A Little Something For Medicare

Some things are hard to give away, but money has certainly never been in that class, except, apparently, when the recipient is Medicare, and the donor is trying to comply with the law. Hard to believe? I thought so, too, but then I read this McClatchy article.

Usually it's Washington that's trying to squeeze money out of taxpayers. Here's a case of some people trying to pay the government what it's owed, only to learn that Washington doesn't seem to be that interested.

They're personal injury lawyers and they represent Medicare beneficiaries who've been in accidents. Medicare has paid their hospital costs, which must be reimbursed once the victim reaches a damage settlement with the party at fault.

Lawyers in Kansas City and elsewhere, however, said that Medicare can be extremely slow to tell them what its share of the settlement should be, taking several months and as much as a year or more.

That can prevent them from engaging in damage negotiations with the liable party's insurer, or from reaching an agreement and distributing the money if they already have.

As far as I am concerned, Medicare is second only to Social Security when it comes to the best things that have happened to America. Unlike Social Security, however, Medicare needs some additional tweaking, primarily because of the gargantuan rises in health care costs. Fraud has also become a problem, especially with respect to durable medical equipment and prescription medicines (thanks to the 109th Congress), but gradually US attorneys have begun investigating and prosecuting with success.

What the article is talking about, however, is entirely different facet of the program. Attorneys representing Medicare recipients who have been injured in a motor vehicle accident or any other type of accident and who have used Medicare to pay their medical bills until the law suits are resolved are fully aware of the recipients' obligation to repay the government from the proceeds of any award or settlement. If it's a settlement, generally only one check is drafted, deposited in the attorney's trust account, and the outstanding liens are paid before the plaintiff is paid. In order for that to happen, however, the attorney has to know just how much the various liens are. Determining that shouldn't be a problem. Usually a phone call does the trick, but not with Medicare.

And why is that? Well, Medicare has outsourced such collections to a private company (the Chickasaw Nation Industries, Inc.), but apparently hasn't bothered to engage in any training or any oversight with the contractor. As a result, money is being withheld for months for absolutely no good reason. Finally, folks in Washington are beginning to look into the problem, primarily because the money involved is pretty sizable.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who's the chairman of a subcommittee on contracting oversight, has asked Medicare to explain how its payment recovery program works.

"People are trying to pay Medicare and Medicare is not paying any attention," she said. "Clearly with our health care costs where they are and the amount taxpayers are spending on Medicare, the notion that someone is trying to give them money and no one is home is pretty offensive."

As of March 31, Medicare clients owed the agency $201 million in cases involving secondary insurance payments, [Gerald Walters, director of the financial service group for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services] said. It's hard to know how much of that money was, like Bough's $60,000, sitting in an escrow account or a safe in some lawyer's office. [Emphasis added]

$201 million: that isn't exactly chump change. Maybe the government should get serious about such lapses as part of the "reform health care" drive it ostensibly is on. And then maybe those people waiting for their settlement proceeds so they can get on with their lives won't have to wait so long.

Worthwhile Stuff from Professor Wombat

Today, Monday the 6th, Professor Wombat posted a piece that was worth attention.

RAINDROPS ON the window pane defined your first remembered act of contemplation. At about age 4, you would stretch out on the fat backrest of the sofa that pressed against the windowsill. Longing to go out and play, you aimed only to peer at the backyard - the sand box, swing set, upended tricycle. “Rain, rain, go away. . .’’

But soon enough, the focus of your gaze would shift. The outer world would disappear, and suddenly the panoply of raindrops on the window pane came clear right before your nose.

Tiny nodules of water, slapping at the glass, took over the field of your concentration, which then organized itself around a new astonishment. The drops of water were engaged in a spirited competition, arranging themselves in chutes and then sliding haphazardly for the bottom of the window.

More is available at the site linked.

In The Long Term

I've come to the conclusion that industrial polluters get off lightly, no matter how big the fine nor how high the cost of the mandated clean-up. Their pollution inevitably has long term consequences, even if those consequences aren't readily identifiable for years. This article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune is a clear example of what I mean.

Toxic compounds have lingered and accumulated in the blood of east-metro residents who drank water tainted with 3M chemicals, a new state study shows.

State health officials said it's unclear what the long-term health effects of those substances might be because studies have been limited and difficult to interpret.

But the analysis of blood samples from 196 adults in Lake Elmo, Cottage Grove and Oakdale found that levels of three toxic compounds were above the national average -- twice the average for one chemical and four times for another. ...

The compounds, known as perfluorochemicals, were manufactured by 3M in its Cottage Grove plant for more than 50 years until 2002. They were used in Scotchgard, Teflon, firefighting foam and hundreds of other products. The company disposed of wastes in area dumps until the mid-1970s.

