The Healthcare Debate...

... rages on in places all over America.

http://demfromct.dailykos.com/
Health Care Tuesday
by DemFromCT Tue Sep 29, 2009
WSJ:
The health-system overhaul proposed by Sen. Max Baucus would create millions of new insurance customers without subjecting health insurers to government-run competition -- two key victories for the much-maligned industry.
It's all about the mandate. Hence, the need for the public option.
National Journal:
Congressional Republicans have worked themselves into a high dudgeon over a Health and Human Services department probe into one insurance company's controversial lobbying activities.
Not content to blast the investigation in angry letters and floor statements, GOP lawmakers have now threatened to block all HHS nominees from confirmation until the agency reverses course.
At issue is whether insurance company Humana, Inc., violated federal rules when it warned some of its Medicare Advantage clients in a mailing that pending health care legislation could slash their benefits.
I trust Humana to be telling the unvarnished truth. Don't you?
Lost in all this righteous indignation are some basic facts about Humana's role and obligations as a government contractor. Humana's communications did not take the form of a generic advertising campaign or mass mailing -- something the insurer was and remains free to do. Rather, Humana mailed a letter to Medicare Advantage members whose names and addresses were provided by the federal government.
Oopsies.
Bloomberg:
The army of industry lobbyists in the health-care battle is fighting on familiar terrain: More than half of them used to work for the government they’re trying to influence.
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Disturbing story:
Friends say the Miami University graduate who died this week after reportedly suffering from swine flu delayed getting medical treatment because she did not have health insurance.
Most cases of H1N1 are uncomplicated and self-limiting. You'll see similar stories both about the occasional severe case of H1N1 and the insurance issue. Keep both in perspective, but mixing them is volatile.
CIDRAP News:
Almost one third of a group of patients who died in the past 4 months from H1N1 influenza had bacterial infections that complicated their illnesses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in a conference call with healthcare providers. But the agency cautioned against applying that ratio to all cases of H1N1, saying the death records it reviewed were submitted by hospitals and medical examiners and did not represent a statistically valid sample.
Nevertheless, the 22 cases (among 77 deaths confirmed to be from H1N1) emphasize that bacterial co-infections are playing a role in the ongoing pandemic, something that was not clear at first, the CDC's Dr. Matthew Moore said on the call.
Clinician calls with CDC are frequent because H1N1 interim guidance and information is always changing.
I'll be on Second Life's Virtually Speaking with Jimbo Hoyer (Jay Ackroyd) this Thursday at 8 pm ET, also simulcast on Blog Talk Radio. We'll talk about pandemic flu with guest Josh Knauer of Rhiza Labs.
Weight loss and sleep apnea
Obese people with sleep apnea who lose 10% of their weight have a good chance of improving their condition, a study shows.
"This is good news because it shows that a little bit of weight loss can go a long way when it comes to improving sleep apnea," says the study's lead author, Gary Foster, director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Median Incomes Fall...

... which is no big surprise, is it?
According to the Associated Press ( no link ) the median income in 2008 for us workers was some $50,303 which is down from $52,163 in 2007. 2008 level is the lowest level since 1997. Middle income and poor Americans suffered the most, but, all groups did see declines in their cash.
The wealthiest 10% of Americans ($138,000 or more per year) earned some 114 times the average $12,000 made ny the working poor living near or below the poverty average. Poverty jumped up some 132%, an eleven year high.

An American Gothic Vacation: Time To End The Fight...

To those of you who have followed this site on a regular basis, I say thank you. For the present time, this site is going to be taking a very much needed rest. Most of you know that I've not blogged at my normal pace for some time. Actually, it hasn't been done regularly at all this year. There have been just way to many obstacles in the way of me getting things done that should have been taken care of months ago.
Some of you may have read the brief piece that I did about a certain alcoholic who I was trying to help to get off of her addiction. As of today, I have given up on that cause. There has been just way to much time, effort, and emotion involved on my part, and i have grown tired of making fruitless attemps to help someone who I think really does not want the help.
I am exhausted. I am tired. I am finished. Terri Ellen Winters, I wish you the best and I do hope that you wake up tp life one of these days. i really don't see you doing that though and that's to bad. You had a future free from the drink and you decided to toss it to the side today.
I do not like to quit and I do not like to lose, at anything! But this crap with a drunk who wishes to stay that way has to come to an end.
IT ENDS NOW!!

