Don’t Succumb to Republican Fear Mongering of a Public Health Plan Optio’t

Posted on June 22, 2009 by thereadingblogger

Americans United for Change is spreading this sardonic video to promote the message that people (including our elected representatives) should not be scared of real health care reform. It’s very funny how the government bureaucracy “bogeyman” message is repeated over and over by scaremongers, as if that could possibly be any more aggravating (or terrifying) than the private health insurance bureaucracy that most of us have to contend with!

For the more literary types, the recent New York Times editorial, “A Public Health Plan” (6/20/2009) provides another eloquent argument to support the public plan option.

As the debate on health care reform unfolds, no issue has caused such partisan rancor — and spawned such misleading rhetoric — as whether to create a new public insurance plan to compete with private plans.  The nation already has several huge public plans, including Medicare for the elderly (once reviled by conservatives, it is now only short of the flag in its popularity) and Medicaid for the poor. Now the issue is whether to establish a new public plan to encourage more competition among health insurers and provide Americans with an alternative.

Most Democrats and some Republicans have already accepted the need to create one or more health insurance exchanges where individuals without group coverage and possibly small businesses could buy insurance policies. Some proponents hope that big businesses could enroll their workers as well. [...]

What Republicans are adamantly opposed to is the idea of adding a public plan to that exchange. They portray it as a “government takeover” of the health care system, or even as socialized medicine. Those are egregious mischaracterizations. There is no serious consideration in Congress of a single-payer governmental program that would enroll virtually everyone. Nor is there any talk of extending the veterans health care system, a stellar example of “socialized medicine,” to the general public.

The debate is really over whether to open the door a crack for a new public plan to compete with the private plans. Most Democrats see this as an important element in any health care reform, and so do we. A public plan would have lower administrative expenses than private plans, no need to generate big profits, and stronger bargaining power to obtain discounts from providers. That should enable it to charge lower premiums than many private plans. It would also provide an alternative for individuals who either can’t get adequate insurance from private insurers or don’t trust the private insurance industry to treat them fairly. And it could serve as a yardstick for comparing the performance of private plans and for testing innovative coverage schemes.

Unfortunately, many Senate Democrats are so desperate to find a political compromise with Republicans — or so bullied by the rhetoric — that they are in danger of gravely weakening a public plan, or eliminating it entirely. That would be a mistake.

[...] The prospect of competing with a government plan terrifies the private insurers. But in our judgment, if that many Americans were to decide that such a plan is a better deal for them and their families, that would be a good thing. Innovative private plans that already deliver better services at lower costs would survive. Inefficient private plans would wither.

[...]  We continue to believe that a public plan would be desirable. Surveys by the Commonwealth Fund have found that Medicare beneficiaries report fewer problems obtaining medical care, less financial hardship due to medical bills, and higher satisfaction with their coverage than do workers insured by private employers. [...]

As a self-employed, tax-paying citizen relying on my spouse’s health insurance policy, I certainly support the creation of a competitive, publicly-funded health plan.

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Finding Some Voices of Sanity About Gun Control

Posted on June 20, 2009 by thereadingblogger

While I certainly admire the Obama Administration’s efforts on the economy, health insurance, and international policy, I am dismayed about the belly-up approach on gun control. In consolation, I found these voices reprising the call for sanity (or at least some reasoned debate) on how to protect us from people with firearms who would rather shoot humans than deer. And no, despite what the NRA-card holders say, arming everybody is clearly not the solution. After all, many of the people who get killed by gun-wielding crazed or criminal assailants are armed and trained law-enforcement officers.

From Michael Winship and Bill Moyers’ Commentary, “What Happened to the Gun Debate” (The Patriot Ledger, 6/20/2009):

You know by now that in Washington, D.C., on June 10, an elderly white supremacist and anti-Semite named James W. von Brunn allegedly walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with a .22-caliber rifle and killed a security guard before being brought down himself. [...] You will know, too, of the recent killing of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors performing late-term abortions. You may be less familiar with the June 1 shootings in an army recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., that killed one soldier and wounded another. [...] Soon, however, these deeds will be forgotten, as are already the three policemen killed by an assault weapon in Pittsburgh; the four killed in Oakland, Calif.; the 13 people gunned down in Binghamton, N.Y.; the 10 in an Alabama shooting spree; five in Santa Clara, Calif.; and the eight dead in a North Carolina nursing home. All during this year alone.

