Friday, May 21, 2004
American Health Care?
Its hospitals gleam. Waiting-lists are non-existent. Doctors still make home visits. Life expectancy is two years longer than average for the western world.
No, French. More:
....For the patient, the French health system is still a joy. Same-day appointments can be made easily; if one doctor's advice displeases, you can consult another, a habit known as nomadisme médical. Individual hospital rooms are the norm. Specialists can be consulted without referral. And while the patient pays up front, almost all the money is reimbursed, either through the public insurance system or a top-up private policy.
For family doctors too, liberty prevails. They are self-employed, can set up a practice where they like, prescribe what they like, and are paid per consultation. As the health ministry's own diagnosis put it recently: “The French system offers more freedom than any other in the world.” http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2670654 (subscriber service)
Moderate Repubs Make a Stand
Sign of the Times: Senators McCain, Snowe, Chafee and Collins refused to go along with making the tax cuts permanent. McCain sounded off about “fat cats” in the GOP and noted, "I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility…Apparently, those days are long gone for some of those in our party." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/politics/21budget.html
Iraq as appealing employer
The Washington Post’s (and American Prospect’s) Harold Meyerson:
A remarkable story in the May 17 Post profiled a number of low-wage, non-union truck drivers, machine operators, cooks and the like who are going to work for Halliburton's KBR and other such firms in Iraq. In most cases, the workers profiled had the gravest misgivings about going over, but decided in the end to go because their families needed the health insurance or the money to buy a decent house.
This puts a whole new light on what many of us have considered one of America's gravest problems. At first glance, the fact that one-quarter of the U.S. workforce makes no more than $8.70 an hour (as one recent Russell Sage study concluded), or that 44 million Americans have no health coverage, is proof positive of a dysfunctional political economy.
But it turns out to be plenty functional after all. Who would run the risk of meeting the fate of the four contract security workers in Fallujah if they could make decent wages and cover their families' medical expenses by doing the same job here at home? Wilsonianism abroad -- belligerent but on the cheap -- meets social Darwinism at home: Clearly, this is one instance where Bush's foreign policy and domestic policy work well together. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=742acd6d4286f9274d69d5430c34eca4&lat=1084981696&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH0585CD60DEBA439543FDE827B
What’s happening, Iraq: Doom and Gloom from the Military
Minimally covered here, but expansively so in the Guardian:
"I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss," General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of US central command, told the Senate foreign relations committee. Larry Diamond, an analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution, said: "I think it's clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq.
"We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction.
"There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw - quagmire." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1220792,00.html
Snappy Thinking at the DOD:
As they are running out of troops, they’ve had to put on their thinking caps.
The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists.
The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members who still face recall into the active duty.
The proposal has largely escaped attention amid all the other crises of government, and it is likely to face opposition from privacy rights activists who see information held by the IRS as inviolate. http://www.military.com/Content/Printer_Friendly_Version/1,11491,,00.html?str_filename=FL%5Firs%5F051804&passfile=FL%5Firs%5F051804&page_url=%2FNewsContent%2F0%2C13319%2CFL%5Firs%5F051804%2C00%2Ehtml
Chalabi Exits:
Our jettisoning of convicted-of-embezzlement, former darling-of-the-Pentagon Ahmed Chalabi points up how Chalabi doesn’t know his U.S. history. When someone is no longer of use, he becomes a non-person or an enemy. Just ask Manuel Noreiga and Saddam. Robin Wright’s piece in Friday’s Washington Post notes the reduced status:
"The vast majority of reports of his proximity to and influence on administration policy have been greatly exaggerated," said a senior administration official involved in Iraq policy who knows Chalabi. "The reality is that he was among a wide variety of Iraqi figures who made the case to an array of American officials over a period of time for the liberation of the Iraqi people." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43775-2004May20.html
Iraqis have noted that Chalabi was targeted not for providing bad intelligence but because he "had been clear on rejecting incomplete sovereignty ... and against having the security portfolio remain in the hands of those who have proved their failure." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1221084,00.html
The Administration then floated the word “spy”, claiming that Chalabi had passed “sensitive information” to Iran. Perhaps, like American teachers, he’s also a “terrorist.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/20/iraq/main618637.shtml
So much for our investment: From March, 2000 through this past September, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress had received $33 million from the State Department. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5210888
Abuse: There was NO System
The Wall Street Journal (Eric Jaffe):
Three top generals told Congress that the U.S. military had no formal system in place for handling reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross that documented widespread abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he never saw a harshly worded November report on abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, even though it reached two of his top aides that same month. The three generals also struggled to give the committee definitive answers when asked who was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison system at the time some abuses were committed and what rules were in place for conducting coercive interrogations. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108497337838215718,00.html
More Problems For Bush: Evangelicals Bailing Out Next?This Reuters report (Nigel Hunt) notes that the Iraq War has weakened the Bush-Evangelical bond.
