Why? Because it would require people to buy goods from private companies, without being able to opt-out.
So says Karl Manheim, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, and Jamie Court, chairman of Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, Calif.
Don’t think that just because Clinton’s plan would have “covered everyone,” that it is better than Obama’s. Clinton’s plan would be a boon for the private insurance industry — not for families.
I guess it’s a moot point at this time; she can’t get the nomination.
To cover everyone, a better option is universal single payer government provided healthcare.
While men are more likely to tolerate of discrimination, everyone tended to accept the most prejudice against poorly educated immigrants and Arab American airplane travelers, according to a study by the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics.
Through both phone and internet surveys, researchers asked more than 3,300 people to evaluate five scenarios, each of which dealt with a form of discrimination targeting a distinct class of people: Arab American airplane travelers, seriously overweight people, the genetically disadvantaged, poorly educated immigrants and African American motorists.
Based on the phone interviews, men were 7.6 percent more likely to tolerate discrimination against the obese and 8.9 percent more likely to accept racial profiling of African-American motorists. And men were even more tolerant of discrimination in the Web survey: men were 19.6 percent more likely to tolerate discrimination against the obese and 17.4 percent more likely to accept racial profiling.
Tolerance Index: A ranking of acceptance of discrimination
Poorly educated immigrants - around 30 percent
Arab-Americans airplane travelers - around 20 percent
Seriously overweight people - around 14 percent
African American motorists - around 13 percent
Genetically disadvantaged people - around 5 percent
Conclusions: nearly one-third of people surveyed tolerate racism against brown people, one-third of the respondents suck and men suck more.
We should never tolerable discrimination and oppression.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Israel is increasingly turning away sick Gazans who seek medical treatment. Several Palestinians die each month because Israel refuses to let them leave Gaza for necessary medical care.
In the last five months, 32 people have died while waiting for travel permits. “All these tragedies could have been easily avoided,” said Ambrogio Maneti, WHO’s head of office for the West Bank and Gaza.
Egypt has allowed some Gazans in for treatment but has agreed with Israel to keep its border largely closed.
A Palestinian carries his sick son as they make their way to Egypt after crossing the destroyed section of the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt January 24, 2008. Reuters
Palestinian medical officials in Gaza say more than 100 Gazan patients have died since June after Israel denied them permits to seek medical treatment. That’s really sick.
A medical officer points to a wound on the head of a newborn Palestinian baby, who Palestinian medics said was killed by Israeli forces gunfire, in the central Gaza Strip March 4, 2008. Reuters
Wal-Mart has ended its ridiculous effort to collect more than $400,000 in health-care reimbursement from a former employee, Deborah Shank, who suffered brain damage in a traffic accident. The corporation was seeking a refund of the medical expenses it paid because Shank also collected damage money from the trucking firm of the driver that hit her.
Finally. What bullshit to try that.
And I can’t believe we still don’t have universal health care. We’re such fools for not having it. Pawns of the corporate lobby.
The U.S. subsidies for corn producers may be having global impacts on the food supply. Many U.S. agricultural business switched from growing food crops to corn for ethanol, as a result of the federal money. Big businesses are also clear cutting the Amazon rainforest to grow what Bush touts as “alternative energy” that reduces the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
With intensifying food shortages and mounting prices, the sad irony is that corn ethanol is a net negative for energy. Because it uses more energy to produce than it yields, it contributes to the growing energy crisis and thus further to the escalating price of food.
Life. In the United States, more than 2,200 people are sentenced to life in prison for crimes they committed as minors. Only 12 people outside the United States face such sentences.
Health. The best doctors are the worst people. The top scoring medical students just want to make money by tending to narcissism of wealth.
Food. Big Business consumes organic food. The NYT found a neat graphic that shows how small organic companies have been bought up by big corporations and private investment firms. The whole organic labeling system itself makes it difficult for local farmers to become certified, so it is no surprise that multinationals own most organic foods. Buy local. Unlike organic food, it’s cheaper.
Joey Chestnut broke the world record by eating 59 1/2 hot dogs in July 2007 Despite all the media hype around the high-protein Adkins diet, a new study from Ohio State University found that protein deficiency causes weight loss in mice. The scientists crossbred mice deficient in protein and fat mice, commonly used in obesity research.
The result was smaller and leaner mice that lost weight while eating up to 30% more food. Despite their genetic propensity for obesity, the mice lost weight while eating more food. (more…)
Dirty water given to the military Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq became ill after using “unmonitored and potentially unsafe” water for washing, bathing, cleaning, and shaving. The problems did not extend to drinking water. But soldiers have experienced many illnesses including skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, and diarrhea.
