For the Record

The wholly privatized family

Unicef has just released a report assessing the well-being of children in the top 21 wealthiest countries (for which there is appropriate data; see below).

The [report] looks at six dimensions of child well-being: material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, family and peer relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's own perceptions of their well-being.

Both the U.S. and Britain were in the bottom two-thirds of five of the six categories, and came in dead last overall, by a considerable margin.  The overall results:

(Note: Australia, Iceland, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, the Slovak Republic, South Korea, and Turkey were excluded due to lack of data). The U.S. came in last on health and safety:

While none of the countries studied can claim "mission accomplished" in securing child well-being in every measurement, the United States fared particularly poorly. It ranked last in health and safety, primarily because of high rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, and deaths from accidents and injuries.

No great surprise, given the persistent legacies of Reagan and Thatcher:

One of the study's researchers, Jonathan Bradshaw, said children fared worse in the US and Britain -- despite high overall levels of national wealth -- because of greater economic inequality and poor levels of public support for families.

“What they have in common are very high levels of inequality, very high levels of child poverty, which is also associated with inequality, and in rather different ways poorly developed services to families with children,” said Bradshaw, a professor of social policy at the University of York in Britain.

“They don’t invest as much in children as continental European countries do,” he said, citing the lack of day care services in both countries and poorer health coverage and preventative care for children in the U.S.

More discussion of causal factors here.

Peak food?

The enormous increase in agricultural productivity since WWII may have run its course---but increase in population hasn't, and we're beginning to see the very frightening consequences:

Food supplies are shrinking alarmingly around the globe, plunging the world into its greatest crisis for more than 30 years. New figures show that this year's harvest will fail to produce enough to feed everyone on Earth, for the sixth time in the past seven years. Humanity has so far managed by eating its way through stockpiles built up in better times - but these have now fallen below the danger level.

                                        

Food prices have already started to rise as a result, and threaten to soar out of reach of many of the 4.2 billion people who live in the world's most vulnerable countries. And the new "green" drive to get cars to run on biofuels threatens to make food even scarcer and more expensive.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which produce the world's two main forecasts of the global crop production, both estimate that this year's grain harvest will fall for the second successive year.

[. . .]

The world's food stocks have shrunk from enough to feed the world for 116 days in 1999 to a predicted 57 days at the end of this season, well below the official safety level. Prices have already risen by up to 20 per cent this year.

[. . .]

Between 1950 and 1990 grain yields more than doubled, but they have grown much more slowly since. Production rose from around 630 million tons to 1.78 billion tons, but has only edged up in the past 15 years, to around 2 billion tons.

"The near-tripling of the harvest by the world's farmers was a remarkable performance," says Brown. "In a single generation they increased grain production by twice as much as had been achieved during the preceding 11,000 years, since agriculture began. But now the world has suffered a dramatic loss of momentum."

Apart from increasing yields, there has always been one other way of boosting production - putting more land under the plough. But this, too, has been running into the buffers. As population grows and farmland is used for building roads and cities - and becomes exhausted by overuse - the amount available for each person on Earth has fallen by more than half.

There are more than five people on Earth today for every two living in the middle of the last century. Yet enough is produced worldwide to feed everyone well, if it is evenly distributed.

It is not just that people in rich countries eat too much, and those in poor ones eat too little. Enormous quantities of the world's increasingly scarce grain now goes to feed cows - and, indirectly, cars.

The cows are longstanding targets of Brown's, who founded the prestigious Worldwatch Institute immediately after the 1974 conference, partly to draw attention to the precariousness of food supplies. As people become better-off, they eat more meat, the animals that are slaughtered often being fed on grain. It takes 14kg of grain to produce 2kg of beef, and 8kg of grain for 2kg of pork. More than a third of the world's harvest goes to fatten animals in this way.

Cars are a new concern, the worry arising from the present drive to produce green fuels to fight global warming. A "corn rush" has erupted in the United States, using the crop to produce the biofuel, ethanol - strongly supported by subsidies from the Bush administration to divert criticism of its failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Just a single fill of ethanol for a four-wheel drive SUV, says Brown, uses enough grain to feed one person for an entire year. This year the amount of US corn going to make the fuel will equal what it sells abroad; traditionally its exports have helped feed 100 - mostly poor - countries.

From next year, the amount used to run American cars will exceed exports, and soon it is likely to reduce what is available to help feed poor people overseas. The number of ethanol plants built or planned in the corn-belt state of Iowa will use virtually all the state's crop.

This will not only cut food supplies, but drive up the process of grain, making hungry people compete with the owners of gas-guzzlers. Already spending 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, they simply cannot afford to do so.

