Due to a recent problem with the Arizona Daily Star, I have taken an interest in opinion page policy analysis. Since I also subscribe to The Arizona Republic, I compared the two papers.
The first major difference between them is the amount of information about an author that the Star requires.
Star
Name
Address
Daytime phone
Occupation
Political affiliation
Issue affiliation
Candidate affiliation Campaign affiliation
150 word length
Republic
Name
Address
Phone
200 word length
The second major difference is that in the Star, submissions become the property of the Star. The Republic publishes the work in several formats and makes no claim of ownership. If an author’s work is printed in the Star, then that author has ‘sold’ it for nothing. Does this mean the author can no longer sell the piece?
The third major difference is that in the Star, submissions may be “edited for clarity and length” while the Republic makes no mention of that possibility. Who is doing this at the Star?
Having always admired the Arizona Republic as the better paper, I believe that the Star opinion page guidelines set the stage for ongoing opinion page bias on the part of the Star.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
Health Insurance or Health Care?
The discussion is still about insurance, not health care. Is it the government’s purvey to provide health insurance or provide that government care for the infirm and ill? Traditionally, government did provide for the poor out of humanitarian reasons or out of the need to prevent revolution from the ground up. The funds came from the king and the wealthy. Religious institutions also provided assistance to the poor out of a necessity to prove they practiced what they preached but probably out of a natural human need to care for others.
I am heartened by the Republicans finally coming up with some ideas to reform health care delivery systems. I am disappointed in the Democrats for embracing mandatory insurance as the way to provide better health care for our citizens.
Requiring business to buy health insurance for employees keeps the price jacked up and the whole scheme going. The idea of mandatory insurance for all citizens will also jack the price up. Government price controls are resisted as the public option, which would limit what could be paid for a given medical service, forcing health care providers to rein in costs or services to patients or forcing them to take a pay cut. The debt overload is staggering uphill, so it is suggested commercial debt relief to medical care providers. Exorbitant commercial prices during the boom left medical businesses swamped in building debt in the form of high rents or payments.
These bills our fearless leaders are coming up with contain the idea of mandatory insurance. Our elected leaders deem it necessary to force the people to pay for insurance instead of health care. They also think that insurance companies are better at handling our money than we are.
If this mandatory insurance idea is foisted upon us, I suggest the following be implemented along with mandatory insurance payments:
All health care providers must accept all insurance. No hoity toity, no exclusive treatment salons that do not take Medicare, no ‘private’ clinics that take ‘exclusive’ insurance. If a rich person hires a private doctor for cash payments, that is private enterprise.
All health care providers must accept all insurance because all citizens are required by law to buy insurance. We lose our right to choose, health care providers lose the right to choose who they treat. This means all hospitals, doctors, clinics etc. who accept any insurance have to accept all insurance.
Price fixing between health care providers and insurance companies should be a thing of the past in that prices for procedures will be dictated by the government that requires us to buy insurance. We should not be charged more than what the insurance pays, since so many people with insurance are bankrupted by health care costs. When insurance is mandated, the health care people will earn less since price controls will be instituted.
For the health insurance people, you cannot demand we buy what you are selling without us having some ideas how we want our money managed. Insurance companies must accept controls on pay, number of employees, standards for judging claims, premium price controls and intense oversight. No more golf holidays, spa visits and celebrations of plenty while using premium money to party and gamble.
The domino effect is present here. The strongarm tactic of forcing people to buy insurance creates other hassles. Some of our legislators evidently believe it is easy to force people to buy insurance but in the interests of fairness, the insurance industry and the health care industry will also lose volition. Sure, the insurance companies will have millions more bank accounts to tap into but is it worth the change in our socio-economic structure?
Not one to criticize without offering a solution, here are a few ideas:
The mandatory insurance idea is not free market. Insurance should only be an option, not the only way to achieve affordable health care. Capitalism allows for a variety of approaches, never mandating that one way is the only way. Affordable health care is the real goal, not propping up exorbitant salaries in the insurance and health care arena. As I wrote before, why not use stimulus money to establish low cost clinics in the neighborhoods and to fund nurses in the public schools? Remember, providing health care is the goal.
I am heartened by the Republicans finally coming up with some ideas to reform health care delivery systems. I am disappointed in the Democrats for embracing mandatory insurance as the way to provide better health care for our citizens.
Requiring business to buy health insurance for employees keeps the price jacked up and the whole scheme going. The idea of mandatory insurance for all citizens will also jack the price up. Government price controls are resisted as the public option, which would limit what could be paid for a given medical service, forcing health care providers to rein in costs or services to patients or forcing them to take a pay cut. The debt overload is staggering uphill, so it is suggested commercial debt relief to medical care providers. Exorbitant commercial prices during the boom left medical businesses swamped in building debt in the form of high rents or payments.
These bills our fearless leaders are coming up with contain the idea of mandatory insurance. Our elected leaders deem it necessary to force the people to pay for insurance instead of health care. They also think that insurance companies are better at handling our money than we are.
If this mandatory insurance idea is foisted upon us, I suggest the following be implemented along with mandatory insurance payments:
All health care providers must accept all insurance. No hoity toity, no exclusive treatment salons that do not take Medicare, no ‘private’ clinics that take ‘exclusive’ insurance. If a rich person hires a private doctor for cash payments, that is private enterprise.
All health care providers must accept all insurance because all citizens are required by law to buy insurance. We lose our right to choose, health care providers lose the right to choose who they treat. This means all hospitals, doctors, clinics etc. who accept any insurance have to accept all insurance.
