We waste $1.3 Trillion/yr on inefficient healthcare! The U.S. government, both major political parties, and our corporate news media won't discuss why per capita US health care spending is DOUBLE that of advanced countries in Europe and Asia (2009) getting better results! (Ref.
2007,
selected 2007 with avg. doctor visits showing we're least cared for for the money, and
2003 and 1998.)
US over-spending is systemic, caused by lack of price controls and excessive complexity from 50 states acting like nations; each having different insurance companies, coverage and records & procedures. Each state is thereby an inefficient environment inviting/requiring bribes/kick-backs & price fixing.
This EXTRA PRICE GOUGING OF $4,000/PERSON/YR is trending ever higher, making US-made products higher priced which invites off-shoring jobs. Lastly, and importantly, health workers' pay is NOT a significant cause of the problem.
At 8% efficiency the entire world could obtain all the electricity it needs from solar cells covering land equivalent to the size of Colorado (~ 100,000 square miles). Some of the most recent, and experimental, PV cells have surpassed 40% efficiency.
Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States? Or an M.R.I. scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada?
Q. What ingredients used in Twinkies most surprised you?
A. Vitamins. I found they were...made from petroleum and fermented in enormous industrial plants mostly in China. To find out that a lot of my vitamins, and in particular the B vitamins in enriched flour...were made from Chinese petroleum just blew my mind.
The US Medicare program — unlike health plans in other countries — is not permitted to factor in the price of medical services, only the health benefit to the patient. But ever-increasing costs now prompt some US doctors to ask if a patient can be too old for lifesaving but expensive procedures.
"We need to stop thinking of medicine as an all-out war against death, because death always wins," said Callahan.
On December 22, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly posted a notice in the Federal Register that it was effectively reneging on its plan to reduce the use of antibiotics in agricultural animal feed
How Pfizer cut a deal to extend Lipitor bloated profits beyond availablity of (much delayed) generic (atorvastatin) alternative.
[If deaths are truly wanted there are kinder ways of doing it]
[Further proof of mafia-capitalism? Or is this due to inefficient, expensive local permitting?] [As with health care,] US residential solar installations are more than double the cost in Germany.
Genetically modified foods been proven not only to be a threat to nature, but extremely harmful to humans. In India, Monsanto has ruined the lives of so many farmers that the prevalence of their suicide has led to a large farming area to be titled the ‘suicide belt of India’.
Flawed database doesn’t capture all hazardous chemical releases by CORBIN HIAR in i watch | 12.01.10 Across Africa, leaders are starting to recognise that birth control saves lives. But the US still treats it as a political football
The World Health Organization (WHO) report states that amalgam "has been associated with general health concerns" and releases a "significant amount of mercury" into the environment.
OECD Indicators
Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA: Graphics (Part 2) (Part 1 is here)
Videos of Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
SOURCE: Public Broadcasting System & ABC News | Ref.
Health Care Reform Reality Check
SOURCE: The White House | Ref.
Health Care Reform: An Online Guide
SOURCE: Slate Mag. | Ref.
OECD Health Data [Updated 11.08.07]
SOURCE: OECD | Ref.
International Healthcare Systems Primer
SOURCE: The American Medical Student Association | Ref.
Global Warming LinksSOURCE: Readers | Ref.
Both are legally prohibited but speciously justified by the White House. The difference? Obama's policy kills innocent bystanders
This afternoon (January 9th), the Supreme Court heard arguments in a Texas redistricting case that could have major implications for minority voters -- as well as determine which party is likely to control Congress after the 2012 elections.
How will what universities teach be different? Here are some guesses and hopes.
LIKE HEALTH CARE, HAVE FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS "GONE ENRON"? Unless we act now, the current $1 trillion student debt bubble is going to look small in 18 years—and the only ones able to go to college will be the children of the 1%.
Newt Gingrich's statement that the Palestinians were an "invented people" marked about the lowest point in the Republican-Christian Right-Likudist/Israel relationship.
