Humpty Dumpty

Monday, February 7, 2011

Reagan Solicitor General: 'I Am Quite Sure That The Health Care Mandate Is Constitutional' (VIDEO)

The Huffington Post
Nick Wing
First Posted: 02/02/11 Updated: 02/03/11

Former Reagan Solicitor General Charles Fried delivered testimony during a Senate hearing on the "The Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act," expressing, in no uncertain terms, his personal assessment that he is "quite sure that the health care mandate is constitutional."

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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Skin Deep ~ Cosmetic Safety Database

Environmental Working Group

Skin Deep is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group...

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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Health Effects of Oil Spills

The Daily Green
May 10, 2010

Health effects from oil spills range from eye, throat and skin irritation to depression and DNA damage...

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

As Our Skin Sags With Age, So Do Our Bones

by DEBORAH FRANKLIN
National Public Radio
April 20, 2010

...Hunt says that thanks to decades of better dental care, antibiotics and fluoride, the teeth and skulls of baby boomers look a lot younger than those of our grandparents in middle age. Yet another reason to keep flossing -- and smile.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Doctor: Misinformation and Racism Have Frozen Recovery Effort at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince

DemocracyNow!
January 19, 2009

“There are no security issues,” says Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, reporting from the General Hospital in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti, where 1,000 people are in need of operations. Lyon said the reports of violence in the city have been overblown by the media and have affected the delivery of aid and medical services.

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Kill the Bill or Support Passage? A Debate on Healthcare Legislation Between Insurance Industry Critics

DemocracyNow!
December 29, 2009

The progressive community is split over the $871 billion healthcare reform bill that passed the Senate last week. Some have lambasted the Senate for removing language that would have created a government-run health insurance program to compete with private insurers. Others believe the Senate bill is the biggest expansion of federal healthcare guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid over four decades ago and should be supported as a first step toward reform. We host a debate...

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Sunday, November 29, 2009

By Joshua Frank
Online Journal Contributing Writer
November 27, 2009

...At every stage in its life cycle, coal can negatively impact human health, from mining operations, cleaning, transportation to burning and disposing of the combustion waste. PSR reports that many Americans are being affected daily by coal and the exposure is contributing to horrible health problems; heart attacks, lung cancer, strokes, asthma among others...

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Monday, November 23, 2009

Rejecting the Narrative for Health Reform in America, Believing in a Better Way

By Kevin Gosztola
OpEd News
November 23, 2009

To the extent that politicians in Washington, D.C. have not attempted reform of this magnitude with a concerted effort for a decade (perhaps, decades depending on how you regard Hillary Clinton's past efforts), the recent votes on health reform in the House two weeks ago and in the Senate this weekend are historic. But, they are no more than contrived milestones in history if you truly assess what the Democrats and their supporters hope this bill will achieve...

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By 60-39 Vote, Senate Agrees to Open Debate on Healthcare Bill

DemocracyNow
November 23, 2009

Health care reform cleared its first hurdle in the Senate this weekend. In a party line vote of 60-39, the Senate voted Saturday evening to open debate on the bill put forward by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. All 58 Democrats and both Independents voted in favor of the motion while 39 out of 40 Republicans voted against it. At a news conference immediately following the vote, Reid said “The road ahead is a long stretch but we can see the finish line.” We speak to Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post about the vote and the House Finance Committee’s vote to audit the Federal Reserve...

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Sunday, October 25, 2009

Medicine's new best practice

Marco Visscher | September/October 2009 issue
Ode Magazine

Anita Palepu was an associate editor at the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2006 when the publisher fired two editors in a conflict over editorial independence. Angry at what she felt was a move to allow advertisers to dictate what appeared in the journal, Palepu and some other colleagues resigned. But she says cheerfully, "Instead of being outraged, I'm doing something about it." Within a year, Palepu became co-founder and co-editor of Open Medicine, a free, independent online quarterly that offers peer-reviewed science and analysis. In the first issue, the editors stated that "medical knowledge should be public and free from undeclared influence."...

