Behind the big news
(i.e. Haiti and Scott Brown),
The Court struck again.

This past week has probably been the most shocking news week in months.  The sudden devastation in Haiti and the upset win of Scott Brown have caught us all unawares.  [Before I go on, I need to comment (like probably 50 million other people) on how ironic it is that Ted Kennedy's seat will be the one that destroys the health care reform bill, the issue that he championed for decades before passing away oh too soon.  It would be quite funny if it didn't mean that 45 million uninsured Americans will still be shit out of luck if their bodies fail.]

While the continuing tragedy in Haiti cannot go unnoticed (not for years), I hope people realize how crippling the Supreme Court's ruling to destroy Campaign Finance Laws will be for America and the rest of the world.  The Court's 5-4 ruling essentially allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns, which will lead to a much greater influence for America's corporatocracy on the government.  In a world where multinational corporations, unions and special interests already wield inordinate power over people's lives and governmental decisions, this is a 100-meter dash in the wrong direction.  I was stunned and appalled when this story broke.

This is a good time to bring up free and clean elections, such as that proposed by the Fair Elections Now Act.  Politicians must raise insane amounts of money to merely compete in elections these days, and it is only going to get worse (especially after the ruling today).  As an alternative, a clean election would severely limit spending, with candidates receiving their campaign money from small community-based donations and public financing.  This eliminates the need to serve disproportionately wealthy citizens and corporations, and allows our representatives to focus on what makes people, communities, and our country happier, stronger, and more productive.  Clean elections would make our government function the way it should have been all these years.

Today, the incentives aren't there for politicians to work on behalf of people, mainly because of the undue influence of special interests.  The Supreme Court's ruling today just hammers the issue home.

For more information on clean elections, a video by Bill Moyers of PBS.  And sign a petition to enact the Fair Elections Now Act.

With the nation's health
At play, Obama steps up
And swings cautiously

(As a disclaimer, like most of the topics I talk about, I am not an authority on the issue.  This is just my personal view on healthcare.)

Obviously, this is an important point in Obama's Presidency.  Obama started off with a simple principle: they will institute reform that will provide better healthcare for all, at a lower overall price.  That seems to have been replaced by a different principle, get something done quickly so that most people are covered.  It is definitely a laudable goal to provide insurance for all.  In fact, it's practically criminal that we don't have health care as a right, instead of a privilege.

However, with that being said, this is a golden opportunity for the federal government to institute sweeping reforms of a broken health care system.  If today's reform ends up stopping short of full reform, then we won't get the opportunity to institute real change for years.  It is more important to get the job done right, rather than quickly.  The Congressional Budget Office says that the current plan will increase costs over time, which is not acceptable.  So, I hope that the government returns to Obama's original principle, and does whatever it can to reach that goal.

It is achievable.  There are HUGE wastes in the healthcare system.  Some steps that the government can take are the following:

• Change physician pay to being salary-based instead of pay-for-service.  Doing this would change the incentives for physicians towards getting the job done right, instead of getting the job done using a lot of tests and services.  It is proven that having salaried employees lowers costs without a sacrifice in healthcare quality.  Unfortunately, the American Medical Association has been against it.
• Restrict a patient's right to sue for medical malpractice.  This one is touchy, because if a routine surgery goes wrong and a patient is killed or permanently disabled, then the family should be entitled to...something.  But at the same time, the risk of a lawsuit forces doctors to buy hella expensive insurance (which raises costs tremendously), and incentivizes them to again perform extra tests to cover all their bases.  In other words, if there's a 98% chance you have a minor illness, but a 2% chance that you have a hidden cancer, the doctor would probably call for an expensive test to cover his pa-tooty.  A lawsuit restriction could be something like forcing the patient to cover legal costs of the hospital if the patient loses, or limiting the maximum damages award to be something like $1 million.  Obama has said that he would not do this.
  
• Create greater competition in the insurance markets.  I'm not sure of this, but I believe that many insurance companies and policies are state-bound, and do not cross state lines.  Allowing for insurance policies to cover anyone in any state would allow for greater competition and drive costs down.
• Incentivize the creation of clinics that have monthly rates instead of pay-for service.  In other words, a patient would bypass insurance and pay a monthly premium ($80-100) for service.  If you get sick, you call the doctor and either have a phone appointment or an in-house appointment.  Either way, you don't pay a dime.  This takes away the cost disincentive towards going to the doctor's office, which allows you to get care for problems earlier on in an illness.  In other words, this system fosters preventative care.  Also, since the clinic does not deal with insurance, a good 30-40% of their overall costs are immediately gone.  Those costs are for administrators to deal with the insurance companies.  This system would again lower costs bigtime.  (There was an article about this awhile back, but I can't find it.)
• Force doctor's offices to clarify costs.  Health care is one of the only fields where the cost of a service is not known until after the service is performed.

The point is, our current healthcare system incentivizes expensive care, not good care.  There are enough inefficiencies in the system that we CAN have quality healthcare for EVERYONE residing in the states at a LOWER overall cost.  Settling for a mediocre plan will just burst any hopes that we have for true health care reform in the near future.

