Bernie Madoff isn't in jail but Annette Yeomans is? Yeomans is the bookkeeper who embezzled millions and purchased over 400 pairs of shoes. If Bernie Madoff's crimes aren't serious enough to warrant tossing him in jail, surely any civilized person with an appetite for shoes could understand Yeomans weakness.
I mean lets be honest, it's not like any of us went to see Sex and the City to witness Carrie Bradshaw and Big's wedding. We went for the clothes, we went for the shoes, we went to see a fictitious and mythical man give a woman a really BIG closet.
When I first heard of Yeomans crime and the 400 pair of shoes my heart skipped a beat just thinking about a room fill with that many shoes! All the different styles and designers she could slide her feet into, I sighed. There are things that I can live without but there are also things that just shouldn't be missed (wink).
To hell with ballet flats and kitten heels...give me legs that go on forever!
(02-25) 19:56 PST -- The latest in a recent flurry of clues on the workings of Alzheimer's disease comes from Yale University researchers who found a link between the disorder and the prion protein, which can cause mad cow disease and other maladies
The Yale team found that the prion protein, whose normal function is to maintain brain health, may contribute to nerve damage if it becomes entangled with a protein fragment that scientists consider a chief suspect as a cause for Alzheimer's disease.
I hate it when I fall asleep with the TV on, I always end up waking up at the crack of dawn to news that irritates me to the point that I can't go back to sleep. Who knows maybe it isn't the news maybe I'm just that crabby at 4 A.M., it is possible. Nonetheless, I fell asleep to Anderson Cooper and woke up to the CNN guy who broadcasts before the CNN girl, Jane whatever-the rest-of -her-name-is.
I don't feel compelled to give either middle of the night CNN anchor a full name because they keep calling Nadya Suleman "Octo-Mom". I'm not condoning Nadya's decision making, defending her competence or that of her doctor but calling her "Octo-Mom" is a deliberately dehumanizing gesture on the part of the media and it only serves to feed into the public hate-frenzy surrounding her as did both programs.
At the crack of dawn Broadcast-Jane's CNN program showed a clip of Nadya Suleman arguing with her mother. The first time the clip was played long enough for viewer to hear Suleman tell her mother that she needed to "let go" as the clip played on Suleman completed her thoughts by connecting that statement to her decision to have all 8 babies. Essentially what Suleman was telling her mother was that the babies are already here and that she can't change what's already happened and Suleman was asking her mother to let go of an issue that could no longer be changed.
Call me crazy but I thought that it was an entirely rational response, Suleman can't go back and make a different decision. Whether her parents or the public agree or disagree the babies are indeed here and continuing to berate her for her decision making won't change history and certainly won't improve anyone's situation.
But what CNN's Broadcast-Jane did after that was to only play the clip long enough to hear Suleman tell her mother that she needed to "let go", without giving the statement any context and making it appear as though Suleman was telling her mother to let go of her grandchildren all together. Naturally Broadcast-Jane's professional guest panel ripped the statement apart having taken her statement completely out of context.
Later Broadcast-Jane's program showed a clip of Suleman kissing the cheeks of one the older twins while she held him drinking his bottle. One of members of Broadcast-Jane's expert panel called the Suleman cheek kissing "inappropriate." Seriously? I witness what I would deem inappropriate every time I go shopping, an overdose of chubby cheek kissing and raspberry belly-blows would be a very welcomed change!
My question is this, how would the media have depicted her if she would have just sat there? Disconnected, unresponsive...I think we all know that no matter how Suleman responded no one was going to depict her in a fair light, let alone a favorable light. None of the experts seemed to note the body language of the baby she was holding. It certainly wasn't the first time that child had been held and rocked while he drank his bottle. He relaxed into her like the position was familiar, he made eye contact with her and he looked healthy, well, relaxed and happy, all of her kids did.
If Sulemon belongs under a microscope then so does every low income or slightly dysfunctional person in the country. We condone the Duggers issuing a new baby every year and their up to baby 18, seriously how much does Mr. Dugger earn without television and advertising? How much of their family's help with younger children comes from older sibling? What about the John Gosselin from John and Kate Plus Eight...when they decided to give birth to all 6 babies did they know how they were going to afford to care for all of them? Didn't they take incredible risks to the childrens health by not reducing the number? When their babies were born did they have a big enough house for 6 cribs? How many embryos were implanted in Kate to make 6 babies and who paid for her postpartum plastic surgery?
