Joe Sestak for PA Senate

Good news for Pennsylvania these days with the announcement by Congressman Joe Sestak that he intends to run for the Senate held by converted Republican Arlen Specter. Sestak represents the PA district in which I work. Fellow employees report he is just what a Congressman should be, attentive to his constituents, hard working, and in general representative of the best interests of the district. On the other hand Arlen Specter is one more politician out to keep his place in the Senate for his own reasons without real regard to the needs of the people of the state of Pennsylvania.

The time for change is here. Huzzah to Sestak. I hope he wins the race. We need more people like Sestak in the Senate if we are to find the future our nation deserves.

Peace.

The Opinions of Judge Sotomayor

With the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court the examination of her record is well underway. SCOTUS Blog has a summary today of some of the 150 opinions Judge Sotomayor has written in civil cases since her appointment to the apellate court.

To date, two of these decisions have been overturned by the Supreme Court; a third is under review and likely to be reversed. In those two cases (and likely the third), Sotomayor’s opinion was rejected by the Supreme Court’s more conservative majority and adopted by its more liberal dissenters (including Justice Souter). Those outcomes suggest that Sotomayor’s views would in many respects be similar to those of Justice Souter.

During her years on the Second Circuit, Sotomayor has decided cases involving race, sex, age and disability discrimination. In these cases, she has often - but not always - sided with the plaintiffs.

The legal eagles will examine these opinions carefully, but in the overall Sotomayer seems to be both well qualified both in terms of experience and legal thinking. Let us hope her confirmation comes soon.

Peace.

Staying in Iraq for a Decade Says Casey

Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, in an invitation only press conference said

we're going to have 10 Army and Marine units deployed for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These predictions are not in accord with what either Secretary of Defense Gates or President Obama have said in recent days.

Yet the dire state of affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan will require some sort of presence for years to come. The question remains if or not a military occupation is the best solution for either nation. Why can we not find better ways to use our resources? Both nations need economic and social reform not offered by military forces. Until and unless we as a nation begin to recognize the repeated failure of military occupations we will see no success in either nation.

Peace.

Healthcare Industry and Their CEO Salaries

A few days ago I wrote about the League of Women Voters observations on the increasing expenditures for healthcare in the U.S. over the past several years. Now comes news of the 2008 CEO compensation in the industry. Read and weep.

Ron Williams, Aetna Total compensation: $24,300,112

H. Edward Hanway, CIGNA Total Compensation: $12,236,740

Angela Braly, WellPoint Total Compensation: $9,844,212

Dale Wolf, Coventry Health Care Total Compensation: $9,047,469

More here.

With obscene numbers like these we can quit wondering where our dollars for healthcare are going.

Peace.

Proposition 8 Upheld by CA Supremes

By a vote of 6-1 the California Supreme court upheld Proposition 8 and its ban on same-sex marriages in the state.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the state high court ruled today that the November initiative was not an illegal constitutional revision, as gay rights lawyers contended, nor unconstitutional because it took away an inalienable right, as Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown argued.

At the same time the court ruled in a unanimous opinion that all same-sex marriages already performed in the state following a judge's previous ruling may stand and remain recognized.

Even with the court upholding Proposition 8, a key portion of the court's May 15, 2008, decision remains intact. Sexual orientation will continue to receive the strongest constitutional protection possible when California courts consider cases of alleged discrimination. The California Supreme Court is the only state high court in the nation to have elevated sexual orientation to the status of race and gender in weighing discrimination claims.

I wonder if Delaware will ever offer full and equal rights under the law to all people regardless of sexual orientation. Progress is being made across the nation, but many people remain opposed to the idea of allowing same-sex couples the same rights offered to different sex couples in terms of legal relationships. Unfairness and discrimination continue to rule in many parts of our national conscience these days.

Peace.

What Will Be the New Look of the Credit Card Industry?

Legislation signed into law in the last few days brings new restrictions to the credit card industry.

Under the measure, which would take effect in nine months, banks and card companies would be required to give 45 days’ notice before a change in interest rates. Companies would be prohibited from raising rates on existing balances unless a card holder fell 60 days behind on minimum payments. The bill makes it much harder to issue credit cards to students and prevents companies from charging a fee to those who exceed their credit limit unless the customer elects to pay the fee in exchange for being allowed to charge more.

