Posts tagged with 'transition'
The Weekly Pulse: Good News and Bad News
Filed under: 
There has been good news and bad news in healthcare this week. On the plus side, momentum continues to build for healthcare reform on both a national and state-by-state level. Unfortunately, those sneaky rules changes at the Department of Health and Human Services appear to be a done deal.
Let’s start with the bad new first to get it out of the way. It’s a done deal, folks. RH Reality continues its coverage of the eleventh hour rules changes at the Department of Health and Human Services which will give federal employees the unprecedented right to refuse to give out birth control based on their demonstrably false religious belief that hormonal contraception is abortion. Despite massive public outcry, the rules have reached the final stage before they officially take effect.
The ever-optimistic Amanda Marcotte sees these tactics as the final stage in the anti-abortion movement’s battle to control women’s bodies.
Unable to enact large-scale bans of contraception and abortion, anti-choicers have declared a form of trench warfare against the women of America for possession of the uteruses of America. In real trench warfare, you “win” a “battle” by gaining a few feet of territory. In the trench warfare of reproductive rights, anti-choicers consider a few women inconvenienced, humiliated, or even forced to become pregnant or give birth against their will a victory worth savoring.
The good news is that either President Obama or Congress can repeal these rules.
Let’s refocus on the positive movement for serious healthcare reform. In a sign that Democrats are serious about the issue, Sen. Ted Kennedy has left the Judiciary Committee to focus on this issue. Kennedy has been fighting for universal healthcare since he was first elected in 1962 and describes the current political moment as the “opportunity of a lifetime” to win this battle. John Nichols notes in The Nation that Kennedy’s strong voice for civil liberties will be acutely missed on the Judiciary Committee.
Meanwhile, Ezra Klein of The American Prospect dispels a misconception about Tom Daschle’s proposed health bank, an agency that would review treatment options and decide which were cost-effective targets for government insurance coverage. Some critics fear that the Federal Health Board would somehow interfere with consumer choice by throwing the massive buying power of the federal government behind some treatments and not others, thereby affecting the relative costs of treatments for everyone. Ezra notes that only 26% of the population is on public insurance and that even if Daschle’s plan passes in its strongest form, anyone who didn’t like the options available from public insurance could buy supplemental private coverage.
In a separate post, Ezra argues that increased federal government spending on state-administered programs like Medicaid and S-CHIP could be an important part of an economic stimulus package. In a recession, more people need their healthcare benefits because wages go down and jobs are lost, but fewer jobs and lower wages mean less tax revenue for the states. States can’t deficit spend like the federal government. So, without federal help, states are forced to either cut back health coverage or take money away from economically stimulating projects like infrastructure. An infusion of federal dollars could help people in need and help states avoid cutting beneficial spending.
However, Florida’s expanded Medicaid pilot project is being criticized by a group called Florida Community Health Action Information Network, who claim that the program has not lived up to its promise in part because patients are having trouble accessing the care and providers are dropping out of the program.
A group called Health Care for All Pennsylvania vows that their state will take the lead in achieving healthcare for all. They argue that single-payer healthcare is a “simple concept – health care would be provided privately at hospitals and clinics, but paid for publicly by the government. They contend the plan would eliminate the insurance “middle man.”
In one of today’s more bizarre health stories, we find tobacco giant Philip Morris likening itself to the NAACP in order to get out of paying compensation to smokers who were harmed while the company knowingly misled them about the health effects of tobbacco. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones explains:
In the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Philip Morris, America’s largest cigarette company, compared itself to the NAACP. And to a South Carolina death row inmate illegally denied due process. And to indigent criminal defendants not afforded adequate legal representation. And it did so to win a case against an elderly African American woman named Mayola Williams whose husband died from lung cancer in 1997, after smoking three packs of Marlboros a day for more than 40 years.
Over at AlterNet, Martha Rosenberg reports that meat industry advocacy groups like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association are sponsoring “scientific” studies that purport to show that eating meat is better than the rest of the scientific community seems to think, which are getting published in prestigious medical journals. In June, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study called “The Recommended Dietary Allowance of Protein: A Misunderstood Concept.”
In its Oct. 15 issue, it had to print a correction stating that author Sharon L. Miller was “formerly employed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association” and author Robert R. Wolfe received money from the Egg Nutrition Center, National Dairy Council, National Pork Board and Beef Checkoff through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
Do they graze their cows on Astroturf, too?
Kind of makes you wonder who’s funding the slew of new research purporting to show that high fructose corn syrup is no worse for you than sugar.
Here’s something that might cheer you up, if you’re feeling depressed about pseudoscience and creeping theocracy. In a special series, YES! Magazine explores various answers to the question: How can we have happy people and a happy planet?
