Healthcare (Again) Another excellent journal entry by Roger Ebert. I keep hoping enough people will wake up and join us in demanding a national healthcare system.
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Phillies Headed To World Series Again! They managed to pull it off in five play-off games. Tomorrow night the Dodgers may seal it for the American League, though I won't mind if the Angels take the night and force them to fight for it in one or two more games. (Not that I'm going to be watching those games, but anything to stress them and maybe get someone else on the D.L.) Now to see how out of control things get in Philly overnight. Wednesday morning they were pushing out the info that they'd greased the sign/light poles to prevent people from climbing them, and have remote-controlled cameras on each street corner. Then tomorrow we'll see what condition some of my co-workers are in. My lab assistant's down in there somewhere...
It Could Happen To Anyone The title is a link to her site. I should have posted this long ago. It's one woman's battle and journey, and the many, many similar stories from people she's met. People living and dying on the edge because our "healthcare" system is run by for-profit health insurance companies; highwaymen on the road to recovery. People who should be able to concentrate on recovery are instead left to make accounting decisions in which many will decide to avoid treatment and simply die rather than court almost certain financial ruin for their families. Never forget that the health insurance companies' mission is not to provide the best medical care, but to maximize profits. To become ill is to become a less effective profit center and then a source of loss for the company. The quarterly profits and interests of the shareholders will trump all else. What may be more frightening is that this is someone who has medical insurance. Those who
Rockies To Rubble The Phillies take game 4 of the current series, so they'll be going up against the Dodgers for the right to be the NL team in the World Series. Yeah, it was a little cruel, but I must admit I was at least somewhat happy to see the Rockies fans go from being ecstatic with their gaining the lead in the eighth to watching it fall apart in the ninth. So, a couple days off and then it's out to Los Angeles for game one of a possible seven. Two there, three back here in Philly, then, if need be, back out West for up to two more.
Insurance Company-Driven Propaganda Storm It's almost heartening to see them go to these lengths - they're getting a little scared - though I worry how many wingnut media outlets will reference the report as if it's substantive..? ( From the Washington Post ) The Insurance Industry's Deceptive Report by Ezra Klein In the hallowed tradition of the tobacco and energy industries, the health insurance industry has commissioned a report (pdf) projecting doom and despair for those who seek to reform its business practices. The report was farmed out to the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has something of a history with this sort of thing: In the early-'90s, the tobacco industry commissioned PWC to estimate the economic devastation that would result from a tax on tobacco. The report was later analyzed by the Arthur Andersen Economic Consulting group, which concluded that "the cumulative effect of PW’s methods … is to produce patently unreliable results.&qu
Something not likely to be clearly stated on FOX Full text below. Fox Admits on CNN That It Traffics in Opinion Not News Jon Ponder | October 12, 2009 After a brief but concerted challenge by the White House to the credibility of Fox News Channel as a legitimate news organization — including a detailed takedown by Communications Director Anita Dunn on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on Sunday — a spokesman for Fox made a de facto admission that the channel is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the Republican Party and the conservative movement: In a written statement given to CNN, Fox News said its programming was comparable to the editorial page of a newspaper. “An increasing number of viewers are relying on Fox News for both news and opinion,” Fox News Senior VP Michael Clemente said in the statement, “and the average news consumer can certainly distinguish between the A-section of the newspaper and the editorial page, which is what our programming represents. “So with all