With these new restrictions the industry may no longer be able to depend on the support of one end of the spectrum (credit card users carrying a balance month to month) for those users on the other end of the scale (people who pay off their balance every month). One industry insider summarizes

The legislation changes credit card economics fundamentally, making it less profitable. The issuers will try to restore some of the lost revenue by playing with their pricing, rewards, and servicing. A pricing structure built on a revenue model of 30% fees, 40% interest, and 30% interchange, will have to change when the revenue model is shifted overnight to 25% fees, 35% interest, and 40% interchange (these numbers are just theoretical examples).

What any one company will do to keep their earnings high depends on their circumstance, but change is in the wind. Another insider has more to offer.

Credit card industry works on a bar-bell business model. All the profits (mainly through fees and very very high interest stretching into 30% or more) are made form people below 650 FICO, all the assets (loans or balances) are from people from above 700 FICO. The industry is just a giant wealth transfer mechanism from poor people to wealthly people. The profits from below (subprime) serve to subsidize the interest rate and rewards cost of people in the ’super prime’ category. You can bet that that will disappear soon.

The end result for those of us paying the bill every month may be higher fees or less rewards for card use. The other option is changing from credit card to debit card usage. Only a few short weeks ago Visa made headlines with the news their debit card usage was higher than credit card usage for the first time.

What is to come is not yet obvious, but change will come. The current business model may not be sustained under the new laws. With nine months to prepare we can all get ready for the onslaught of letters with too much fine print and too little English explanations.

Peace.

Nuclear Power Unsafe at Any Speed

In spite of what our senior senator, Tom Carper, says about nuclear power, there is plenty of evidence to suppor the argument the wastes and the production facilities are not safe enough to guarantee our future. Carper argued

the U.S. needs a nuclear industry revival to replace aging fleets and to meet growing electricity demand. He called the problem of nuclear waste handling "the elephant in the room."

That elephant is more of a monster with radioactivity lasting hundreds of thousands of years in some instances while the technology for storage may be good for only a few decades.

The world faces an energy crisis, but nuclear power in today's technology world is not an acceptable alternative. We must continue to support research into fusion alternatives and to oppose the installation of current systems. Our future cannot afford the risks of today's nuclear power systems.

Peace.

Released Detainees Returning to Terrorism

According to a news article in the NY Times this morning about 1 in 7 detainees released from U.S. custody returned to terrorism or militant activity. The Pentagon prepared the report as long ago as January but withheld the release for fear of political repercussions.

Why is anyone surprised at this finding? Many detainees were held for good reason. Those men opposed the U.S. invasion and occupation of their sovereign nations for the same reasons any one of us in America might do the same. During their time of detention family members, friends, and community members may have been killed in ongoing military actions. No real resolution of the underlying social and economic problems in their native countries is on the horizon. What reason do any of these men have to turn to more peaceful ways?

We must find new solutions to every aspect of the current mess. There are not enough facilities around the world to imprison every person who harbors terrorist or militaristic ideas. A global solution must encompass social and economic changes to insure every human being on Earth has their basic needs met in terms of shelter and food. Every person around the globe deserves the same right to education and to healthcare as any other one. Until and unless we find ways to insure this equality we will continue to see the fight against oppression, occupation, and perceived abuse of one population by any other group.

Peace.

Changes in U.S. Healthcare Since 1994`

The League of Women Voters has the story in a recent release. Since 1994 the healthcare industry in the United States shifted from a largely not-for-profit system concerned with supplying health care to a fully profit driven industry in which profit is the primary motive.

Before 1995 the great majority of employer plans were traditional indemnity-insurance paying a fee for service and allowing access to any doctor, paying whatever the doctor or hospital required. In 1978, 95 percent of Americans with employer-sponsored coverage had fee-for-service plans. In 1998 only 14 percent were enrolled in such plans.

The change meant new restrictions for consumers in an effort by the providers to control costs.

1. limiting the choice of doctors by paying the total fee only if the physician was in the plan's network;
2. requiring patients to see a primary care doctor before obtaining a referral to a specialist;
3. requiring prior permission by doctors for admission to hospitals, diagnostic tests or medical procedures; and
4. negotiating predetermined fee schedules for physician payment which have been discounted from the usual fees.

The 2004 National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC) reported on "an epidemic of sub-standard care."

The dominant finding of our review is that for most care that has been studied, there are large gaps between the care that people should receive and the care they do receive. This is true for all three types of care [preventive, acute, and chronic]. It is true whether one looks at overuse or underuse. It is true in different types of care facilities and for different types of health insurance. It is true for all age groups, from children to the elderly.