Weekly Pulse: Bush awarded medal for combating AIDS? And other birth control, drug czar and pharmaceutical news
Monday marked the 20th annual World AIDS Day. And to “commemorate” the occasion, President George W. Bush received a P.E.A.C.E. medal from mega-church Pastor Rick Warren for his work combating the epidemic, reports Mother Jones’ Tay Wiles. In my latest piece in RH Reality Check, I discuss how the newly-minted medals are part of Warren’s campaign to insinuate himself into the mainstream AIDS-fighting movement, nationally and internationally.
President-Elect Barack Obama chose to release his pre-recorded World AIDS Day speech at Warren’s ceremony while George Bush personally accepted the medal. In his pre-recorded remarks, Obama stressed the need for “partnerships” between the government and religious groups in the fight against AIDS. Should we worry if some of our most powerful “partners” oppose key tenets of science-based AIDS control strategy?
Speaking of anti-science propaganda, watch Amanda Marcotte of RH Reality debunking some anti-choice propaganda about condoms. http://www.vimeo.com/2211143
Birth control in a Frito? Andrew Leonard notes in Salon that a new study purports to show that mice fed for generations on agribusiness giant Monsanto’s genetically modified corn are less fertile. The PR war is in full-swing with Greenpeace sounding the alarm and Monsanto retrenching. Monsanto has a legitimate point, the study–like claims about douching with Diet Coke and doing it standing up–hasn’t been peer reviewed.
In healthcare political news, a huge coalition of progressive and union forces is gearing up for a massive battle over healthcare, Alexander Zaitchik reports for AlterNet. They’re called Health Care for America Now and their goal is to win a “guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all by the end of 2009.”
If you think that plan is a long shot, Dean Baker pushes back in The American Prospect against those who say that healthcare reform is good, but that it’s too expensive right now. Baker contends that healthcare reform spending should be part of the economic stimulus package, where we expect to borrow money now to get the economy going again:
In fact, the government is planning a large-scale stimulus package where it is looking for areas in which it can usefully spend money. If health care reform would require an initial increase in spending, before subsequent savings could be achieved, then it would be an obvious target for the stimulus. The Post should have noted that Grassley’s claim about the lack of money for such an investment is contradicted by the vast majority of economists from both political parties.
There’s an old healthcare saying, “Don’t call a surgeon unless you want an operation.” Maia Szalavitz weighs in on the next Obama nomination front and says don’t call a Drug Czar unless you want a drug war:
Historically, our czars have actively opposed sensible drug policy: They have gone on crusades against medical marijuana, interfered in state initiatives aimed at promoting treatment over punishment, and most notoriously, stopped President Clinton from letting his HHS secretary legalize federal funding for needle exchange when the data was incontrovertible that it helps fight AIDS and doesn’t increase drug use.
Moving on to the legal drugs. The results of ALLHAT, one of the largest comparative studies of high blood pressure drugs in history, are in. ALLHAT was a clinical trial that could have been a reality TV show: $130,000,000, 42,000 patients, 4 drugs. Which would emerge victorious from the ALLHAT Blood Pressure Cage Match of Science?!
The winner was the humble diuretic, one of those old, cheap drugs that make you pee a lot. You’d think think diuretic sales would be booming, now that they’re proven to work better and cost less than the alternative. Yet, as Ezra Klein notes in the Prospect, sales have only gone up a couple points because the manufacturers of the more expensive drugs have already started spinning, cajoling and working the refs to distract from the results of a study that proved their products suck. Says a lot about our profit-driven healthcare system, doesn’t it?
Other news from the world of medicine: A revolutionary new stem cell-based treatment restored a Spanish woman’s windpipe, Jonathan Stein reports in Mother Jones.
And last but not least, in a society where black children don’t necessarily get a lot of positive media attention Sasha and Malia Obama have become national icons, brimming with health and vitality. Juleyka Lantigua of The Progressive hopes that their example will motivate Americans to ensure that every child can be as healthy as the Obama’s beloved daughters.
The Secretary and the Czar: Obama Bets Big on Daschle for Healthcare
It’s official, former Sen. Tom Daschle will be Barack Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Daschle will also serve as Health Czar, which means he will be in charge of developing Obama’s healthcare program in addition to running HHS.
Ezra Klein writes in the Prospect: “This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress.”
Ezra argues that Obama has learned the lessons of Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful attempt to reform healthcare in 1994. In Ezra’s view, the Clinton plan failed because its architects were so focused on crafting the perfect policy that they neglected to figure out how they were going to sell their plan politically.
The hope is that Daschle has the political skills to actually get a healthcare plan passed.
Greg Sargent agrees that the Daschle pick is a sign that Obama intends to act quickly on healthcare.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care. Visit Healthcare.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on healthcare affordability, healthcare laws, and healthcare controversy. And for the best progressive reporting on the ECONOMY, and IMMIGRATION, check out, Immigration.NewsLadder.net and Economy.NewsLadder.net.
This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.