Brown expects the food crisis to get much worse as more and more land becomes exhausted, soil erodes, water becomes scarcer, and global warming cuts harvests.

Why is there a U.S. health care crisis?

Contrasting our positive experiences with the Canadian health care system with what she is experiencing in the U.S., my mother writes:

This is such a basic, serious issue that each and every American should be agreeing on.  Who and what is it that stands in the way of universal, caring health care for all Americans?  [...]

Is it the health insurance companies who now virtually do NOT insure anyone who has ever had a health problem in their background?  (My husband and I have both had cancer and have been cancer-free for 5 years, but are both uninsurable at any price in the US--one of our [relatives],  age 26, had a "iffy" Pap smear (not cancer but might turn into it sometime in the future) and was denied insurance.   

And what is the benefit to Americans that health insurance companies have the luxury of not insuring anyone who is in any way a "risk"?  Is not life itself a risk, and are we not all going to die, sooner or later, of something??  If health insurance is not a "viable business" given that we are all going to die, isn't that the best reason in the world to make health care the responsibility of the government, and not a profit-making corporation?

And then there is the prescription problem.  The restrictions and regulations in the new "Medicare D" are so ridiculous that it's almost impossible to describe it without thinking the world has gone crazy.  But it's all understandable if you understand that it's all about helping the pharmaceutical companies keep on making money. [...]

But to get back to my original point, who in the vast American population benefits when health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are virtually dictating who gets cared for and how much they pay for their drugs??

I realize that there are quite a few Republican congressmen and lobbyists and others who rake in a lot of dough as all this goes on.  But what are their ranks compared to the enormous number of people who just need decent, affordable health care---namely, almost all Americans.  Surely the millions who deserve fair, affordable health care far outnumber the handful of crooks who are cashing in on denying these millions the care they need.

Can it possibly be true that a few corporations and congresspeople are denying an entire nation of people this basic human right?   And why is it that each and every American who is at risk (and that is most of us) isn't screaming bloody murder about this one issue alone??   I really don't get it.

This excerpt from David Sirota's new book (Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered our Government -- and How We Take it Back) provides some answers to my mother's good question of why the interests of such a small segment of the U.S. population have been allowed to "deny an entire nation of people of this basic human right" (perhaps a right contingent on sufficient resources---but clearly this condition is met). 

Sirota makes the question more pointed, by noting that those who endorse (and in any case stand to benefit from) national health care include not just those needing care but increasingly, doctors and members of the business community:

According to a nationwide ABC/Washington Post poll in 2003, "Americans by a 2-1 margin, 62-32 percent, prefer a universal health insurance program over the current [private] employer-based system."

Doctors, too, are chiming in with support for universal health insurance. In 2003, the prestigious--and conservative--Journal of the American Medical Association published a proposal for government-sponsored universal health care that was endorsed by more than 8,000 physicians (including two former surgeon generals).

Even parts of the business community support government intervention. For instance, Ford, GM and Chrysler all endorsed Canada's system, where the government funds health care for all citizens. Similarly, a poll of Michigan small businesses found that 63 percent supported creating a universal health care system, even if it required tax increases. The health insurance industry, you see, is not only gouging patients--it is gouging employers who provide health care benefits to workers.

Horrifically, lack of universal health care is killing 18,000 U.S.-ers a year:

The Institute of Medicine was created by Congress in 1970 to be the chief, nonpartisan adviser to the federal government on all matters related to health care. That's why the announcement it made in 2004 was so stunning. "Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States," the Institute said. Therefore, "By 2010, everyone in the United States should have health insurance ... [The Institute] urges the president and Congress to act immediately by establishing a firm and explicit plan to reach this goal."

The health care system, which is supposed to preserve and protect human life, is allowing thousands of Americans to die every year, and America's top experts were sounding the alarm.

Sirota goes on to address my mother's question:

So how is it that government and media have settled into complacency when the system is so bad for so many? The status quo pays big dividends.

In 2003, HMOs nearly doubled their profits from just a year before, adding $10 billion to their bottom line. That year, top executives at the 11 largest health insurers made a combined $85 million in one year. In the first three quarters of 2004, HMO profits increased by another 33 percent. The sheer numbers behind these profits are staggering: In 2004 alone, the four biggest health insurance companies reported $100 billion in revenues. That's $273 million a day, every day, 365 days of the year.

That's the kind of cash that allowed the health industry to spend more than $300 million on lobbying in 2003, and another $300 million on campaign contributions to politicians since 2000. Their agenda is pretty simple: stop any proposals to curb health care profiteering by private insurance companies. To make its arguments, the industry buys off high-profile ex-politicians and makes them its spokespeople.