3M agreed in 2007 to clean up the chemicals in three locations that it owns, and to help pay for removing wastes from the former Washington County landfill in Lake Elmo. The company has also financed hookups with city water for more than 200 households with private wells in Lake Elmo. [Emphasis added]

Yes, 3M did finally agree to clean up the mess it made, but 30 years later. During those 30 years, the chemicals leached from the landfills into the water table and into the private wells of the area. Residents of the area drank the water all that time, not knowing about the bonus chemical additive.

As the article makes clear, health officials don't know whether the chemical levels in residents' blood portend an increased likelihood for disease, but the fact that those chemicals are in the bloodstreams at two to four times the rates of unexposed citizens is troubling, to say the least.

Celebritude

It's been a long week, seven days of non-stop coverage of Michael Jackson and Sarah Palin, with occasional mentions of the health care debate in Congress, and just a soupcon of CIA skullduggery. The news media really does believe in the "if it bleeds, it leads" mantra, which means that real news, news that affects us more deeply and directly than celebrities, is buried deep within the paper or the newscast.

And it isn't just the death of a celebrity that outranks hard news. The shenanigans of celebrities also take precedence. Why else would we be so fascinated with what soon-to-be-former Gov. Palin has done or will do? Make no mistake, Sarah Palin has become a celebrity and she counts on that status, which she can mainly because of the way we have been trained by the media. One of the crispest and sanest evaluations of Ms. Palin came from Ellen Goodman in her latest column.

I never believed that it would be easy for Palin to go back to Alaska after the bright lights, big-cities lure of a national campaign. But I didn’t expect this.

“Life is about choices,’’ she said. I guess her choices were: wrestling with a state Legislature, paying lawyers’ fees for ethics investigations, and putting her kids through the ringer. Or making a bundle as an author and speaking star before audiences that adore her.

It wasn’t only “the politics of personal destruction’’ that pushed Palin over the edge. It was the politics of personal adulation. ...

There’s been a lot of comparisons made between Palin’s rambling resignation speech and Mark Sanford’s soul-baring confession of adultery. Sanford fell head-over-heels in love - “Despite the best efforts of my head, my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body’’ - in ways that made us squirm for him and Argentina. Palin fell in love with her star turn. What we see are two middle-age politicians discovering in the most painfully public way that they may not be the people they thought they were.

Sanford is not the straitlaced conservative family man he thought he was. Palin is not the pit bull, lipstick on or off, she thought she was. The woman who wanted to win didn’t want to govern. The woman who glowed in the limelight wilted in the spotlight. And when the going got tough, she got going . . . going . . . gone.

Well, if she didn't want to govern, what did she want? To win at all costs? To be known on sight? If that is the case, then she won't do even as a candidate for the GOP come 2012. If that party is to survive, they will have to come up with a candidate who has the experience of finishing what s/he starts (rather than cutting and running) as well as at least some gravitas.

So what does that leave Ms. Palin? I think John Parisella got it right in his op-ed for MacLeans:

... At best, she will remain a political celebrity we can expect to see on the lecture circuit, campaigning for Congressional and senatorial candidates, and doing high-powered fundraising events. We can also expect her to be a regular commentator in the media.

She'll be with us, if only on our televisions. Over and over and over.

Friday Catblogging

This is Barndog's Frankie.


Here is some information I think is worth reviewing:

How can I tell if the Rescuer or Breeder is reputable?

Rescuers and breeders are human beings so you will find that there are good folk and bad doing both. There are reputable breeders and there are some folk who breed cats but do not value ethical considerations or breed with the ultimate aim of improving the breed. Similarly, there are some Rescues that become "collectors", placing few cats, and others which have poor conditions or misrepresent the cats they offer for sale.

The reputable rescuer is willing to talk to the prospective buyer and a share information about the cat’s history, if available, about any personality quirks or special care needs, and about cat care and maintenance, both before and after placement.

In the same vein, the reputable breeder is willing to take the time to talk with the prospective purchaser and share information about the breed, cat care and maintenance, both before and after the purchase.

The reputable breeder or rescuer will interview the prospective in depth to determine the kind of home the kitten or cat is being offered and will only place the kitten or cat in a home they have approved. In addition, they will query you on your cat care knowledge and experience.

More is available at the linked site.

Yes, Another Vacation Piece

A remarkable piece of heroism produced a piece of legislation passed by the Texas legislature. Here is a post about it;

DNA Proof of Injustice Too Much for Chief Justice
On the frontier of better things for the state of Texas, TX Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson joins forces with the Dallas Morning News to seek real justice.

In the face of repeated cases that saw convictions overturned when DNA evidence proved the verdicts were wrong, Chief Justice Jefferson is calling for oversight of the system. A commission to review the process in the cases that were decided incorrectly, and take a closer look at the kind of proceedings that can be reformed to correct our system has his support. Legislation has been introduced to institute this commission, introduced by TX Senator Rodney Ellis.

