“Today is World No Tobacco Day. The emphasis this year is on smoke-free environments. We’ve called attention a few times to the tremendous problems confronting China when it comes to smoking. But with the 2008 Olympics coming to Beijing . . . the pressure is on the government to finally get serious.”
See my entire post over at the World Health Care Blog.
Ok, this is in the ‘we should have seen it coming’ category.
In a country where everyone is a victim of something, and proud of it, we find this UPI story on how it is really the insured who are now the exploited ones in health care. According to a couple of Duke University law professors — need I go any further — the health care system operates more like a “robber baron than like the Robin Hood.”
“The system works like an extortion scheme, which forces consumers to choose to pay what the system demands of them or put their families’ health at risk,” said Clark Havighurst, a Duke Law School professor, “They’re the victims who seem to be ignored when everyone wants to talk about the uninsured.”
Is it me or does anyone else smell lawsuit here?
Of course the insured apparently are not aware enough of this oppression since they continued to demand more more benefits. The Duke professor thinks this is because employees don’t see the real costs of health care, as the money they pay usually gets pulled directly out of their salaries.”They have a much bigger stake in this than they know,” he said.
Most of us do know the stakes here, but first just a little reality check. Health care costs are high. Check. Everyone needs to be covered. Check. No one likes to pay bills. Check. Something needs to change. Check. Victims R Us: Contingency fee only 40 percent. Che… Well not so fast.
Let’s just say that it’s time to get serious in health care. The blame game with its self-serving rhetoric is getting us nowhere. We should give it up. We have seen the enemy in health care and they look a lot like you and me.
Salon’s Walter Shapiro writes,
“So here is a working theory, subject to many modifications as the campaign unfolds: Barack Obama is simultaneously both aware of the power of cheap rhetoric and easy emotion — and intellectually contemptuous of it. He is a candidate in quiet rebellion against the banalities that too often govern political discourse.”
Shapiro makes his assessment from his close observation of the campaign. But it is only when he hears a remark by the candidate on health care that he finally puts it all together. It’s when Obama goes out of his way to declare, “I’m not somebody who will run down the insurance companies and the drug companies just for the sake of it” that Shapiro really discovers Obama.
Drug companies and insurance companies have long been a favored target of Democratic presidential candidates, Shapiro writes, and “neither Edwards nor Hillary Clinton is apt to miss many opportunities to go after the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. But there was Obama, speaking to a largely Democratic audience in an old pulp-and-paper town, promising not to take any cheap shots at these corporate villains.”
Some will interpret Obama’s remarks as a sell out. I think they are refreshingly, well . . . original. No matter where you sit, all of us are both the problem, and the solution to the health care mess that confronts us. Obama may be the first to really demonstrate that fundamental understanding.
“China continues to be in the international spotlight when it comes to being in compliance with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new strategy on international reporting of infectious diseases.”
See my complete post over at World Health Care Blog
On reading Obama’s announcement today of his plans for health care I was struck with three observations about what he’s saying to the American public.
First, there are no new ideas. What’s new apparently is just how creatively you put together the old ideas. Employer mandate, government subsidies, regulation of insurance companies, tax the rich — not new, but not necessarily bad either. What’s not in the plan is more revealing: no single payer and no individual mandate to have insurance here (like Massachusetts). There are a couple of other important no-shows as well.
That leads me to a second observation: Obama gunning for the big middle. He wants to build a popular consensus so that he doesn’t get torpedoed should he be lucky enough to actually win the election. He’s also a little shy on specifics, but that may be good long-term planning as well. Why paint a big target on your back when everyone else has bows and arrows? Like the other candidates, Obama cannot just change health care by fiat–he’ll need Congress, Congress will need the American public if they are to successfully navigate this political minefield. Washington has learned its lessons from the Clinton fiasco. To simply slash-and-burn the private sector, or further engorge a federal bureaucratic empire will simply not get the job done.
My third observation is that he may sense that more radical moves in health care involve substantial risk, not just political risk to his career, but a real and broader risk to the public. The political and economic heat of big changes could ignite major malfunctions in the health care system. And this could have disastrous consequences. While our health care system is robust, in many respects it hangs on some delicate financial treads. Pull one too hard and the web may start to unravel.
“Any health care reform effort in China has to take into consideration the widespread prevalence of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). At a recent China-U.S. health care conference, China’s Zha Dezhong, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Medical Administration, State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, presented the following statistics. I thought you might find these numbers interesting. As usual the scale of any numbers coming from China is always a bit startling.”
See my complete post over at the World Health Care Blog.
The Obama 08 campaign has been advertising on at least one prominent China blog for support from Americans living in China. In June, Americans in Beijing will have an opportunity to talk to the candidate by telephone , see a video, get books and other stuff and be able to contribute to his presidential campaign. Of course, the first response to Obama’s “sponsored blog post” asks whether the candidate supports the legalization of pot– this is the Internet, after all.
“For those who have not seen news of this recent report, it is an important study to digest and think about. Briefly, its panel of distinguished authors find that while the U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, their data and analysis show it to be consistently under performing relative to several other countries (Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom).”
See my complete post over at the World Health Care Blog
The League of American Bicyclists sent out a notice today alerting their members to a company selling tee-shirts promoting violence against cyclists. The League is asking its members to call or email CafePress and complain. The company has definitely crossed the line here. This is dangerous stuff and not to be trivialized. But violence against cyclists is unfortunately not new.
Well, at least when it comes to health care.
The Wall Street Journal reports today (subscription required) that Barack Obama intends to trot out his health care plan next Tuesday. Hillary must be motivating him to get something going. She’s giving a series of speeches on her approach to health care which once again demonizes health plans, pharmaceutical companies and probably anyone else who doesn’t see it her way. When are we going to get beyond this pandering rhetoric? So let’s see what Obama has to offer since his approach has been, at least up to now, one of listening and not out making promises that we all would rather not be kept. Remember those Black Swans! Let’s try to keep our head on our shoulders during this presidential campaign.
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