom education? Great story in NY Times today about tech future of education. Technology has the power to dramatically cut search costs and barriers to knowledge. Is the online classroom the solution? Instead of the goal being 30 students to one teacher in a brick and mortar classroom, is a much larger class with an excellent teacher that may be hundreds of miles away connected to the students via the internet better. Perhaps.

Is there a pecuniary savings in giving each student a computer and forgoing textbooks? I would like to see data on that question but I am certain that the value of being able to update course materials quickly would be amazing. Sphere: Related Content