Examples of abuse in the system are many and varied. In order to cut costs and maintain the profit margin different approaches were taken. For example

Health Net, Inc., a nation-wide insurer with 6.7 million members avoided spending $35.5 million by cancelling the policies of 1,600 California customers over 6 years. Health Net paid bonuses to an employee based, in part, on how many policies of sick people she cancelled.

The full article is a worthy read. The facts and figures are frightening beyond measure. What is clear to anyone with the interests of the people in mind is the abject failure of the current system. No profit oriented arrangement can possibly offer healthcare in a reasonable fashion. Medical decisions must be made on the basis of individual care and not on the basis of the bottom line and dollars.

Peace.

The Lessons From Past Wars

There are lessons to be learned from past wars for those leaders interested and competent enough to be taught. Today Joe Galloway has a series of six lessons we might all benefit from learning.

• Lesson One: Don't get in the middle of another country's civil war.

• Lesson Two: Know and assess your enemy first. Study his history and culture with a sharp eye on his fighting ability -- and never underestimate him.

• Lesson Three: Arrogance and ignorance are almost always a fatal combination.

• Lesson Four: If your enemy can seek shelter across an international border where you can't chase him, then you have just ceded him the strategic initiative. He'll decide when and where to fight and for how long, and all you can do is react.

• Lesson Five: Don't begin a war without knowing what you hope to achieve and how you intend to get out.

• Lesson Six: War is too important to be left to the generals -- or to the politicians.

Now if we can find leaders willing and able to learn these lessons maybe the future will cease looking so very bleak.

Peace.

The Bait and Switch Looks to Be In Play

In the NY Times this morning is an article about health insurance companies promising to cut the growth of health care spending by 1.5% each of the next 10 years. According to President Obama

These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment. Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the growth rate of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.

Read those words very carefully, my friends. There are two basic ways for the industry to insure this reduction.

1. Reduce payments for healthcare. That means less available than we have today.
2. Reduce profit. And we all know the likelihood of that happening in our lifetimes.

This is the time to just say, "NO," in very loud and unequivocal terms. President Obama was elected in large measures on the basis of his promise to reform national healthcare. A system leaving the insurance companies in charge is not real reform. That is lipstick on the proverbial pig.

We need real action this time around. We have Democratic Congress critters who need to know we will not tolerate this sort of continued abuse. We need real change. The Democrats are in charge now and that party had best stand up for the rights of the people or prepare to be primaried and replaced next time around. Tell Kaufman and Carper. Tell them today.

We have sat still far too long. The health of the nation is at risk for the benefit of the profiteers in the health insurance industry. That industry serves no useful purpose beyond profit generation. A national, single-payer system would spend far less money while offering healthcare to a nation in need. We must press and press hard if we are to get our just rewards from this administration and our mealy-mouthed Congress.

Peace.

What to Give the Developing World on Mother's Day

A birth pill.

Misoprostol is a generic drug originally developed to treat ulcers, but it’s predominately used off-label for obstetrics. When a mother takes it immediately after delivery, it can effectively stop the leading cause of maternal death in most developing countries: postpartum hemorrhage or excessive bleeding. What’s more, it’s an easy-to-take tablet with a long shelf life, so it’s suitable for the vast majority of women who deliver at home, in remote villages, far from skilled medical care.

A dose of care.

Vulnerable children require more than food and medicine; they need affection. To nurture them, we need to nurture the mothers on whom their lives depend.

An education.

FOR millions of girls around the world, motherhood comes too early. Those who bear children as adolescents suffer higher maternal mortality and morbidity rates, and their children are more likely to die in infancy. One reliable way to solve this problem is through education. The more affordable it is, the longer girls will stay in school and delay pregnancy.

A safer labor.

In West Africa, only about 1 percent of pregnant women have Caesarean deliveries because the procedure isn’t widely available. When labor is obstructed, the baby is trapped in the pelvis, and labor can last up to a week.

A custom drug.

Pregnancy acts as a wild card when it comes to medication. Changes in blood flow, digestion, kidney function and enzymatic activity alter the ways that drugs act on the body. There is almost no data on how antivirals function during pregnancy, and the same is true for many other drugs on the market.

Pregnant women deserve better treatment based on facts not on supposition.

Peace.

B of A in Trouble for Capital

According to news this morning, Bank of America, our not so friendly corporate banker here in Wilmington needs billions of capital.

Regulators have determined that Bank of America Corp. requires about $34 billion in new capital, the largest need among the 19 biggest U.S. banks subjected to stress tests.