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Friday, October 2, 2009

Mother Speaks Out on Insurance Giant CIGNA’s Denial of Healthcare to Cancer-Stricken Twin Daughters

DemocracyNow!
October 1, 2009

Stacie Ritter’s twin daughters were diagnosed with cancer at the age of four. Their insurance provider, CIGNA, denied them coverage even though they had been covered by the family’s former insurer. The incident marked just the latest chapter in the family’s ongoing troubles with the health insurance industry. A few years ago, the Ritters filed for bankruptcy due to their high medical expenses—even though they had health insurance at the time. Stacie Ritter joins us to tell her story...

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Friday, September 18, 2009

As Baucus Unveils Health Plan Absent of Public Option, New Study Finds 45,000 Uninsured Die Every Year

DemocracyNow!
September 18, 2009

Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year–that’s 122 deaths a day–due to lack of health insurance. That’s the startling finding of a new study that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health...

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Friday, September 11, 2009

Chemicals and Our Health

OpEd Columnist
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
July 15, 2009
The New York Times

...If terrorists were putting phthalates in our drinking water, we would be galvanized to defend ourselves and to spend billions of dollars to ensure our safety. But the risks are just as serious if we’re poisoning ourselves, and it’s time for the Obama administration and Congress to show leadership in this area.

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Obama Urges Lawmakers to Pass Healthcare Bill, But What Will Reform Really Look like?

DemocracyNow!
September 10, 2009

President Obama intensified his push for healthcare reform Wednesday with a nationally televised address before a joint session of Congress. Obama urged lawmakers to overcome partisan differences and pass long-awaited changes to the nation’s healthcare system. But what would reform actually look like? We speak with Dr. Quentin Young, a longtime friend of Obama and the national coordinator for Physicians for a National Health Program, as well as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition...

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“A Robust Public Option Is Essential”–Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Grijalva Draws a Line in the Sand on Healthcare Reform

DemocracyNow!
September 10, 2009

In a nationally televised address, President Obama called on Congress last night to take quick action and pass an overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system. Obama defended proposals for a government-run public health insurance plan as part of healthcare reform but suggested that he would accept a bill that did not include a public option. We speak with Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “We’re going to fight for it down to the very last day,” Rep. Grijalva says of the public option. “It has got to be part of [the bill]. If it’s not, we are just showering money upon money on the same system and the same industry that got us into the mess that we’re in right now.”

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Wednesday, September 9, 2009

“California’s Real Death Panels”–Data Reveals California’s Private Insurers Deny 21% of Claims

Democracy Now!
September 9, 2009

President Obama begins his final drive for healthcare reform tonight with a nationally televised prime-time address to a joint session of Congress. His speech comes after an explosive August recess consumed by raucous town halls and talk of government-run “death panels.” We take a look at California’s “real death panels.” That’s what the nation’s largest nurses group is calling private insurers, as new data reveals they denied one of every five claims over the past seven years. We speak with Charles Idelson of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee...

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Widespread Alcohol Abuse Clouds Mongolia's Future

by Louisa Lim
National Public Radio
September 9, 2009

At midnight in Mongolia's capital, Ulan Bator, 14 people are in the "sobering-up" cells at a district police station on a recent evening.

This and police stations like it are on the frontline of Mongolia's battle against alcohol abuse. People are brought to the cells to prevent them from freezing to death in the winter, and from doing harm to others.

A report by the U.N.'s World Health Organization notes that alcohol abuse could be Mongolia's biggest stumbling block to economic and social progress. A 2006 survey carried out by Mongolia's Ministry of Health and WHO found that 22 percent of Mongolian men and 5 percent of women are dependent on alcohol, rates three times higher than in Europe...

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Friday, September 4, 2009

Distorting the Voice of the People

Sep 3, 2009
By E.J. Dionne
Truthdig

Health care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?

There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television’s point of view “boring”) encounters between elected representatives and their constituents...

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Friday, August 28, 2009

Conservative media's culture of "death" poisons health care debate

Media Matters
August 28, 2009

Radio host Laura Ingraham, guest-hosting Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and conservative columnist Andrea Tantaros asserted that the Democrats are "playing the death card," using Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death to promote health care reform in his name. Ingraham and Tantaros' comments are the latest in a long line of attempts by conservatives to attack Democrats and progressives by attaching the word "death" to progressive initiatives, most recently in the debate over health care reform...

