The United States has an insanely inefficient health care system. We pay more than anyone else in the world, for which we get sub-standard care and coverage. Furthermore, the system is getting worse: costs are skyrocketing, employers are cutting back coverage, the government is cutting back eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid, and President Bush’s proposals to tweak the system are just making things worse. It is past time that we revamp our entire health care system.
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Mar 242006
A couple years ago, when the Iraq war was just entering its pubescent period and we were only beginning to realize the extent of the insurgency, I saw a debate on FOX News Sunday on the progress of the war. One of the conservatives–I think it was Britt Hume–was trying to argue that the war was actually going quite well, and he was blaming the growing American concern about the war on the press’ reporting. He commented that if only the American media would leave the Green Zone and get out of Baghdad (where most of the attacks were occurring) and into the countryside, they would be able to see a lot of substantial progress being made: schools opening, power going on, people shopping, etc. They were staying in and around Baghdad, however, where all the bombs and violence were happening, and therefore they were showing the American public a negatively skewed version of the war. One of the other panelists–I believe it was Mara Liason–chimed in that a) the media couldn’t leave the Green Zone or get out of Baghdad because they had to go where the military told them, and b) they had to go where the military told them because it wasn’t safe to move around Iraq without an escort. In other words, if only the bad guys weren’t shooting at us so much, then we could see how well the war was going.
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Mar 232006
Is it just me, or does the whole Zacarias Moussaoui prosecution seem to be pretty iffy? Let’s ignore the whole witness tampering incident, and just focus on the prosecution itself. More disturbingly, the entire prosecution case seems to rest on Mr. Moussaoui’s refusal to waive his fifth amendment rights.
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Mar 222006
Today is one of the final days of the world water conference, where policy makers are trying to determine what to do about the fact that much of the world’s population doesn’t have access to sustainable clean water supplies . Interestingly, one of the things that is holding up negotiations is the question of whether the final report will declare the “right to water” as a fundamental human right. I’m not a big fan of adding things to the list of human rights, but it strikes me that to the extent government ought to be ensuring anything for its citizens, safe drinking water should be one of them. Since water trumps pretty much everything else in terms of necessity for human survival, one would think that this should be a top priority of any government or humanitarian aid organization. I’m sort of surprised that the issue doesn’t get more attention, and also somewhat surprised that countries are willing to endorse rights to freedom of expression, but not rights to water (the latter of which strikes me as a more basic need).
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