There is much talk about hate crimes against blacks, whites, immigrants, Muslims, Jews; about violence committed in the name of bigotry or religion. But why don’t we talk about guns? We’re arming ourselves to death. Even as gunshots ricocheted around the country, an amendment allowing concealed weapons in national parks snuck into the popular credit card reform bill. Another victory for the gun lobby, to sounds of silence from the White House.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, wrote — just days before the Holocaust Museum incident — that “rather than propose concrete action that makes it harder for dangerous people to get firearms — while still respecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners — all Washington can seem to muster after high-profile shootings are ‘thoughts and prayers’ . For his part, the president has also included sincere expressions of ‘deep sadness’ at these tragic losses — though without any call to change any of our policies to prevent those losses.”

Yet, as a presidential candidate, Obama pledged “our determination to do whatever it takes to eradicate this violence from our streets, from our schools, from our neighborhoods and our cities. That is our duty as Americans.”

The fact is, neither party will stand up to the National Rifle Association, the best known front group for the arms merchants. In Virginia, just across the Potomac River from the Holocaust Museum, this week’s Democratic primary for governor was won by state legislator R. Creigh Deeds, a man who supports allowing concealed weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol and opposes limiting handgun purchases to one a month. [...] Guns don’t kill people, they say. People kill people. True. People kill people – with guns.

So let the faithful of every persuasion keep their guns for hunting and skeet, for trap and target practice, for collecting. They can even have a permit for a gun to protect their business or home, even though it’s 22 times more likely to shoot a member of the family (including suicides) than an intruder. But please, there are already about 200 million, privately owned firearms in America. Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and in some years more than 400,000 non-fatal, gun-related assaults. The next time someone wades through a pool of blood to sidle up and champion the preservation of firearms, can’t we just say, no thanks? Enough’s enough.

From Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed column, “A Threat We Can’t Ignore” (The New York Times, 6/19/2009):

Even with the murders that have already occurred, Americans are not paying enough attention to the frightening connection between the right-wing hate-mongers who continue to slither among us and the gun crazies who believe a well-aimed bullet is the ticket to all their dreams.

I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help feeling as if the murder at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the assassination of the abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., and the slaying of three police officers in Pittsburgh — all of them right-wing, hate-driven attacks — were just the beginning and that worse is to come. As if the wackos weren’t dangerous enough to begin with, the fuel to further inflame them is available in the over-the-top rhetoric of the National Rifle Association, which has relentlessly pounded the bogus theme that Barack Obama is planning to take away people’s guns. The group’s anti-Obama Web site is called gunbanobama.com. While the N.R.A. is not advocating violence, it shouldn’t take more than a glance at the newspapers to understand why this is a message that the country could do without. James von Brunn, the man accused of using a rifle to shoot a guard to death at the Holocaust museum last week, was described by relatives, associates and the police as a virulent racist and anti-Semite. Whatever the N.R.A. may intend by its rhetoric, there is always the danger that those inclined toward violence will incorporate it into their twisted worldview, and will find in the rhetoric a justification for murder.[...]

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported a resurgence of right-wing hate groups in the U.S. since Mr. Obama was elected president. Gun craziness of all kinds, including the passage of local laws making it easier to own and conceal weapons, is on the rise. Hate-filled Web sites are calling attention to the fact that the U.S. has a black president and that his chief of staff is Jewish. It might be wise to pay closer attention than we’ve been paying. The first step should be to bring additional gun control back into the policy mix.

From Carl Leubsdorf’s commentary, “Three Slaying and No Talk of Gun Control” (Bowling Green Daily News, 6/19/2009):

Three deaths in widely separated parts of the country: Each the work of a single person, each stemming from a different grievance. [...] They did have one thing in common: All three victims were killed by a gun (although each by a different type). [...] The three gunmen face murder charges, but investigations are continuing, including whether weapons laws were violated. A federal ban on sales of some assault weapons expired in 2004.
We’ve heard some concern whether the nation’s economic problems or the election of the first black president might inspire increased acts of political extremism. But there has been virtually no discussion of whether the incidents indicate a need for stricter laws to limit access to such weapons – or at least keep better records of who buys or owns them.

