The wonderful "free market"

Following up on my article on the health care crisis, here is an interesting article from the L.A. Times on the incentives offered to insurance company analysts for cancelling policies.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized.

These cancellations have been the recent focus of intense scrutiny by lawmakers, state regulators and consumer advocates. Although these "rescissions" are only a small portion of the companies' overall business, they typically leave sick patients with crushing medical bills and no way to obtain needed treatment.

Veteran's Day 2007

"How I feel about the war today I can sum up in one question, the same question that can be asked for Vietnam. What have we gained as a country? What have we actually accomplished other than the loss of some damn fine people - people willing to give their life for the country we have - for this nation?"

James Blake Miller, Iraq War Veteran and "The Marlboro Marine," from a short video by L.A. Times photographer Luis Sinco.

Band of Brothers

My six year old grandson Sean (on the far right) and his friends. He loves running around, being silly, enacting scenes from Star Wars, learning to read, eating ice cream, singing, learning to play the piano, hitting a baseball, and checking the weather every morning on a computer his mother just put in his room. He especially loves being with his friends. And they love being with him. The little boy in the yellow sweatshirt who is an only child often asks Sean "What if we were brothers?" Whenever I see the name of another soldier or Marine who has died in Iraq, especially one who is only 18 or 19 or 20, I think of them as once being six, like Sean. I think of the times they must have played with friends the way Sean does. I think of them laughing and running and learning to play soccer. I think of them innocent and pure, carefree and joyous. And then I think of how we have failed them, and denied them a long life on this planet, all because we can't figure out how to live in peace with each other.

Another day, another toy recall

My granddaughter got a Curious George stuffed animal for her birthday yesterday. It was the only thing she asked for. Today we find out that there is a recall of some Curious George products made in China. This is getting insane.

Try to remember...

If you have forgotten how many scandals have erupted during the Bush administration, check out Hugh's list. The list is incredibly long, and curiously few of these scandals seem to have caused George Walker Bush much trouble. The media either ignores them, superficially covers them, or accepts the Bush administration excuses or rationalizations as adequate explanations for whatever has occurred.

Just for fun, then, imagine the kind of media attention these scandals would be getting if the president in whose administration they occurred was named William Jefferson Clinton.

Mortgage meltdown explained

The mortgage meltdown and shaky stockmarket are giving everyone the jitters. Not being an economist, I have struggled to understand just how this all happened and how the mysterious "hedge funds" factor into all of this. I'm going to have a lot to say about this in future posts, but for now I recommend these words from Warren Buffet to anyone who wants to understand better what causes these crises to happen.

A healthy nation

Part Five of my series on reforming the health care system now up at Outraged Citizen.

And Paul Krugman weighs in with another excellent article on health care.

Her future

Today is my granddaughter Madeline's second birthday. It is because of her, her sister Grace, and her brother Sean that I care so much about the future. It is what motivates me to get up at 5 a.m. to write every day.

I want a safe world for Maddie. I want clean skies and clear water and peace around the world. I want her to know that she can always see a doctor when she is sick, and that she doesn't have to worry about having enough to eat.

We owe Maddie and all the other two year olds in this country a decent place to grow up. We owe them leaders who care enough about them not to engage in foolish wars, or build up a huge national debt that they will have to pay for someday, and who are decent enough not to reward their cronies with the money that should go towards securing their future.

By the time Maddie reaches her third birthday, we will have elected a new president. The best present she could possibly receive would be the election of someone wise and humane, someone with the vision and the strength to restore the country that was taken away over six years ago.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDIE!

More dirty tricks

I just came back from Target where there was a young man gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to fund children's hospitals. At least, that's how he got my attention.

Since these paid signature gatherers do not usually have only one petition with them, and since I was suspicious that he was collecting signatures for the initiative to change the way California awards its electoral votes, I asked if that was his only petition. He said no, there was one on eminent domain, and one on the electoral college. I told him I would not sign his petitions and he made a snide remark, confirming what I knew: the children's hosptial petition and the eminent domain petition were not his main interests. He was going to use people's compassion for sick children and their fear the government might seize their property to get signatures for another Republican Party attempt to win an election they cannot win fairly and squarely.

These ploys (this one and the nonsense in the past two elections in Florida and Ohio) are signs of desperation. As the failed policies of the Republicans in power are exposed and people turn to new leadership in the Democratic Party, the Republican Party will resort to anything to stay in power. If it means rigging voting machines, they will do that. If it means scrubbing the voter rolls of legitimate voters whose names kinda sorta resemble the names of felons, they think it's a jolly good idea. If it means making African Americans - who mostly vote Democratic - stand in the rain for hours to vote, causing many of them to give up because they had to get to work, they'll do that too.

If the American people really want to keep a Republican in the White House for another four years, even though the dollar is dropping, gas prices are at an all time high, the stock market declined again today, the real estate crisis is causing tens of thousands to lose their homes and even more to lose their jobs, and we are on the verge of total meltdown in the Middle East with crises in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, then I will accept the will of the people as I believe in our system of government. But at least I want to know the vote was fair and that the parties respected the process. This latest ploy of the Republican Party isn't just dirty tricks, it's completely undemocratic.

Deadly imports

According to the Associated Press, the United States is not the only recipient of defective, dangerous toys from China. In Australia, several children were hospitalized after swallowing beads from a popular toy because they contained a chemical which, when ingested, is converted into gamma hydroxy butyrate, otherwise known as the "date rape" drug.

Parents really need to sit up and take notice of the dangers of importing so many Chinese-made toys. Perhaps parents and grandparents might consider a boycott to get the attention of toy companies. I know it's close to Christmas, and a boycott right now might be difficult, but let's face it - most of our children already have enough toys, and if we spent this Christmas searching for special types of presents that are not made in China, it might send an urgent message to those American companies (and now Australian companies) who import cheap Chinese toys.

In a related story, CNN reported a few days ago that there are problems with imports of prescription drugs from China. According to the network, up to fifty percent of all pharmaceutical ingredients are imported from China, with little to no inspection or regulation. According to the New York Times, "chemical associations in the United States and Europe cautioned that globalization has led to a rise in complexity in supply chains" for pharmaceutical ingredients, making both counterfeiting and contamination more common. In fact, two Chinese government exporters mislabeled a poison as a drug ingredient and were responsible for the deaths of 200 people in Haiti and Panama. Other companies use the internet to sell counterfeit medications to consumers in the United States and other countries.

In China, companies that sell drug ingredients fall into a regulatory gap and so are not subject to government inspection. The FDA, which should be protecting Americans from tainted and counterfeit medication is seriously under-funded and cannot possibly inspect all plants in China, nor check all imports coming to the United States. According to the Times, Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said "China alone has more than 700 firms making drug products for the U.S., yet the F.D.A. has resources to conduct only about 20 inspections a year in China."

Ah, the wonders of globalization. Not only are our children's toys coated with lead paint, a substantial amount of our medicine might be, at best, nothing more than placebo, and at worst, poison.

We could put a lot of people to work if we opened more toy factories and pharmaceutical manufacturing plants here in the United States. More importantly, we could better protect our health and the health of our children.

Sure, toys and medication might cost a little more. But what price does one put on the life or the health of a child?