Special Election for Dan Lackly's seat in GA-72 House District

Secretary Handel Sets Dates for Qualifying for House District 72 Special Election

Secretary of State Karen Handel announced today receipt of Governor Sonny Perdue's Writ of Election setting Tuesday, December 18 as the date for the special election to fill State House District 72 seat left vacant with the passing of State Representative Dan Lakly.

Secretary Handel set the State House District 72 candidate qualifying dates for Monday, November 19 through Wednesday, November 21. Qualifying on Monday will run from 9 am until 5:30 pm; on Tuesday from 8 am until 5:30 pm and on Wednesday from 8 am until 12 noon. Qualifying will be held in the Elections Division of the Office of Secretary of State, 1104 West Tower, 2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE, Atlanta, Georgia 30334-1505. The qualifying fee is $400.00.

Advance voting will be held Monday, December 10 through Friday, December 14. The election will be held in portions of Fayette County, including Fayetteville and Peachtree City. Polls will be open from 7:00 am until 7:00 pm on Tuesday, December 18, 2007.

All citizens residing in State House District 72 who wish to vote in the special election can register to vote through Wednesday, November 21. Voter registration forms can be obtained at any county registrar's office or from the Secretary of State's website:

http://www.sos.state.ga.us/elections/voter_registration/voter_reg_app.htm.

Karen Handel was sworn in as Secretary of State in January 2007. The Secretary of State's office offers important services to our business community, our government, and our citizens. These services include an efficient and secure election process, and the regulation of corporations, securities, and professional license holders. The Office also controls the state archives and the Capitol museum.

Vote!

Swing by and drop off a book.

This Thursday we are having our books to prisoners house party.

We need your help to make this successful.

3rd District Common Agenda
Books to Prisoners House Party

What? House party to collect donations for Books to Prisoners–a Seattle-based, all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that sends (paperback only) books to prisoners in the United States.

When? Thursday November 8th.
At Jim and Deana’s house
217 Turnstone Rd.
Stockbridge, GA 30281

Swing by between 6:30 and 8:30pm to drop off books, donations, or to just say hello!
Prisoners request a variety of books. Most prisons accept paperback books only. The most popular requests are dictionaries, thesauruses, African American history and fiction, Native American studies, legal material, GED materials, and languages (particularly Spanish.) Other common requests include fiction, vocational-technical manuals, politics, anthropology, art and drawing, psychology, and health and fitness.

For more info on Books to Prisoners go to: http://www.bookstoprisoners.net/
For more info on the party or 3rd District Common Agenda call Jim at (404)791 6652 go to: http://3rddistrictcommonagenda.blogspot.com/

A Bogus Cancer Statistic

Giuliani falsely claims that only 44 percent of prostate cancer patients survive under "socialized medicine" in England.

In a new radio ad, Rudy Giuliani falsely claims that under England’s “socialized medicine” system only 44 percent of men with prostate cancer survive.

We tracked down the source of that number, which turns out to be the result of bad math by a Giuliani campaign adviser, who admits to us that his figure isn’t "technically" a survival rate at all. Furthermore, the co-author of the study on which Giuliani’s man based his calculations tells us his work is being misused, and that the 44 percent figure is both wrong and “misleading.” A spokesperson for the lead author also calls the figures "incorrect survival statistics."

It’s true that official survival rates for prostate cancer are higher in the U.S. than in England, but the difference is not nearly as high as Giuliani claims. And even so, the higher survival rates in the U.S. may simply reflect more aggressive diagnosing of non-lethal cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

Actually, men with prostate cancer are more likely to die sooner if they don’t have health insurance, according to a recent study published in one of the American Medical Association’s journals. Giuliani doesn’t mention that.
Analysis
Rudy Giuliani's latest radio ad, which began airing in New Hampshire this week, draws a stark picture for anyone diagnosed with prostate cancer in England. "I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago," the Republican presidential candidate says in the ad. "My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States, 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England, only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”

Giuliani is wrong about that. Fortunately for the English, their chances of surviving prostate cancer are far better than Giuliani claims: The actual five-year survival rate is 74.4 percent, according to the United Kingdom's Office of National Statistics. Even those in the U.S. have a better chance than what Giuliani states: The five-year survival rate is 98.4 percent in this country, according to the National Cancer Institute. (Furthermore, Milton Eisner, a statistician with the SEER program of NCI, which compiles these numbers, warns that the two countries’ statistics are “probably not comparable because they’re not done on the same scale.”)

