Severe interrogation techniques like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and the exploitation of phobias aren’t just morally reprehensible, they’re based on bad science, destroying the very memories they’re supposed to recover.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Brain Science proves Torture Victims Lie
Read the full story in Wired:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/badintelligence/
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
An American without health insurance is like a...
According to the man speaking for the Cato Institute on PBS last night, everyone should have a right to an "uninsured" body.
Afterall, as he said, you can opt out of car insurance if you don't drive. Similarly you can refuse home insurance by not having a mortgage. We deserve, he said, the say "opt out" choice for health insurance.
But what if non-health insurance paying citizens aren't worth the expense they cause all of us later when they get sick?
Isn't it true that if you don't own a car you can't have a car accident, but if you have a body, you may still get sick, and if you do, other people, taxpayers or charites who cover the uninsured will have to intervene to save your life.
It's not about who gets covered, it is about who pays. Healthcare is the one thing that it seems Americans like to overpay for, as long as the people they overpay to are not the government. But they only want to overpay if they can also punish people with the freedom to be uninsured.
Afterall, as he said, you can opt out of car insurance if you don't drive. Similarly you can refuse home insurance by not having a mortgage. We deserve, he said, the say "opt out" choice for health insurance.
But what if non-health insurance paying citizens aren't worth the expense they cause all of us later when they get sick?
Isn't it true that if you don't own a car you can't have a car accident, but if you have a body, you may still get sick, and if you do, other people, taxpayers or charites who cover the uninsured will have to intervene to save your life.
It's not about who gets covered, it is about who pays. Healthcare is the one thing that it seems Americans like to overpay for, as long as the people they overpay to are not the government. But they only want to overpay if they can also punish people with the freedom to be uninsured.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Health insurance reform without cost reform is pointless. For more about how to create both, see the free article on the New England Journal of Medicine’s web site:
http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1627&query=TOC
"There is, however, another option that could control spending across both the public and private insurance pools. Other countries that have multiple insurers, such as Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands, use all-payer regulation to control costs. In these countries, insurers come together to negotiate, or the government takes the lead in setting, common payment rules for medical care. With a few exceptions, payments to all doctors in a given geographic area follow a standard fee schedule. Hospitals are also paid on comparable terms."
For more about how multiple insurer systems work in Germany, Japan, and Holland, see the new book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care By T.R. Reid, and listen to his interviews on NPR.
http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1627&query=TOC
"There is, however, another option that could control spending across both the public and private insurance pools. Other countries that have multiple insurers, such as Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands, use all-payer regulation to control costs. In these countries, insurers come together to negotiate, or the government takes the lead in setting, common payment rules for medical care. With a few exceptions, payments to all doctors in a given geographic area follow a standard fee schedule. Hospitals are also paid on comparable terms."
For more about how multiple insurer systems work in Germany, Japan, and Holland, see the new book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care By T.R. Reid, and listen to his interviews on NPR.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Healthcare reform
For an excellent analysis of why reforming America's health care system is essential to the country's financial health, see Simon Johnson and James Kwak in today's Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090101027.html
Their well-argued conclusion:
Put another way, if you are for fiscal discipline, you should be for health-care reform. If our government cannot produce some kind of reform, that will only reinforce the perception that our political system is incapable of resolving our largest, most difficult problem -- and that is what will make investors think twice about investing in America.
Their well-argued conclusion:
Put another way, if you are for fiscal discipline, you should be for health-care reform. If our government cannot produce some kind of reform, that will only reinforce the perception that our political system is incapable of resolving our largest, most difficult problem -- and that is what will make investors think twice about investing in America.
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