Indeed, every sign is that opponents of gun-control laws, like the National Rifle Association, essentially have won the longstanding public battle over the efficacy of legal restrictions to curb potential violence by individuals with access to firearms. In the recent Virginia gubernatorial primary, Democrats nominated a candidate endorsed by the NRA when he ran for attorney general in 2005 and who did not suffer for opposing legislation to ban buying more than one handgun a month and carrying firearms in bars. And when Republicans pushed a proposal curbing the District of Columbia’s power to regulate gun ownership as a “poison pill” designed to kill a measure giving Washingtonians a voting member of Congress, 22 Democrats joined them, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

The nation’s first urban Democratic president in a generation, busy with the economy and health care, shows no sign of wanting to press the matter. Asked this spring if Barack Obama might be willing to reinstate the assault weapons ban, spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president believes “there are other strategies that we can take to enforce the laws that are already on the books.”

Earlier, Attorney General Eric Holder told CBS News’ Katie Couric that the administration would work with the NRA on “common-sense approaches to reduce the level of violence” on the streets. Obama, Holder said, sought policies “that are politically saleable and things that will be ultimately effective.” The key phrase is “politically saleable,” given that enactment of the assault weapons ban during the Clinton administration cost Democrats a number of congressional seats in 1994. Democrats don’t want a repeat.

Besides, it’s unclear if stricter gun laws would have prevented the three recent slayings, as well as other even deadlier incidents this year. A recent Supreme Court decision makes it harder for states and localities to limit sales and ownership. Still, it’s hard to argue that the easy availability of handguns and assault weapons is good for crime prevention or what the Founding Fathers had in mind in the Second Amendment. And it’s surely a sign of the times that there’s so little effort to do anything about it.

For recent gun-control news check out: “US Guns in Mexico: Will New Data Help Change Law?” (The Christian Science Monitor, 6/18/2009), “GAO Ties U.S. Guns to Mexico Violence” (The Wall Street Journal, 6/18/2009), “Gun Toters Point to Eased Regulations as Fix for Recent Violence” (The Capital times 6/20/2009), “Arizona Officers Fight Concealed Gun Proposal” (The Arizona Republic, 6/20/2009), “Cities’ Gun Restrictions Begin to Topple” (The Christian Science Monitor, 6/20/2009), and “SJC Will Review Gun Lock Ruling” (The Boston Globe, 6/19/ 2009).

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U.S. Study on the Impact of Global Warming and the Need to Act Now to Reduce Emissions

Posted on June 19, 2009 by thereadingblogger

Those of us living in the Philadelphia area have been experiencing an atypical miserably wet and cold June. My relatives in Italy have faced unusual August-like heat waves in May followed by cold and then hot interludes. Probably most people around the world have stories of unusual weather. Are these signs of global warming or just normal variations in weather patterns?  As reported in The New York Times “U.S. Study Projects How ‘Unequivocal Warming’ Will Change Americans’ Lives” (6/17/2009) the new US government report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, “Climate change is already reshaping the United States, according to a new federal report that predicts global warming could have serious consequences for how Americans live and work.”

Hotter temperatures, an increase in heavy downpours, and rising sea levels are among the effects of “unequivocal” warming, concludes the report (pdf) by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Winters are now shorter and warmer than they were 30 years ago, with the largest temperature rise — more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit — observed in the Midwest and northern Great Plains. The changes are already affecting human health, agriculture, coastal areas, transportation and water supplies. And climate change will intensify over the next century even with significant action to limit greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

“The projected rapid rate and large amount of climate change over this century will challenge the ability of society and natural systems to adapt,” warns the report, released yesterday in Washington by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren and other top Obama administration officials. [...]

Released as House Democrats plan their floor strategy for major climate legislation, the analysis says that reducing carbon dioxide emissions will lessen warming during this century and beyond. Earlier cuts will be more effective than comparable later cuts, the document adds. Without efforts to limit emissions, the United States could warm 7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Cutting emissions could hold that increase to just 4 to 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The report also breaks down likely effects of climate change by region and economic sector. Among its conclusions:

  • Forest growth is likely to increase in much of the East but decrease in much of the West as water becomes scarcer.
  • Heat-related deaths are likely to increase as the number of days when the mercury reaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher grows. Without a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the report says, heat-related deaths in Chicago will rise tenfold by the end of the century.
  • Sea level rise will continue, increasing the likelihood of temporary and permanent flooding of airports, roads, rail lines and tunnels. About 2,400 miles of roadways and 250 miles of freight rail lines could be inundated along the Gulf Coast over the next 50 to 100 years. The region is home to seven of the country’s 10 largest ports.
  • Crop production will suffer as carbon dioxide emissions rise, after an initial increase in growth. Warmer winter temperatures will help insects and plant diseases spread.
  • A continuing trend of warmer night temperatures in the Northeast could shift maple syrup production from the United States to Canada.

