Health Care

The best short article I've read in years about health care reform was Atul Gawande's in the January 26 edition of the New Yorker.

You can find it here.

Some highlights:

"Every industrialized nation in the world except the United States has a national system that guarantees affordable health care for all its citizens. Nearly all have been popular and successful. But each has taken a drastically different form, and the reason has rarely been ideology. Rather, each country has built on its own history, however imperfect, unusual, and untidy."

"Yes, American health care is an appallingly patched-together ship, with rotting timbers, water leaking in, mercenaries on board, and fifteen per cent of the passengers thrown over the rails just to keep it afloat. But hundreds of millions of people depend on it. The system provides more than thirty-five million hospital stays a year, sixty-four million surgical procedures, nine hundred million office visits, three and a half billion prescriptions. It represents a sixth of our economy. There is no dry-docking health care for a few months, or even for an afternoon, while we rebuild it. Grand plans admit no possibility of mistakes or failures, or the chance to learn from them. If we get things wrong, people will die. This doesn’t mean that ambitious reform is beyond us. But we have to start with what we have."

Thanks, Governor,

for giving me the best belly laugh I've had in weeks . . .

"Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, charged with trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by President Barack Obama, considered offering it to talk show star Oprah Winfrey." (Reuters)

Well Deserved

The "Unsung Hero" honor to Josh Houchins, host of WGEM-AM's morning sports show, is richly deserved. A more resilient, upbeat, determined soul is hard to imagine. And his show is funny, too.

Ho Hum, Another Poll

As the man says on the "Whaddaya Know" quiz (which, by the way, I miss from WQUB on Saturday mornings, although "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" is funnier -- just want to have my cake and eat it too, I guess):

"Ambiguous, poorly worded, or misleading questions are par for the course. Listeners who are sticklers for the truth should get their own shows."

Bad questions = useless results.

Some Other Museum Ideas

How about a Missouri Drivers' Linear Park? Down the left lane of Broadway with a speed limit of 20.

The Grumpy Herald-Whig Letters to the Editor Writers' Hall of Fame.

The Monthly Tort Fund Circus of Litigation.

Peculiarities

The QU sports information department apparently doesn't think its women's basketball players are athletes . . . the Whig's mugshots have them all in street clothes.

When the team wins by 23, it's hard to make an interesting story, so one resorts to all kinds of pseudo-literary devices, like transcribng the comments of an elderly fan and noting that the coach's pen scooted out onto the floor. Didn't work.

The Prevailing Wage

Congratulations to the Quincy School Board for pursuing answers on the prevailing wage question. It's pretty clear to all that the "prevailing wage" is a fiction designed to keep wages high on public projects. The Illinois Department of Labor's complicity in maintaining this fiction needs to be challenged.

If ever there was a court fight that deserved to be undertaken using taxpayers' money, this is it. It's unfortunate that the school boards' association and the NFIB were too chicken-hearted to put their money where their mouth was and back the school board in challenging the procedure.

The Freedom of Information request should be pursued. And if that request doesn't provide the answers the board needs, then it's time for Adams County to opt out of the Department of Labor's prevailing wage and set its own, as the law allows.

Rod, Roland, and the Rest

A few thoughts:

1. Rod's got a good lawyer. Every couple of days he throws up a new line of attack to confuse everyone, and as soon as the dust settles and people get back to remembering Rod's egregious behavior he throws up a new one. The best defense is a good offense.

2. Why wouldn't Roland accept the appointment? It's his only remaining chance to be a senator, and God knows he's tried often enough. Besides, he left some room on his tombstone for another couple of lines of chiseling.

3. If public opinion mattered, the appointment of Roland would be a terrific p.r. stunt on Rod's part. Shows he's still on the job, puts everybody on the defensive, etc. But unfortunately, the only people that matter right now are the Illinois legislators, and they've already got the tar hot and the feathers fluffed. So playing to the grandstand is beside the point.

An exception

My general policy is to go to local retailers whenever possible and avoid chain establishments. But I found myself at Ruby Tuesday on New Year's Eve, and I have to say . . . if there's a better salad bar in town, I've not seen it.