Really, who needs lobbyists when corrupt politicians who will do the job?  People like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) can be counted on to bring up the specter of health care "rationing" whenever the topic of universal health care comes up, as when Ron Pollock of Families USA testified before a house committee on the issue:

Like a drooling pit bull snarling at a passerby, Rogers barked, "You support rationing health care for American citizens and limiting the ability for them to have access to pharmaceutical treatment in order to keep costs down."

Rogers might well have screamed "Communist!" had his time not run out. Why was he so aggressively hurling out deceptive accusations? He was just doing the job he'd been paid to do: Over the previous four years, Rogers found himself in possession of more than a quarter million dollars of campaign contributions from the health care industry. Rogers is just a cog in the industry's spin machine--a $275,000 cog, but a cog nonetheless. That machine has been effective over the years in one of its most important goals: tarring any government health care initiative as the precursor to "rationing." So when advocates of government involvement make an appearance anywhere in Washington, the industry's hired goons can be counted on to shout them down before any ugly truth gets out there.

We are led to believe that because we have a private, for-profit health care system, we don't have health care rationing in America. But the whole point of most health insurance companies is to ration care, limiting the amount of coverage their patients get in order to save cash. Even the Supreme Court admits that. [...] The ultraconservative Washington Times admitted that the court made very clear that "it is the point of any HMO to ration care and within its prerogative to delay tests, avert expensive consultations or refuse experimental care."

Sirota goes on to make some obvious suggestions about how the health care crisis could be resolved: either go for a single-payer system ("Medicare for everyone") or else regulate the industry.  Easier said than done,  though.  The deeper answer to my mother's question remains unanswered: how on earth can U.S.-ers get corporations back into the bottle?

Canadian health care, continued

In Toronto recently, Clinton warned Canadians away from the U.S. health care model:

The answer to Canada's health-care woes does not lie in the "insane" system in place south of the border, former U.S. president Bill Clinton said last night.

Speaking in Toronto, Mr. Clinton said that reform may be needed in Canada, but he argued forcefully that the U.S. model is a "colossal waste of money" that is "killing" his country competitively.

"It's a good thing, your health care system, with all of its problems," Mr. Clinton told supporters of the inaugural World Leaders Forum [...]

Mr. Clinton said that he was familiar with the Chaoulli decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, in which the justices ruled that the public system was too slow and struck down a Quebec prohibition on private health insurance. Arguing that the United States had made a mess of health care, he encouraged Canadians to study instead how other countries have tackled these issues. [...]

Mr. Clinton, who failed in his own attempt to overhaul the U.S. health-care system during his presidency, pointed out that the portion of health costs spent on administration in the United States is nearly twice that of any other industrialized nation.

Our own experiences with the Canadian system have been uniformly positive.  We spoke about our initial experience here, and we continue to find socialized medicine efficient, inexpensive, and humane.

For example, a few days ago, we went to an emergency walk-in clinic.  Not fancy, but servicable: a waiting room, an administrative office, and an examining room.  It took about 5 minutes to see the doctor.  A relatively high-tech test was performed, and all was well. For some reason we hadn't yet received our OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) cards yet (more on this shortly), so had to pay out of pocket.  The bill: $25 Canadian.

[UPDATE: Reader CO informs me that the situation is different at hospital emergency rooms, where without an OHIP card you can expect to pay a base cost of around $500.]

As it turns out, our OHIP cards hadn't arrived because in order to get them we had to apply at the local Ministry of Health (a communication mishap).  We went in today.  We spent about 1 minute in line before we were at a desk talking with a competent person, who gave us a simple form to fill out and directed us to another competent person, who looked at our work permits and house lease, asked us a couple of questions, took our pictures and gave us temporary OHIP passes (cards to be mailed shortly).  The whole process took about ten minutes; so much for the supposed inefficiency of government administration.

It gets better.  For the last months, while we were supposedly waiting for our cards, we've paid various small sums out of pocket for medical expenses.  I asked the Ministry of Health person what our chances were of getting reimbursed; she responded that she was backdating our cards to last November (when we would have initially qualified for them) for this purpose.  An immediate rational response to the financial benefit of the consumer: can you imagine that happening in a for-profit health care system?

One of the unexpected pleasures of being in Canada is the feeling of happy surprise that comes from being treated in such contexts as a person, as opposed to an entry on a corporation balance sheet.  That alone will probably add years to my life.

