Source: Fox News A UK clothing chain, popular discount retailer Primark, reacted swiftly to criticism of its padded bikini bras designed for girls as young as seven. The product has been withdrawn, and Primark announced it would donate any profits from the inappropriately sexualizing items to a children’s charity. The bikinis were selling for £4… Read more
Tag Archives: politics
The health care battle isn't over
Source: About.com Now that health care legislation has passed, special interest groups — insurance and pharmaceutical companies, seniors, businesses, abortion rights opponents – are gearing up to influence the way specific provisions are implemented. Agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services need to draft regulations that govern implementation. This is where lobbyists… Read more
Andrew Sullivan on the Tea Party
Nice summation of what makes sense and what doesn’t about the Tea Party from Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish. His conclusion: In my view, this confluence of feelings can work in shifting the public mood, as seems to have happened. When there is no internal pushback against crafted FNC [Fox News] propaganda, and when… Read more
Obesity: Moving beyond willpower vs. the food-industrial complex
Source: The Pilver Marc Ambinder has written a terrific article on obesity for The Atlantic. It’s comprehensive and insightful, both objective and personal. Ambinder himself suffered from obesity until a year ago, when he went from 235 to 150 pounds following bariatric surgery. The operation immediately improved his severe diabetes, and within months it relieved… Read more
How socialist is the US?
Source: VotingFemale The opponents of health care reform lost the battle, but their war is not over. They argue, among other things, that the legislation amounts to socialism. When Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican Party, was asked if the health care plan represented socialism, he replied: “Yes. Next question.” In a recent Bloomberg National… Read more
Civil disobedience and the individual mandate
Source: SFGate “Individual mandate” refers to a provision in the new health care reform act that requires all citizens to purchase health insurance. There are exceptions for those who cannot afford to pay and for those who have religious objections, such as Christian Scientists. Without this provision, health care reform falls apart. If we’re going… Read more
Obama and health care: Deal making with lobbyists
Frontline has put together a documentary on the passage of health care reform. It argues that Obama caved in to special interests at every step of the way and that this is bad news for Democrats. Barack Obama promised change. Then he took on one of Washington’s toughest issues: health care. During his first year… Read more
Tony Judt: On the edge of a terrifying world
Being “Danish” or “Italian,” “American” or “European” won’t just be an identity; it will be a rebuff and a reproof to those whom it excludes. The state, far from disappearing, may be about to come into its own: the privileges of citizenship, the protections of card-holding residency rights, will be wielded as political trumps. Intolerant demagogues in established democracies will demand “tests”–of knowledge, of language, of attitude–to determine whether desperate newcomers are deserving of British or Dutch or French “identity.” They are already doing so. In this brave new century we shall miss the tolerant, the marginals: the edge people. My people.
Obama on race and the Tea Party
David Remnick’s new book, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham offers a quotation from The Bridge, which will be released tomorrow. Here is Obama’s reply when asked about the racial component of opposition to his presidency, including the reaction of the Tea Party supporters. Read more
Our only language is English
Source: Teabonics When President Obama filled out his census form last week, he had to decide how to answer the race question. Even though his selection was only half true, he settled on the “Black, African American, or Negro” option. I noticed Facebook friends struggling with the same issue: If my father’s parents were born… Read more
Reaction to health care: A step backwards
Source: University of Virginia There have been nasty and violent responses to the passage of health care: Spitting on members of congress; chanting the “N” word at black congressmen on their way to vote; images of Nancy Pelosi surrounded by flames; death threats to members of Congress; Republican congressmen on the House floor cheering protesters… Read more
The Supreme Court and health care repeal politics
Source: The Economist Attorneys general from 14 states (so far) are filing lawsuits to challenge the constitutionality of health care reform. Some have the support of their Republican governors. Others have incensed their Democratic governors. Orin Kerr, on the conservative/libertarian law professors’ blog The Volokh Conspiracy, gives the odds of repealing the individual mandate as… Read more
Health care: A history of last minute arm twisting
Source: The Truth or the Fight The media love to play the upcoming health care vote as a sporting event, with daily play-by-play analyses of whether Nancy Pelosi will get the 216 votes she needs to pass the reform legislation. Speculations on the vote count are meaningless, however, until the very last minute. Those members… Read more
Health inequities, politics, and the public option
Source: Torontoist Constance A. Nathanson is an American historian of public health. She recently wrote an essay for The Lancet that explains why the public option is such a hot button – one that threatens to confront us with the underlying issue of health inequality. Early in the twentieth century, industrialized nations – with the… Read more
Déjà vu: Historical resistance to the inequities of health
If statistical analysis shows conclusively that morbidity and mortality are directly related to income, what should a (presumably) enlightened government do with this information? One approach, consistently popular throughout history, is to blame the victims. In the Reagan/Thatcher years we saw an enthusiastic promotion of taking personal responsibility for one’s health. Personal responsibility follows naturally… Read more
Why did health care reform fail? Lack of empathy
Source: The New York Times Continuing with Abigail Trafford’s analysis of health care reform, the next comparison between the Obama and Clinton failures is the ongoing empathy gap. Trafford describes an experience she had with supporters of Clinton’s health reform. In 1994 she traveled with the Health Security Express, a busload of individuals who suffered… Read more
Why did health care reform fail? Cognitive dissonance
Source: Ohio Daily President Obama was determined to avoid the mistakes of Bill Clinton’s attempt at health care reform. He made sure Congress was heavily involved. He courted the major interest groups – the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals. And yet it appears reform has failed once again. Abigail Trafford, author and former Washington… Read more
Why did we shoot ourselves in the foot on health care?