Sadly, the Supreme Court in its term just ended refused to require states to utilize DNA evidence when it is available. The result is that in order to be imprisoned, a convict does not have to be adjudged guilty by all the evidence the state has.
More is at the original post

Just Another Tea Party

Yesterday I posted on the not-so-surprising revelation that the CIA had been actively misleading its congressional overseers. Today the Washingtom Post gave us a few hints of what caused the tempest among the Democrats on the intelligence committees:

Four months after he was sworn in, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta learned of an intelligence program that had been hidden from Congress since 2001, a revelation that prompted him to immediately cancel the initiative and schedule a pair of closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill. ...

The program remains classified, and those knowledgeable about it would describe it only vaguely yesterday. Several current and former administration officials called it an "on-again, off-again" attempt to create a new intelligence capability and said it was related to the collection of information on suspected terrorists that was instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

What was exactly involved in the program hidden from Congress is not being revealed to the general public, and presumably not even to members of Congress not special enough to be on the Senate or House Intelligence Committees. It's therefore difficult to determine just why it was so well hidden, but I think a fair inference to be drawn is that it involved some violation of US or international law, the kind of violation that would ideally be stopped by congressional oversight. What is rather disturbing, however, even to cynics, is that the CIA deliberately held the information back because it believed it could. Why the agency believed it could is what needs to be discovered.

"Instructions were given not to brief Congress," Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said in an interview.

That kind of passive voice construction is always maddening, but especially in this kind of situation. Who gave the instructions? The head(s) of the agency under the last administration? The Bush-Cheney White House? Sadly, I don't believe we'll ever know, and by "we" I mean not just the public, but everybody in Congress but the "Gang of Eight."

That's some oversight.

We're running out of clean cups.

Thursday Birdblogging

Swooping low in the evening sky, tens of thousands of starlings combine in perfect harmony as they gather to roost.

In an astonishing natural display of formation flying, they took the shape of a bird of prey looming in the skies above Taunton.

Normally at the mercy of a kestrel or a deadly sparrowhawk like the one they appear to be mimicking, this swift-moving flock of starlings, known as a murmuration, finds safety in numbers.

Yet Another Vacation Piece

A post I think is worth revisiting is reprinted here from February of last year, 2008.

Moritori Te Salutant
Surely everyone recognizes the motto supposedly intoned by the gladiators, who incidentally were usually slaves, when they entered the Coliseum? 'Course, I learned 'salutamus', (we salute you).

I've just been puzzling through a few analyses of the disaster we are now in, that, like the one I cited yesterday from Molly Ivins, foresaw what was about to happen. The comparison I came across that really stood out was about the bubble economy Spain developed after it hit gold in this American continent.

When Africa was the main source of gold and silver, you see, traders prospered. This Brave New World was discovered, and suddenly Spain was mining precious metals less expensively because they simply took over the primitive cultures here instead of dealing with established owners of the resources in Africa. That left Africa in the lurch as to trade, so slaves became the substitute for gold.

Back in the 1st century, farmers in Africa used slaves as workers. The first Europeans to expand this practice and transform it into an international and extensive trade (in terms of volume) were the Portuguese in the 16th century. This was the beginning of what is called the Atlantic slave trade. In the 17th century, slaves, or black gold, even replaced gold as the most important and valuable export merchandise.

Are you feeling like the new black gold? because what is replacing the manufactured goods that in the industrial age made the U.S. prosperous? Look in the mirror.

There is more at the original post.

I Am Shocked ...

...Oh wait. No, I'm not.

Apparently neither was the NY Times, which placed this article on page 20 of the print edition.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers. ...

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas ...wrote that the committee “has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to.” [Emphasis added]

About the only shocking revelation in the story is that Democrats seem to think the CIA has been deceiving Congress and the American people for only the past eight years. That doesn't say much for the intelligence and/or veracity of the people we've elected. The CIA has a much longer history of deception when it comes to congressional oversight of its actions. It's just that during the last administration the CIA was encouraged to lie to and mislead Congress by the White House.

And have things changed now that we have a new president? Apparently not:

In a related development, President Obama threatened to veto the pending Intelligence Authorization Bill if it included a provision that would allow information about covert actions to be given to the entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees, rather than the so-called Gang of Eight — the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses of Congress and the two Intelligence Committees.

Nothing new. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

Clean cups!

Quid Pro Quo: Business As Usual

So far, no one associated with the health care industry (including the insurance companies) has revived Harry and Louise for another round of commercials. That's probably because health insurers, PHARMA, and hospital and doctor associations have been busy in negotiations with Sen. Max Baucus and the White House to identify and implement cost cutting in health care. That's a good thing, right?

Perhaps, but as this this NY Times article points out, the dramatic announcements of the past few weeks don't exactly give the complete answer as to why these profit driven sectors have suddenly found religion when it comes health care accessibility.

First, it was a broad consortium of health industry groups — doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurers, all promising to slow the growth of medical spending by 1.5 percent. Then, it was the big drug makers, promising savings of $80 billion over 10 years, by lowering the cost of medicine for the elderly.