Giuliani got his figures from a campaign adviser whose methods would make scientists and statistics professors cringe. Indeed, one of the authors of the report cited by the adviser says the figures in the ad are "misleading" and the math employed is "absolutely not" a legitimate way to calculate survival rates.

Crowd Boos Ron Paul for Saying Americans Want Troops Home

Those boo's are not a good sign for the Republican party... from a bi-partisan "get things done... and get them done right..." perspective

Social Security

Dana Milbank is concerned about the Social Security "crisis." In his column in the Washinton Post yesterday. He stated

Social Security will go into the red in 2017 and become insolvent 24 years later, according to the system's trustees. Medicare, meanwhile, starts bleeding in 2013 and goes under in 2019.

Fixing the two would require Medicare and Social Security benefits to be cut immediately by 51 percent and 13 percent, respectively, perhaps by raising retirement ages.

First off he does the clever trick of putting the two programs together as if they were the same problem. They are not... Medicare is skyrocketing health care costs (like all the private insurance companys are having to deal with too) Social Security is a demographic shift that requires modest program changes.

But my second problem was his "fix" didn't even include a tax increase. He didn't even mention the possibility! I came of age in the clinton era, when we raised taxes and the economy grew at the same time. I'm not as scared of modest tax increases if they are important and effective tools for solving a fical problem the government can't get around.

Dean Baker has other thoughts for Milbank about the Social Security "Crisis"

[Milbank] is REALLY alarmed that President Bush's Social Security trustees project that the program will face a shortfall in 34 years. (The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the program will be able to pay all scheduled benefits for the next 39 years with no changes whatsoever.)

Milbank is either too young or to old to remember that Social Security had faced problems in the past. In 1983, the program literally ran out of money. Guess what? No one missed a check. President Reagan and Congress set up a commission (chaired by Alan Greenspan) and they produced a compromise package that is now projected to leave the program fully solvent for 63 years.

While it would not be advisable to wait until the trust fund is empty, we are still 39 years from our next 1983. Mr. Milbank must think that this country is in great shape if he thinks this distant and relatively minor problem should be at the top of the national agenda.

Btw, if we changed our immigration rules so that the Post and other news outlets could freely hire more qualified columnists than Mr. Milibank at lower wages, it could eliminate close to half of the projected shortfall by bringing a larger share of wage income under the cap on the Social Security wage tax. This would be a real win-win policy. Where are the free-traders?

kind of like saying 2 + 2 = 7 in a Math class....

Recently (hat tip to Dean Baker) in the Wall Street Journal Fred Thompson couldn't give an accurate description of the government program he was attacking.

"I know this probably isn't a real popular thing to say, but we couldn't afford this prescription-drug bill," Mr. Thompson said last week on a swing through Iowa, home of Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who helped push the program through Congress. "We basically put a $72 trillion commitment on top of an already-broken entitlement system. Not a responsible thing to do."

This is taking the "I'm the candidate who is going to tell you uncomfortable truths" a bit too far. In this situation Thompson took it so far as to be off on his numbers by over 62 trillion when discussing Medicare.

Joe Scarborough Takes on

This is the kind of thing the media shouldn't be able to get away with. The people over at TPM are helping to put this kind of behavior under the microscope.

Comperative Job Growth...

Dean Baker wants to know: Does the Washington Post Work for the Bush Administration?

That is probably the question that most readers are asking after reading the headline of the article on the September jobs data, "Strong Jobs Report Eases Fears Over Economy's Health." As I and others have said, the September numbers were somewhat stronger that expected, and the upward revisions to July and August job numbers were good news, but 110,000 jobs as "strong?" Give me a break.

The economy created an average of 240,000 jobs a month during President Clinton's second term. That qualifies as "strong" job growth, not 110,000.

The article also allowed the Bush administration to do some unaswered boasting. Quoting the White House that the upward revision to the August data (from a loss to a gain) coupled with September's jobs numbers "means that we've had 49 consecutive months of job creation. And that's the longest uninterrupted job growth on record for our country."