I'm sorry Broadcast-Jane but if kissing the chubby cheeks of babies is "inappropriate" then I'm perpetually out of line and my friend Mary Strohmayer. who is a mother of 5, is a criminal! She comes from a family of 5 rambunctious brothers, has 5 children of her own, is dying to be a grandmother and has nieces and nephews stacked to the ceiling, I know for a fact that she also shamelessly kisses chubby cheeks because I've witnessed it more at her house than in any other home I've ever been in.
The bottom line is, whether we agree or disagree the babies are here and we all need to let go and move on. If you object to what happened write to your Congressman and have a bill drafted that establishes stricter guidelines for fertility clinics. But to call Suleman's baby kissing inappropriate and in the same breath ignore the conduct of the scores of people camped out and following Suleman to shouting obscenities and scream about tax payer dollars. What kind of experts are these to object to cheek kissing and over look cruel malicious behavior? What kind of a a hate filled society do we live in and why are we so willing to rip the weak to shreds.
What makes it all even more perplexing is the fact that a massive group of completely rational, financially secure Wall Street bankers just ripped American tax payers off for billions. I don't understand why tax concerned hate-mongers aren't shouting at them from Wall Street, screaming for the return of unearned bonus money and their resignations! Frankly I think they are by far more deserving of our public outrage. Watching Bernie Madoff smirking at the media as he makes his way to his penthouse lights my fuse in a way that Suleman's food stamp mony never will. Isn't the money going straight back intot he economy because its ALL getting spent on food at her neighborhood grocery store? And the billions given to banks...well part of our economic issue stems from the fact that they're not loaning out the money so it isn't helping the economy.
Again, I'm not saying I agree or condone but I think all perspective has been seriously lost, and I think in a number of ways Sulemoan is being demonized by the media as seen on Jane Velez Mitchell's program. Suleman may be dysfunctional and misguided but you'll find that among any group of parents, she isn't hurtful, she isn't malicious and her children are at ease and well.
The battle is joined as they say — and here's the headline that framed it: "High Noon: Geithner v. The American Oligarchs." The headline is in one of the most informative new sites in the blogosphere called: baselinescenario.com. Here's the quote that grabbed me:
"There comes a time in every economic crisis, or more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that — they say — will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains. Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble?"
James Galbraith Bill Moyers sits down to talk about the economic future with James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Galbraith is the author of six books, the most recent, THE PREDATOR STATE: HOW CONSERVATIVES ABANDONED THE FREE MARKET AND WHY LIBERALS SHOULD TOO. (October 24, 2008)
George Soros Bill Moyers talks with one of the world's most successful investors George Soros about the global capital meltdown, how he saw it coming, and what can be done now. (October 10, 2008)
Kevin Phillips on BAD MONEY Bill Moyers sits down with former Nixon White House strategist and political and economic critic Kevin Phillips, whose latest book BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM explores the role that the crumbling financial sector played in the now-fragile American economy. (September 19, 2008)
Joe Nocera JOURNAL guest-host Deborah Amos speaks with NEW YORK TIMES business columnist Joe Nocera about the bailout mania in Washington and who's next in line to get federal assistance. (November 21, 2008)
Winners and Losers NEW YORK TIMES business and financial columnists Gretchen Morgenson and Floyd Norris discuss who wins and who loses in the financial turmoil. (September 19, 2008)
Facing up to the Economy Bill Moyers talks with economist Dean Baker and journalist Bob Herbert about the economic challenges facing the government and the populace. (August 8, 2008)
Mortgage Mess THE JOURNAL travels to ground zero of the mortgage meltdown — Cleveland, Ohio. Correspondent Rick Karr takes viewers to Slavic Village, one of the hardest hit neighborhoods in the nation when it comes to the spate of foreclosures caused by the subprime mortgage crisis. (July 18, 2008)
Merrill doled out 'gigantic' bonuses despite heavy losses, says Cuomo
By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: February 11, 2009: 11:50 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Merrill Lynch "secretly" doled out huge bonuses before reporting a huge quarterly loss and getting absorbed by Bank of America, according to New York state's attorney general. Full Story
Take Action: Tell your representatives to support single-payer health care!
Rep. John Conyers has reintroduced HR 676, The United States National Health Care Act, which would eliminate private insurance companies and create a national health care system that would guarantee that all Americans have access to high-quality health care.
