Check out The Case for Universal Health Care from the American Medical Student Association.
See, also: Single-Payer FAQ by Physicians for a National Health Program.
Clip File: The Obama Adminstration Helping to Upgrade Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons
"If the worst, the unthinkable, were to happen,” Hillary Clinton recently told Fox News, “and this advancing Taliban encouraged and supported by Al Qaeda and other extremists were to essentially topple the government … then they would have keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan.” Many will note that the extremists posing this unthinkable prospect were set up in business by the U.S. in the first place. Very well buried is the fact that the nuclear arsenal that must not be allowed to fall into the hands of our former allies has been itself the object of U.S. encouragement over the years and is to this very day in receipt of crucial U.S. financial assistance and technical support. -- from How the U.S. Has Secretly Backed Pakistan's Nuclear Program From Day One by Andrew Cockburn (CounterPunch)
Block That Metaphor: Jerry Brown Superstar
This is not to knock Jerry Brown. His is a long and honorable public career. But even by the diminished standards of contemporary California political journalism, 
the profile of the past and future governor by Scott Sabatini on Examiner.com is silly:
the profile of the past and future governor by Scott Sabatini on Examiner.com is silly:Despite his 71 years, California Attorney General Jerry Brown has never been caught behind the times. Over a political career that has out-survived even Morris the Cat, Brown has become the Rolling Stones of California politics, played on both the classic rock station, the oldies and Top 40 playlists alike.From The Contenders: Brown's classic rock back in fashion in 2010 by Scott Sabatini (Examiner.com).
His is one act -- no matter how many times folks have said it has grown stale -- that continues to pack the house come election day.
Environment: Accentuating the Positive
Having followed with interest over the last few years the efforts of the Breakthrough Institute to reorient our 
thinking about environmental issues, it was electrifying to hear the progressive think tank profiled at length this ayem on NPR's Morning Edition. You can listen to the segment online here, but in a nutshell Breakthrough founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus address economic and environmental issues with an agenda that stresses positive action over negative reaction. Lots to read on the site.
thinking about environmental issues, it was electrifying to hear the progressive think tank profiled at length this ayem on NPR's Morning Edition. You can listen to the segment online here, but in a nutshell Breakthrough founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus address economic and environmental issues with an agenda that stresses positive action over negative reaction. Lots to read on the site.
Accountability: Was the Bush administration seditious?
If you are wondering if there is legally damning evidence of a conspiracy by the Bush-Cheney crowd to overthrow the Constitution, consider this from an interview by Naomi Wolf with Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The recently released memos by Bush justice department attorney John Yoo, Ratner says, deliver a call for "law by fiat.
I call it 'Fuhrer's law.' What those memos lay out means the end of the system of checks and balances in this country. It means the end of the system in which the courts, legislature and executive each had a function and they could check each other.Go. Read: Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes by Naomi Wolf (AlterNet)
What the memos set out is a system in which the president's word is law, and Yoo is very clear about that: the president's word is not only law according to these memos, but no law or constitutional right or treaty can restrict the president's authority.
What Yoo says is that the president's authority as commander in chief in the so-called war on terror is not bound by any law passed by Congress, any treaty, or the protections of free speech, due process and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The First, Fourth and Fifth amendments -- gone.
What this actually means is that the president can order the military to operate in the U.S. and to operate without constitutional restrictions. They -- the military -- can pick you or me up in the U.S. for any reason and without any legal process. They would not have any restrictions on entering your house to search it, or to seize you. They can put you into a brig without any due process or going to court. (That's the Fourth and Fifth amendments.)
The military can disregard the Posse Comitatus law, which restricts the military from acting as police in the the United States. And the president can, in the name of wartime restrictions, limit free speech. There it is in black and white: we are looking at one-person rule without any checks and balances -- a lawless state. Law by fiat.
Who has suspended the law this way in the past? It is like a Caesar's law in Rome; a Mussolini's law in Italy; a Fuhrer's law in Germany; a Stalin's law in the Soviet Union. It is right down the line. It is enforcing the will of the dictator through the military.
Single Payer: Fight Fake Health Care Reform
While public policy should not be made on the basis of polls, polling can help elected officials to get a sense of what voters want overall. 
In a democracy, policy makers are expected to do their utmost to reflect the will of the people, collectively arriving at the greatest good for the greatest number. And understanding the public's wants and needs makes it easier to explain in terms that people can understand why one solution to a problem may be preferable to another.
As rough as sledding in Congress is for universal health care, in poll after poll Americans overwhelmingly support the creation of a health care option that is publicly funded. What's more, despite the endless drumbeat against single-payer (Canadian-style) health care insurance, citizens are ready in large numbers to scrap the private insurance industry altogether. This is why insurance industry lapdogs like Joe Lieberman, Susan Collins, Ben Nelson and Max Baucus are so busy trying to come up with alternatives that will appear to provide universal health care without really challenging the current system.
