Three More Days

Yet more desperate applications for jobs which will never be. And more silence. One day closer to the end.

The most idiotic thing I have done with this blog is to give it a title which is an invitation to other people. What people? I live in a crappy suffocating putrid world which doesn't have real live people in it. Only peripherally do people appear, and then it is only to attack, humiliate, steal or defraud - and always, there are those who terrorize.

To whom, then?

I should have left it untitled - a void. That would have been accurate.

I am so exquisitely hungry for comfort and for relief. Every kind of unending pain. Words - I'm stopping, because words aren't a part of this enveloping, oppressive, stabbing, raw, electric pain. Unending, world without end pain. Only three more days to have to awake and deal with it. Alone. Silent.

If a human falls in the forest and there isn't anyone to hear, did she exist? No. Absolutely not. Did she matter? Only to the extent that the detritus of the body nourishes the worms and the ground. Worthless.

Project Propaganda

Here's what I wrote to Brian Williams, who in his Daily Nightly blog column, was peddling Peggy Noonan's Democratic-bashing tripe.

Peggy Noonan, on the "Opinion Journal" (and isn't the title a clue for you?) wrote only a single line which has some legitimacy: "Americans should not fear talking--and listening--to those whose views we loathe".

The rest of innuendo, unsupported fallacy and right-wing propaganda with the always-present Democrat bashing. It is readily apparent that Democrats are the people to which she references loathing.

Mr. Williams, your work on behalf of the Republican Party is legitimate when it is on your own time and your own dime as a private citizen. However, in this venue, as an employee of GE, to put forth political propaganda of any stripe is unethical and is just sleazy.

Stop it.

Wanna bet that it will never be posted in the comments?

Here's the seemingly innocuous lead in to Noonan by Williams:

After months in new (temporary) quarters, we're back on the 3rd floor of 30 Rock in our old space made new -- part of the huge consolidation of NBC News and MSNBC that will be complete in just a few weeks. Everything looks great, and while we will all head home tonight wearing the light white sheen of a day-long dusting, its exciting to stake a new claim to our old floor. Tags hang from chairs, workers come through armed with punch lists and my old trash can may be lost forever. Then there's the matter of tonight's broadcast...

First, what I thought was a terrific piece of writing by Peggy Noonan, artfully taking on a big issue here in New York last week.

Here's a noxious, but not lethal, sampling of Noonan's poison:

Americans should not fear talking--and listening--to those whose views we loathe.

You don't want to judge Christ by Christians, someone once said. He is perfect, they are not.

In a similar way you don't want to judge capitalism by capitalists, or the legitimacy of democracy by the Democrats, or the vitality of our republic by the Republicans. You have to take the thing pure and in itself, while allowing for the flaws and waywardness of its practitioners.

I say this because here in America we have reached a funny pass. People are doing and saying odd things as if they don't know the meaning of the thing they say they stand for. In particular I mean we used to be proud of whom we allowed to speak, and now are leaning toward defining ourselves by whom we don't speak to and will not allow to speak. This is not progress.

Conservatives on campus are shouted down. A crusader against illegal immigration is rushed off the stage at Columbia University. Great newspapers give ad breaks to groups with which they feel an ideological affinity, but turn away ads from those they do not, such as antiabortion groups. And they call this a business.

So much silencing. It seems so weak, so out of keeping with who we are. We love the tradition of free speech in America, but you don't want to judge its health by what we've done with it lately, or to it.

Not a single fact, no evidence, just innuendo, propaganda and slime. Oh, in Noonan's piece, too.

Blowing The Whistle

I did some research about whistle blowers. Selfish - to find myself a support group and resources. Stupid and naive - there aren't any because most whistle blowers die shortly after.

The collective conscience of the country is to demand people to "speak truth to power" and then to run the hell away from them as far and as fast as their obese stumpy legs can carry them when the whistleblowers do. We stand alone. You can't imagine how alone until people you know literally turn their backs to you, or pretend not to hear you, or run like cockroaches with their overladen grocery carts down the aisles to safety.

