It starts out with a title line (unfortunately missing in the online version linked to above): "Skyrocketing health care costs prompt some employers to empower workers in an effort to cut the costs of... MEDICAL TREATMENT."
First, the costs that are skyrocketing in our medical industry -- more on why I use that term later -- are not health care costs! They're insurance and billing costs. Because of our Byzantine system of different bickering providers and insurers, the bureaucratic overhead and waste in the American medical industry is staggering. Every other wealthy nation has some form of universal coverage, and spends less per capita and has better public health statistics!
Calling that paper shuffling "health care" makes as much sense as calling the bureaucrats at the old Soviet Ministry of Planning "industrial production workers". It is, I repeat, a lie worthy of Pravda.
Clearly, the main point of the US medical industry is not to provide health care -- it's doing an embarrassingly poor job of that, considering how much money it sucks up. It's to provide profits. Ergo, I refuse to call it a "health care" industry just the same that I'd refuse to call a penitentiary full of political prisoners undergoing torture the "Ministry of Love".
And what's this empowering of workers? Read on:
With health costs bounding up by 15 percent a year, executives at NTP Distribution decided to take a chance on a new and largely untested health plan. Called Patient Choice Health Care, it puts consumers in charge of significant purchasing decisions. But in exchange, workers must pay more if they choose doctors and hospitals that rank as less efficient and more expensive.Seems as if "empowerment" means to be told to pay more for something and as if "consumer-driven" is when the consumers get manipulated by bureaucrats (oh, sorry, only government has bureaucrats, private industry, which by definition can never do wrong and never oppresses people, has "accountants" or "cost-containment experts") who see to it that they are punished for choosing the "wrong" doctor by having their copayments jacked sky-high."I'm a big proponent of giving my employees choices," said Vicki Miller, human resources manager at NTP, a Portland-based distributor of parts and accessories for recreational vehicles.
NTP typifies employers across the nation that increasingly are turning to workers to buffer the pain of rising health care costs. Most human-resource departments are simply shifting a bigger chunk of the costs to workers, but many are testing so-called "consumer-driven" health plans that attempt to make patients act more like thrifty shoppers.
That, friends, is roughly the equivalent of the Telescreen announcing that the chocolate ration had been increased to 20 grams per week after it had been cut to that amount.
The rest of the world already looks at the American medical industry in some sort of bewildered amusement at how any intelligent people could put up with such injustice and inefficiency. On times like last weekend when I read that article, it leaves me feeling like the only sane person in an asylum of lunatics.
I mean, anyone can whip out computer-generated images of anything one imagines someone else having; just purchase the correct computer-modeling software and hire a designer skilled in using it. And those buildings with the circles and squares around them look no different from the uncircled ones; who knows what's in any of them?
Maybe some of the more juicy bits have yet to make it into the media. (I've heard mention of intercepted phone calls.) But so far, there's nothing I'd call a smoking gun.
Update: Powell's full slide show is available here.
The allegation about mobile chemical and biological weapons labs apparently has so little substantive evidence that the State Department was compelled to produce computer modelings of what it thinks Iraq has. I'm so impressed. I think the lady living in No. 8 is growing pot in her hall closet. I'll fire up Photoshop and make an illustration of what I think her closet looks like, complete with plants and halide lamps.
The terrorist connection allegation was mostly laughable. I mean, come on, a link to the guys caught with ricin in London? That seems to be a transparently obvious case of grabbing at the first straw one finds (in this case a recent news item) in order to concoct a story. Not only is it convenient because it's a recent story and in the public mind, but because it's a recent case it hasn't been investigated very thoroughly yet so it's hard to definitively say that there is no Iraq connection.
Probably the best evidence are the satellite pictures. Unfortunately, they're just a bunch of buildings with vehicles parked outside; there's no way a satellite photograph can demonstrably prove or disprove the existence of a chemical or biological agent. Especially if it's inside a building or a covered truck.
And when all is said and done, it's important to keep in mind that the most important thing to our rulers is maintaining class rule. Oh yes, and remember Rule Number One about governments (be it ours, Iraq's, or anyone else's): governments lie.
Uh-huh. And our partners in Europe and most of the Middle East are just chomping at the bit for a war against Iraq. That's why France has threatened to veto any such thing that comes up at the Security Council.
And what's this about a "roadmap" for a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict and it being on hold because of the Israeli elections? Which seems to be newspeak for staying silent while Sharon instructed the IDF to bomb civilian Palestinian neighborhoods to demonstrate to his electorate how "tough" he is. I assume this means that if Arafat declares Palestine National Council elections, any campaign of suicide bombings is just okey-dokey and we'll stay silent as well. Right.
I'm in a bit of a hurry today (packing and all), so I don't have any URL's to insert, but judging from the news reports I've seen, Bush II's attempts to whip the rest of the world into war frenzy appear to be going over like a lead balloon.
Instead of the shopworn Nazi analogy that "Saddam is like Hitler and we must stop him now before the problem becomes worse later", perhaps a more apt analogy is "Bush II is like Hitler (came to power under questionable means, is contemplating unilateral offensive war against other nations, is repealing civil liberties at home) and should be overthrown before he destroys democracy in nation he leads". After all, it's not as of Saddam Hussein has tried to invade any other nations after he got so thoroughly ejected from Kuwait by the rest of the world.
Won't be adding any more entries for a while as I'm about to leave town for a week (ecosystem restoration conference in Corvallis, followed by the winter faerie gathering at Breitenbush Hot Springs).
There are people who appreciate a different urban experience than what's become the accepted image," such as preferring cozy old buildings to brash new ones, Gastil says. "There's a whole generation that can care less about the things that preoccupied people their parents' age. . . . Their 'past' is the 1960s. They want to work in a space-age environment.(Full article here.)
Oh, really? I guess that's why one of the first question most of my friends asked me when I bought a new home was what year it was built, and when I answered "1908" the reactions were typically along the lines of "oh, neat!"). Or why friends who live in postwar structures often answer the same question defensively and with a touch of embarrassment in their voices.
And from here comes the following quote:
Seventeen owners and employees of so-called "head shops" in Idaho and eastern Oregon were arrested and accused of offering to sell drug paraphernalia to undercover agents.Oh, great, so now federal cops and courts are getting into the game of deciding just what is and isn't "drug paraphernalia". Yet another accomplishment brought to you by The Party of State's Rights. Wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the next stage is to start filing criminal charges against pot smokers caught with non-criminal amounts of marijuana in those states that have decriminalized it. Or maybe they'll proclaim butane lighters in the "wrong" hands to be "drug paraphernalia".
Update: Another such romp by the jackbooted ones is detailed (from the horse's own mouth) here.
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