The powers that be don't really want small class sizes and good facilities for all students; if they did, we would have them.
| Arts & Education Events: |  |
empty...
Letters to the Editor
by Readers | Ongoing
Open Letters:
Sugar cane has vanished as a Hawaiian crop; Dole owns the only remaining pineapple plantation. More profitable coffee is grown instead.
|
A lower unemployment rate isn't enough. Americans need work that pays the bills. We need to face up to the reality that the free-market economic principles that have been promoted for decades are an abject failure, at least if you measure success by whether people who work hard can support their families and make ends meet. [Related: The Shift from Manufacturing to Service Economy - Graphic]
|
Apple demands that its suppliers come into compliance or risk losing their contracts with the company. A Chinese environmental group released its own study claiming that Apple’s suppliers often discharge pollutants and hazardous chemical into surrounding communities, threatening public health.
[Why are so-called advanced countries so detached from what is happening?] Hon Hai is the parent company of manufacturing giant Foxconn, which assembles the iPhone and iPad for Apple as well as products for Sony and Nokia.
Spain is home to a third of the euro region’s unemployed, according to the European Union’s statistics office, which estimates that half of young Spaniards are out of work.
The investigators will consider a variety of cases, including false statements, mail and wire fraud, and failure to comply with the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, established in the wake of the savings and loan crisis. This law empowers investigators to examine wrongdoings going back a decade.
Iran is ready to revive talks with the U.S. and other world powers, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday, but suggested that Tehran's foes will have to make compromises to prevent negotiations from again collapsing in stalemate.
A U.S. Marine's guilty plea to dereliction of duty closes the books on the slayings of 24 Iraqis. But it also underscores what Iraqis see as American impunity. In the United States, the brutal saga of Haditha — among the dead were seven children, including a toddler, three women, and a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair — may have concluded Monday with Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich's guilty plea to negligent dereliction of duty. A military judge said Tuesday that Wuterich will serve no time in the brig under the terms of his plea bargain.
The question that needs to be investigated is why robo-signing was being done. The alleged justification—that the bankers were so busy that they cut corners—hardly seems credible given the extent of the practice.
|
India joins pockets of Italy, Spain and Hawaii where rising fuel costs and lower panel prices make solar pay for itself without state subsidies.
by NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON in Bloomberg | 12.01.25 How Industry Money Reaches (bribes?) Physicians
The making of a post-post-partisan Presidency. Obama’s rhetoric about a nation of common purpose and values no longer fits this country: there really is a red America and a blue America.
Breathing outdoor air is dangerous! “We’re finding out that many more species are in harm’s way from mercury than we thought.” ...contaminated birds had trouble sitting on their eggs long enough for them to hatch. They seemed easily distracted, and the impact on the rates of reproduction was alarming.
|
Other animals play nice together, what about red and blue programmed humans in the U.S.?
Romney has refused to sign on to the Obama administration’s “Buffett rule,” which aims to ensure that millionaires can’t dodge taxes to the extent that they’re paying less than teachers.
The debates have actually been fun to watch. (OK, I admit to having a somewhat perverse sense of humor.)
by FRED CEDERHOLM in his blog | 12.01.24 Newt Gingrich won by about 12 points & the brief takeaways are...
In an unusually religion-soaked primary season, faith has been front and center for months. What's next? [ Wake up America!]
by ROB BOSTON in the AlterNet | 12.01.21 On the pretext of policing upcoming G8 and Nato summits, Chicago's mayor has awarded himself draconian new powers
Taliban-like thinking: Her state representative has called the student "evil" and she has been threatened with violence, rape and death. What gives?
by GRETA CHRISTINA in AlterNet | 12.01.19 Law Professor Jonathan Turley has an Op-Ed in which he identifies ten major, ongoing assaults on core civil liberties in the U.S. Many of these abuses were accelerated during the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, but all have been vigorously continued and/or expanded by President Obama.