Concern among evangelical Christians over the course of the war in Iraq is opening a crack in their strong bond with President Bush and the Republican Party, political analysts who track this powerful voting group said.
But they caution there are doubts over whether John Kerry can lure evangelicals into the Democratic camp in November's presidential election.
"I know there are a lot of evangelicals who are disillusioned with the war and worried about a lot of things, the Woodward book, the Clarke book ... (and) how we got into this thing," said Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., referring to recent books on the al Qaeda threat and the Iraqi war and occupation.
Compounding that is the growing scandal about prisoner abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq.
Evangelical Christians are still expected to vote overwhelmingly for Bush, but the erosion of support could reduce their turnout on election day, a potentially ominous development for the incumbent president. http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=5179780
Iraq Poll: Instead of Kerry-Bush…
The Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies polled all of Iraq’s main regions. It found that more than ½ wanted the U.S. troops out; 83% viewed the ‘coalition forces’ as occupiers; and a stunning 68% expressed mild or strong support of Muqtada al Sadr, the Shia cleric who is mocked here as a lightweight criminal. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3E8363A1-EC9E-4D48-A94B-EF95E2CFB0F9.htm
Palestinians-Israelis: Still Worse
Israel pushed deeper into the Rafah refugee camp on Thursday, undeterred by the international outcry after at least eight Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire as they demonstrated against the military operation. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5004007/
Medicare Fraud: But, it didn’t violate Federal Law
Recall those phony ads put out by the Republicans that praised the Medicare drug program. The GAO investigated, condemned, but ruled, ‘no laws broken.’
The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.
The agency said the videos were a form of "covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, broadcast by at least 40 television stations in 33 markets. The agency also expressed some concern about the content of the videos, but based its ruling on the lack of disclosure. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/politics/20medicare.html?ex=1400385600&en=0d350efce643e111&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
-R
Its hospitals gleam. Waiting-lists are non-existent. Doctors still make home visits. Life expectancy is two years longer than average for the western world.
No, French. More:
....For the patient, the French health system is still a joy. Same-day appointments can be made easily; if one doctor's advice displeases, you can consult another, a habit known as nomadisme médical. Individual hospital rooms are the norm. Specialists can be consulted without referral. And while the patient pays up front, almost all the money is reimbursed, either through the public insurance system or a top-up private policy.
For family doctors too, liberty prevails. They are self-employed, can set up a practice where they like, prescribe what they like, and are paid per consultation. As the health ministry's own diagnosis put it recently: “The French system offers more freedom than any other in the world.” http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2670654 (subscriber service)
Moderate Repubs Make a Stand
Sign of the Times: Senators McCain, Snowe, Chafee and Collins refused to go along with making the tax cuts permanent. McCain sounded off about “fat cats” in the GOP and noted, "I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility…Apparently, those days are long gone for some of those in our party." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/politics/21budget.html
Iraq as appealing employer
The Washington Post’s (and American Prospect’s) Harold Meyerson:
A remarkable story in the May 17 Post profiled a number of low-wage, non-union truck drivers, machine operators, cooks and the like who are going to work for Halliburton's KBR and other such firms in Iraq. In most cases, the workers profiled had the gravest misgivings about going over, but decided in the end to go because their families needed the health insurance or the money to buy a decent house.
This puts a whole new light on what many of us have considered one of America's gravest problems. At first glance, the fact that one-quarter of the U.S. workforce makes no more than $8.70 an hour (as one recent Russell Sage study concluded), or that 44 million Americans have no health coverage, is proof positive of a dysfunctional political economy.
But it turns out to be plenty functional after all. Who would run the risk of meeting the fate of the four contract security workers in Fallujah if they could make decent wages and cover their families' medical expenses by doing the same job here at home? Wilsonianism abroad -- belligerent but on the cheap -- meets social Darwinism at home: Clearly, this is one instance where Bush's foreign policy and domestic policy work well together. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=742acd6d4286f9274d69d5430c34eca4&lat=1084981696&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH0585CD60DEBA439543FDE827B
What’s happening, Iraq: Doom and Gloom from the Military
Minimally covered here, but expansively so in the Guardian:
"I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss," General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of US central command, told the Senate foreign relations committee. Larry Diamond, an analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution, said: "I think it's clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq.