With single-payer being kept "off-the-table" by the Obama administration and the Democratic legislative leadership, supporters of universal health care are reduced to fighting off frauds, such as the health care "cooperatives" advanced by insurance industry apologist North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad. For example, the political action group MoveOn.Org will send a fax to senators in your name demanding that a "strong public health insurance option must be part of health care reform this year." The fax argues that any plan that is adopted has to be:
Go. Read. New Poll Shows Tremendous Support for Public Health Care Option.
Update: The Sickening Addiction That May Kill Reform by Joe Conason (Rasmussen Reports):
In a democracy, policy makers are expected to do their utmost to reflect the will of the people, collectively arriving at the greatest good for the greatest number. And understanding the public's wants and needs makes it easier to explain in terms that people can understand why one solution to a problem may be preferable to another.As rough as sledding in Congress is for universal health care, in poll after poll Americans overwhelmingly support the creation of a health care option that is publicly funded. What's more, despite the endless drumbeat against single-payer (Canadian-style) health care insurance, citizens are ready in large numbers to scrap the private insurance industry altogether. This is why insurance industry lapdogs like Joe Lieberman, Susan Collins, Ben Nelson and Max Baucus are so busy trying to come up with alternatives that will appear to provide universal health care without really challenging the current system.
With single-payer being kept "off-the-table" by the Obama administration and the Democratic legislative leadership, supporters of universal health care are reduced to fighting off frauds, such as the health care "cooperatives" advanced by insurance industry apologist North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad. For example, the political action group MoveOn.Org will send a fax to senators in your name demanding that a "strong public health insurance option must be part of health care reform this year." The fax argues that any plan that is adopted has to be:
Available to all of us: A strong public health insurance option should be available to anyone who chooses to participate. If you like your current plan, you can keep it; if you want to participate in the public health insurance plan, you can choose that.Don't give up the fight for single-payer, but in the meantime access MoveOn's petition here to express your feelings about the alternatives.
A national plan with real bargaining clout: In order to truly control costs and compete with private health insurance plans, a strong public health insurance option must be available nationwide.
Ready on day one: Every day we wait on real reform, health care costs continue to rise. A strong public health insurance option with a broad network of providers right out of the gate is key to building a competitive program that will help control costs.
A truly public plan: To ensure it's held to the highest standards of accountability, a public health insurance option must be truly publicly run—accountable and transparent to Congress and to voters.
Go. Read. New Poll Shows Tremendous Support for Public Health Care Option.
Update: The Sickening Addiction That May Kill Reform by Joe Conason (Rasmussen Reports):
If Congress fails to enact health care reform this year -- or if it enacts a sham reform designed to bail out corporate medicine while excluding the "public option" -- then the public will rightly blame Democrats, who have no excuse for failure except their own cowardice and corruption. The punishment inflicted by angry voters is likely to be reduced majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives -- or even the restoration of Republican rule on Capitol Hill.
Economy: How would you fix California's budget problems?
California is facing a seemingly intractable budget crisis. The unwillingness of the state's leaders, and its voters, to face up to the need for tax increases has left its once enviable infrastructure, including one of the best school systems in the world, in tatters. 
The Next 10 California Budget Challenge presents you with the same choices elected officials are struggling with, and forwards your solutions to legislators and the gov. Since apparently no one is willing to address Prop 13, the anti-democratic budget process (a super-majority is required to pass tax increases), out-of-control ballot initiatives, and a chief executive in way over his head, the whole thing is an exercise in futility, but for policy wonks its kind of fun.
Go. Take the challenge: Next 10.
The Next 10 California Budget Challenge presents you with the same choices elected officials are struggling with, and forwards your solutions to legislators and the gov. Since apparently no one is willing to address Prop 13, the anti-democratic budget process (a super-majority is required to pass tax increases), out-of-control ballot initiatives, and a chief executive in way over his head, the whole thing is an exercise in futility, but for policy wonks its kind of fun.Go. Take the challenge: Next 10.
Clip File: What a Texas town can teach us about health care
"Activists and policymakers spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about whether the solution to high medical costs is to have government or private insurance companies write the checks. Here’s how this whole debate goes. Advocates of a public option say government financing would save the most money by having leaner administrative costs and forcing doctors and hospitals to take lower payments than they get from private insurance. Opponents say doctors would skimp, quit, or game the system, and make us wait in line for our care; they maintain that private insurers are better at policing doctors. No, the skeptics say: all insurance companies do is reject applicants who need health care and stall on paying their bills. Then we have the economists who say that the people who should pay the doctors are the ones who use them. Have consumers pay with their own dollars, make sure that they have some “skin in the game,” and then they’ll get the care they deserve. These arguments miss the main issue. When it comes to making care better and cheaper, changing who pays the doctor will make no more difference than changing who pays the electrician. The lesson of the high-quality, low-cost communities is that someone has to be accountable for the totality of care. Otherwise, you get a system that has no brakes." -- The Cost Conundrum by Atul Gawande (The New Yorker 2009-0601).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