The 10 key findings from the report are:

  1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
  2. Climate changes (including increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, alterations in river flows) are underway int he United States and are projected to grow.
  3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
  4. Climate change will stress water resources.
  5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
  6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge
  7. Threats to human health will increase.
  8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
  9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
  10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

The report concludes with a call to act now on reducing emissions,

Choices about emissions now and in the coming years will have far-reaching consequences for climate change impacts. A consistent finding of this assessment is that the rate and magnitude of future climate change and resulting impacts depend critically on the level of global atmospheric heat-trapping gas concentrations as well as the types and concentrations of atmospheric particles (aerosols). Lower emissions of heat-trapping gases will delay the appearance of climate change impacts and lessen their magnitude. Unless the rate of emissions is substantially reduced, impacts are expected to become increasingly severe for more people and places.

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Reasons for Breast Reduction Surgery

Posted on June 17, 2009 by thereadingblogger

I know a few women who had breast reduction surgery to ease the discomfort of being overly endowed. I read with interest physician Jennifer Walden’s Medscape Blog “The Case of Tennis Star Simona Halep: Why Do Women Seek Breast Reduction Surgery?: Medscape Connect“  (posted 6/12/2009). I think that this is useful information for other women who might be considering it and for the people (probably, mostly of the male persuasion) who might think that it’s a crime against nature. Walden said,

London press release on May 29th went like this: “Junior French Open champ Simona Halep is set to undergo a surgery to reduce her 34DD boobs. The 17-year-old feels they are a disadvantage and has vowed to have a reduction later this year. “The breasts make me uncomfortable when I play,” the Sun quoted her as saying.”It’’s the weight that troubles me – my ability to react quickly,” she added. However, fans of the Romanian tennis player didn’t seem too happy with her decision. They flocked to sign an online petition: Save Simona Halep Boobs. One stormed: “It will be a crime against nature.”

Simona Halep, as you may or may not know, is from Romania and is a budding Junior tennis player. She is ranked #258 in the world. She won the Junior French Open tennis tournament in 2008, and although not yet fully developed as a professional, she reached the second round of the qualifiers for the Senior French Open in 2009. In May 2009 she received widespread media attention all over the world for expressing her desire to go through breast reduction surgery in order to perform better on the tennis court. I found it surprising to read on blogs and sports pages online how much fans and readers did not understand the purpose and benefit of breast reduction surgery. Comments ranged from disgust to outrage to frank misunderstanding of what the indications and outcomes are for breast reduction surgery.

Constant back and neck pain, gouges in your shoulders from bra straps, difficulty with clothing fit, and deteriorating posture and an inability to participate in certain activities rank among the common complaints of women with large breasts. Breast reduction surgery (reduction mammaplasty) may help relieve these symptoms. As technology advances, more women are seeking consultations from plastic surgeons to discuss options for adjusting their breast sizes to a healthier and more comfortable level. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than 104,000 breast reduction surgeries were performed in 2006. Breast reduction is often considered a medically necessary treatment due to its interference with the activities of daily life and physical symptoms, so third party payors and referrals from primary care physicians are often involved. [...]

Women can have breast reduction surgery at any age, but it’s generally advisable to wait until you’re at least age 17 or 18, by which time your breasts are likely to be fully developed. However, sometimes surgery is performed in teens who suffer significant emotional and psychological effects of having too-large breasts (called juvenile breast hypertrophy).  Patients are often advised that if they want children and wish to breastfeed, they may consider postponing breast reduction surgery until afterwards. Changes to breast tissue during pregnancy could alter your surgical results. Also, after the surgery, breast-feeding may be difficult. [...]