A single-payer system would be financed by taxpayers and would remove financial barrierse, such as unaffordable co-payments and premiums, that prevent people from seeking needed care.
Please, call your representative today regarding this crucial issue! Our goal is to flood congressional offices with calls so lawmakers understand how crucial it is to fix the health care crisis.
If he or she is currently a co-sponsor or co-sponsored HR 676 in the past, ask him or her to stand firm for the bill and actively seek additional co-sponsors. If he or she has yet to co-sponsor HR 676, ask him or her to please become a co-sponsor immediately!
You can find your member of the House here, or simply call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your representative. Don't know if your representative is a co-sponsor of HR 676? Find out here.
Earth, the moon and the sun are all bound together by gravity, which keeps us going around the sun and keeps the moon going around us as it goes through phases. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days
In a somewhat understandably soft ball interview with Chris Wallace, former President George H.W. Bush defends what is by most accounts his son's epic failure of a presidency and defers to "the Google" when asked about which things W could be "fairly criticized for."
Bush: He's gonna come home with his head high, knowing he ran a clean operation and he kept this country strong and free after an unprecedented history attack of 9/11. He'll have a lot too be proud of and he can start by his mother and father being very proud of him...and we always will be.
Wallace: You said there earlier there are some things he could fairly be criticized for. Would you like to tell me any of those?
Bush: "No. You can go back to your, what do you call it.... Your Google, and you figure all that out."
On some level you gotta feel sorry for Papa Bush. It's pretty clear that he always wanted his other son, Jeb, to be the second Bush President.
In his book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell discusses the significance of the 10k Hour Rule which introduced the notion that among the keys to becoming extraordinarily successful in a field is the requirement of approximately 10k hours of practice. Gladwell's theory is based in part on research by Anders Ericsson who in the early 1990s studied violinists at the Berlin Academy of Music. In his book Gladwell asserts the following:
“The curious thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals” - musicians who could float effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time that their peers did. Nor could they find “grinds”, people who worked harder than everyone else and yet just didn’t have what it takes to break into the top ranks. Their research suggested that once you have enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. What’s more, the people at the very top don’t just work much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
In his book Gladwell reviews a select number of individual who achieved extraordinary success by putting in their 10k hours. But there is another commonality that emerges among his examples...they are all personally driven to put in their 10k hours. The Beatles Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Bill Joy were all to varying degrees obsessed as though they had an internal need. My question is, would success have come to Bill Joy if he lacked the personal drive yet put in his 10k hours because his father insisted he learn and master computer programming? While 10k hours may be the magic number, is personal drive and passion also a necessary part of the Outliers formula?
As a young mother my 4 year old son insisted that he could be an actor so when an open audition came up in Minneapolis with a well known agency I took him believing that it would be a good learning experience...success doesn't come overnight and acting takes hard work.
Parents weren't allowed to watch the auditions, my son was lead into a room where he met agents and was rated on a scale for one to ten. The agency called later to say that Nick scored a perfect 10, that they not only wanted to sign him but that they also wanted to send him on an audition for Target the following day. I naturally verified that they didn't have my son confused with someone else because he wasn't notorious for being cooperative in preschool.
Nick and I went to the audition and I received a call that evening, Target wanted to sign Nick for their Christmas advertisement. Since they used the word advertisement I assumed he was doing print work, when I discussed signing Target contracts I discovered that Target had hired him for a television commercial. To recap, within 2 weeks of Nick's audition he was on a set filming his first television commercial, by 5 he was a member of AFTRA and had his own medical and dental policy through the actors union. Nicholas went on to do oodles of print work, and a long list of television commercials including a McDonald's Christmas commercial which aired for several years world wide and an ABC mini series. I eventually withdrew the boys from acting because of health complications.
The point of my story is that The Beatles, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Joy and even my 4 year old son all shared a passion, a drive...and what appears to me to be an inner knowing of where in the universe they naturally fit best.
While Gladwell discusses the Matthew effect in Outliers, I'd like to introduces my own biblically inspired theory which I will call: many are called but few are chosen. Maybe Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Bill Joy were obsessed because their obsession was exactly where they belonged and they had an innate understanding of that fact just like my son did...maybe passion and obsession are intertwined with the personal destiny of certain individuals. Maybe Gates, Jobs, and Joy were the "chosen" referred to in the biblical text and maybe still others are merely "called," meaning they lack a specific passion or drive and therefore are not destine to achieve an Outliers spectacular level of success.