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

What We Leave Behind

By Frida Berrigan
In These Times

From Kosovo to Lebanon, cluster bomb casualties continue to mount...

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Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America

SourceWatch

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, also known as PhRMA, is one of the largest and most influencial lobbying organizations in Washington. Representing 48 pharmaceutical companies, PhRMA has 20 registered lobbyists on staff and has contracted with dozens of lobby and PR firms -- including Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, DCI Group, The Dutko Group [1], Edelman and Bonner & Associates -- to promote its members' interests. PhRMA has a record of hiding its lobbying and PR activities, often by paying other organizations, such as United Seniors Association (USA) or the Consumer Alliance, to advocate industry-friendly policies...

Top 10 Enemies of Single Payer

By Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action–
Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is - a cesspool of corruption.
Two reasonable reactions to the cesspool.
One, run away screaming in fear.
Two, stay and fight back and bring to justice those who have corrupted our democracy.
Unfortunately, many choose a third way - stay and be transformed.
Instead of seeing a cesspool, they begin seeing a hot tub.
The result - profits and wealth for the corporate elite - death, disease and destruction for the American people.
Nowhere does this corrupt, calculating transformation do more damage than in the area of health care.
Outside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the majority of doctors, nurses, small businesses, health economists, and the majority of the American people - according to recent polls - want a Canadian-style, single payer, everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital, national health insurance system.
Inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the corrupt elite will have none of it.
They won’t even put single payer on the table for discussion.
Why not?
Because it will bring a harsh justice - the death penalty - to their buddies in the multi-billion dollar private health insurance industry.
The will of the American people is being held up by a handful of organizations and individuals who profit off the suffering of the masses.
And the will of the American people will not be done until this criminal elite is confronted and defeated.
(Remember, virtually the entire industrialized world - save for us, the U.S. - makes it a crime to allow for-profit health insurance corporations to make money selling basic health insurance.)
Before we confront and defeat the inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub crowd, we must first know who they are.
To wit, we present the Top Ten Enemies of Single Payer (listed here in alphabetical order):

American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). AARP, one of DC’s most powerful lobbying groups, has worked inside the beltway for years to defeat single payer. Why? AARP makes about a quarter of its money selling insurance through its affiliate, United Healthcare Group, the nation’s largest for-profit insurance company. AARP must defeat single payer - which if enacted, would wipe out that revenue stream.

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). The private health insurance industry. Public enemy number one. The health insurance corporations must die so that the American people can live. Of course, facing the death penalty, AHIP is the most aggressive opponent to single payer. No compromise with AHIP.

American Medical Association. With a shrinking base of doctors (only 25 percent of doctors nationwide belong) - the AMA is the most conservative of the doctors’ organizations. I just returned from a health care policy forum at the Center for American Progress. As usual, not one of the panelists mentioned single payer. Only during the question period did a self-identified patient/citizen ask the single payer question. And a pit bull-like Nancy Nielsen, president of the AMA, ripped into the questioner. “Sounds more like a statement than a question,” Nielsen said. “And clearly you have a point of view about that. And I don’t happen to share that point of view.” Clearly she doesn’t. But just as clearly, the majority of doctors, probably even a majority of doctors who belong to the AMA, support single payer. Nielsen is in denial and must be defeated.

Barack Obama. He was for it when he was a state Senator in Illinois. Now, ensconced in the corporate prison that is the White House, he says single payer is off the table. To get off the list, Obama needs to put single payer back on the table.

Business Roundtable. Dr. David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), was at a health care forum a couple of years ago sponsored by the Business Roundtable. And the moderator asked the audience - made up primarily of representatives of big business - to indicate their preference of health care reforms. And the majority came out in favor of single payer. Why then is the Business Roundtable opposed? Himmelstein put it this way: “In private, they support single payer, but they’re also thinking - if you can take away someone else’s business - the insurance companies’ business - you can take away mine. Also, if workers go on strike, I want them to lose their health insurance. And it’s also a cultural thing - we don’t do that kind of thing in this country.”