If he's against it, I'm for it

Surfing around in the astroturfy anti net neutrality website advertised on a lot of blogs here, I noticed this:

"Legislation should be free of so-called "network neutrality" provisions. We strongly urge Congress to continue the "hands off" approach to Internet regulation that has allowed the Internet to flourish for over a decade. A network neutrality provision would start down the dangerous path to Internet regulation and taxation. Further, network neutrality regulation seeks to address a problem that does not currently exist, as providers have a very real market incentive not to drive customers elsewhere by blocking or slowing down popular content."
  Americans for Tax Reform and The Media Freedom Project letter to Chairman Joe Barton, dated March 16, 2006, signed by Grover Norquist, President, ATR, and Tom Readmond, Executive Director, MFP

Yes, that Grover Norquist. (Now why would good old Grover be interested in pressing for giant corporations to be allowed to control the flow of info through the internet?)

For the case made by the heroes, go here.

Universal health coverage in Massachusetts?

Don't get your hopes up:

According to the New York Times, Massachusetts is likely to become the first state to provide universal health care coverage after the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill on April 4. "This is probably about as close as you can get to universal," said Paul Ginsburg, an economist who is president of the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington.

This is no late April fool's joke. But as is often the case with these situations universal healthcare in the U.S. is very different from universal healthcare in Europe. In Europe it means that the government provides your healthcare. Period. In the U.S. it means that the government forces you to provide your own coverage.

That's right.  Maybe you didn't realize that U.S.ers are already blessed with "universal car insurance".

In fact, the bill "requires all Massachusetts residents to obtain health coverage by July 1, 2007."

And what about those individuals who don't comply? They will be penalized on their state income taxes.

But what about the employers who don't provide insurance for their employees? They will also be penalized. They'll have to pay a whopping $295 per employee. Per year. Considering that health insurance may cost an employer from several thousand dollars to over ten thousand dollars per employee, the choice would appear to be a real tough one.

Reality in Massachusetts is that the state already has some of the highest individual insurance costs because of consumer-friendly insurance laws which include provisions for no pre-existing conditions. That should be a good thing, but in the hands of the "free market" it simply results in high prices for everyone and the healthy staying out of the system, driving up the cost even more. So now, there's a cure for those healthy slackers who refuse to pay high insurance prices in MA; if they don't pay, they'll get a tax increase.

Meanwhile, no one is addressing the root of the problem, which is to control the outrageous administrative burden that health insurance companies cause our patients, physicians, and the entire health system.

BusinessWeek in a recent cover article listed their annual ranking of the 50 fastest growing corporations. But they failed drawing any conclusions from the fact that after Apple Computer landed in the number one spot, the computer maker was followed by three companies that make all their money on administering drugs and healthcare to sick Americans; WellPoint, the nation's biggest health insurer, Caremark Rx, one of the largest pharmacy benefits managers (a company that manages prescriptions for patients and pharmacies), and UnitedHealth Group which provides health insurance and other services to 65 million Americans. Guess who is paying for their growth?

There is one group of people celebrating today in Massachusetts. The extremely wealthy health insurance company executives.

UPDATE: Reader and soon-to-be Brown philosophy grad student Derek Bowman follows up:

This reminds me of a plan I concocted when I did policy debate in high school. The topic was something like "Be it resolved: The U.S. Government should guarantee health insurance to all citizens." The affirmative's job was to propose a specific policy that would satisfy the resolution, so I proposed a plan to amend the constitutional definition of citizen to only cover those people who have health insurance.

Chavez to the rescue: Getting the IMF monkey off Argentina's back

Speaking of plunder and profits, the IMF have been the Loan Sharks of Corporate Capitalism ever since 1945.   As George Monbiot notes,

[The IMF] has just one set of policies. Governments must impose restraints upon the supply of money and credit, open the door to foreign capital, privatise state assets and cut public spending. It justifies these demands by persuading them that they are suffering from unmanageable debt and galloping inflation.

In other words, tie the country down and prepare it for corporate rape.  In a victory for reality and right action over unsound greed-driven ideology, this past week both Brazil and Argentina announced that they will shortly repay their IMF loans back in full.

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina said it will pay back its entire $9.8 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, severing 22-year-old ties with the lender that the government blames for its 2001 debt default.

President Nestor Kirchner, who at rallies and speeches this year has called IMF officials ``rude'' and demanding, said at a press conference in Buenos Aires the government will make the payment after three years of economic growth bolstered foreign currency reserves. The economy grew 9.2 percent in the third quarter on a surge in public spending, the government said today.         

Kirchner, 55, vowed to take the decision on several occasions this year to ensure the administration isn't dependent on policies endorsed by the Washington-based lender, including spending caps and higher utility rates. The announcement comes two days after neighboring Brazil said it would repay its $15.5 billion IMF debt.