While the statement is true, it is not terribly meaningful. Prior stretches of job creation were interrupted by short strikes. Since the White House is interested in records, the Post could have pointed out that the 0.64 percent annual rate of job growth since President Bush took office is also the slowest rate of job growth on record for any comparable period of time.

I've said many times that President Bush is not completely responsible for the weakness of the economy since he took office. However, when the tries to imply that the economy has been strong, he is not being honest.

Amnesty International's National White House Call-in Days Oct. 24-27th

3rd District Common Agenda is helping organize a local effort to get people in our community to participate in Amnesty Internationals National White House Call-in Day. The goal is to put Darfur on the President's agenda. Tell your friends and family throughout the country about the call-in effort . If you plan on participating in the call in, please email us at ga3rdcommonagenda@gmail.com so that we can keep count of participants. Or if you would like more info on the crisis get in touch. Also check out Amnesty International USA's webpage on the ongoing genocide in Darfur. As well as the Save Darfur coalitions website.


Call the White House - Insist on Adequate Funding for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Aid in Darfur Region

Killings, torture and rape of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the destruction of hundreds of villages have continued in Darfur, Sudan since 2003. Four years later Darfur remains one of the world’s worst human rights and humanitarian catastrophes, though recently progress toward a resolution to the conflict has been made.

Why phone calls to the White House? The U.S. government is a leading member state in the United Nations Security Council, which authorized the peacekeeping force for Darfur. We want to ensure that President Bush lives up to his promises to get UN peacekeepers into Darfur by early 2008, to provide critical funding for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, and to protect conflict-affected civilians
throughout the Darfur region. Thanks to significant pressure from concerned citizens, the U.S.government has taken some important steps on Darfur – now we need to ensure the U.S. government takes important action to facilitate the speedy arrival of the peacekeeping force.


Call the White House at 1-202-456-1111 on October 24-26.

Suggested talking points:

• I am calling to express my deep concern for civilians severely affected by the Darfur conflict,
including displaced persons and conflict-affected civilians in nearby Chad and Central African
Republic.

• In addition to close to 250,000 Darfuri refugees, hundreds of thousands of Chadian civilians and
refugees from CAR have been displaced into Chad as a result of the Darfur conflict.

• The U.S. government has played a significant role in UNSC Resolution 1769 (authorizing UNAMID, the peacekeeping force for Darfur) and related initiatives to bring peace to the people of Darfur. The U.S. government must now provide funding to UNAMID and the multidimensional force in Chad and CAR (MINURCAT). And it must provide additional funding to critical humanitarian operations
in these areas.

op-ed sent to AJC in response to Westmoreland

Opinion piece sent to AJC in response to Lynn Westmorelands article Open up your wallet and say "ahh"

There is nothing funny about resource allocation
by Jim Nichols

I wasn’t expecting parents struggling to pay health care costs across my district to be disrespected in a discussion of SCHIP. But in his piece entitled “Open up your wallet and say ‘Ah’ my Congressman Lynn Westmoreland made an analogy that did just that. In it he challenged the wisdom of spending when one is “in debt up to your ears and your credit cards are maxed out,” asserting that “a new credit card is not the answer.” First the “problems” he was citing were shortfalls in long-term budget projections. The combined budget shortfalls of Medicare and Social Security have more to do with health care cost inflation–which the rest of the industrialized world has learned to manage–rather than entitlement programs run amuck as Westmoreland infers. But more importantly it’s a question of tact; as my fiance stated to me after reading it, “if our child needed medical care we’d take out as many credit cards as we could to make sure they got treated.” Reading Westmoreland’s piece I felt the struggles of constituents being ignored.

SCHIP is a federal program designed to work in a targeted manner to capture low income children who do not fall within Medicaid qualifications, its one goal is to improve health care coverage of children–not end the health care crisis. Since 1997 the programs have reduced the number of children without insurance by about one-third. The best synopsis I can give of his position is that Westmoreland questions the wisdom of how the bill is paid for and sees it as a burden on taxpayers. I won’t waste space on the question of crowd-out rates or the claimed superiority of private health insurance, and would direct people to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offices analysis for context on those issues

Beyond the rhetoric I question framing the $157 billion cut to Medicare Advantage as a cut to Medicare. A change that saves taxpayer money and increases efficiency–providing people the same quality of care–is a cut? This cut has been a recommendation of groups such as the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the American Medical Association; not to mention MedPac– the advisory body for the congress in charge of Medicare payment policy. According to MedPac the largest overpayments “average 19% more than it would cost to treat comparable beneficiaries under regular medicare, with half of these overpayments going to profits, marketing, and administrative cost.” This doesn’t devastate Medicare it creates a situation where more people get health coverage.