If the story is true the need does not bode well for one of Delaware's largest employers. Time will tell how this is to play out, but the news from my position looks pretty bad. Delaware's economy can hardly afford another blow. A sinking ship like Bank of American would be terrible. A way to save the business is necessary even if their own predatory activity may be a large part of the underlying trouble.

If on the other hand this is a trial balloon sent aloft to test the public opinion we may see something different in a few days. Paul Krugman suggests the trial balloon theory. When will we, the American public, ever get to know the truth in this mess.

Peace.

Civilian Deaths On the Rise in Afghanistan

A recent air raid in Farah province killed many civilians. As many as a hundred are reported dead by the provincial governor.

(Rahul) Amin said that villagers had brought lorry loads of bodies to his office in the provincial capital as proof of their death.

Meanwhile the U.S. promises "investigation" into this incident. In past similar events the investigation supported the claims of civilian deaths in spite of official denials.

Currently, the US policy seems to be to apologize as quickly as possible and move on, so it is unlikely the toll will remain uncertain for long.

Apologies are cheap and easy. What is needed is a new way of continuing the fight. Too many innocents have died already.

Peace.

Pakistani Army Losing Friends in Taliban Fight

In an effort to control the Taliban influence and presence in Buner, in northwest Pakistan, the Pakistani army

is flattening villages, killing civilians and sending thousands of farmers and villagers fleeing from their homes, residents escaping the fighting said Monday.

No friends are being won by this action. In fact

the Pakistani military appears to be losing public support in a stridently anti-Taliban district whose residents had raised their own militia to defend themselves against the militants.

Long ago the Romans used similar tactics during their invasion of Mediterranean territory. We all know the end result of that empire.

Even the Taliban know how to win the hearts and minds of locals.

Taliban forces then seized the nearby Shamozai and Gujjar Killi mines and initiated mining and trading processes on their own, employing a large number of local laborers. Locals are eager to work for the Taliban, who take one-third of the profits and distribute the rest to the workers.

Violence is never the solution. Violence begets violence. The sooner nations around the world begin to learn that lesson the better for all.

Peace.

Doc Martens Declared Extremist Wear by DHS

Warning to all you out there who may dress in an alternative fashion. DHS is looking at you as an extremist. From the leaked memo

Dress may include a shaved head or very short hair, jeans, thin suspenders, combat boots or Doc Martens, a bomber jacket

I know a few very respectable people who may fit that profile. Maybe we are all on the hit list as extremists.

Profiling is not going to solve our problems. We need real solutions in terms of justice and peace for one and all. This idea of military or police force to resolve all the nation's issues has failed for years and will fail once again if we fail to turn the nation around.

Peace.

Healthcare Crisis in Iraq

Anyone dealing with the American healthcare system of today may recognize the problems we face in delivery of adequate medical care to those in need. But our problems pale in comparison to the situation in Iraq.

The UN estimates that more than 400 specialised doctors have left Iraq since hostilities began in 2003, hundreds of others have been killed. Understaffed hospitals lack staff, basic infrastructure and security.

We in this country can only imagine the horror of trying to practice modern medicine under the circumstances found in many parts of Iraq today. The victims of bombing and other violent attacks may die much more often from the lack of adequate treatment. Those needing long term care are left out of a system overburdened by acute injuries.

Before the invasion Iraq had one of the world's finest medical care systems. What have we wrought?

Peace.

Twittering Your Time Away?

With all the current crop of social networks rising on the net what is a person to do? Many corporate executives are now facing the issue of what information to make public in these forums. Anyone with a cell phone or an online connection today has the option of being in immediate contact with many, many people. But is this productive?

For a variety of reasons including time constraints I choose to be careful about those interactions. No Twitter for me. Facebook is OK and I have a page that is barely used. Facebook does keep me in touch with some political pals but most friends use e-mail or the phone these days. Even the White House has a presence on FaceBook these days.

Other social networks continue to arrive in my mailbox with invitations from one person or another. To date I have avoided all of them. Life moves too fast already. Managing another social network is more that life allows for this day.

Peace.

Mission Accomplished??

Six years ago today then President Bush landed on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and declared, "Mission Accomplished." The press was all over the staged event touting both the President for his "leadership" and for apparent "success" in Iraq.

Today, six years later we remain mired in Iraq with expanding military action in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What success can we claim? Many have died for this ongoing course with little to nothing to show. Violence in Iraq is on the rise. Pakistan is in danger of becoming a failed state. The Taliban presence is expanding in the face of government collapse.

The nation cannot continue this course. We must press our President for real change. The military course is not going to solve the world's problems. We need a different way of leading to replace leadership as the world's biggest bully.

Peace.