While I have no disagreement with the 10k Hour Rule I do wonder if personal drive isn't a necessary part of the equation. Are we assuming that an uninterested violinist may achieve an Outliers success with the right factors by merely completing of their 10k hours? Or do uninterested violinists quit playing because the volume of time needed is drudgery when you lack the drive, love and passion for the pursuit ...THEREFORE those individuals did not end up represented in Anders Ericsson's research because they stopped playing.
Gladwell again raises fascinating questions regarding our assumptions about the road to success. He suggests that a part of the formula may very well be a quantifiable amount of practice. I would seriously caution parents against making a child practice more rigorously in hopes of inducing an Outlier but I would encourage parents to pay careful attention to those things their children are passionately interested in and remember the 10k Hour Rule when worrying whether or not Johnny is spending too much time doing...X. In the cases of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, The Beatles and Bill Joy that obsessive dedication factored into their ultimate success.
* On a side note, I think many people have passion and drive but we're often taught that this factor is unimportant. We see growing up and maturing as putting away childish dreams and notions...like being a television actor. Had I not taken Nick on that audition, he may have never had the opportunity to prove me wrong. My motive was to help him gain insight into the world, that could have been a spirit squelching dose realism. Nick taught me to believe in the wisdom of the spirit. Author Paulo Coelho once wrote "When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true." Sometimes it does.
***On a quirky side note, I looked up Malcolm Gladwell's biography and discover that he and I share the same birthday also, when I selected a fictional town name for a novel I'm working on I picked Elmira, thinking that I sort of made it up. Elmira is where Malcolm Gladwell grew up, just thought it was an interesting coincidence.
Since it's New Years Eve I'll keep it short. I'm posting the radio interview with Malcolm Gladwell where he discusses his most recent book, Outliers. In the interest of time, I've only posted one thought I had regarding this interview and what I've read thus far. Since Gladwell raises so many facinating issues and questions many blog posts are sure to follow.
My thoughts -Flawed by Design: While Gladwell questions how it is that our society can observe biases but do nothing to correct them, thus missing a brilliant opportunity to exploit the vast wealth of human potential, it would seem that answer is rooted well within American history. It is true to say that American wealth was built on the backs of an enslaved subset within our society. It is possible that the reason we observe biases but fail respond isn't due to a lack of knowledge or understanding but rather a more subtle and divisive reinvention of a replacement subset, thus giving a modern complexion to American slavery. Today,this assertion not only hold staggering implications for Americans but snares subsets on a global scale due to the implementation of inherently flawed, opportunistic international trade agreements.
Who knew Malcolm Gladwell was so funny? In the following 15 minute podcast Gladwell recounts his first months working as a journalist for the Washington Post. Gladwell demonstrates that his talent isn't restricted to writing, analysis that turns what we've come to believe on its ear, but that he is also a master storyteller.
Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Pennsylvania resident & Twitter tweeter, Jim MacMillanreported an earthquake to his Twitter network Dec. 27, 2008, just after midnight. MacMillan thought that the area hardest hit by the quake appeared to be an area he referred to as the "Pennsylvania Dutch country" .
Also reported was a house fire that claimed the lives of 7 Pennsylvania residents. It's not yet known if the fire is related to the quake but the New York Times has reported that 4 adults & 3 children were found in the basement of the building. Firefighters reported that the building was not equipped with smoke detectors and that the group died huddled together in the corner.
It's one of those events where you wish you had a do-over, so you could go to their home with the necessary supplies, install the proper safety devises to ensure the safe evacuation of everyone. My deepest sympathy goes out to the 4 survivors and their families.
Update: Early morning reports indicate that Three Mile Island was effected by the Pennsylvania quake. According to follow up reports the fire which claim 7 lives appears to be unrelated.
Christmas was difficult last year because it was Alexa's first Christmas since her father died. This year promised to be easier but then her pet Chinchilla died last night...ccertainly didn't need that. Nonetheless, we are looking forward to a very laid back celebration this year...no turkey and gravy and all that work this year I'm baking a ham because it's easier. I even briefly considered using paper plates to avoid dishes but felt guilty leaving my beautiful Spode Christmas china unused for another year.
This year we will eat, drink, play Raving Rabbits on the Wii, open gifts and most of all we will be together...just waiting for Ben!