The context of the numbers, with claims of “staggering” and “upsetting” spending increases that create “Government-run health care” seem questionable as well. $130 billion over 10 years is $48.82 per-capita according to the budget calculator at Center for Economic and Policy Research website. To assert a better funded SCHIP would lead to government-run health care is a leap in logic. SCHIP and Medicaid are programs using private doctors and private health care plans where states negotiate the limits, rates, and package details. These are decisions made by people at the state level.

By cutting payments which typically go into marketing, administration, and profits; and increasing the cigarette taxes (which in-its-self is projected by the American Cancer Association to ‘prevent more than 900,000 Americans from dying prematurely because of smoking’) the SCHIP bill increases the number of children covered in this country. If one more parent is kept from needing to open an extra credit card to get the quality care their child needs, my $48.82 will be well worth it.

Mr. Westmoreland, please publicly clarify your position on SCHIP in a more precise manner. I will acknowledge that your criticisms on a point by point basis might be sound if the bill was intentioned as a long term fix to the health care crisis but the question at hand falls short of that framework. Claims that families of four with incomes above poverty are less deserving of reprieve and assistance than a family in poverty seems divisive–the nuances of government spending are not black and white questions of who works harder or which struggle is more burdensome. By using analogies about bad credit you frame it in that way. The problems with your piece–the representation, analogies, and logic—make the case that it will be the inability of those opposed to Universal plans to come up with workable solutions over the past 20 years that will give us universal health care... not Hillary Clinton.

Been busy... so its time to party!

3rd District Common Agenda
Books to Prisoners House Party

What? House party to collect donations for Books to Prisoners–a Seattle-based, all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that sends (paperback only) books to prisoners in the United States.

When? Thursday November 8th.
At Jim and Deana’s house
217 Turnstone Rd.
Stockbridge, GA 30281

Swing by between 6:30 and 8:30pm to drop off books, donations, or to just say hello!

Prisoners request a variety of books. Most prisons accept paperback books only. The most popular requests are dictionaries, thesauruses, African American history and fiction, Native American studies, legal material, GED materials, and languages (particularly Spanish.) Other common requests include fiction, vocational-technical manuals, politics, anthropology, art and drawing, psychology, and health and fitness.

Tax-deductible donations will be accepted (as well as donations to help cover cost of shipping). Donations are tax-deductible to BTP if donation is over $100. If you would like a tax-deductible receipt, please make your check over $100 to "A W.I.S.H." (A World Institute for Sustainable Humanity). They are the sponsoring organization and can provide a tax-deductible receipt and a free BTP t-shirt!

For more info on Books to Prisoners go to:
http://www.bookstoprisoners.net/
For more info on the party or 3rd District Common Agenda go to
http://3rddistrictcommonagenda.blogspot.com/ or call Jim at (404)791 6652
3rd District Common Agenda
“Responsible Citizenship: Creates Accountable Leadership”

question of priorities?

NYT's has article on Bush administration is not collecting tens of millions of dollars in excess payments to insurers operating within the Medicare program.

Private insurance companies participating in Medicare have been allowed to keep tens of millions of dollars that should have gone to consumers, and the Bush administration did not properly audit the companies or try to recover money paid in error, Congressional investigators say in a new report.

The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the money could have been used to reduce premiums or provide additional benefits to older Americans.

While at the same time they are going after money given out to benificiaries by mistake

In separate action, the Bush administration is vigorously pursuing money that it says is owed to insurance companies by Medicare beneficiaries. The Medicare agency has sent letters to more than 135,000 people saying they still owe premiums for prescription drug coverage provided in 2006. In most cases, the premiums were supposed to have been withheld from monthly Social Security checks, but the government withheld the wrong amounts or nothing at all.

Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said, “I am intently focused on this matter and will make it a priority to correct the errors and minimize them in the future.”

Change on the site...