Source: The University of Minnesota Unlike the US, where a turkey dinner is traditionally associated with Thanksgiving, the United Kingdom dines on turkey at Christmas. So when the British or Australians accuse you of acting like “a turkey voting for Christmas,” they mean you’re going against your own best interests. The BBC has a new… Read more
Daily Dose: Celebrity health; Livestock antibiotics; Transplants
The body as machine Source: The Daily Mail Inventor spends Christmas with his perfect woman – a £30,000 custom-made fembot (The Daily Mail) “Inventor Le Trung spent Christmas Day with the most important woman in his life – his robot Aiko. … Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled.… Read more
Daily Dose: Palliative sedation; E. coli in tenderized meat
There’s a long article in Sunday’s New York Times on palliative sedation. I’ve also listed some older stories on the subject and an educational site. Aging, end-of-life, and death Source: The Why Files Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death: Sedation, (The New York Times) “Among those [end-of-life] choices is terminal sedation, a treatment that is… Read more
This mess we’re in – Part 1
Source: Moore’s Lore After all these months of acrimony and hand-wringing, it appears there will be something called health care reform. It may be equally disappointing to both supporters and opponents, but that comes as no surprise. It’s now abundantly clear that the legislative process is hopelessly inadequate when it comes to things like health… Read more
This is for my friend Ted Kennedy
Source: Washington Life Magazine Every “aye” vote in the Senate remains critical for the final passage of health care reform, and Senator Byrd’s health is described as fragile. Earlier this year he spent six months in the hospital with a staph infection, and he has used a wheelchair for his recent trips to the Senate… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #18
Source: Wunderground When did we start calling the whole day before Christmas “Christmas Eve?” I thought Christmas Eve was the evening before Christmas. But no. Senators voted on health care reform at 1:00 AM on Thursday December 24th. To me, that’s still Wednesday night, but it was widely reported as happening on Christmas Eve. Perhaps… Read more
Big Pharma tells Santa: All I want for Christmas
Source: FoundMoney Last week it looked like Big Pharma had won the latest skirmish over importing low cost drugs from Canada and other countries. But the battle isn’t over yet. As FiercePharma told its drug company readers today: “And you thought you could stop worrying about re-importation.” Senator Dorgan’s amendment to the health care reform… Read more
Campaign contributions and the cost of pharmaceuticals
Source: The Heartland Institute Prescription drugs are much more expensive in the US than they are in other countries. Americans pay 36 percent more than Canadians, on average. We pay 39 percent more than Europeans and 43 percent more than the Japanese. Mevacor, a commonly prescribed statin for lowering cholesterol, costs $200 for 100 pills… Read more
Accelerate health care reform before it's too late
Source: Infected Tube Paul Starr was a senior advisor for health care reform under President Clinton, and he’s the author of a celebrated history of the American health care system, The Social Transformation of American Medicine. He has weighed in on the current health care debate in a New York Times op-ed piece. In addition… Read more
Could conservatives reverse health reform in 2013?
Source: About.com, Daniel Kurtzman Maggie Mahar raises a disturbing point about implementing health care reform once a bill makes it through both branches of Congress. In the House version of the bill, the provisions — the public plan, the Exchanges, regulation of private insurers, subsidies — take effect on January 1, 2013. The Senate version,… Read more
Sin taxes: Financing health care with soda pop
Sourch: On the dash Sugary soft drinks are under attack from obesity experts, health commissioners, nutritionists, Congress, and President Obama. And the soft drink industry is fighting back. Health experts have proposed a tax on soft drinks of one cent per ounce. That’s an extra 12 cents on a 12-ounce bottle of Pepsi, which may… Read more
The public option has a pulse
Source: xplosive world Commentators are expressing surprise at the resurrection of a public option as part the health care reform package. The main reasons cited for its resurgence are the insurance industry’s recent attack on health care legislation, claiming premiums would rise, and polls indicating that a clear majority of the public supports the public… Read more
Were "death panels" a teachable moment for palliative care?
Source: Palliative Care Foundation This past summer, thanks in large part to Sarah Palin, we were inundated with sound bites about death panels, pulling the plug on grandma, and saving the government money by dying a little sooner. Palin’s emotionally manipulative Facebook post appeared on August 7. “The America I know and love is not… Read more