Kirchner said today the IMF advice and loans in the 1990s helped lead to the country to "failure'' and said the fund has neglected to help since the default when they most need the help. He said the IMF's demands acted as constraints that impeded the economic recovery, and he criticized the fund for not providing financing for the government's debt restructuring this year.

Enter Chavez:

Kirchner also thanked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for his assistance, prompting applause from government officials listening to the speech at the presidential palace. Venezuela this year has purchased almost $1 billion of Argentine bonds.

Kirchner said paying back the IMF will save the government $1 billion of interest. "We're trying to pull out of the hell that we fell into," Kirchner said, referring to the nation's debt default and subsequent currency devaluation. He vowed to press for a "deep restructuring" of the IMF.

Oil, profits and plunder

Just came across RubDMC's tragic and heartbreaking series of Iraq War Grief Daily Witness posts.

What boggles my mind is thinking about the primary reason all this misery and waste of resources and lives has occurred: so that a few wealthy oil-men and their financial kin-group can continue to maintain themselves in the style to which they have become accustomed:

Up to $US194 billion ($263 billion) in Iraqi oil revenues are going to multinational oil companies under long-term contracts, and not to the Iraqi people, a social and environmental group said.

In a report, the group known as Platform said that oil multinationals would be paid between $US74 billion and $US194 billion with rates of return of between 42 per cent and 162 per cent under proposed production-sharing agreements, or PSAs.

"The form of contracts being promoted is the most expensive and undemocratic option available," Platform researcher Greg Muttitt said.

"Iraq's oil should be for the benefit of the Iraqi people not foreign oil companies."

Muttitt added: "Iraq's institutions are new and weak. Experience in other countries shows that oil companies generally get the upper hand in PSA negotiations with governments.

"The companies will inevitably use Iraq's current instability to push for highly advantageous terms and lock Iraq to those terms for decades."

The report, titled Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth, said the majority of Iraqis were against the large-scale involvement of foreign companies in the post-Saddam era.

"Iraqi public opinion is strongly opposed to handing control over oil development to foreign companies," it said.

"But with the active involvement of the US and British governments a group of powerful Iraqi politicians and technocrats is pushing for a system of long-term contracts with foreign oil companies which will be beyond the reach of Iraqi courts, public scrutiny or democratic control."

Under PSAs, foreign companies provide capital investment, including drilling and the construction of infrastructure, and a proportion of oil extracted is allocated to the companies.

But Platform's report alleged that financing oil development could be done instead though government budgetary expenditure, using future oil flows as collateral to borrow money, or using international oil companies through shorter-term and less lucrative contracts.

Louise Richards, chief executive of aid charity War on Want, said: "People have increasingly come to realise that the Iraq war was about oil, profits and plunder."

"Iraq's oil profits, far from being used to alleviate some of the suffering the Iraqi people now face, are well within the sights of the oil multinationals."

I am still having a hard time believing that we live in a world where human beings and the social, political and economic institutions that they have (or have not) brought about are capable of allowing such things to happen.  What a massive and miserable failure of humanity.

Annual U.N. request of $4.7 billion equal to two days of global military spending

The world has gone terribly wrong.

In particular: Fubar of Needlenose notes that to date, U.S. taxpayers have spend $160 billion  on the so-called "global war on terror", not including so-called "homeland security" or so-called "rebuilding Iraq".  Fubar cites from the General Accounting Office report:

In fiscal years 2004 and 2005, DOD received funding to support GWOT in both its annual appropriation and in supplemental appropriations provided during those years. The military services received about $52.4 billion and about $62.1 billion in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, respectively, in supplemental appropriations for GWOT military personnel and operation and maintenance expenses. At the same time, DOD requested that the Army, Air Force, and Navy receive a combined increase of about $7.9 billion in fiscal year 2004 and a combined increase of about $7.6 billion in fiscal year 2005 in their annual appropriations, which DOD said would be for support of GWOT.
...
In addition to funds DOD received through supplemental appropriations for GWOT, beginning in fiscal year 2003, the administration increased DOD’s annual appropriation request by more than $10 billion per year. DOD described these funds as being intended to support GWOT.

Fubar comments:

Adding all these up, we're looking at around $160 billion already spent for the GWOT. This doesn't even count the funds spent on Department of Homeland Security to fight off the terrorist menace or the cost of crater filling rebuilding Iraq/Afghanistan. The CBO (which tends to guess low) estimates ongoing GWOT costs to be around $55-60 billion per year.

How can any of us not be ashamed of these absurd and tragic figures?

New Orleans diaspora in NYC

Read about it here. (Hat tip: Steve Gilliard.)