Daily Archives: July 9, 2007

Health Care

Iowa Paper Demands SinglePayer…Guaranteed Healthcare Round Up

Today’s guaranteed healthcare roundup, cross-posted at  the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Associations’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

When Iowans want ethanol, presidential candidates leap to it.  When the state’s largest paper calls for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model…well, we’ll just have to see how that riles up the candidates.  The Des Moines Register did just that today.  Momentum is building.  Money quote:

What we hope {Michael Moore’s “SiCKO”} does: Spur Americans, at long last, to demand a system that covers everyone, while providing greater quality and reining in costs.

The best option for doing that: a government-financed system, much like Medicare, which covers America’s senior citizens. That wouldn’t be “socialized medicine.” Under Medicare, seniors still choose their doctors, and doctors don’t work for the government.

Barack Obama is soliciting health care policy ideas.  I’m going to email him the Des Moines register editorial.

Meanwhile the Des Moines Register finds that Blue Cross/Blue Shield literally have no shame.

In today’s New York Times, {sub. req’d} Paul Krugman slams FOX News for implying national healthcare causes terrorism.  If you remember Katrina, you know that our dysfunctional healthcare system is actually a major security vulnerability for this nation.  Krugman sums it up:

The only things standing in the way of universal health care are the fear-mongering and influence-buying of interest groups. If we can’t overcome those forces here, there’s not much hope for America’s future.

The Wall St. Journal finds that state plans to require employers to provide health insurance are illegal.  They’re right.  So why are politicians in California and other states still out there pushing them?

How to make a killing in the healthcare field?  Dr. Prem Reddy found where to start: restrict patient access to care.  Scary.

We should all follow NBC News’ story on Iraq and military medicine.  The U.S. is going to be working with our soldiers for many, many years as a result of the war.

John Conyers is an American hero.

And finally..is SiCKO Psycho?

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, San Francisco

July 9, 2007 Blog Roundup

( – promoted by jsw)

Today’s Blog Roundup on the flip.

More on the
Schwarzenegger Resource Board Train Wreck

Other Environment Reports

Crime In San Francisco

Continuing Land Use
Conversations in Davis

Everything Else

Uncategorized

George Skelton Sayin’ What We All Been Thinkin’

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George Skelton, pretty much the only state political columnist at the LA Times, is charitable toward Antonio Villaraigosa by using his recent marital troubles as a partial reason, but he really speaks the truth that Antonio has wasted his time in the Mayor’s office:

“Ultimately, Antonio will be judged by voters based on their perception of the job he is doing as mayor,” says Democratic strategist Darry Sragow.

That’s what many people have told reporters: They don’t care what a politician does in private. What counts is what he does for them.

OK, a lot of Angelenos are waiting. The mayor better get crackin’.

Get that subway-to-the-sea moving.

Really bust up some gangs, not just stage photo-ops.

That failed school takeover fiasco was a waste of time and political clout. Why would a new mayor allow himself to make so many enemies in his first major endeavor?

I’m beginning to understand. He was distracted.

The mayor has a list of accomplishments about as long as the average Quick Hit.  Literally, the list that the Mayor’s office was going to put out included his hosting American Indian Heritage Month.

Not that Indian heritage isn’t noble, but it gives one the sense of grasping at straws.

This affair of Villaraigosa’s may damage him nationally, but locally, the damage is being done every day he fails to deliver on his promises.

Prisons

Gloria Romero Stands Tall Against The Tough On Crime Crowd

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State Sen. Gloria Romero, a.k.a. the only one in Sacramento who gets the prison problem, is really sticking her neck out to deny the rapacious fearmongers more sentencing laws, and she deserves our support.

Republicans are outraged that more than two dozen bills in the Legislature that would create new crimes or lengthen sentences will languish until next year in a committee controlled by Democrats.

Sen. Gloria Romero, who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee, imposed a one-year moratorium earlier this year on all Senate and Assembly bills that would worsen crowding in California’s prisons and jails.

That’s what you do when there’s a CRISIS.  And considering that there have been nearly 1,000 laws in the past 30 years raising sentences for criminal offenders, I would guess that every additional law is completely unnecessary.  Of course, that’s the bread and butter for those so wedded to the “Tough on Crime” label.  So Republicans are miffed:

But Sen. Dave Cogdill, vice chairman of the committee, maintains the panel “shouldn’t be holding the safety of the people of California hostage to this situation.”

The Modesto Republican concedes prison crowding “is very real, but the reality is any bill that we take action on this year wouldn’t become law until January 2008.”

Right, because new prison facilities can be conjured in a matter of months.  Who’s the architect, Merlin?

over…

Romero, the chief force behind the bill to create an independent sentencing commission, is dead right on the optics of the whole prison crisis.

Romero noted the prisons’ medical system already is being run by a receivership established by the federal courts. And two federal judges have indicated they are leaning toward creating a judicial panel charged with setting a population cap for the entire system.

“We can try to look like we’re tough on crime, but how tough are we if at a certain point the receiver takes over the entire system?” she said, noting that 30 of the state’s 58 counties already have established population caps for their jails.

That’s all some of these legislators care about, looking tough while in actuality squandering our tenuous hold on the prison crisis, increasing recidivism rates, destroying rehabilitation and treatment, and making everyone in this state less safe.  It’s a simple-minded approach that neglects the very real issue of overcrowding.

Romero is really putting herself out there on this.  It may not be a popular position but it’s the right one.  And she should be applauded, as well as supported in her efforts to create a sentencing commission outside of the political sphere so that this “Tough on Crime” nonsense can be muted.

California

Worst Political Journalist in the State

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So when the publisher of Calitics fled town for vacation, I might recollect an email about no fights (and I stayed out of the blogger fight on Friday night). But since there is already a fabulous flame war about the worst California Journalist, I figured anyone who wanted to should chime in.

While I sit back and enjoy my popcorn, my only thought is that Bill Bradley would win the title hands down if anyone other than Rough and Tumble were dumb enough to take him seriously.

As for Marc Cooper, since nobody would be dumb enough to repeat day job intimidation calls that backfire I might sneak away with a links to this and this.

Although the pool for potential worst journalist is growing smaller every day, punking the bad ones only gets easier.