We've decided to change the word selection of one of our focus issues. I just went and made the change and wanted to let everyone know the what and why. Instead of Universal Health Care as an issue. We've changed it to Health Care for all. The reason being is that in discussing our goals, people often get confused on what the group wants. Universal Health Care makes people think reflexively we are opposed to private insurance, or companies making money providing a medical service. As a policy we want every single citizen in this country to have health care coverage. How we as a society make that happen is far more flexible. But if you think every single citizen should have quality health care coverage then 3rd District Common Agenda is looking for you! Be a part of changing the status quo health care system, stay involved, stay informed, stay active...

Economic snapshots...

Infrastructure cuts and consequences over at Economic Policy Institute.

The recent tragedies of the collapse of the Interstate-35 bridge in Minneapolis and the crash of an Airbus A320 at Congonha Airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil have two things in common: both pieces of infrastructure had been identified as potentially dangerous and their repair or replacement had been put off as governments chose to spend shrinking resources on other priorities.

The sharp reduction in Brazil's infrastructure spending corresponds with the institution of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) program in 1999.1 The IMF demanded a 20% reduction in government spending that year. Government spending has remained low since then and plans to replace the aging airport were put off indefinitely. Brazil's executive director to the IMF warned three years ago of dire consequences if Brazil did not break from the IMF regimen and increase spending on infrastructure.2 Only now that 200 people have died has a new airport become an urgent priority.

Infrastructure spending in the United States has also declined as a share of GDP from its peak in the late 1960s (see Chart ). This neglect stems from the increased political difficulty of generating public investment revenue by raising taxes. The federal tax on gasoline—the main source of federal highway funds—has not risen in 14 years. Two years ago, Congress proposed a four-cents-per-gallon boost in the fuel tax that would have financed a $375 billion, five-year highway bill. President Bush threatened to veto any highway bill that included a tax increase and Congress backed off, instead presenting a $286 billion spending plan.

After the graph they note that

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the cost of repairing or replacing obsolete or deteriorating bridges at $7.4 billion per year. This year's appropriations bill provides slightly less than $4 billion for such infrastructure maintenance, leaving many U.S. roadways in a state of disrepair, and drivers wondering about the safety of their daily commute.

I went over to the budget calculator at the Center for Economic and Policy Research website. Plugged in 7.4 billion over a year in 2007 and got the dollar amount of $24.08. That is an additonal $10.96--about the cost of a movie ticket for me. To get everyone--including an overall economy that depends on the infrastructure--safer roads.

You too can buy influence...

Convention Party Favors Include Face Time

Congress just completed ethics legislation designed to put distance between lawmakers and the interests that seek favors from them.

But the people in charge of next summer's presidential nominating conventions are busy selling package deals that would put them closer together.

The host committees of 2008's biggest political gatherings are soliciting corporations, wealthy individuals and others with a lot at stake in government decisions for seven-figure payments. In exchange, the givers receive all sorts of goodies, including access to lawmakers and other politicians. The more money the donors spend, the more access they get.

New York TImes Editorial

on Health Care Crisis...

Insurance coverage. All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage, and most of them have comprehensive benefit packages with no cost-sharing by the patients. The United States, to its shame, has some 45 million people without health insurance and many more millions who have poor coverage. Although the president has blithely said that these people can always get treatment in an emergency room, many studies have shown that people without insurance postpone treatment until a minor illness becomes worse, harming their own health and imposing greater costs.

Access. Citizens abroad often face long waits before they can get to see a specialist or undergo elective surgery. Americans typically get prompter attention, although Germany does better. The real barriers here are the costs facing low-income people without insurance or with skimpy coverage. But even Americans with above-average incomes find it more difficult than their counterparts abroad to get care on nights or weekends without going to an emergency room, and many report having to wait six days or more for an appointment with their own doctors.

Fairness. The United States ranks dead last on almost all measures of equity because we have the greatest disparity in the quality of care given to richer and poorer citizens. Americans with below-average incomes are much less likely than their counterparts in other industrialized nations to see a doctor when sick, to fill prescriptions or to get needed tests and follow-up care.