Imagine living years without speaking more than "please" and "thank you" to store clerks. Imagine a life going by where you play by all the rules and are figuratively and literally beaten to a pulp.

It's a death sentence of a lifetime of fully sensitized nerves feeling every volt of electricity. The sentence of being fully awake, eyes pinned open, ears alert, nose detecting the reek of ostracism and of condemnation.

There is no parole. There is no next chapter. There is no rehabilitation.

Once a whistle blower, there is only the prolonged death.

It is unimaginable, and so explaining it in writing causes people to flee. Turn the page, click on another site, avert one's head after rubbernecking and getting a glimpse of the carnage that has been wrought.

With my remaining time, I am going to write a book.

Chapter one: Whistle-blowing - what it is
Chapter two: What leads up to it
Chapter three: Immediate retaliation
Chapter four: Isolation, ostracism and shunning
Chapter five: Losing security - true terrorism
Chapter six: Losing family, friends, social supports, losing church (if you had one), losing social connectedness, losing career, losing identity, losing home, then shelter, losing humor, losing hope, losing humanness (all of this needs to be re-ordered)
Chapter seven: No health for you
Chapter eight: Death - the end of suffering, as a goal

Four Days and Counting

Four business days to find a job. My resources are gone. All gone. This week is just desperate flailing anywhere. Risk taking because to not take a risk is just as risky.

The probability of finality is exponentially skyrocketing. Not a single person cares. Not a single tangible shred of help, of support, of humanness.

Pretty damn sure I won't miss this world, even if the alternative (worst scenario) is a ring of hell. Hell? How can it be worse than this? I have lived an entire existence of hell.

I was born old - of two people who should have served as an advertisement for abortion or at least or effective contraception.

My life review - for that which I can still conjure up some sort of memory, is entirely devoid of any real human contact, of affection, of tolerance, or laughter, and of course, without love. What remains is an empty life lived in the strictest of isolation and ostracism. Shunning without recognition of it.

Not one single memory of pure joy, of a soul-affirming belly laugh, of anyone accepting and inviting me to share - a telephone call, a visit, playground games - nothing and everything has been hidden from me.

I remember no dreams of any kind. Not of future plans (ha), of careers, of families, of adventures. I remember only reviewing the list of events which convicted me of failure - to be - me, to be human, to explain the hatred always spewing over and through and under and behind and in front of me. Noxious and perpetual suffocation and drowning.

I don't know how I lived this long. I don't have any survival instinct or skills. I really don't want to have now, so that the parting is minimal cause for awareness of suffering.

My guess: there isn't anything beyond this miserable existence. Eternity - so what? Who would welcome me to it? I have no one to meet, no desire to replicate another earthly torture. No one is waiting for me. And to have to exist in eternity, time out of time alone? No thanks. Done that, too.

What would I like? To find a universe of true, kind, compassionate souls who are singing harmonically and joyfully and who experience the equivalent of unbridled laughter and joy who invite me to join, and with whom I can lend support as I am supported. That would be heavenly peace. And it is just another idea out of reach.

Since so many essayists and commenters are interested in the activities and consequences of people espousing ideology of false patriotism, dominionism, fundamentalism and other -isms, I thought I'd play with the principles a bit and explore what can be done to counteract the effects.

The framework of a preferred paradigm that I'm using is that of embracing the classic virtues. Don't remember them? You're not alone.

But along with rediscovering our shared history, we might do worse than to rediscover and revisit the classic virtues.

A caveat for those of you who aren't familiar with my posts: I am very dyslexic, myopic, and arthritic. I re-read my posts and most often continue to edit them for wrong words, poor grammar and unclear sentences after I post. I appreciate it when readers point our errors, and I do my best to make posts works-in-progress which reflect commenters' participation and contributions.