According to MayoClinic.com “Breast Reduction Surgery: Decrease Breast Size, Ease Discomfort” indications for breast reduction surgery include:

  • Chronic back, neck, and shoulder pain
  • Poor posture
  • Skin rash under the breasts
  • Deep grooves in the shoulders from bra strap pressure
  • Restricted levels of activity
  • Low self-esteem
  • Difficulty wearing or fitting into certain bras and clothing

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Here Is to Hoping That Continued Scandal and Controversy Will Unhinge Silvio Berlusconi’s Reign Over Italy

Posted on June 16, 2009 by thereadingblogger

As an Italian expatriate, I thought it would be fitting to commemorate Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visit with President Barack Obama. I can only imagine what these two very different people—one (guess who?) a sexist, racist, philandering, conniving billionaire—were thinking as they sat facing each other. Here are two pieces that caught my eye because they express much of what I think about Berlusconi and his continued “reign” over Italian politics. In “Italy’s ‘Emperor’ Meets Obama” (The Nation 6/15/1009) Friederika Randall wrote,

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the June 15 meeting between Obama and Silvio Berlusconi! Berlusconi, that brash billionaire businessman who runs the Italian government like his private fiefdom. Owner of multiple TV channels, magazines and newspapers. Appointer of attractive young women with slim credentials to ministerial positions. The one who granted himself full judicial immunity [...] The guy who likes to entertain guests (such as former Czech premier Mirek Topolánek) at his private pleasure palace in Sardinia, with dozens of luscious young women, some of them underage, for sing-alongs and topless afternoons by the pool. The joker who commissioned the breathtakingly sycophantic party anthem “Meno male che Silvio c’e” (”Thank heavens for Silvio!”); who, between applications of pancake makeup, botox, facelifts and hair transplants, comes more and more to resemble North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, right down to the hairspray and restrictions on the press. [...]

In short, the politician whose “People of Liberty” got more votes than any other Italian party (35 percent) in the June 6-7 elections for the European Parliament. [...] In some ways Italy is a case apart, because of Berlusconi’s immense media power, the many criminal charges that have been brought against him and his blatant conflicts of interest. And yet Italians vote for Berlusconi for some of the same reasons other Europeans vote for the radical right.

First, Berlusconi is a beacon to that nearly 25 percent of the Italian workforce who are small shopkeepers and small business owners providing basic services–the likes of “Joe the Plumber.” This sector, long protected by the Christian Democrats, now ill equipped to deal with twenty-first-century market competition, has been hard-hit by the economic downturn. [...]

Second, Berlusconi and his allies have invested heavily in the politics of fear and hate. Appearing in Milan the day before the election, in a last-ditch effort to snatch some votes from the Northern League, Berlusconi declared he had seen so many black faces that Milan looked “like an African city.” The government has produced virtually no economic policies to deal with grave unemployment and the depredations of globalization. Attacking the immigrants is Berlusconi’s only real strategy. The message is: Immigrants come from afar, and they threaten your jobs. [...]

Yet Berlusconi may still be his own undoing. And the “woman question”–the ranks of glamorous young veline (starlets) he likes to promote for public office; his unexplained ties with Noemi Letizia, a teenager from Naples aspiring to velina status; his wife’s accusations that he is “sick” and “consorting with minors”–could be his Waterloo. Speaking recently at a meeting of the powerful industrialists’ association Confindustria, Berlusconi pretended to flatter its president, 43-year-old Emma Marcegaglia, by telling her she looked “just like a velina,” a gross faux pas. Yes, Italy’s business leaders have cultivated Berlusconi, hoping for favors from the government. But no, they–and especially their number-one, Marcegaglia–don’t actually think they would be better off in the emperor’s harem. Could that be why, just before leaving for Washington, Berlusconi denounced a “subversive” plot to unseat him?

The video clip “Silvio Berlusconi’s Affair” is Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show (6/9/2009) sardonic expose of Berlusconi—quite true and funny, except for the brief cheap Italian-accented stereotyping (so common on American TV and movies).

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Shannon Burke’s “Black Flies” An Unsparingly Realistic Account of a Paramedic’s Experience in Harlem in the 1990s

Posted on June 9, 2009 by thereadingblogger

I really recommend the short (but definitely far from sweet), unsparingly realistic, and quite intense Black Flies, a novel written by former NYC paramedic Shannon Burke. The story in Black Flies is told in the first person by the main protagonist, Ollie Cross, a novice paramedic who works in Harlem during the mid 1990s. A college graduate, Ollie didn’t get into medical school so he is trying a stint as a paramedic to get the experience and hopefully the study time to do better in the MCATs and boost his chances to get into a med school. This first year working in the midst of poverty and crime are a real eye opener for both Ollie and the reader. Burke’s sparse prose carries quite a visual and emotional punch.