"We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction.
"There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw - quagmire." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1220792,00.html
Snappy Thinking at the DOD:
As they are running out of troops, they’ve had to put on their thinking caps.
The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists.
The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members who still face recall into the active duty.
The proposal has largely escaped attention amid all the other crises of government, and it is likely to face opposition from privacy rights activists who see information held by the IRS as inviolate. http://www.military.com/Content/Printer_Friendly_Version/1,11491,,00.html?str_filename=FL%5Firs%5F051804&passfile=FL%5Firs%5F051804&page_url=%2FNewsContent%2F0%2C13319%2CFL%5Firs%5F051804%2C00%2Ehtml
Chalabi Exits:
Our jettisoning of convicted-of-embezzlement, former darling-of-the-Pentagon Ahmed Chalabi points up how Chalabi doesn’t know his U.S. history. When someone is no longer of use, he becomes a non-person or an enemy. Just ask Manuel Noreiga and Saddam. Robin Wright’s piece in Friday’s Washington Post notes the reduced status:
"The vast majority of reports of his proximity to and influence on administration policy have been greatly exaggerated," said a senior administration official involved in Iraq policy who knows Chalabi. "The reality is that he was among a wide variety of Iraqi figures who made the case to an array of American officials over a period of time for the liberation of the Iraqi people." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43775-2004May20.html
Iraqis have noted that Chalabi was targeted not for providing bad intelligence but because he "had been clear on rejecting incomplete sovereignty ... and against having the security portfolio remain in the hands of those who have proved their failure." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1221084,00.html
The Administration then floated the word “spy”, claiming that Chalabi had passed “sensitive information” to Iran. Perhaps, like American teachers, he’s also a “terrorist.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/20/iraq/main618637.shtml
So much for our investment: From March, 2000 through this past September, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress had received $33 million from the State Department. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5210888
Abuse: There was NO System
The Wall Street Journal (Eric Jaffe):
Three top generals told Congress that the U.S. military had no formal system in place for handling reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross that documented widespread abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he never saw a harshly worded November report on abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, even though it reached two of his top aides that same month. The three generals also struggled to give the committee definitive answers when asked who was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison system at the time some abuses were committed and what rules were in place for conducting coercive interrogations. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108497337838215718,00.html
More Problems For Bush: Evangelicals Bailing Out Next?This Reuters report (Nigel Hunt) notes that the Iraq War has weakened the Bush-Evangelical bond.
Concern among evangelical Christians over the course of the war in Iraq is opening a crack in their strong bond with President Bush and the Republican Party, political analysts who track this powerful voting group said.
But they caution there are doubts over whether John Kerry can lure evangelicals into the Democratic camp in November's presidential election.
"I know there are a lot of evangelicals who are disillusioned with the war and worried about a lot of things, the Woodward book, the Clarke book ... (and) how we got into this thing," said Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., referring to recent books on the al Qaeda threat and the Iraqi war and occupation.
Compounding that is the growing scandal about prisoner abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq.
Evangelical Christians are still expected to vote overwhelmingly for Bush, but the erosion of support could reduce their turnout on election day, a potentially ominous development for the incumbent president. http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=5179780
Iraq Poll: Instead of Kerry-Bush…
The Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies polled all of Iraq’s main regions. It found that more than ½ wanted the U.S. troops out; 83% viewed the ‘coalition forces’ as occupiers; and a stunning 68% expressed mild or strong support of Muqtada al Sadr, the Shia cleric who is mocked here as a lightweight criminal. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3E8363A1-EC9E-4D48-A94B-EF95E2CFB0F9.htm
Palestinians-Israelis: Still Worse
Israel pushed deeper into the Rafah refugee camp on Thursday, undeterred by the international outcry after at least eight Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire as they demonstrated against the military operation. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5004007/
Medicare Fraud: But, it didn’t violate Federal Law
Recall those phony ads put out by the Republicans that praised the Medicare drug program. The GAO investigated, condemned, but ruled, ‘no laws broken.’
The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.
The agency said the videos were a form of "covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, broadcast by at least 40 television stations in 33 markets. The agency also expressed some concern about the content of the videos, but based its ruling on the lack of disclosure. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/politics/20medicare.html?ex=1400385600&en=0d350efce643e111&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
-R