There are many scholarly texts which outline characteristics of cults and attributes of members. This isn't a post to regurgitate or criticize those foundational works.

Essentially, the things that most people look to cults to fill are factors of socialization:

• Clear rules of membership
• Delineation of US and OTHERS
• Reward system for compliance
• Punishment and threat of shunning/ostracism for noncompliance
• Clear normative values

This post originally was going to compare the attributes of cults with today's two major political parties in how they court voters, but I'm now going to hijack my own essay and speak to leadership values. Keep the attributes of cults handy in looking at attributes NOT to reward, enable or use in selecting political candidates.

My own education and academic career - what little of it there is - revolves around the study of leadership, albeit confined to that in healthcare settings.

I am going to generalize some of the qualities to that of the concept of leadership per se. Your mileage will vary, so please take away what is useful, and save the rest as bird cage liner or fodder to ponder another day.

I come at leadership characteristics and qualities from a pragmatic point of view. If a leader can only lead in the abstract sense, then I don't tend to find it useful.

Some of the characteristics of effective leaders - those who are able to affect the targeted and desired changes with the least amount of resistance or impediment, are those who demonstrate the following:

Consistency: they don't act in unpredictable and surprising ways, unless that is their usual mode of operation.

Congruency: they act according to the values they espouse, and the target behaviors they set for others

Visibility and Accessibility or MBWA: the old management by walking around style is always in evidence. They seek out members of the group they lead - either all of them or representative samples. They listen, they ask questions, depending on the work, they may try it, they solicit feedback, and they communicate in accessible face to face venues.

Honesty and Transparency: they deliver progress reports which include negative information. They deliver news accurately, in context and comprehensively.

Reward desired behaviors liberally: there is a little cognitive psychology in evidence. Behaviors, acts and benchmarks that move toward the desired targets are praised, rewarded and highlighted. Negative behavior and active resistance is ignored.

Value contributions: they actively seek out and pay attention to the contributions of their team members/constituents/followers

Own Failures and Limitations/Give Away Successes: they take full responsibility for failures and setbacks, and they give full credit to others for successes.

External appearances are deceiving: they rarely present self-conscious fashionable or glamorous appearances. They tend to be the work horses in organizations. They show up, listen, take note, contribute to the success of the organization, and they work diligently by placing the success of the organization ahead of their own personal gain.

It's this last that is being lost in the US. Those people now are often shunted aside for the younger/wealthier-appearing/smoother-talking/connected person. And it's showing in the treatment of workers, in the quality of work overall, and in the falling behind in competition of US centered businesses.

What's the point?

You can use these qualities to rate the presidential candidates for leadership attributes and likely leadership in the White House. You can use them to evaluate candidates for any position of responsibility and leadership. You can use them to work on your own progress as a leader.

If you used a Likert scale of 0 = does not exhibit, 3 = sometimes exhibits, and 5 = consistently exhibits to measure each of the candidates, who takes top honors?

Apply the criteria to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, etc. See any patterns emerging?

One ready reference that uses many of these characteristics is Jim Collins in his work, Good to Great.

One concept that he emphasizes is getting the core values right. What are they?

In the case of the office of president of the US, they are simple: supporting and defending the Constitution. It's critical that you can say what the core values are of any activity that is important to you: work, school, hobby, elected representative, civic group, social group, entertainment, spirituality, commerce, etc. When you do something, "just because" or you allow yourself to make an uninformed choice, you run much higher risks - whether it's in something small, as in the flavor of your coffee, or something huge, as in the course of cancer treatment or whether or not to choose resuscitation in the case of your heart stopping. And if it isn't already obvious, it also applies to group choices, as in the selection of a president - for a country or for a local parent teachers association.

Why?

If you don't know what qualities are important to you for a given situation, you cannot choose a leader who emulates and supports those values, even when the leader is yourself.