About a week after Lost Marbles encouraged readers to ship an old pair of shoes to the White House as a final act of protest, it appears that the Huffington Post has caught wind of the viral shoe shipping trend and wrote about it in today publication.
Before I launch into my thoughts on Health Care I'd like to introduce my son Nick and my daughter Alexa. Nick suffered a shot reaction as an infant and has Aspergers and Alexa has been sick since...forever. Also referred to as Bubble Girl, Alexa has no immune system against common illnesses, a disorder that took over 16 years to diagnose and only after I forced a referral from the iron fist of our local clinic. Specialist are currently looking into the possibility that Alexa may also suffer from Lupus.
Currently, Alexa is 18 and attends Blue Sky Charter school, an online high school and will graduate in the spring. Alexa plans to attend college in the fall of 2009 and major in Asian studies.
Nick is completing his second year at Central Lakes Community College and plans to transfer to Augsberg University where he will major in Space Physics.
As a mother who raised 3 children, 2 with special needs in a single parent household I have many thoughts regarding health and preventative medicine. Also on the effects of the many pollutants that taint in our food supply, our water and our air including those approved by the FDA. In the interest of time I will only address the issue of Health Care in this post but hope that the Obama administration takes a GIANT BROOM and cleans up government agencies like the FDA. The words, Approved by the FDA should actually means something to the American people.
Despite its original publication in 2006, Public Citizens list of arguments in favor of a Single Payer System are still valid. Since portions of the original publication were relevant to activities taking place in 2006, I am posting portions germane to the current question.
July 28, 2006 - The rationale for single payer has become increasingly compelling right now, when U.S. businesses are feeling the pinch of rising health care costs, the number of uninsured continues to rise, the nation is losing its comparative advantage in world markets, hospitals are eager to shed the burden of their “bad debt and charity” pool, and consumers are increasingly baffled by an array of insurers who offer confusion in the guise of “choice.”
The main argument in favor of a single payer is that such a system is the only way we can realistically afford to end the dangerous, embarrassing, and worsening situation wherein about 45 million people in this country lack health insurance and millions more are seriously uninsured. In addition there are a number of practical reasons for having a single payer; these are summarized below.
Single Payer is good for business. Publicly financed but privately run health care for all would cost employers far less in taxes than their costs for insurance. With universal coverage, employers would no longer have to pay for medical care as part of the compensation package offered to workers. And with health care outlays expected to increase between 14 percent and 18 percent between now and 2010, employers can expect no relief from the already unsustainable situation they are facing at present. A survey of senior-level executive in Detroit found that 75 percent consider employee health insurance “unaffordable,” while the remaining 25 percent consider it “very unaffordable.”
If the situation is untenable for individual employers, it is even worse for the economy as a whole. Increases in health care costs are a drag on economic growth: they thwart job growth, suppress increases for current workers, weaken the viability of pension funds, and depress the quality of jobs. Rising health care costs are also causing budgetary problems for federal and state governments, which are currently paying over 50 percent of the U.S. health care bill.
Universal health coverage would also have a salutary effect on labor-management relations. Many if not most strikes in the past five years have involved conflicts over health benefits. Universal coverage would defuse this contentious issue, provide benefits independent of employment status, and allow business greater flexibility in whom to hire.
Single Payer will enhance the comparative position of the U.S.in the global market. President Bush has repeatedly said that the United States is not reluctant to compete on the international market as long as there is an even playing field. At present, the lack of universal health insurance places the U.S. at a disadvantage vis-à-vis other countries. Companies such as General Motors that have factories in both the US and other countries have learned this lesson well; for example, in 2003 the costs of manufacturing a midsized car in Canada were $1,400 less than that of manufacturing the identical car in the US, primarily because of much higher health costs in this country.
Single Payer builds on the existing experience. Those who fear that single payer is new and foreign, and therefore untested, need to be reminded that Medicare is, in essence, a single payer system. For those who are eligible, Medicare is universal and identical, not means-tested, and administered by the government, which acts as a single payer for hospital and outpatient physician services. Because it did not have to sift and sort the population or cope with a layer of insurers, the rollout of Medicare in 1966 was amazingly smooth. Practically overnight---and without computers--- the program covered services provided by 6,600 hospitals, 250,000 physicians, 1,300 home health agencies, and hundred of nursing homes. By the end of its first year, Medicare had enrolled more than 90 percent of eligible Americans, a feat that cemented its popularity and redeemed President Johnson’s faith in the efficacy of government.