Price fixing between health care providers and insurance companies should be a thing of the past in that prices for procedures will be dictated by the government that requires us to buy insurance. We should not be charged more than what the insurance pays, since so many people with insurance are bankrupted by health care costs. When insurance is mandated, the health care people will earn less since price controls will be instituted.
For the health insurance people, you cannot demand we buy what you are selling without us having some ideas how we want our money managed. Insurance companies must accept controls on pay, number of employees, standards for judging claims, premium price controls and intense oversight. No more golf holidays, spa visits and celebrations of plenty while using premium money to party and gamble.
The domino effect is present here. The strongarm tactic of forcing people to buy insurance creates other hassles. Some of our legislators evidently believe it is easy to force people to buy insurance but in the interests of fairness, the insurance industry and the health care industry will also lose volition. Sure, the insurance companies will have millions more bank accounts to tap into but is it worth the change in our socio-economic structure?
Not one to criticize without offering a solution, here are a few ideas:
The mandatory insurance idea is not free market. Insurance should only be an option, not the only way to achieve affordable health care. Capitalism allows for a variety of approaches, never mandating that one way is the only way. Affordable health care is the real goal, not propping up exorbitant salaries in the insurance and health care arena. As I wrote before, why not use stimulus money to establish low cost clinics in the neighborhoods and to fund nurses in the public schools? Remember, providing health care is the goal.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wajiristan Earthquake
Wajiristan earthquake
Portent of future displeasure
2012 AD/BC observable
Synchronous cycles days coincide
Endings and beginnings
Some try to protect a way of life
From change an impossible task
Cannot freeze time
We have no volition in that
Then come the choices
If your heritage is omitted
All are not known
But all are respected
As a choice
Those contributed and succeeded in survival
Tasmanian, Austrailian, Basque, Celt, Jew, Armenian, Pygmies, Persian,
Saami, Tamil, Olmec, Han, Mongols, Shinto, Sikkhs, Hindi, Egypt, Maya, Nazcan, Greece, Buddha, Rome, Teotihuacan
Christ and Mohammed
May we all celebrate and respect heritage
Let no man slay
For the reason of difference
Shame for humans to kill humans
When the relentless environment
Could not as their descendents live today.
As time and environment is in flux
So must be these systems
Time is frozen in memory only
Our lives are not so isolated
As when these belief systems began
Blame time if you are disappointed
Blame not the innocent
Blame the mists of time when chadars
Protected desert women from sun and disease
And males walked with women for safety
Relativism versus moral certainty
Basic right and wrong are known to all
Just excusing those different from the definition
To some all means only those resembling themselves
Is a severely rigid viewpoint
Competition for resources
Disguised as religious persecution
Ethnic hatred and competitive fear
This must be resolved
With land and resources already scarce.
Dorothy Prater Niemi 2009
Portent of future displeasure
2012 AD/BC observable
Synchronous cycles days coincide
Endings and beginnings
Some try to protect a way of life
From change an impossible task
Cannot freeze time
We have no volition in that
Then come the choices
If your heritage is omitted
All are not known
But all are respected
As a choice
Those contributed and succeeded in survival
Tasmanian, Austrailian, Basque, Celt, Jew, Armenian, Pygmies, Persian,
Saami, Tamil, Olmec, Han, Mongols, Shinto, Sikkhs, Hindi, Egypt, Maya, Nazcan, Greece, Buddha, Rome, Teotihuacan
Christ and Mohammed
May we all celebrate and respect heritage
Let no man slay
For the reason of difference
Shame for humans to kill humans
When the relentless environment
Could not as their descendents live today.
As time and environment is in flux
So must be these systems
Time is frozen in memory only
Our lives are not so isolated
As when these belief systems began
Blame time if you are disappointed
Blame not the innocent
Blame the mists of time when chadars
Protected desert women from sun and disease
And males walked with women for safety
Relativism versus moral certainty
Basic right and wrong are known to all
Just excusing those different from the definition
To some all means only those resembling themselves
Is a severely rigid viewpoint
Competition for resources
Disguised as religious persecution
Ethnic hatred and competitive fear
This must be resolved
With land and resources already scarce.
Dorothy Prater Niemi 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Tucson City Council Race
Are the hotel/motel receipts in town down? Should the city of Tucson be borrowing $15,000,000 to tear down the front of the convention center and rebuild it, all before the February opening of the gem show? As Ms. Trasoff indicates, this would provide few jobs. The jobs created would be short term, but the debt she embraces is for the long term, with the rest of us paying for those few quick jobs. Taxpayers will pay for years and years, plus high interest rates siphoned off to the moneylenders. Ms. Trasoff would have us pay and pay while she moves on.
And what about hotel receipts in town? Should the city be funding anything that competes with already struggling businesses? Should the city be going into debt to compete with local businesses?
This is a cynical attempt to gain momentary control over $15,000,000. The construction lobby would have secured one more short term job that will be paid for by the rest of us for a long time. All this without any discernable benefit to the public and the possibility that the convention center will be torn up just in time for the gem show. . Get a restraining order against any destruction of the convention center.
VOTERS! Please vote these people out.
And what about hotel receipts in town? Should the city be funding anything that competes with already struggling businesses? Should the city be going into debt to compete with local businesses?
This is a cynical attempt to gain momentary control over $15,000,000. The construction lobby would have secured one more short term job that will be paid for by the rest of us for a long time. All this without any discernable benefit to the public and the possibility that the convention center will be torn up just in time for the gem show. . Get a restraining order against any destruction of the convention center.
VOTERS! Please vote these people out.
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