Take Aways

To evaluate any candidate for leadership, use the following criteria to rate on a scale from never exhibits to consistently exhibits:

• Consistency
• Congruency
• Visibility and Accessibility
• Honestly and Transparency
• Reward desired behaviors liberally
• Value Contributions
• Own failures and limitations
• Share/Give away successes
• Outward appearances are deceiving

Use the criteria in your individual lives. Treat people using these leadership characteristics in all situations other than crises. (Crisis management calls for very different skill sets used for very short term purposes - say, for example, evacuating everyone in immediate danger from a fire.) Use them to select your candidate of choice at the voting booth. Use them to help move the progressive values system forward. Use them to highlight the failures and limitations of the current occupants of the White House.

And now back to my original post - about using the classic virtues to fight against fighting faux values that the Republicans espouse: the definition of marriage, the criminalization of women's health choices, the criminalization of everything that fringe dominionist fundamentalists oppose, etc.

Classical virtues

First a definition from The Free Dictionary:

Noun
1. cardinal virtue - one of the seven preeminent virtues
virtue - a particular moral excellence
natural virtue - (scholasticism) one of the four virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance) derived from nature
supernatural virtue, theological virtue - according to Christian ethics: one of the three virtues (faith, hope, and charity) created by God to round out the natural virtues

• Auctoritas — "Spiritual Authority" — The sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria.
• Comitas — "Humour" — Ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
• Clementia — "Mercy" — Mildness and gentleness.
• Dignitas — "Dignity" — A sense of self-worth, personal pride.
• Firmitas — "Tenacity" — Strength of mind, the ability to stick to one's purpose.
• Frugalitas — "Frugalness" — Economy and simplicity of style, without being miserly.
• Gravitas — "Gravity" — A sense of the importance of the matter at hand, responsibility and earnestness.
• Honestas — "Respectability" — The image that one presents as a respectable member of society.
• Humanitas — "Humanity" — Refinement, civilization, learning, and being cultured.
• Industria — "Industriousness" — Hard work.
• Pietas — "Dutifulness" — More than religious piety; a respect for the natural order socially, politically, and religiously. Includes the ideas of patriotism and devotion to others.
• Prudentia — "Prudence" — Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
• Salubritas — "Wholesomeness" — Health and cleanliness.
• Severitas — "Sternness" — Gravity, self-control.
• Veritas — "Truthfulness" — Honesty in dealing with others.

Notice, though, that this is merely a listing of classic Roman virtues.

There are many other notable systems of prescribed and proscribed virtues. But for utility, I am limiting the discussion to these, as many are referenced in the qualities and characteristics of leadership above.

If we as a society used this framework of preferred or desired characteristics by which to measure our elected representatives, the congruence of legislation with the Constitution, and used the classic virtues to measure the overall "meta" success of US society, would this not be more useful than continuing on the current path of divisiveness, class separation, socioeconomic disparity and faux morality being used as a disguise to install theocracy in government?

Journalism Under Bush's Off-The-Record Briefing Ground Rules

Open post to Brian Williams of NBC News:

In response to this from your Daily Nightly blog, in which you wrote

A number of television journalists gathered for lunch with the president at the White House today -- a practice becoming more and more common when this president has a major speech to deliver. The following is a review of my notes, and is offered here under the ground rules established by the assembled White House senior aides. Vice President Cheney attended but did not speak.

I realize that you don't publish my comments, pointed and critical as they are, but I hope that you are at least reading and considering them in the spirit in which they are offered.

Journalists are considered the 4th estate. To that end, the public relies on you (the plural you) to be assertive in pursuing clear, accurate and comprehensive information from reliable sources, and that you perform adequate fact-checking. Moreover, the public expects you to refrain from editorializing to the extent that is possible for educated humans to accomplish.

That translates into questioning and protesting such intolerable conditions as the "ground rules" that the White House is mandating for off-the-record briefings.

