[Click image to enlarge] FRESH AIR Economists Paul Krugman and Stuart Butler discuss the way America’s health care system is financed — and how it should be. A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, Krugman argues in a July 25 New York Times column that free markets alone cannot fix the health care system. He’s a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and his books include The Conscience of a Liberal, The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century and The Return of Depression Economics. A native of Britain, Butler — the vice president […]
Senate Finance Committee Drops ‘Public Option’
ASSOCIATED PRESS: After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits a requirement for businesses to offer coverage to their workers and lacks a government insurance option that President Barack Obama favors, according to numerous officials. Like bills drafted by Democrats, the proposal under discussion by six members on the Senate Finance Committee would bar insurance companies from denying coverage to any applicant. Nor could insurers charge higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. But it jettisons other core Democratic provisions in a reach for bipartisanship […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Century Foundation fellow Maggie Mahar is the author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Healthcare Costs So Much, published in 2006. A former financial journalist for Institutional Investor, The New York Times, Barron’s and Bloomberg, Mahar writes the Healthbeat blog, a Century Foundation project. She has also contributed to Dartmouth Medicine, covering Medicare spending and the possibility of reform. Money-Driven Medicine argues that, over the past century, the history of U.S. health care has been shaped by corporate interests’ gradual encroachment on physician autonomy. According to Mahar, this has produced a system of costly and inefficient competition among […]
BOTTLED WATER: Lies And Propaganda
GOOD: Tappening, the tap-water campaigners, has taken its gloves off and is fighting the bottled-water business the dirty way. Using the old beat-them-at-their-own-game approach, Tappening’s new Start a Lie campaign takes on truth in advertising by allowing you to create your own viral lie about bottled water. Because, as they say, “If bottled water companies can lie, we can too.” MORE RELATED: There is so much wrong with bottled water that it’s hard to know where to begin (read Elizabeth Royte’s Bottlemania, for starters). But let’s start with the fact that bottled water is the most brilliantly marketed product ever […]
LOSE YOUR ILLUSION: Quitters Never Win
WASHINGTON POST: Whether her ultimate goal now is to seek the presidency in 2012 or later is not known. Those who have some insight into her frame of mind believe she departs elected office without a real plan to make that happen — or even a plan for what to do with the next six months of her life. Palin left office about 18 months before the end of her term. In her farewell speech, she lashed out at the media, which she accused of “making things up,” and warned about encroachments from big government in Washington. “Be wary of […]
I’M WITH STUPID: Cambridge Police Union President Says Obama Owes Cops Everywhere An Apology
CNN: President Obama should apologize to members of the Cambridge Police Department for saying they acted stupidly, the president of the city’s police union said Friday. Dennis O’Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said at a news conference that Obama should not have criticized officers’ actions in last week’s arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Sgt. James Crowley, the officer who arrested Gates for disorderly conduct, has previously said he was dismayed by the president’s remarks and that Obama had offended police in Cambridge and elsewhere. MORE PHAWKER: So, let us get this straight. The […]
Cops Investigate Domelights Death Threats; Black Officer’s Union Prez Under Police Protection
INQUIRER: Philadelphia police are investigating threats directed toward the president of a black officers league after her organization accused the now-disabled Web site Domelights.com of hosting racist material. After the Guardian Civic League sued Domelights last week in federal court, several postings on the site attacked league president Rochelle Bilal. One said she “deserves to be gang-raped.” Bilal, a sworn officer who works in narcotics intelligence, has been assigned officers from the dignitary protection unit to guard her during the investigation. Two uniformed officers accompanied Bilal Wednesday night at a meeting at Guardian Civic League headquarters. MORE PREVIOUSLY: City Blocks […]
CAVE IN: Reid Defies Obama On Health Care Vote Deadline, Gives GOP Evildoers What They Want
WASHINGTON POST: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Thursday the full Senate will debate and vote on healthcare overhaul legislation after it returns in September from a monthlong recess. Reid told reporters he expected the Senate Finance Committee would approve its version of the legislation before the Senate starts its recess August 7. MORE RELATED: GOP — Gang Of Obstructionist Pricks RELATED: Why We Can’t Have Nice Things — Meet Dick Scott Health Care Reform’s Public Enemy Number One THE GOOD NEWS FLOWER HOUR: Meet Health Care Reform’s Public Enemy #1
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Writer and director Judd Apatow first became known for the cult TV series Freaks and Geeks, which gained a cult following when it aired on NBC from 1999 to 2000. Since then, the former stand-up comic has turned his attention to the big screen, directing Knocked Up and The 40-Year Old Virgin. Apatow’s latest film, Funny People, stars his former roommate Adam Sandler as a stand-up comedian with an incurable blood disorder. With one foot in the grave, Sandler’s character decides to mentor and befriend an amateur comic and deli employee played by Seth Rogen — a relationship […]
WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS: Meet Dick Scott, Health Care Reform’s Public Enemy Number One
BY JONATHAN VALANIA While recent polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans favor health care reform that included a so-called public option that would provide coverage for the estimated 45 millions Americans with no health insurance, one man is doing everything in his power to make sure this does not happen, going so far as to spend $5 million of his own money to bankroll TV ads designed to scare American public off the path of health care reform with visions of a socialized medicine hell where the right to choose is forcibly surrendered to Big Brother, government bureaucrats dictate […]
GOP: Gang Of Obstructionist Pricks
HUFFINGTON POST: A private memo distributed by the Republican National Committee calls for like-minded advocates to help defeat President Barack Obama’s health care proposals by delaying its consideration. The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post from a Democratic source, provides the clearest illustration to date of the political playbook being used to stop Democratic attempts at a health care overhaul. Much of the material mirrors the speeches and presentations made by conservatives both inside and out of elected office to date. Obama’s plan for health care is deemed an “experiment” and a “risk” that could bankrupt the country […]
Black Officer’s Association Sues The Philadelphia Police Department Over ‘Blatantly Racist’ Web Site
INQUIRER: An association of black police officers has sued the Philadelphia Police Department in federal court for allowing its officers to post “blatantly racist . . . and offensive” content on a popular Web site devoted to law enforcement topics. The suit, filed Wednesday, says Domelights.com, which bills itself as “the voice of the good guys,” was founded by a Philadelphia police sergeant who uses the screen name “McQ” and “encourages the racially offensive conduct.” The Guardian Civic League also sued McQ and the 10-year-old Web site, a forum where officers discuss crime news, police gossip, current events and other […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR The New Republic senior editor Jonathan Cohn discusses power players of health care reform, including the insurance lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby, the American Medical Association and Congress. Cohn is the author of Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price, in which he makes a case for universal health care coverage through a government-regulated, single-payer system. He writes about health care for The New Republic’s blog The Treatment. RADIO TIMES Hour One A behind the scenes look at how the case against Former State Senator Vince Fumo was built […]