The prologue to Black Flies begins with,

I worked in Harlem and the place had begun to annoy me: the gangs of loud-mouthed kids all yowling at each other and goofing twenty-four hours a day, skels with forty-ouncers strolling in front of use to show that no one not even an ambulance could make them hurry, kids tugging at our shirts saying what’s wrong, what’s wrong, is someone dead, what’s wrong, the crackheads, the junkies, and the drunks dropping in the worst places—abandoned buildings, subway tracks, the Harlem River. I hated the sullen, resentful looks. I hated being accused of racism. What would I be going in Harlem if I was a racist? I hated the graffiti, the garbage, the homeless fucks gathered together catcalling us from St. Nicholas Park. I hated the constant swarm of desperate family members who wanted help NOW! NOW! HURRY UP MISTER! NOW! I hated the weird shit that I saw, remembered, and that accumulated in an undigested glut inside me: blue-gray intestines on a red steering wheel, dead mouths filled with live cockroaches, an overweight diabetic woman’s soiled sock with a few black toes inside it falling out and rolling about on the floor like oblong marbles wobbling to a halt beneath the television and her asking it its’ ok is it do I need a hospital do I?

After a while these kinds of situations started to irritate me, enrage me for no specific reason, until something snapped and I looked around as if in a vacuum, bewildered, like what the fuck? Why care? What is it to me? What’s it matter?

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Politicians Need to Stop Quavering to the NRA: Support S. 843 and Close the Gun Show Loophole

Posted on June 4, 2009 by thereadingblogger

In “Gun (In)Sanity“  (Editor’s Cut The Nation 6/2/2009) Katrina Vanden Heuvel makes a lot of sense in her call to arms to support and pass the Gun Show Background Check Act (S. 843). Here are some long excerpts from her piece.

Despite a Democratic Congress and President, it’s been a bad time for common sense measures to curb gun violence. Earlier this year, a voting rights bill for the citizens of the District of Columbia was stalled by a Senate amendment that would strip the city of its right to regulate guns. And last month, the credit card reform bill was hijacked in the Senate and amended so that concealed guns are now permitted in our national parks. Here’s hoping the majority of Americans who support sane gun control begin to turn the tide.

Bills have now been introduced in both the House and Senate to at long last close the absurd and dangerous gun show loophole which permits the sale of guns without any criminal background check. Background checks are required for any gun purchase at federally licensed dealers. The result? 1.6 million felons and other prohibited purchasers have been stopped from buying guns. But those same people can go to a gun show in more than 30 states and buy a weapon — no questions asked. It doesn’t matter, for example, if Maryland requires a background check when the same individual can cross into Virginia and buy an assault weapon without a hitch. That’s why 4 out of 10 guns are sold by unlicensed sellers without background checks.

The Columbine killings were committed using two shotguns, an assault rifle, and a TEC-9 assault pistol — all four weapons were purchased from gun shows. The person who bought three of the weapons later said she wouldn’t have done so if a background check had been required. Recently, the brother of a Virginia Tech victim was followed by ABC News into a gun show where he was able to purchase ten guns in under an hour — again, no questions asked.

Senator Frank Lautenberg’s Gun Show Background Check Act [S. 843] would require background checks at any event where 50 or more firearms are offered for sale. It wouldn’t stop a grandfather from giving his prized handgun to his grandson, as the cynical NRA would have America believe. Nor does it take on the 2nd Amendment. Despite the NRA’s whipping gun owners into a buying frenzy over the notion that President Obama and the Democrats are coming after their guns — a hysteria that has led to a surge of sales at gun shows nationwide — this legislation does no such thing. It simply insists — in the interest of public safety — that you clear a criminal background check before buying a gun.

“There is no rational reason to oppose closing the loophole,” Senator Lautenberg said when he introduced the bill with 14 cosponsors last month just days after the 10th and 2nd anniversaries of the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, respectively. “The reason it’s still not closed is simple: the continuing power of the special interest gun lobby in Washington.”

[...] The White House has clearly made a political decision at this time not to push for closing the gun show loophole or the assault weapons ban — both of which it clearly supports and would gladly sign into law.