We, the people, supposedly elect those occupants of that branch, and we have full rights to know what the president and his cabinet (and whatever the heck the VP is calling his position in the branches these days) are doing, what his plans are, what his rationale is, what resources he is actually using, who his advisers are, etc.

It is not acceptable for NBC News, a la Tim Russert's court testimony, to assert that everything is assumed to be off the record as baseline, and that only when express permission is obtained, that sources are revealed.

To be blunt, that is un-American.

We now live in a topsy Orwellian world of doublespeak.

I am no politico, no genius and no one of import. But I highly recommend that you reacquaint yourself with Orwell's 1984 and Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here. Read some Morrow. Read some 1930's history.

Speak with your international print and television news colleagues. Try to step outside the US media market and look at it from a global point of view.

It's frightening. And you, your counterparts at ABC and CBS, and the anchors of the political commentary cable "news" shows are not meeting the public need.

What would be a good start?

In the transcripts, include the citations for all presented facts and sources.

In the NBC News Division, include professional CVs for all anchors, reporters, correspondents and news writers and researchers. Tell us your academic credentials, your professional experience, and even jobs held in other industries to help us understand your perspective.

Most important, provide full disclosure for any and all relationships between you and your subjects.

If you're still reading, I thank you!

Please consider hosting reader/blogger fora. Having Chris Colvin present her blog round-up twice weekly is a real treat, and she's first rate, but that's just a start.

It would be very interesting to have a working forum with key bloggers and NBC News staff to develop working relationships and to create some synergistic effects.

Not for "nuthin'" - it might be useful to get a better handle on the demographics of bloggers - especially those in the political blogosphere. My guess is that's where your market share growth is, but only if you learn how to tap in to the blogging fire hose.

Thanks for reading. I'm always open to criticism, too, and please don't hesitate to provide it. *g*

That SCHIP Won't Sail

{Crossposted at DocuDharma. Permission to use noncommercially with attribution.}

While Congress was away, Bush continued to do his sneaky freaky Friday attack on S-CHIP. Much of this post is simply a replay of events that occurred prior to Congress' return last week. But one thing Bush forgot in his unrelenting quest to punish the poor, the sick, the elderly and the vulnerable: the senators are facing those people at the polls, and they aren't looking too good when it comes to cutting off people at the knees.

So the senators are mutinying against Bush's bowl of strawberries re-enactment. The only think lacking is the presidential candidate with enough spine to act as a realistic Mister Roberts. A cross between the mutiny on the Bounty and Mister Roberts, the governors are finding themselves smack dab in the middle of where policy meets constituent suffering.

On Friday August 17th in the usual news dump, timed to garner the least amount of traditional media attention, the Bush White House orchestrated two attacks on healthcare: CMS announced that it will no longer reimburse for healthcare services provided as a result of some types of what it deems preventable medical errors, and Bush announced that he is severely crippling the SCHIP program. Scarecrow, at FireDogLake, analyzes this from a sociopolitical standpoint that makes one's straw spontaneously combust.

In addition, just prior to the Senate's August recess, Jim DeMint (R-SC) put a hold on the SB 558 Mental Health Parity bill.

Robert Pear of the NY Times has been providing excellent descriptions and analyses of the seemingly disparate news items. In the SCHIP Friday night stealth attack, states would be held to an unrealistic standard of covering eligible children at a 95% rate.

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a monthlong Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were intended to return the Children’s Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.

After learning of the new policy, some state officials said yesterday that it could cripple their efforts to cover more children and would impose standards that could not be met.

“We are horrified at the new federal policy,” said Ann Clemency Kohler, deputy commissioner of human services in New Jersey. “It will cause havoc with our program and could jeopardize coverage for thousands of children.”

Stan Rosenstein, the Medicaid director in California, said the new policy was “highly restrictive, much more restrictive than what we want to do.”

The poverty level for a family of four is set by the federal government at $20,650 in annual income. <snip>

As with issues like immigration, the White House is taking action on its own to advance policies that have not been embraced by Congress.