On Wednesday, it will be major hospital associations, pledging to save more than $150 billion over a decade. And a deal with doctors is said to be on tap next.

In each case, the Obama administration hailed the agreements as historic. But what has been little discussed is what the industry groups will be getting in return for their cooperation, whether or not the promised savings ever materialize. [Emphasis added]

Apparently, these various groups are willing to get on board for the White House only if the end result doesn't affect their bottom lines.

As part of their deal with the White House, pharmaceutical companies say they won an agreement from Mr. Baucus to oppose efforts by House Democrats to sharply reduce what the government pays for drugs for some Medicare recipients previously covered by Medicaid.

The deal with doctors could come at a steep price: a $250 billion fix to a 12-year-old provision in federal law intended to limit the growth of Medicare reimbursements. The American Medical Association and other doctors’ groups have sought to change or repeal the provision, and they are likely to try to extract that as their price for boarding the Obama train, people tracking the negotiations said.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private-sector employer, agreed recently to support requiring all big companies to insure their workers. In exchange, Wal-Mart said it wanted a guarantee that the bill would not “create barriers to hiring entry-level employees” — in effect, code words to insist that lawmakers abandon the idea of requiring employers to pay part of the cost for workers covered by Medicaid, the government insurance plan for the poor.

In other words, business as usual.

And that's why Max Baucus is still trying to keep a viable public option for health care coverage off the table.

And that's why we are probably going to get a new and improved health care system which will leave most of us even worse off.

Not much change here, at least the kind we were promised.

Another Vacation Piece

This is a post I wanted to repeat.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Prosecution Got a Conviction in Holy Land Foundation Trial
The prosecution succeeded, and that is the only way I can lead off on this embarrassing report. A jury of twelve Dallas residents believed a prosecution that I also witnessed, and handed down a conviction on all counts - of Muslim charities being directly supportive of Hamas after that group was declared a terrorist operation. I cannot say the defendants, including the Holy Land Foundation itself, were found guilty.

As I have reported, the courtroom procedure included allowing witnesses to testify without being identified because they were Israeli agents, allowing hearsay testimony in addition to both testimony and redirect that ranged into the territory of phantasmagorical, and a prosecution wrap-up that told jurors that they should rely on their memories instead of testimony and evidence, and that freedom of speech wasn't allowed if that speech showed bad feelings. Demonstrations against Israeli occupation were the main focus of the U.S. prosecution.

There will be an appeal, and recent overturning of a similar case in which the prosecution was allowed tactics that also ran into the unconstitutional range makes the prospects somewhat promising.

As I have previously reported, the local reports often gave prosecution contentions without balancing defense arguments, so I will give the al Jazeera report which contains both sides.

There is more of course, at the original post.

A Gentle Rebuke

Vice President Biden's comments on Sunday with respect to a possible Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites (see my post on the issue here) have been "clarified" by President Obama. From the Los Angeles Times:

President Obama, issuing an unusual clarification of his vice president's words, said today that his administration has "absolutely not" given its blessing for an Israeli attack on Iran.

Obama said that though Israel has the right to defend itself, U.S. officials have emphasized the need to avoid "major conflict in the Middle East." ...

Biden's words set off a debate over whether the White House was hardening its line on Iran in the wake of Tehran's postelection crackdown, or whether Biden had simply committed a gaffe.

Obama said in a CNN interview today that Biden was merely stating "a categorical fact, which is that we can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are."

That the US is not giving Israel any kind of blank check for such an attack is a relief. I just wish the response had been a little quicker from Mr. Obama, but I suppose an argument could be made that too quick a public response would have unnecessarily embarrassed the Vice President (if that's possible).

Presumably someone from the White House has already sent a message to Israel's government which similarly "clarified" the Vice President's comments, but if not, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, forcefully reiterated President Obama's stance on tamping down the instability in that region of the world yesterday while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to this AP article.

Mullen pointedly said "the strike option" - is one possible outcome. He suggested that a strike, meaning missile or other attacks to blow up Iran's known nuclear facilities, is a last resort. It would be "very destabilizing," Mullen said.

One way to be sure Israel and it's Prime Minister get the message would be to be a bit more selective in the weaponry we ship to Israel. Maybe if those "bunker buster" missiles that country wants stayed in the armories here in the US, Israel would begin to get the message that there are no longer any blank checks being sent by Washington.

Good News

In April, I lamented the fact that the new guidelines for stem cell research issued by the National Institutes for Health did exactly the opposite of what President Obama had promised. Instead of widening the pool of embryonic stem cell lines available for research, the rigorous ethical requirements in fact would exclude many more of those lines than were excluded under the Bush administration. That foul-up has been rectified, according to this Washington Post article:

Hundreds of embryonic stem cell lines, whose use in the United States had effectively been curtailed by the Bush administration, can be used to study disorders and develop cures if researchers can show the cells were derived using ethical procedures, according to new rules issued by the federal government yesterday. ...