So it’s time for rational, concerned citizens to take matters into their own hands. Polls show over 85 percent of the public wants the gun show loophole closed now. That’s a lot of voters. Speak out — let your Senators and Representatives know where you stand. Threaten to stop any contributions to representatives who won’t listen.  [...] Don’t let the NRA’s lies and fulmination hold sway over this life-saving measure.

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The Murder of Dr. George Tiller: the Act of a Lone Assasin or a Terrorist Tactic Fueled by a Violent Anti-Choice Wing?

Posted on June 2, 2009 by thereadingblogger

The May 31, 2009 murder of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller at his church in Kansas was horrible and, unfortunately, not surprising act. As reported in “A Killing in Kansas” (The Nation, 5/31/2009), Dr. Tiller had been at the top of a “hit list” circulating among “militant anti-abortion activists” and found 15 years ago by the FBI. His clinic had been bombed in 1986 and he had been shot in 1993. As stated in a 5/31/2009 press release by the National Organization for Women (NOW),

Women across the country have lost a champion today. The cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller this morning in church is a stark reminder that women’s bodies are still a battleground, and health care professionals are on the frontlines. This kind man and skilled doctor braved blockades, harassment, assault, and countless threats, including an attempted murder in 1993 when he was shot in both arms. He knew his life was in constant jeopardy, and that he would likely die at the hands of an anti-abortion terrorist — yet he continued to protect his patients and provide safe and legal abortions to women in often-desperate circumstances.[...]

Dr. Tiller’s slaying is the most recent in a string of murders in the service of the anti-abortion cause, and hundreds of people have been injured or threatened because they provide legal abortion services. Bringing the killers to justice is not enough – the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security must root out and prosecute as domestic terrorists and violent racketeers the criminal enterprise that has organized and funded criminal acts for decades. We call on the new attorney general Eric Holder and head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to treat these murders in the same way they would treat politically-motivated domestic terrorism of any other kind and put the full resources of their two departments behind that effort.[...]

Anti-choice activists have long been spewing misinformation on  late-term abortions and venomous hatred for those who perform it. In purportedly defending human life, they dangerously dehumanize the women who make the agonizing decision to have an abortion and the health care professionals who provide it legally and safely. For more on this, read “Where Will Women Go Now?” (Salon.com 6/1/2009)  by Kate Harding. Harding wrote,

[...] Anti-choice activists often cast late-term abortions as the murder of a viable baby at the whim of a woman who doesn’t wish to be inconvenienced, carried out by a doctor who looks at her and sees only cartoon dollar signs. They’re egged on by relatively mainstream figures like Bill O’Reilly, who declared that Dr. Tiller “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000.” Such misinformation and outright lies about procedures that are in fact rare and only performed when medically necessary are what led anti-choice activists to call Tiller “America’s Doctor of Death,” and accuse him of running a “murder mill.” The reality of what Dr. Tiller did, however — helping women in absolutely desperate circumstances, when almost no one else would — is what led one woman who had to terminate a wanted pregnancy because of a terrible late-term diagnosis to call the doctor and staff at his Women’s Health Center “our heaven when we were living in hell.”

Susan Hill, President of the National Women’s Health Foundation, who knew Dr. Tiller for over two decades and referred girls and women to his clinic, said in a phone interview, “We always sent the really tragic cases to Tiller.” Those included women diagnosed with cancer who needed abortions to qualify for chemotherapy, women who learned late in their pregnancies that their wanted babies had fatal illnesses, and rape victims so young they didn’t realize they were pregnant for months. “We sent him 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds who were way too far along for anybody [else] to see,” said Hill. “11-year-olds don’t tell anybody. Sometimes they don’t even know they’ve had a period.” [...]

Also, check out “Countering Anti-Choice Terrorism” a blog posted by Melissa Harris-Lacewell in The Nation (6/2/2009) and Kansas Stories where “mothers tell their stories of heartbreaking choices requiring travel to Kansas.” For a father’s view read this posting on balloon-juice.com.

For a point of view from overseas on why the abortion issue inflames such a violent response in the U.S. compared with the U.K., go to  “Anti-Abortion and Violence in the US” (BBC News, 6/2/2009).