by GLENN GREENWALD in Salon | 12.01.18 by DENNIS BERNSTEIN in AlterNet | 12.01.17 I know it is early in the winter season, and the snow is of the wrong consistency, but something is missing in the outside panoramas in 2012. Where are the snowmen? Have the current generation of kids lost sight of this winter ritual?
by FRED CEDERHOLM in his blog | 12.01.17 “Republicans are indeed in growing trouble as more voters begin to realize how much the party’s policies — dismantling regulations, slashing taxes for the rich, weakening unions — have contributed to inequality and the yawning distance between the middle class and the top end.”
RICHARD BRANSON on the Occupy Movement: “I think it’s an admirable movement, it’s a peaceful movement. The only thing that’s not been peaceful is the way the police in some states have dealt with it, which I think is absolutely wrong.”
Two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between the rich and the poor—an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009. Perceptions of class conflict have also grown more intense.
[The White House remains a Progressive- and Liberal-free zone]
[Ignoring poverty is crueler that lynching] James Cone: “Whites did lynchings on church grounds. How could they do it? That’s where [my] passion came from. That’s where the paradox came from. That’s where the wrestling came from.”
Europe can teach the U.S. a thing or two about social insurance -- and not just in health care, the most egregious failure of the American economic model.
Mitt Romney's opponents set to launch no-holds-barred attack ad campaign as race moves to South Carolina [Related from Bloomberg: Gingrich-Sponsored Attack Film Shows Romney as ‘Ruthless’ Rich]
Election 2012 is about the economy, deficits, our global big stick foreign policy. It is about our pensions and retirements and our savings and finances. It is about what sort of a world we shall leave to the next generation. Who is really commenting about those issues? Just who???
by FRED CEDERHOLM in his blog | 12.01.11 NBC Today Show interview on YouTube | 12.01.10 AMY GOODMAN interviews Virginia Tech survivor on Democracy Now! | 12.01.10 Bain Capital drove a Kansas City steel plant into bankruptcy, leading to some 750 layoffs and a federal bailout. Bain still walked away with millions of dollars in profits.
AMY GOODMAN interviews former steel worker on Democracy Now! | 12.01.10 The “crisis” is an artificial one, created by Congress itself. Claiming the Postal Service is bankrupt, critics are pushing legislation that would defuse the postal crisis by breaking the backs of the postal workers’ unions and mandating widespread layoffs.
How in the holy hayell is a man like Pat Buchanan still on MSNBC's payroll?
by DR. BOYCE WATKINS in eurweb | 12.01.09 Perhaps the nation's most politically unique congressman, Paul shares policy stances with conservatives, liberals, and libertarians, while differing markedly from all of them.
|
The statistics are sickening. The UN reports approximately 200 million girls in the world today are ‘missing’. India and China are said to eliminate more female infants than the number of girls born in the US each year.
Europeans fear US failing to appreciate 'game-changing' offer could prompt Afghan ceasefire 'as early as 2012'
Thoughtless US military bluster could result in economic disaster, making World War inevitable Could intemperate bullying and threats against Iran result in China deciding to strike first, not with nuclear weapons, but by selling its $1 trillion in Treasury bonds all at once and withdrawing all bank deposits in the West?
If China, Taiwan or the United States mishandles “the relationship” by attempting a diplomatic or even military shortcut, it could spell disaster for all parties.
Czech Foreign Minister Karl Fürst zu Schwarzenberg attacks European politicians for lacking vision.
by THOMAS FERRARO and JASMIN MELVIN in Reuters | 12.01.20 Interesting interactive graphic showing what nations are censoring the internet, what content they are restricting, and the methods they using.
Somerby is undoubtedly America's best mainstream media critic, holding both "conservatives" and "liberals" to account for unprofessional journalism.
In recognition of the dangers inherent in the consolidation of mainstream corporate media The Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel (formerly a newspaper) advances awareness of important suppressed news and opinion.