In contrast, Part D of Medicare, which departed from the single payer model and introduced private insurers, encountered the wrath of consumers who were unable to maneuver the complicated choices required to obtain prescription drug benefits.
Single Payer has significantly lower administrative costs. Studies by both the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office have repeatedly shown that single payer universal health care would save significant dollars in administrative costs. As early as 1991, the GAO concluded that if the universal coverage and single payer features of the Canadian system had been applied in the United States that year, the total savings (then estimated at $66.9 billion) “would have been more than enough to finance insurance coverage for the millions of American who are currently uninsured.” More recently, estimates published in the International Journal of Health Services conclude that “streamlining administrative overhead to Canadian levels would save approximately $286 billion in 2002, $6,940 for each of the 41.2 million Americans who were uninsured as of 2001. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage.” At present, the U.S. spends 50 percent to 100 percent more on administration than countries with single payer systems.
Single Payer facilitates quality control. Having a single payer system would create for the United States a comprehensive, accurate, and timely national data base on health service utilization and health outcomes. This would provide information on gaps and disparities or duplication of care, thereby serving as valuable intelligence for decision-making and resource allocation. At present, the closest analogy to this is the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which has been highly successful in containing costs while providing excellent care. The key to its success is that it is a universal, integrated system. As Paul Krugman has written in an op-ed piece in The New York Times: “Because it covers all veterans, the system doesn’t need to employ legions of administrative staff to check patients’ coverage and demand payment from their insurance companies. Because it’s integrated, providing all forms of medical care, it has been able to take the lead in electronic record-keeping and other innovations that reduce costs, ensure effective treatment and help prevent medical errors.”
Single Payer gives the government greater leverage to control costs. A single payer would be able to take advantage of economies of scale and exert greater leverage in bargaining with providers, thereby controlling costs. Recent experiences with both the VHA system and Medicare Part D indicate the difference exerting such leverage can make. The Department of Veterans Affairs uses its power as a major purchaser to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical makers. But when the legislation leading to the drug prescription plan (better known as Medicare Part D) was passed, Congress explicitly barred negotiating prices with drug makers. The results of this are now becoming evident: at present, the VA is paying 46 percent less for the most popular brand-name drugs than the average prices posted by the Medicare plans for the same drugs. Because Part D increased the effective demand for drugs without controlling costs, prescription drug prices have risen sharply: during the first quarter of 2006, prices for brand-name pharmaceuticals “jumped 3.9 percent, four times the general inflation rate … and the largest quarterly price increase in six years.”
If this trend is allowed to continue unchecked, it could jeopardize the fiscal viability of the Medicare drug program and seriously undermine whatever political and public support it now has. In addition, this could have significant repercussions on the program as a whole. In the words of economist Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, who specializes in drug industry issues, “Higher drug prices may lead to higher premiums next year, which may discourage enrollees from joining or staying in the program, and fewer enrollees could drive premiums even higher.”
Single Payer promotes greater accountability to the public. One of the key features of the U.S. health care system is its fragmentation. When every player is responsible for only part of the care of part of the population part of the time, there is no overall accountability for how the system functions as whole. Consumers are therefore left wondering who is in charge, and whom they can appeal to when their knowledge is incomplete or their care is inadequate.
The most recent report to Congress of the Medicare Advisory Commission recognizes this: “…perverse payment system incentives, lack of information, and fragmented delivery systems are barriers for full accountability.”
The creation of a single payer would provide an opportunity for creating a system run by a public trust. Benefits and payments would be decided by the insurer which would be under the control of a diverse board representing consumers, providers, business and government.
Single Payer fosters transparency in coverage decisions. Ironically, single payer plans have been criticized for “making all sorts of unbearable trade-offs explicit government policy, rather than obscuring them in complexities.” But we support such explicit trade-offs. Given finite resources, it may not be possible to cover every single treatment, device or pharmaceutical a patient may require or desire. Priorities must be set, and the criteria for these should be transparent and consistently applied.
The practice of “obscuring trade-offs” is irresponsible and demeaning to the American public. Medical care decisions are too important and affect everyone too directly to be made surreptitiously. Moreover, forcing policy-makers to make decisions concerning what to cover will ensure their confronting issues of safety, efficacy, and value-for-money that are often circumvented or overlooked. Trade-offs that are transparent to health care consumers will therefore be in the public’s interest.
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George Soros
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Winners and Losers
Facing up to the Economy
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