In a move that drew praise from advocates of stem cell research and bitter criticism from opponents, the NIH said it will allow the use of any existing stem cell line that was created ethically. Acting NIH Director Raynard Kington said an NIH committee comprising scientists, ethicists and advocates will evaluate older lines to assess how each was derived.

He said all embryonic stem cell lines that qualified for federal funding would have to meet a series of ethical requirements: The embryo that was destroyed to create a line must have been discarded after an in vitro fertilization procedure, and the donors must have been informed that the embryo would be destroyed for stem cell research and made fully cognizant of their choices, including donating the embryo to another couple who want a baby. No donors could have been paid for an embryo, and no threats or inducements could have been used to nudge couples toward making a donation.

The new guidelines are a major improvement over the ones originally issued (see my April post linked above). The original rules required that a specific set of guidelines had to be followed rigidly, and made the rules retroactive so that if old lines were developed from embryos that were donated under systems that did not exactly replicate the new guidelines those lines could not be used. The new guidelines will accomplish the goal of using stem cells and stem cell lines which were obtained ethically.

The original guidelines had obviously been developed to defuse the ire of the Religious Reich, which continues to see the use of embryonic stem cells for research as heinous because the frozen embryos are babies and their destruction abortion, hence murder. That sector of our population weren't going to be happy with any embryonic stem cell research, so their input into the process was designed to shut down that entire line of scientific inquiry. They weren't happy then and they're really unhappy now.

Tough.

Embryonic stem cell research is a promising tool for fighting such devastating diseases and conditions as diabetes, Alzheimer's Disease, and spinal cord injuries, and we need all the tools we can get in that fight. I think the new rules cover the ethical aspects nicely, even if they don't suit those whose agenda claims to be about the sanctity of life, but is really more about controlling women and their sexuality.

The fact that the rules have been changed to be more flexible and more reasonable restores my faith in government and in the Obama White House. Rational input from the researchers and medical ethicists played a big role in the new rules, something that didn't and couldn't happen in the last administration.

That's change I can believe in.

Vacation Piece

While I'm away at a get-together with friends from the comments at eschaton, I thought it would be a good time to re-publish some things that I rely on. Today I am putting up the testimony from Alan Greenspan wherein he admitted that he was wrong not to use the powers congress gave him to regulate the financial industry.

“You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”

Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

On a day that brought more bad news about rising home foreclosures and slumping employment, Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken.

He noted that the immense and largely unregulated business of spreading financial risk widely, through the use of exotic financial instruments called derivatives, had gotten out of control and had added to the havoc of today’s crisis. As far back as 1994, Mr. Greenspan staunchly and successfully opposed tougher regulation on derivatives.

But on Thursday, he agreed that the multitrillion-dollar market for credit default swaps, instruments originally created to insure bond investors against the risk of default, needed to be restrained.

“This modern risk-management paradigm held sway for decades,” he said. “The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year.”

Mr. Waxman noted that the Fed chairman had been one of the nation’s leading voices for deregulation, displaying past statements in which Mr. Greenspan had argued that government regulators were no better than markets at imposing discipline.

“Were you wrong?” Mr. Waxman asked.

“Partially,” the former Fed chairman reluctantly answered, before trying to parse his concession as thinly as possible.

The market isn't self-regulating. The concept on which free markets is based is wrong, and so are free markets. When the economy is unregulated, thieves will rule.

We are in an economic disaster because of deregulation.

You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

One statistic that is always included when discussing the homeless population in this country is the number of homeless veterans, most from the Vietnam era. That statistic is beginning to grow as more veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars return. Like their comrades from the earlier war, the new homeless suffer from untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse.

There are, however, some significant differences in this new demographic. Many suffer from the kind of undiagnosed and untreated head injuries that weren't a part of the earlier war. And now, unlike the Vietnam era, many are women, something the Veteran's Administration hasn't had any experience in dealing with. Since many of these women are also single parents, the homeless experience is even more difficult.

The Boston Globe carried an article yesterday on the issue and on the little that has been done so far to address the problems these women face.

The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically in recent years, according to new government estimates, presenting the Veterans Administration with a challenge as it struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

As more women serve in combat zones, the share of female veterans who end up homeless, while still relatively small at an estimated 6,500, has nearly doubled over the last decade, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

For younger veterans, it is even more pronounced: One out of every 10 homeless vets under the age of 45 is now a woman, the statistics show.

And unlike their male counterparts, many have the added burden of being single parents. ...

Overall, female veterans are now between two and four times more likely to end up homeless than their civilian counterparts, according to the VA, most as a result of the same factors that contribute to homelessness among male veterans: mental trauma related to their military service and difficulty transitioning into the civilian economy.