Healthy lives. We have known for years that America has a high infant mortality rate, so it is no surprise that we rank last among 23 nations by that yardstick. But the problem is much broader. We rank near the bottom in healthy life expectancy at age 60, and 15th among 19 countries in deaths from a wide range of illnesses that would not have been fatal if treated with timely and effective care. The good news is that we have done a better job than other industrialized nations in reducing smoking. The bad news is that our obesity epidemic is the worst in the world.

Quality. In a comparison with five other countries, the Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States first in providing the “right care” for a given condition as defined by standard clinical guidelines and gave it especially high marks for preventive care, like Pap smears and mammograms to detect early-stage cancers, and blood tests and cholesterol checks for hypertensive patients. But we scored poorly in coordinating the care of chronically ill patients, in protecting the safety of patients, and in meeting their needs and preferences, which drove our overall quality rating down to last place. American doctors and hospitals kill patients through surgical and medical mistakes more often than their counterparts in other industrialized nations.

Life and death. In a comparison of five countries, the United States had the best survival rate for breast cancer, second best for cervical cancer and childhood leukemia, worst for kidney transplants, and almost-worst for liver transplants and colorectal cancer. In an eight-country comparison, the United States ranked last in years of potential life lost to circulatory diseases, respiratory diseases and diabetes and had the second highest death rate from bronchitis, asthma and emphysema. Although several factors can affect these results, it seems likely that the quality of care delivered was a significant contributor.

Patient satisfaction. Despite the declarations of their political leaders, many Americans hold surprisingly negative views of their health care system. Polls in Europe and North America seven to nine years ago found that only 40 percent of Americans were satisfied with the nation’s health care system, placing us 14th out of 17 countries. In recent Commonwealth Fund surveys of five countries, American attitudes stand out as the most negative, with a third of the adults surveyed calling for rebuilding the entire system, compared with only 13 percent who feel that way in Britain and 14 percent in Canada.

That may be because Americans face higher out-of-pocket costs than citizens elsewhere, are less apt to have a long-term doctor, less able to see a doctor on the same day when sick, and less apt to get their questions answered or receive clear instructions from a doctor. On the other hand, Gallup polls in recent years have shown that three-quarters of the respondents in the United States, in Canada and in Britain rate their personal care as excellent or good, so it could be hard to motivate these people for the wholesale change sought by the disaffected.

Use of information technology. Shockingly, despite our vaunted prowess in computers, software and the Internet, much of our health care system is still operating in the dark ages of paper records and handwritten scrawls. American primary care doctors lag years behind doctors in other advanced nations in adopting electronic medical records or prescribing medications electronically. This makes it harder to coordinate care, spot errors and adhere to standard clinical guidelines.

Top-of-the-line care. Despite our poor showing in many international comparisons, it is doubtful that many Americans, faced with a life-threatening illness, would rather be treated elsewhere. We tend to think that our very best medical centers are the best in the world. But whether this is a realistic assessment or merely a cultural preference for the home team is difficult to say. Only when better measures of clinical excellence are developed will discerning medical shoppers know for sure who is the best of the best.

Direct from a talking head...

First where did the term talking head come from???

Anyways, people often discuss how nonconstructive and negative political talk shows are. Two or three people yelling at or past each other is bad if its about politics or anything else for that matter. Part of the issue is the time constraints to actually contextualize the issue at hand--politics is often a complex mixture of congressional bills filled to the brim with legal e's and very important minutia that truly do need to be explained. As Dean Baker often points out over at Beat the Press in regards to budget reporting--if you don't give the context of the numbers, very few people, aside from a handful of budget wonks in the beltway are going to know what the numbers mean. Well the same can be said for complex political discussion as a whole.

Well Ezra Klien was discussing his recent appearance on hardball and said this

Neither of us were briefed on the day's topics before the show. This is, it should be said, a rarity in my experience, as Hardball has always told me the issues lineup in the past. But for whatever reason, we were sent in blind. And, sadly, it showed. I just don't know much about the US attorneys scandal and the wrongdoings of Alberto Gonzales. I can only track so many topics in a day, and the time spent reading health policy is time not spent reading Senate testimony. I'm aware enough that I can speak to Gonzales's actions as unethical, but without preparation or any preexisting familiarity with the penal code, I can't speak to the specifics of their legality -- and I don't want to get anything wrong on air, where I can't correct it.