Is Osama bin Laden Right?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/19
Published on Saturday, September 19, 2009 by The Independent/UK
Everyone Seems to Be Agreeing with Bin Laden These Days
Only Obama, it seems, fails to get the message that we’re losing Afghanistan
by Robert Fisk
Obama and Osama are at last participating in the same narrative. For the US president's critics - indeed, for many critics of the West's military occupation of Afghanistan - are beginning to speak in the same language as Obama's (and their) greatest enemy.
There is a growing suspicion in America that Obama has been socked into the heart of the Afghan darkness by ex-Bushie Robert Gates - once more the Secretary of Defence - and by journalist-adored General David Petraeus whose military "surges" appear to be as successful as the Battle of the Bulge in stemming the insurgent tide in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq.
No wonder Osama bin Laden decided to address "the American people" this week. "You are waging a hopeless and losing war," he said in his 9/11 eighth anniversary audiotape. "The time has come to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby." There was no more talk of Obama as a "house Negro" although it was his "weakness", bin Laden contended, that prevented him from closing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In any event, Muslim fighters wold wear down the US-led coalition in Afghanistan "like we exhausted the Soviet Union for 10 years until it collapsed". Funny, that. It's exactly what bin Laden told me personally in Afghanistan - four years before 9/11 and the start of America's 2001 adventure south of the Amu Darya river.
Almost on cue this week came those in North America who agree with Obama - albeit they would never associate themselves with the Evil One, let alone dare question Israel's cheerleading for the Iraqi war. "I do not believe we can build a democratic state in Afghanistan," announces Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the senate intelligence committee. "I believe it will remain a tribal entity." And Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, does not believe "there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan".
Colin Kenny, chair of Canada's senate committee on national security and defence, said this week that "what we hoped to accomplish in Afghanistan has proved to be impossible. We are hurtling towards a Vietnam ending".
Close your eyes and pretend those last words came from the al-Qa'ida cave. Not difficult to believe, is it? Only Obama, it seems, fails to get the message. Afghanistan remains for him the "war of necessity". Send yet more troops, his generals plead. And we are supposed to follow the logic of this nonsense. The Taliban lost in 2001. Then they started winning again. Then we had to preserve Afghan democracy. Then our soldiers had to protect - and die - for a second round of democratic elections. Then they protected - and died - for fraudulent elections. Afghanistan is not Vietnam, Obama assures us. And then the good old German army calls up an air strike - and zaps yet more Afghan civilians.
It is instructive to turn at this moment to the Canadian army, which has in Afghanistan fewer troops than the Brits but who have suffered just as ferociously; their 130th soldier was killed near Kandahar this week. Every three months, the Canadian authorities publish a scorecard on their military "progress" in Afghanistan - a document that is infinitely more honest and detailed than anything put out by the Pentagon or the Ministry of Defence - which proves beyond peradventure (as Enoch Powell would have said) that this is Mission Impossible or, as Toronto's National Post put it in an admirable headline three days' ago, "Operation Sleepwalk". The latest report, revealed this week, proves that Kandahar province is becoming more violent, less stable and less secure - and attacks across the country more frequent - than at any time since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. There was an "exceptionally high" frequency of attacks this spring compared with 2008.
There was a 108 per cent increase in roadside bombs. Afghans are reporting that they are less satisfied with education and employment levels, primarily because of poor or non-existent security. Canada is now concentrating only on the security of Kandahar city, abandoning any real attempt to control the province.
Canada's army will be leaving Afghanistan in 2011, but so far only five of the 50 schools in its school-building project have been completed. Just 28 more are "under construction". But of Kandahar province's existing 364 schools, 180 have been forced to close. Of progress in "democratic governance" in Kandahar, the Canadian report states that the capacity of the Afghan government is "chronically weak and undermined by widespread corruption". Of "reconciliation" - whatever that means these days - "the onset of the summer fighting season and the concentration of politicians and activists for the August elections discouraged expectations of noteworthy initiatives...".
Even the primary aim of polio eradication - Ottawa's most favoured civilian project in Afghanistan - has defeated the Canadian International Development Agency, although this admission is cloaked in truly Blair-like (or Brown-like) mendacity. As the Toronto Star revealed in a serious bit of investigative journalism this week, the aim to "eradicate" polio with the help of UN and World Health Organisation money has been quietly changed to the "prevention of transmission" of polio. Instead of measuring the number of children "immunised" against polio, the target was altered to refer only to the number of children "vaccinated". But of course, children have to be vaccinated several times before they are actually immune.
And what do America's Republican hawks - the subject of bin Laden's latest sermon - now say about the Afghan catastrophe? "More troops will not guarantee success in Afghanistan," failed Republican contender and ex-Vietnam vet John McCain told us this week. "But a failure to send them will be a guarantee of failure." How Osama must have chuckled as this preposterous announcement echoed around al-Qa'ida's dark cave.
2009 Independent News and Media.
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.