But while veterans’ services have been successfully reaching out to male veterans through shelters and intervention programs, women are more likely to fall through the cracks.

“While the overall numbers [of homeless vets] have been going down, the number of women veterans who are homeless is going up,’’ Peter Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said in a telephone interview. [Emphasis added]

Women soldiers have all sorts of burdens that men soldiers haven't necessarily had to face, including sexual abuse from their own comrades and the disparity that still exists with respect to pay when they come out of the service, assuming, of course, that they are able to find a job. Many also are custodial parents, which means that even if they can find a job, they will need child-care assistance of some sort. These kinds of problems are new to the VA, which has been underfunded for years to begin with and hasn't developed the kind of expertise to deal with these issues because they've never had to in the past.

There finally has been some recognition of the problem in Congress, and legislation is being worked up to address it, according to the article:

In recent days, senior members of Congress have called for an expansion of some of the VA’s programs to ensure they are properly suited to meeting the needs of the growing female population.

“Women veterans and veterans with children often have different needs and require specialized services,’’ Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington and a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former Army officer, also believes more women-focused veterans services are needed. ...

They have sponsored legislation that calls for $50 million in extra funding over the next five years to allow the Veterans Affairs and Labor departments to make special grants to homeless veterans with children, including for transitional housing.

This is at most a beginning, but at least it's something. I urge you to contact your senators and insist that they support such a bill, especially if either of them serve on the Armed Forces Committee. I've already sent off an email to Sen. Barbara Boxer (who actually responds to emails in a fashion that indicates that either she or one of her aides has actually read it) asking her to co-sponsor the bill. When I can be civil, I will also send an email to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

This is too important to let pass. We made the same promises to the women who chose to serve as we made to the men. The fact that their needs might be different than their male counterparts should be irrelevant. They served and faced the same dangers. They've earned our support.

Do it.

Economic Reality

That the rest of the world is able to do something that the U.S. can't seems an odd principle for the entrepreneurship advocates to espouse. While holding that regulation destroys innovation, our wingers claim that we are going to give up our advantages by providing health care to everyone. Regulation of our health care system is the danger they predict; freedom to be sick doesn't seem like much of an argument, but it's the best they've got.

Dr. Krugman has already pointed out that this country spent its way into the present crisis with tax breaks for business that did not produce the employment they were claimed to. Today, he provides some specifics of the health plan proposed for the U.S. public.

Let me start by pointing out something serious health economists have known all along: on general principles, universal health insurance should be eminently affordable.

After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do. For example, the French health care system covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as our system.

And even if we didn’t have this international evidence to reassure us, a look at the U.S. numbers makes it clear that insuring the uninsured shouldn’t cost all that much, for two reasons.

First, the uninsured are disproportionately young adults, whose medical costs tend to be relatively low. The big spending is mainly on the elderly, who are already covered by Medicare.

Second, even now the uninsured receive a considerable (though inadequate) amount of “uncompensated” care, whose costs are passed on to the rest of the population. So the net cost of giving the uninsured explicit coverage is substantially less than it might seem.

Putting these observations together, what sounds at first like a daunting prospect — extending coverage to most or all of the 45 million people in America without health insurance — should, in the end, add only a few percent to our overall national health bill. And that’s exactly what the budget office found when scoring the HELP proposal.

The wingers appear to have nothing but opposition to public interest as a basis for existence. It's not surprising that their arguments are creative,but lack substance, as they are not the true story.

The right wing is against the left, and that is its attraction. Unreasoning obstruction isn't a tactic, it's the character of the movement. Sadly, there is still a faction of the voting public that identifies with mindless opposition to anything progressive and in the public interest.

Hopefully, the wingnuts can be cured by rational behavior over time.

Say, What?

Writing a check with his mouth that his feet can't cash is nothing new for Joe Biden. He was famous for his irreverent and careless statements when he was a senator, but most people assumed that as Vice President he would be more circumspect because what he says will now be construed as White House policy. That's why his comments yesterday on ABC's "This Week" were so stunning. From the NY Times:

Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “This Week,” “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.”

"Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview taped in Baghdad at the end of a visit there.

The remarks went beyond at least the spirit of any public utterances by President Barack Obama, who has said that diplomatic efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program should be given to the end of the year. But the president has also said that he is “not reconciled” to the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon — a goal Tehran denies. [Emphasis added]

Now, it is entirely possible that Vice President Biden had just lapsed into his old ways because he was tired. He spoke, after all, from Baghdad at the end of his trip to visit the troops and his son. If that was the case, he'll be facing a tongue lashing from another famous mouth, the one on Rahm Immanuel, for his failure of discipline, and we can expect a "clarifying" statement to issue from the White House.

However, even if the vice president's comments were not an expression of a stiffening policy from the White House, they might as well have been. The effect will potentially be the same: Israel will assume it has just been given a blank check to do what certain elements in that country have wanted to do for several years, launch an attack on suspected nuclear sites in Iran. Those elements are now in charge of the Israeli government, so such an attack is certainly not out of the question. That attack will be carried out with weaponry largely supplied by the US and paid for by US taxpayers, a fact that is well known by countries in that region and in the world.