Filed under: Current Events, Government & Politics, Health & Medicine, Human Rights, Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Arguing for a Publicly-Funded, Non-Profit Health Insurance Plan Option

Posted on May 28, 2009 by thereadingblogger

The 5/28/2009 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine contains three Perspectives on the health care reform issue. In “Healthy Competition — The Why and How of “Public-Plan Choice” Jacob S. Hacker, Ph.D., (Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley and author of Health Care for America) makes a solid argument for including a publicly funded insurance option in U.S. health care reform. Here are some excerpts from this article

[...] The aim of public-plan choice is healthy competition that will ensure Americans are better cared for and more secure. Such competition does not require an endless array of choices but rather a reasonable number of meaningfully different choices. Indeed, the key reason for public-plan choice is that public health insurance offers a set of valued features that private plans are generally unable or unwilling to provide: stability, wide pooling of risks, transparency, affordable premiums, broad provider access, and the capacity to collect and use patient information on a large scale to improve care. Public health insurance emphasizes the broad sharing of risk, ensuring coverage that is affordable and of high quality for the small portion of the population that accounts for most health care spending. On the other hand, private plans are generally more flexible and more capable of building integrated provider networks, and they have at times moved into new areas of care management in advance of the public sector. [...]

Healthy competition is about accountability. If public and private plans are competing on fair and equal terms, allowing enrollees to choose between the two will place a crucial check on each. If the public plan becomes too rigid, more Americans will opt for private plans. If private plans engage in practices that obstruct access to needed care and undermine health security, then the public plan will offer a release valve. New rules for private insurance could go some way toward encouraging private plans to focus on providing value. But without a public plan as a benchmark, backup, and check on private plans, key problems in the insurance market will remain.

Perhaps the most pressing of these problems is skyrocketing costs. Public health insurance has much lower administrative expenses than private plans, it obtains larger volume discounts because of its broad reach, and it does not have to earn a profit, as many private plans do. Furthermore, experience with Medicare suggests that public insurance is better equipped to control spending over time while maintaining broad access to care.[...] Nearly all other advanced industrial democracies rely much more on public health insurance than the United States does, and all have lower health care costs per person, have seen their costs rise more slowly, and yet have maintained better overall health outcomes and much stronger health security for all their citizens. [...]

To be sure, there are reasonable concerns about how the bargaining power of a new public plan will be used — concerns reflected in current proposals for alternative models that would fulfill some of the goals of a Medicare-like public plan but would have limited ability to secure lower rates and might be run by state governments[...] or even private insurers under public contract. Yet a watered-down public plan would be a grave mistake. Instead, the public plan should include safeguards designed to ensure that providers are fairly represented, that initial rates are reasonable, and that bargaining for lower prices does not negatively affect patients’ access to care or shift costs onto private insurers.

Rather than a weak alternative, a new public plan should be Medicare-like — national, governmental, and built on Medicare’s basic infrastructure. But it should not be Medicare. It needs to have a broader set of benefits. It must have a separate risk pool. It should improve on the way in which Medicare pays providers, particularly physicians. And, most important, it must compete on a level playing field with private insurance plans. This means, above all, that its administration should be separate from the agency that runs the new health insurance pool that contracts with and regulates private insurers. [...] Creating a level playing field requires attention to the three R’s of workable public–private competition: rules that are the same for all plans, risk adjustment, and regional pricing. [...]

For other views on health care reform go to “Public Health Care and Health Insurance Reform — Varied Preferences, Varied Options” and “The Proposed Government Health Insurance Company — No Substitute for Real Reform” both published in the same issue of the NEJM.

Filed under: Current Events, Economy, Government & Politics, Health & Medicine, Journal watch, Life | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Italy Tops the List of Countries Where Men Have Much More Leisure Time Than Women

Posted on May 22, 2009 by thereadingblogger

This “Daily Chart” from Economist “Leisure Inequality: It’s a Man’s World” (05/21/2009) shows that Italy tops the list of countries where men have much more leisure time compared with women. Coming from Italy, I am not surprised. According to the Economist.com,

DESPITE changing attitudes and even laws to promote equality between the sexes, it appears that women still have their work cut out. Men enjoy more leisure time than women in every one of 18 countries examined by the OECD. Italian men have it easiest in comparison with women, lazing around for nearly 80 minutes more each than women who, apparently, clean the house. Other staunch Catholic countries also see big gaps between the sexes, and even in egalitarian Norway men manage to sneak an extra four minutes more to themselves.

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