The kindness of your donation would be appreciated
Subscribe for only $2.00/mo. Set low on purpose—we know we're not your main news source.
You can also mail a check to:
Baltimore News Network, Inc.
P.O. Box 42581
Baltimore, MD 21284-2581
|
Germany with its manufacturing base and export prowess is the U.S. of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of its European neighbors. It has thrived on principles America seems to have lost.
The crisis of Western liberal capitalism has coincided with the rise of a powerful new form of state capitalism in emerging markets Unlike the old state capitalism practice of running industries with bureaucrats or cronies, new state capitalism runs companies with professional managers.
It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most...products [Related: spirited message board comments on Slashdot.]
Bill Moyers talks to President Reagan's former budget director and to Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times about the way Wall Street runs Washington.
Another Congress long ago bumped up the retirement age. If Society Security needs more sacrifice, plain fairness says the revenue should come from the top.
After our demographic profile of the 1 percent appeared on Sunday, there were a lot of questions from readers about the top 1 percent by wealth, rather than the measure we used, the top 1 percent by income.
An electronic database called MERS has created defects in the chain of title to over half the homes in America. Counties have been cheated out of millions of dollars in recording fees, and their title records are in hopeless disarray. Meanwhile, foreclosed and abandoned homes are blighting neighborhoods. Straightening out the records and restoring the homes to occupancy is clearly in the public interest, and the burden is on local government to do it. But how? New legal developments are presenting some innovative alternatives.
Drug and Immigration policies drive profits Up for Private Prisons
The resulting burden from the War On Drugs on the public sector led for-profit private companies to reemerge during the 1970s to operate halfway houses. They extended their reach in the 1980s by contracting with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to detain undocumented immigrants. These forms of privatization “on the ‘soft’ end of the correctional continuum” were followed by the reappearance of for-profit prison privatization.
[Look what's possible where monopolies are weaker] Also: Iliad declares war in French mobile market
[Vulture capitalism] was to buy a company or business mostly with debt and then charge that company a ''transaction fee''. At the end of the first year, a ''special dividend'' would be paid to the private equity firm and when the business was sold, it would pay yet another ''transaction fee''.
Have a read of this speech from Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, titled Creating and Implementing an Enforcement Response to the Foreclosure Crisis.
“More fundamentally, a failure by regulators to enforce the laws and regulations as strong antidotes to financial misconduct and unsafe and unsound practices by the institutions they regulate establishes de facto acquiescence to the dominant norms of the financial marketplace. At that point, our laws become the resting place for unfair practices and broad disrespect for the law generally.”
39 cents of every dollar you paid in 2011 taxes went to Pentagon spending for current and past wars. Meanwhile only 2 cents on the dollar went to diplomacy, development, and international cooperation.
After factoring in inflation, this cut amounts to about a 4% reduction from this year's spending level, but military contractors are pushing Congress for a new deal that would undo the planned cuts in Pentagon spending.
The United States has the fourth-highest inequality level in the OECD, after Chile, Mexico and Turkey. Inequality among working-age people has risen steadily since 1980 [Ronald Reagan], in total by 25%.
Statistics from OECD | 12.01.10 “Countdown” guest host David Shuster and Thomas Frank, author of “Pity the Billionaire” and columnist at Harper’s Magazine, discuss how Republican rhetoric has shifted since the 2008 election to the point where their message is that even more economic deregulation is needed to reach equilibrium.
The notion that economic pain is the only route to pleasure was once the preserve of the British public school-educated elite, now it's European economic policy
[If Corzine is Liberal like Martha Stewart he should go to prison—right?]
by BRYAN BURROUGH, WILLIAM D. COHAN & BETHANY MCLEAN in the February issue of Vanity Fair | 12.01.09 It is now generally accepted that when it’s economically irrational for a company to keep paying its debts it will try to renegotiate them or, failing that, default. For creditors, that’s just the price of business. But when it comes to another set of borrowers the norms are very different.
|
| |