Families USA. A major inside the beltway liberal foundation and long-time foe of single payer. It’s chief executive, Ron Pollack, was once an advocate for single payer. But no more. In November 1991, Pollack was at a Washington hotel debating Yale University professor Ted Marmor in front of then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Marmor was making the argument for single payer. Pollack against. A November 1994 article in the Washington Monthly, co-authored by Marmor, reported the result this way: “After the two advocates finished, Clinton looked thoughtful, pointed to Marmor and said, ‘Ted, you win the argument.’ But gesturing to Pollack, Marmor recalls, the governor quickly added, ‘But we’re going to do what he says.’ Even considering the Canadian system, everyone in the room agreed, would prompt GOP cries of ‘socialized medicine’ - cries that the press would faithfully report.”

Health Care for America Now. The largest coalition of liberal groups promoting a choice between a public plan and private insurance companies. “They are saying - we can’t do single payer because Americans don’t want it,” said Kip Sullivan of the Minnesota chapter of PNHP. “That’s based on junk research conducted by Celinda Lake for the Herndon Alliance. It is bad enough to say we can’t do single payer because the insurance industry is too powerful to beat. But it is just plain insidious to say we can’t do single payer because the American people don’t want it. In fact, polling data indicates that two-thirds of Americans support a single payer system. And that level of support exists despite the fact that there is little public discussion about it.”

Kaiser Family Foundation. One of the most prestigious liberal inside the beltway think tanks on health reform policy. Saul Friedman is a reporter for Newsday. In February, Friedman wrote an article for Newsday arguing that single payer is suffering from a conspiracy of silence. And he says Kaiser is the most culpable of the co-conpsirators. Kaiser, funded initially by insurance industry money, regularly keeps single payer off the table, Friedman says. When single payer advocates released a study in January asserting that Congressman John Conyers’ single payer bill (HR 676) could create 2.6 million new jobs and would cost far less than the private insurance currently paid for by individuals and employers, “the Kaiser Family Foundation’s daily online report on health care developments at kff.org didn’t mention it,” Friedman reported. “Nor has Kaiser, the most comprehensive online source of health care information, made any mention of single-payer or the Conyers bill since it was introduced in 2003, despite widespread support for such a plan according to Kaiser’s own polls.” After a number of insistent inquiries, Kaiser told Friedman that they would publish charts in March comparing the Stark and Conyers bills. They never did.

The Lewin Group. The go-to consulting firm for health reform studies. The most recent study, released last week and widely quoted in the press, of the public plan option, showed that the insurance industry would lose 32 million policy holders if a public plan is enacted. Lewin’s health reform policy guru, John Sheils, told the Associated Press: “The private insurance industry might just fizzle out altogether.” What the mainstream press didn’t report was that The Lewin Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ingenix, which is in turn owned by UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurance corporation. Lewin Group has conducted studies on single payer at the state level - and their studies consistently show that single payer is the most efficient cost saving system. But Lewin Group has never done a study on HR 676 - which would create a single payer for the entire country and drive The Lewin Group’s parent - UnitedHealth Group- out of business. When asked why Lewin Group never has done a study on HR 676, Sheils said - “the President didn’t propose single payer, did he?” No, he didn’t. That’s why he too is on this list. (Sheils says The Lewin Group has studied national single payer. He points to a recent comparison of the different health reform proposals floating on Capitol Hill - including one by Congressman Pete Stark (D-California). Stark’s bill would give every American the option of opting into Medicare. But that’s not single payer, because it keeps the private insurance industry in the game. Sheils counters that he modeled the Stark bill as single-payer. “The employer coverage option under the Stark bill is made so unfavorable that no employer would do it. We have everyone in Medicare, with the resulting savings.” Sheils says that of all the plans studied, the Stark bill saves the most money.)

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America (PHRMA). PHRMA chief executive Billy Tauzin says that under single payer, the government would become a “price fixer.” By which he means, the government, as a single payer, will have the power to negotiate drug prices downward, thus costing the drug corporations millions in excess profits. In recent years, PHRMA has infiltrated liberal sounding groups like America’s Agenda - Health Care for All. PHRMA’s Vice President for Government Affairs and Law, Jan Faiks, now sits on the board of America’s Agenda and PHRMA contributes money to the group - which has worked in recent years to undermine single payer at the state level. (America’s Agenda Mark Blum won’t say how much money PHRMA gives to his group.)

We have met the enemy.

And they ain’t us.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. He is also founder of singlepayeraction.org.

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