If you be-lie-eve
We put on a man on the moon,
Man on the moon...moon.

I find it funny how on the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing, people are talking about getting a man to Mars.  I can't think of a bigger waste of money.  It makes sense that the first endeavor helped launch a new wave of technologies, such as teflon and Tempur-pedic mattresses, and helped the U.S. achieve new space technologies.  But, a trip to Mars would be immeasurably expensive, and would not likely produce any revolutionary technologies.  If we want to spend money on space exploration, let's not worry about keeping something alive in the flying metal box.

Instead, we should establishing a renewable energy-based society and have that be the "new frontier."  If the nation rallied around this problem, new technologies would sprout like dandelions, and millions of jobs would be created.  America would become a model for other nations, and the new technologies would flow overseas to countries like China and India.  This Renewable Frontier would be crazy-expensive, but looking back will be a small cost to pay for saving the planet.

Girls' education,
Stronger than any bullet
In war on terror

About a month ago, my girlfriend's mom gave me a copy of "Three Cups of Tea," a book about Greg Mortensen.  The book was amazing, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Afghanistan, foreign policy, poverty or education.  Mortensen is a former climber from Minnesota who got lost after a failed attempt to reach the summit of K2 (in eastern Pakistan), and was taken care of by Pakistanis in a remote mountain village.  So grateful for their hospitality, he vowed to build them a school, which Pakistan hadn't done.

Needless to say, he built them a school, a bridge, and a women's resource center.  In the years that followed, he has built 131 schools in Pakistan and 48 in Afghanistan, mainly focusing on girls.  In addition, the book "Three Cups of Tea" showcased his remarkable work to thousands of readers.

Why is this important?

Besides the blatantly obvious fact that "education is good," these schools provide an secular, balanced education to thousands of children whose only other option for education are the Saudi-funded madrassas.  These madrassas provide an ideological, Islamic-based "education" that breeds radicals for organizations like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.  Providing progressive alternatives (that are not based on Christianity so as to not threaten Islam) for education is one of our best tools to fight the war on terror.  The new U.S. Army gets this, and is now committed to this effort (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19friedman.html?em).  In addition, the army commander in Afghanistan has changed tactics since early July to one of drastically limiting civilian casualties (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1909261,00.html). 

This is so refreshing after the Bush Administration's blockheaded, hyper-aggressive foreign policy.  The idea that we can come into a nation blasting away at the bad guys (and the Taliban are bad, as was Saddam Hussein) and "build a democracy" was unbelievably short-sighted and completely lacked empathy (see past post).  If a foreign army comes into your country, destroys all infrastructure, tortures your people, and (most importantly) inadvertently kills your brothers and friends, you might feel just a tad of anger.  I used to get so angry seeing news stories about how many insurgents and U.S. soldiers were killed without even a mention of civilian casualties. 

I hope and believe that Afghanistan will become much more secure in the years to come.

To die without pain
Hand-in-hand with a loved one:
A right, a privilege

I've never understood why assisted suicide is a criminal action.  It should at least be available for those who are terminally ill.  Thoughts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/world/europe/15britain.html?em

But the Sotomayor case is not what really bothers me.  It simply brings thoughts about empathy to the forefront.  What really bothers me is many Americans' desire to "punish the bad guy," without any thought of why the "bad guy" committed the acts that he did.  This penchant for punishment shows up in many political areas, most notably in our dealings with terrorism and with domestic crime.  I will save terrorism for another day and focus on crime.

Many Americans' reaction to domestic crime is to condemn the actions, and continue on with life without giving a second's thought as to why the crime was committed in the first place.  If you have a family to feed, no job, no education, and no safety net, you are probably going to resort to crime.  (As Nas says in Hold down the block... "Anytime brothers can't get jobs, then they rob.  A man [would] rather die than live on his knees and starve.") 

I am not saying that a criminal should not be punished.  I am merely saying that when a crime occurs, we have to consider the root causes of the crime, and try to address those issues.  In addition, we have to provide the criminal with the resources during his rehabilitation so that he doesn't have to resort to crime again when he leaves prison.  Does this cost extra money?  Yes and no.  It will cost extra money in the short-term, but it will definitely save society money if he leads a productive life instead of committing crime again and returning to prison.

The lack of empathy really comes into play with the defense that "the criminal doesn't deserve our help."  This cold-hearted, short-sighted belief is held by many, and lacks the compassion that human beings deserve.  Blaming somebody who never had a chance in life, and then further denying him any chances, is reprehensible.

Instead of waiting to punish people, let's help those in need.

-Jay

Republican Senator Charles Grassley from Iowa said to Sotomayor that "unless you have a meltdown, you're gonna get confirmed," which I take to mean that unless she says something horrific, or some Anita Hill-esque melodrama suddenly appears, she's going to be fine.  That makes me happy, because Sotomayor is clearly one of the most highly qualified Justice nominees in years.

Oh, and apparently people are wondering wither Grassley would have made the same comment to a man.  Seems to me like journalists making something out of nothing.

This is the first post to my blog about Politics...using haikus!  I hope to talk about a vast array of topics.  I would love any comments and contributions.  Cheers!