Maybe it was a fluke, maybe a decision to help make a spectacle of a segment. I don't know. All I know is that I wasted 20 minutes of my evening watching hardball, to see a segment that was not very insightful or informative. I kept thinking, this is how most people get their news? And it turns out in this case you can't blame the guests. I know for a fact the Ezra is very articulate and is very well versed in his field. We like him over here at 3rd District (putting to the side the partisan discussions and political horse race commentary) because of his support of Universal health care and the fact that he gives citizens who want to make ideas more important than attack ads--lots of ideas to chew on.

So for once I can verify its not the talking heads fault!!

CFR interviews senior UN peacekeeping official

The Council on Foreign Relations recently interviewed Jane Holl Lute, Assistant Secretary-General, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations

On July 31, the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing a joint United Nations/African Union (AU) peacekeeping operation for Sudan’s Darfur region. Jane Holl Lute, assistant secretary-general for UN peacekeeping operations, calls the joint force an “unprecedented” operation for the United Nations, including the challenges in locating troops and supplies in the vast, remote stretches of Darfur. She says the complexity of the operation means the full force of some 26,000 troops will not be deployed until 2008.

Reporters do get reflective from grassroots media criticism...

Tim Grieve from Slate gets reflective about grassroots media criticism...

As the panel at YearlyKos showed today, reporters across the board are being forced to look inward and question how we do our job. And we are discovering the following: Thoughtful press criticism, facilitated by the Internet, has an impact and is often useful. We reporters are professionals, always struggling to soar higher, but we are also often like everyone else, just getting by, stumbling down a dark hallway hoping not to fall on our face. Here's to all of us, reporter and reader together, making the news better.

So much for the boom...

Economist Dean Baker points out why the baby boom has already made its greatest impact on the Social Security fund

In Monday's paper, USA Today reports on a growing backlog of disability cases being processed by the Social Security administration. The article tells us that the aging of the baby boomers is a main cuplrit and the problem will get worse as the boomers continue to age.

Actually, the problem won't get worse, or at least the problem won't get worse because the boomers are aging. Disabled people of working age get disability benefits. When workers hit age 62, they qualify for retirement benefits, whether or not a disability keeps them from working. Over the last decade, most of the baby boomers entered the ages of high disability rates from 50 to 62. Beginning next year, the oldest baby boomers will have reached age 62, the earliest possible age to receive SS retirement benefits. This means the full impact of the wave of aging baby boomers on the disability program should be felt this year. In future years, the burden on the disability program is likely to increase less rapidly.

That is exactly what the Social Security trustees project. From 2002 through 2007, they project that the cost of the disability program will have increased at an average annual rate of 8.6 percent (@ 6.1 percent in real dollars). From 2007 through 2016 they project that the cost will increase at an average annual rate of 5.8 percent (@3.3 percent in real dollars). In other words, the worst effects of aging baby boomers on the disability program have already been felt.

Former head of faith-based initiatives

Op-ed on the current Schip funding question by the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives appointed by Bush in 2001.

Eight years ago this week, on July 22, 1999, George W. Bush delivered his first presidential campaign speech, titled "The Duty of Hope." Speaking in Indianapolis, he rejected as "destructive" the idea that "if only government would get out of the way, all our problems would be solved." Rather, "from North Central Philadelphia to South Central Los Angeles," government "must act in the common good, and that good is not common until it is shared by those in need." There are "some things the government should be doing, like Medicaid for poor children."

I helped draft the speech and served in 2001 as an adviser to Bush. He has made good on some compassion pledges. For instance, he has increased funding for public schools that serve low-income children. His $150 million program for mentoring 100,000 children of prisoners has made progress. In May, he pledged an additional $30 billion in U.S. aid to combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and save Africa's affected children.

On the other hand, poverty rates have risen in many cities. In 2005, Washington fiddled while New Orleans flooded, and the White House has vacillated in its support for the region's recovery and rebuilding process. Most urban religious nonprofit organizations that provide social services in low-income communities still get no public support whatsoever. Several recent administration positions on social policy contradict the compassion vision Bush articulated in 1999.

In May, Bush rejected a bipartisan House bill that increased funding for Head Start, a program that benefits millions of low-income preschoolers. His spokesmen claimed the bill was bad because it did not include a provision giving faith-based preschool programs an absolute right to discriminate on religious grounds in hiring.

