The health insurance debate

I wish people would stop referring to the current debate as having to do with "health care reform." To the questionable extent that it constitutes "reform," the bill winding its way through Congress is about private health INSURANCE. It has little to with how health CARE is delivered.

The Laramie Project in HF

Kudos to the drama club over at Hudson Falls High School for putting on the play The Laramie Project (and I suppose, to administrators for ok'ing it). It's certainly a gutsy topic to tackle in a conservative, blue collar small town. Performances are tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 2:00 pm, all the the HF high school auditorium.

Ignorance or deceit?

A follow up to yesterday's essay...

Today, The Post-Star ran yet another editorial blasting Queensbury school district's spending. And the numbers, the FACTS, I've provided them several times appeared nowhere in the piece.

It's not just that they won't change their editorial position. It's that they refuse to acknowledge the existence of a very important piece of information that seems to seriously undermines their position (and if it doesn't, they should at least explain why).

At first, I just assumed they were ill-informed. They no longer have that excuse now. What they're doing, I'm sorry to say, is now a lot closer to deceit.

Don't let facts interfere with your rant (pt. 823)

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Probably more than any local school district, Queensbury UFSD has been in the firing line by the local Post-Star daily for its spending habits. Most recently here, in the blog of the paper's supremo Ken Tingley.

Yet the Albany Times-Union's Capitol Confidential blog provided numbers that told a very different story. It cited a report by the Education Intelligence Agency which compiled spending numbers for the 2006-07 school year.

The report showed that Queensbury (#142 on the list) spent $10,819 per pupil, which is one of the LOWEST spending rates in the state and is 32.3% BELOW the state average... despite generally having an excellent academic reputation.

The amount the distrct spent per pupil on compensation was also one of the lowest in the state and was 29.8% below the state average.

Good education (within the parameters of how it's defined in this country) for a low per-pupil cost. In any other context, this would be called efficiency. So, Post-Star, what exactly is the problem? I left this same observation on Tingley's blog but he hasn't responded, so who knows what his/their thought process is.

May the VFW disappear

Let's hope, on this Veterans Day, that the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization becomes obsolete in 50 years.

A Taste of Zimbabwe in Albany

I received information about a fundraiser in Albany, NY to support girls in Zimbabwe made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. It is sponsored by the Dangwa Initiative and the Rotary Club of the Empire Plaza.

A Taste of Zimbabwe will be held on Friday November 20 from 7:00 pm until midnight at The Linda (WAMC Performing Arts Studio).

It will feature living Zimbabwean music by Fafi 3 Percent, the sale of Shona sculptures and Zimbabwean cuisine.

Donation is $25 for adults, $20 for students ($35 at the door).

For reservations, please call (518) 459-2914 or email: info @ dangwa.org

You can pay online at: wamcarts.org/artsched.html

Or you can mail checks (payable to: FCNY/Dangwa Initiative) to:

Dangwa Initiative
PO Box 5125
Albany, NY 12205

For further information, you can call Teresa at (518) 221-9423

Fining people for being poor is NOT better than nothing

As someone who cares about human beings after they reach the post-fetal state, I'm left to wonder about reaction to what some are calling the HMO bailout by Congressional Democrats.

The so-called health care reform bill that passed the House would add an inadequate but tolerable in the short-term public option. But since the public option is the only part of the bill that would even modestly reform health care access, it's almost guaranteed to be emasculated in the Senate, where the "progressive" party holds a crushing 59-seat majority.

The rest of the bill has some things that would make needed, but small improvements to a badly broken system. These should be passed separately. However, by themselves, they are little more than putting slightly more comfortable deck chairs on the Titanic.

There has been much outrage by liberals and progressives against Democrats who voted against this "reform" bill. But I'm left to wonder if the criticisms are serious on the merit of the bill or simply a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that Republicans and Joe Lieberman hate it.

The bill's most unconscionable provision would levy fines against people who did not have health insurance. Essentially, this provision would punish people for being in difficult economic circumstances. It would fine people for being unable to afford insurance

I can't see how anyone who calls him/herself progressive can possibly support something that would fine people for being poor.

It's not the working class who would benefit from this health care "reform" sham, from being compelled to buy garbage they can't afford. It's the private insurance companies who would see a huge boon in revenues because the government would be forcing people to buy their crap.

Insurance companies have never cured an illness, sutured a wound or repaired a broken bone. They do not provide health care. All they do is shift around money and take their 30 percent cut. How they have this much power is a testament to corporate suffocation of what was once democratic governance.

Opposing this bill on this basis is not, as often derided, letting "the perfect be the enemy of the good." It's not some trifling objection. It's fundamental.

According to Democratic rhetoric, the purpose of the bill is to make health care more accessible and more affordable. Fining people for being poor necessarily makes health care for those people LESS accessible and LESS affordable. And for that reason alone, the bill should be opposed as long as this unconscionable provision is part of it.


Update: According to Wikipedia*: It is estimated that approximately 60 percent of poor Americans are not covered by Medicaid.

(*-the source link doesn't seem to work)

Lushes (of the non-teen variety) have an advocate on the corner of Cooper and Lawrence

Editorials speak not just about the positions of a newspaper, but about its priorities. As I've mentioned on this blog many times, New York state electoral law is badly rigged in favor of Democrats and Republicans (as well as their factions: the fake parties of the Working Families and Conservative Parties) by putting obscene hurdles to participation by smaller parties and independents.

The Post-Star has often espoused as "throw the bums out" editorial line with regard to the legislature in Albany but has never seen fit to link that to broader electoral reform that would enable much-needed real multipartyism. Yet yesterday, the daily ran what is at least their second editorial denouncing bureaucratic problems of the state Liquor Authority; there have been several investigative news articles on the topic as well.

Based on their editorial judgement, having increased options to buy a bottle of Wild Turkey or Absolut seems a far more important priority to the paper than multiparty democracy.

This is particularly ironic considering that one of their other editorial crusades is against teen... drinking.