Mr. Biden did include the standard White House line with respect to diplomatic engagement of Iran, reminding the Iranian leaders that the offer to talk is still on the table. President Obama, also speaking on Sunday, reiterated the preference for talks with Iran, as another NY Times article makes clear, but will that be enough to offset the free pass seemingly given to Israel?

That's still an open question, one that had better be answered in a hurry, if only through quiet diplomatic channels. If it isn't, we're in for more cowboy diplomacy, only this time it will involve a surrogate.

And that's not the kind of change that was promised.

Sunday Poetry: Adrienne Rich

The School Among the Ruins
Beirut.Baghdad.Sarajevo.Bethlehem.Kabul. Not of course here.


1.

Teaching the first lesson and the last
--great falling light of summer will you last
longer than schooltime?

When children flow
in columns at the doors
BOYS GIRLS and the busy teachers

open or close high windows
with hooked poles drawing darkgreen shades

closets unlocked, locked
questions unasked, asked, when

love of the fresh impeccable
sharp-pencilled yes
order without cruelty

a street on earth neither heaven nor hell
busy with commerce and worship
young teachers walking to school

fresh bread and early-open foodstalls


2.

When the offensive rocks the sky when nightglare
misconstrues day and night when lived-in

rooms from the upper city
tumble cratering lower streets

cornices of olden ornament human debris
when fear vacuums out the streets

When the whole town flinches
blood on the undersole thickening to glass

Whoever crosses hunched knees bent a contested zone
knows why she does this suicidal thing

School's now in session day and night
children sleep
in the classrooms teachers rolled close


3.

How the good teacher loved
his school the students
the lunchroom with fresh sandwiches

lemonade and milk
the classroom glass cages
of moss and turtles
teaching responsibility

A morning breaks without bread or fresh-poured milk
parents or lesson-plans

diarrhea first question of the day
children shivering it's September
Second question: where is my mother?


4.

One: I don't know where your mother
is Two: I don't know
why they are trying to hurt us
Three: or the latitude and longitude
of their hatred Four: I don't know if we
hate them as much I think there's more toilet paper
in the supply closet I'm going to break it open

Today this is your lesson:
write as clearly as you can
your name home street and number
down on this page
No you can't go home yet
but you aren't lost
this is our school

I'm not sure what we'll eat
we'll look for healthy roots and greens
searching for water though the pipes are broken


5.

There's a young cat sticking
her head through window bars
she's hungry like us
but can feed on mice
her bronze erupting fur
speaks of a life already wild

her golden eyes
don't give quarter She'll teach us Let's call her
Sister
when we get milk we'll give her some


6.

I've told you, let's try to sleep in this funny camp
All night pitiless pilotless things go shrieking
above us to somewhere

Don't let your faces turn to stone
Don't stop asking me why
Let's pay attention to our cat she needs us

Maybe tomorrow the bakers can fix their ovens


7.

"We sang them to naps told stories made
shadow-animals with our hands

washed human debris off boots and coats
sat learning by heart the names
some were too young to write
some had forgotten how"


-- Adrienne Rich

(Published at Poets Against War.)

Palin Update

Yesterday afternoon I posted on what I thought was a glaring deficiency in the traditional media reportage on the resignation by soon-to-be-former-Gov. Sarah Palin. I lambasted the press for not digging a little to find out the reason for the abrupt and stunning announcement which was made early in the afternoon on Friday (at least for those of us on the West Coast).

I also pointed to the digging done by bloggers, some of whom contacted sources for information, something the mainstream media is supposed to do. It turns out that the bloggers who suggested a federal indictment was on the way were wrong, but we know this only because some canny reporter at the Los Angeles Times did something he and his cohorts should have done Friday afternoon. He picked up the phone. Here's what he found out:

A day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resigned, a federal official in her home state dismissed one potential explanation for her sudden and unexpected resignation: a rumored FBI investigation into the former Wasilla mayor on public corruption charges.

Despite rumors of a looming controversy after the Republican governor's surprise announcement Friday that she would leave office this month, some of them published in the blogosphere, the FBI's Alaska spokesman said the bureau had no investigation into Palin for her activities as governor, as mayor or in any other capacity.

"There is absolutely no truth to those rumors that we're investigating her or getting ready to indict her," Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said in a phone interview Saturday. "It's just not true." He added that there was "no wiggle room" in his comments for any kind of inquiry. [Emphasis added]

There, now. Was that so hard?

If not, why did it take until Saturday for that phone interview to be made? It appears that it was only after the bloggers started to look into the reasons for the resignation that the "real" press decided that it should as well. The press didn't act, it reacted to the fact that it might have been scooped by a bunch of "amateurs." Only then did the press do its job.