A military contractor owned by Cheney’s Haliburton, KBR Inc. supplied the discolored, smelly water. (more…)
The investigators contacted 62 municipalities, but only 28 had tested their water system for pharmaceuticals and many only tested for one or two types of drugs.
Some water utilities declined to answer citing post 9/11 security issues; the heart disease drug nitroglycerin is widely used to make explosives. (more…)
A ship leased by a Dutch Company, Trafigura, dumped 500 tons of toxic waste at municipal waste sites in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire–leading to the deaths of 15 people and illnesses in over 100,000. Trafigura was also named in the food for oil scandal.
Another multinational shits its neocolonial waste; and the human impact is great.
A pattern with Obama. He consistently compromises human health for corporate interests. He originally called for universal single payer health care but has dramatically changed his position to a voluntary corporate insurance plan in response to health industry lobbyists.
This story from MSNBC highlights how he compromised his position on requiring nuclear power plants to report the release of human health hazards. He went from “nuclear plants shall immediately notify” the public to “the nuclear regulatory commission shall consider requiring plants to provide timely notice” of the release of radioactive substances. He responded to the demands of Exelon corporation, one of his top campaign donors.
Obama is “protective imitation” of Clinton’s “corporate democrat”
He did used to be for a single payer, universal health care plan, but he has since back away to a more conservative (in the international sense of the word) health care plan in response to health industry lobbyists.
Mike: “Nader looks like that character on sesame street who lives in the trashcan.” oscar:
Bush slashed another $500 million out of the 2008 federal budget for scientific research. This means about 700 science projects are going unfunded. Layoffs occurred at science labs. Many medical researchers are choosing clinical practice over the dwindling federal grant money for research.
Concomitant with education cuts, this lack of support for the scientific community makes it readily apparent why the US is not a leader in scientific innovation or even basic competency.
These receptors are paired with AIB interneurons, which are associated with local search and pivoting behavior–focusing on local food and not moving in search of food. When the receptors are over-expressed, AIB associated behaviors are suppressed and the nematodes have less local searching/pivoting behavior; when it’s under-expressed, the behaviors are seen more frequently–so the nematodes stay near a local food supply.
Local foraging/pivoting behavior is an energy conserving strategy when food is readily available. The organisms move less, burn less energy.
Jan 18, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a statement on Israel’s closing of the Gaza borders: “Such action cuts off the population from much-needed fuel supplies used to pump water and generate electricity to homes and hospitals. If this situation endures, the closure will also cause further shortages of food, medical and relief items in the Gaza Strip.”
“We have the choice to either cut electricity on babies in the maternity ward or heart surgery patients or stop operating rooms,” said Health Ministry official Moaiya Hassanain.
After international outcry, Israel is allowing a one-time shipment of fuel and medical supplies, but not without Olmert making a stupid assertion: “As far as I’m concerned, Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn’t let people in southern Israel live in peace.” Walk without cars, he says. Or is it: die without medicine, starve without bread, become ill without sanitation…
“Acrylamide In Food May Increase Risk Of Breast Cancer, New Findings Suggest.”
Acrylamide is formed from heating (but not boiling) carbohydrate-rich foods above 120°C (248°F).
Researchers have already found that high consumption is associated with nearly double the risk for endometrial and ovarian cancer, and now we can add breast cancer to the growing list.
“Ours is the first epidemiological study using biological markers for measuring acrylamide exposure, and the first to report a positive association between acrylamide and breast cancer,” says Henrik Frandsen, senior scientist at the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark.
Does this mean we should avoid carbs or baked/fried/microwaved food? Both? That sounds reasonable.
Here’s a list of food items and their respective concentrations of acrylamide. DAMN it is in everything. From now on, we must eat air in order to reduce our cancer risk. Oopps, that wont work. CNN: “Most Americans face air cancer risk.”
A good article on food safety in the US News and World Report. “U.S. Food Safety: Home-Grown Problems Abound As the variety of tainted products widens, the concerns about oversight deepen”
More than ever before, Americans are worried about the safety of the food they put in their mouths — and with good reason.In little less than a year and a half, the nationwide recalls of tainted products have formed their own peculiar food pyramid: meats, vegetables, salad, snacks, fast food, even dessert items. The various pathogens in those products killed at least three people, sickened more than 1,300 others and touched almost every state in the country as well as Canada.
Why are there more safety concerns? Fewer inspectors, maybe.
Some estimates suggest there are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues, with safety tests for domestically produced foods down almost 75 percent — from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 in 2006.