In his budget in February, President Bush proposed strict limits on family income for the child health program. Both houses of Congress voted this month to renew the program for five years, but neither chamber accepted that proposal. Legal authority for the program expires on Sept. 30.

The administration’s new policy is explained in a letter that was sent about 7:30 p.m. on Friday to state health officials from Dennis G. Smith, the director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations. The policy would continue indefinitely, though Democrats in Congress could try to override it.

--snip--

In his letter, Mr. Smith set a high standard for states that want to raise eligibility for the child health program above 250 percent of the poverty level.

Before making such a change, Mr. Smith wrote, states must demonstrate that they have “enrolled at least 95 percent of children in the state below 200 percent of the federal poverty level” who are eligible for either Medicaid or the child health program.

Deborah S. Bachrach, a deputy commissioner in the New York State Health Department, said, “No state in the nation has a participation rate of 95 percent.”

And Cindy Mann, a research professor at the Health Policy Institute of Georgetown University, said, “No state would ever achieve that level of participation under the president’s budget proposals.”

In the Medicare Friday news, Pear reports about the policy change, and also a little-noticed, but important fact: healthcare insurers are waiting with bared fangs, ready to rip into hospital and physician reimbursement with more claims denials. Patients are at risk of being denied care when they are deemed too high risk to incur an infection, illness or injury as a result of a designated "preventable medical error" such as a bedsore or a venous access infection. Hospitals, physicians and insurers will be in direct adversarial positions to patients, who are going to be blamed for preventable errors at every opportunity.

The other risk is that when hospitals are denied reimbursement, they will respond by decreasing direct care staff - and usually the highest earners in this category are registered nurses, and hence, they are the most vulnerable to downsizing. This starts another cycle of poorer patient care and leads to yet more complications and preventable errors. And so the vicious cycle spins with more patients caught in its vortex.

In a significant policy change, Bush administration officials say that Medicare will no longer pay the extra costs of treating preventable errors, injuries and infections that occur in hospitals, a move they say could save lives and millions of dollars.

--snip--

Private insurers are considering similar changes, which they said could multiply the savings and benefits for patients.

Under the new rules, to be published next week, Medicare will not pay hospitals for the costs of treating certain “conditions that could reasonably have been prevented.”

Among the conditions that will be affected are bedsores, or pressure ulcers; injuries caused by falls; and infections resulting from the prolonged use of catheters in blood vessels or the bladder.

Susan M. Pisano, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said, “Private insurers will take a close look at what Medicare is doing, with an eye to adopting similar policies.”

In early August, just before the Senate recessed, Jim DeMint put a hold on SB 558, the Mental Health Parity bill. The Congressional Quarterly via the Kaiser Network reported:

A hold placed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has delayed until after the August recess Senate consideration of a bill (S 558) that would mandate mental health parity, CQ Today reports. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), was on track to be passed by voice vote before the August recess after insurers, businesses and mental health advocates had reached a compromise. However, DeMint and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) placed holds on the legislation. Coburn’s hold was dropped after his concerns were addressed, but DeMint maintained his hold, saying that the bill should be discussed on the floor before approval, according to CQ Today. “Sen. DeMint isn’t holding this bill, he is simply objecting to passing it without a chance for debate or amendments,” DeMint spokesperson Wesley Denton said, adding, “[T]his is a very large and costly mandate that could price a lot of Americans out of health insurance, and it needs to be considered carefully” (Armstrong/Wayne, CQ Today, 8/7).

What links these three seemingly disparate actions by Bush and the Republicans?

• All three were done when Congress was caught unawares.


• All were done under tight time frames and little time for Congress to respond and take defensive action.


• All were taken against populations that either can't vote (children) or that are more likely to be unable to vote (those with untreated or under-treated mental illness and those who suffer life-altering complications as a result of the types of "preventable medical errors" listed in the Medicare reimbursement proposal).


• All are direct attacks on providing essential healthcare to the most vulnerable segments of the US population.