That reason reverses a principle Bush proclaimed in his 1999 speech: "We will keep a commitment to pluralism, not discriminating for or against Methodists or Mormons or Muslims, or good people of no faith at all." As many studies show, most urban faith-based nonprofits that serve their own needy neighbors do not discriminate against beneficiaries, volunteers or staff on religious grounds. These inner-city churches and grassroots groups would love to expand Head Start in their communities.

Last week, Bush threatened to veto a bipartisan Senate plan that would add $35 billion over five years to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The decade-old program insures children in families that are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but are too poor to afford private insurance. The extra $7 billion a year offered by the Senate would cover a few million more children. New money for the purpose would come from raising the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

Several former Bush advisers have urged the White House to accept some such SCHIP plan. So have many governors in both parties and Republican leaders in the Senate. In 2003, Bush supported a Medicare bill that increased government spending on prescription drugs for elderly middle-income citizens by hundreds of billions of dollars. But he has pledged only $1 billion a year more for low-income children's health insurance. His spokesmen say doing any more for the "government-subsidized program" would encourage families to drop private insurance.

But the health-insurance market has already priced out working-poor families by the millions. With a growing population of low-income children, $1 billion a year more would be insufficient even to maintain current per-capita child coverage levels. Some speculate that SCHIP is now hostage to negotiations over the president's broader plan to expand health coverage via tax cuts and credits. But his plan has no chance in this Congress; besides, treating health insurance for needy children as a political bargaining chip would be wrong.

Bush threatens veto

The Senate Finance Committee approved an expansion of Children’s Health Insurance Program on Thursday. The vote was 17 to 4 with all Democrats and a majority of Republicans supporting the plan. According to the NYT's Bush has threatened a veto.

Lets look at the numbers.

$60 billion is $38.43 per-capita.

THe Bush plan costs $30 billion which is $19.21 per-capita.

The Democratic (and majoirty of Republicans) bill costs $19.22 more per-capita than Bush's proposal.

According to Republican Pat Roberts the bill would "provide health insurance coverage to approximately four million more children who would otherwise be uninsured." And Daniel E. Smith the Vice President of the American Cancer Society stated that the bill would “prevent more than 900,000 Americans from dying prematurely because of smoking,” to to the fact that most of the funding for the expansion comes from a .61 cent increase in the cigarette tax.

For $19.21 more dollars per-capita. We get 4 million more kids with insurance and 900,000 fewer premature deaths from smoking.

Hip replacement US vs. Canada

Something I did not know when discussing hip-replacement data US v. Canada, which was pointed out today by Princeton Economist Paul Krugman

On the other hand, it's true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there's a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.

That's right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that's what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.

Which means when it comes to hip-replacements we are basicly comparing the US public system, to the Candian public system. Not some dramatic public vs. private show down. That is why I heard some people argure for the Medicare-for-all plan of someone like Kucinich (here and here and here and here).

update: Ezra Klien points out

A state-run system could decide, as Medicare does, that they'll pay for any and all necessary procedures, and do so quickly. Then there would be no rationing. There would be, as there is in Medicare, enormous spending and astonishingly fast cost growth. Instead, other systems, and their attendant societies, makes a judgment to devote relatively fewer resources to health care and relatively more to other things (like leisure!). That's a fair allocation of resources.

What we do in this society is devote relatively unlimited resources to health carefor wealthy and insured peopleand relatively fewer to health care for poor people. It isn't clear whether we think that's a useful way to spend trillions of dollars, or whether we'd prefer some alternate ordering of expenditures, with more going to preventive medicine and paid maternal leave.

good question on health care...

Ezra Klien has a good point to make on the question of health care wait times in other countries...

It's fascinating how much more concerned conservative types are with a Canadian who had to wait 3 months for a hip replacement than with the 18,000 Americans who die each year because they lack access to quality medical care

I think its a great point but I'm going to reframe it without dragging conservatism as a philosophy into the picture--since I'll assume many conservatives don't want to be included in a group that does believe wait times are more important than deaths from inadequate health coverage, which a study by the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine estimated to be at least 18,000 deaths per year.

Anytime questions of wait times come up, an obvious question becomes: Are long wait times a more important issue to be addressed than the 18,000 deaths from inadequate health care per year?