The whole episode stinks.

TMI

Most of you immediately recognized the abbreviation for Too Much Information, TMI, so welcome aboard. The episodes of normally functional, if not impressive, public figures putting up incredibly dumb communications on Twitter, Facebook and the like are pretty funny as those publicity users try to adjust to a whole new world.

The communication that made it possible for everyday citizens of Iran to maintain some hold on their government has given us all sorts of possibilities for direct lines among us people. Where media has dominated for much of our lives, at least attempting to portray itself as the real source for knowledge, that imaginary role has failed increasingly as the newspapers sell themselves to the highest bidder.

Suddenly the office seekers are finding out they can't establish a few trusted reporters to deliver their message to, and expect us to suck it in. Now they need to communicate. The results are enchanting. Who would have thunk it was important to him, not what he concluded about the peccadilloes of his party, but what Newt had for dinner. Twittering about hearing voices is a new way to claim sacred communication status among those who are so inclined.

A new standard for chatter is desperately being sought by the 'personalities' who thought they had their images covered. How diverting for staff, to try making a new sort of person up, some one sympathetic to keen observers and casual browsers at the same time. However, the field of online communications has real dangers for security personnel.

For the secret services in England, the communications of its operatives are suddenly making problematic their official security measures. His wife's online persona suddenly is a problem for having a casual social presence with friends that wasn't protected from sharing at large.

Personal details about the life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from social networking site Facebook amid security concerns.

The Mail on Sunday said his wife had put details about their children and the location of their flat on the site.

The details were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband denied claims security had been compromised, saying: "You know he wears a Speedo swimsuit. That's not a state secret."
(snip)
Former Prime Minister Sir John Major said the issue had been "overblown".

He said: "I know John Sawers. He's a very able man, he's a very able appointment. It's pretty unfortunate that this has happened, I think that is true.

"But I think when you're faced with leaving Iraq possibly too early, huge problems in Afghanistan, the mess in Pakistan, the depth of the recession, I think this falls a long way below those."

Sir John Sawers is due to replace Sir John Scarlett as head of the overseas Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

While most of the people I chat with are pretty well known to me, and their secrets are just that, all of us know that trolls like to wriggle in and try to find tidbits to make a hullabaloo about. One likes to accuse members of our circle of being twisted in some way, or having a seamy side that they alone have recognized.

What sort of motivation the nuisances operate from is a sad sidelight to the substantial support most of us find in online communications. What would be the national threat to anyone who carries on normal communications that may reveal security concerns is yet another wrinkle in the possibilities of our chatter. Your swimwear look isn't going to tear down anyone's marriage, most probably, but your address may make you vulnerable.

Online most of us have a rich and satisfactory circle of friends, associates, and like-minded social contacts. It's probably not a possibility for all of us, though, and the public exposure has to be obvious from the start.

In a public position, especially one that deals with security issues, there will have to be limits of exposure. Sadly, it appears that online life will have to stay virtual for anyone in a sensitive position.

In the groupings where I have conversations, we tend to let each other know when one of us is taking chances with some one who's been untrustworthy in the past. All of us have learned to wait and let any new member establish a persona that we recognize for basic consideration and reputable practices. Hopefully, this kind of protective attitude can be adopted by those in the field of security to those it needs to protect.

Things That Make You Go "Wow!"

Sometimes my usually optimistic world view needs a boost, and this article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune gave me just the little jolt I needed.

It was the second blood donation for the Mauser twins of Apple Valley, who turned 17 in January. Last year, they joined more than 4,000 Minnesota 16-year-olds who have given blood since a law that took effect last July lowered the donation age from 17. ...

The driving force behind the law was then 15-year-old Joe Gibson, of Blooming Prairie, Minn., who was turned away from his high school blood drive because of his age.

"Some of the people donating were 60-, 70-year-olds -- 100-pound elderly people," Gibson said. "And, hey, I'm 160 pounds, and I run five miles a day, I'm in great shape. Why can't I donate?"

After discovering that other states had lowered the age to 16, Gibson talked to Minnesota Rep. Patti Fritz, DFL-Faribault, who sponsored the bill. It passed both houses unanimously, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed it.

Since it took effect, 3,790 16-year-old Minnesotans have donated blood to the American Red Cross, and 1,200 to Memorial Blood Center of Minnesota -- an outpouring even Gibson didn't expect.

"We opened the door, but it was the youth that walked through and made it special," said Gibson, or Blood Boy to his friends. "It's increased my faith in my generation."

It's also increased my faith in your generation, Mr. Gibson.

Think about it. Not only did a teenager have the desire to contribute to his community in a very positive, life-affirming way, he also had the courage, energy, and good sense to use the political structure to effect the change that would allow him and thousands of other like-minded teenagers to make that contribution. What a civics lesson for the rest of us that is.

Eh, the kids are alright, even if their fashion sense is a little disturbing.