• All are aimed at attacking single payer insurance


• All are aimed at providing more sources of profit for private healthcare insurers.


• All are aimed at undermining government agencies' efficacy and efficiency.

A couple of other related facts:

There are 1.8 million veterans who have no health insurance whatsoever, and of whom the majority suffer from untreated or under-treated mental illness and chronic physical illness. The Army has been issuing chapter 5-13 discharges in order to get out of providing needed mental healthcare to returning Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers and marines. With the gross disparity in mental health benefits being shockingly restricted or nonexistent, and the almost 50% rate of soldiers incurring symptoms of acute mental illness, how are these denials of care, parity and reimbursement going to "support our troops"?

When children don't receive vaccines, preventive dental and healthcare, and subsequently transmit communicable diseases in their communities, how are all Americans assured of adequate and safe public health?

When patients who are at high risk to fall, have compromised immune systems leaving them vulnerable to infections, or are confused and wander denied hospital admission and physician care due to the perceived risk that the providers may not be reimbursed for care, what happens to them?

Americans' public health is not secure. Bush is not protecting America. He's doing just the opposite; he's making Americans much, much more vulnerable to becoming victim to communicable diseases, to suffering needlessly because of a lack of accessible and affordable essential healthcare, and of causing those preventable deaths and complications - the very things he won't allow Medicare to pay for.

What can you do?

• Write to your Senators and to your Representatives.


• Politely demand that the hold on SB 558 - the Mental Health Parity Bill - be lifted and the bill passed.


• Demand that the promised Bush veto of the S-CHIP Reauthorization bill be overridden in order to protect more children.


• Demand that the Senate take action to prohibit Bush from restricting eligibility of children for SCHIP.


• Explain how denying children essential healthcare puts the nation's public health at risk.


• Explain that withholding reimbursement for healthcare after patients receive infections or bed sores ultimately punishes the patients. Suggest that Medicare reward optimal patient outcomes with higher reimbursement rates instead of denying reimbursement altogether for errors. Explain that determining what is and is not preventable is at best a grey area, and that some patients will be denied care as a result.


• Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper explaining the Bush and Republican attack on Americans' health.


• Blog about health issues, and how your health is being affected.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

One need not travel far to read the current Republican/Democratic argument about healthcare. It goes like this:

‘There’s another fellow,’ muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: ‘my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.’

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge’s nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

‘Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,’ said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. ‘Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?’

‘Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,’ Scrooge replied. ‘He died seven years ago, this very night.’

‘We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,’ said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word ‘liberality,’ Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

‘At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,’ said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’

‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Scrooge.

‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

‘And the Union workhouses?’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in operation?’

‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman, ‘I wish I could say they were not.’

‘The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?’ said Scrooge.

‘Both very busy, sir.’

‘Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Scrooge. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

‘Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,’ returned the gentleman, ‘a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?’

‘Nothing!’ Scrooge replied.

‘You wish to be anonymous?’

‘I wish to be left alone,’ said Scrooge. ‘Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.’

‘Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.’

‘If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don’t know that.’

‘But you might know it,’ observed the gentleman.

‘It’s not my business,’ Scrooge returned. ‘It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!’

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Senators' Revolt and The Defense Takes The Field

This is why I admire the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report. It posted a very deep and broad listing of actions, measures and groups working in opposition to the Bush offensive against S-CHIP.

New York is already in court against the Bush administration's strangling restrictions.

Forty four senators sent a letter to Bush appealing for him to lift the odious enrollment compliance regulation (it states that 95% of all eligible children be enrolled, and the best practice is in the range of 65-70%).

Current authorization for SCHIP expires at the end of the month. Contact your senator today to express your view that S-CHIP eligibility must be allowed for states to determine the baseline given cost of living variabilities. The Senate must have enough votes to override Bush's veto. Or else.

Or Else?

Many more children will die preventable deaths.

On our watch.

In our names.