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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Gibberish And Lies 

...why it has taken so long for any outlet of the SCLM to finally getting around to mentioning what this AP report reveals tonight is anybody's guess, but this highlights one of the core elements of the argument for both health care reform and the inclusion of a "public option". As has become so unfortunately common for supposedly journalistic endeavors like the AP, however, a certain measure of gibberish and lies is offered as straight reporting without any effort to provide context or contrary views. Tonight's example of that fundamental journalistic failure is represented by the quotes by Blue Cross lobbyist Alissa Fox...

First the gibberish:
"You can have a very competitive market and still have companies with a high market share..."

Now, I wasn't at all happy with all those Economics classes I had to take in college, but I did pay attention. All those painful hours lead me to believe that this is clearly one of those "Cue Barney Frank" moments, because Ms. Fox's observation can only charitably be considered a case of visitation by a life form from another planet. There isn't really any other logical explanation for accepting such a statement as anything approach some real truth, and I'm sure the former CEO's of General Motors and Chrysler wouldn't agree with the idea that dramatically unequal market shares suggest an very competitive market. In any case, the lobbyist's proposition is - on it's face - purely preposterous. There is no such thing as "a very competitive market" if one of the competitors has "a high market share"; the only competition is amongst the laggards and bottom-feeders fighting for scraps left behind by the Big Dog dominating the market, and that isn't in any way representative of a "competitive market"...

Second, let's address the lies...or what we may more charitably call "misrepresentations":
Fox points to the federal employee health program, which also covers members of Congress. It offers a total of more than 260 options and 10 nationwide plans. Despite all the choices, about 60 percent of federal workers pick a Blue Cross plan.

Yes, there are 10 nation-wide plans for federal employees. But there a couple of inherent lies in this claim:

A) Those 10 national "plans" are represented by only six companies in my state, and half those 10 plans are offered by only two.

2) Most of those other 200-plus options are regional - sometimes microscopically regional, so they don't have the opportunity to be compared qualitatively with the national plans, even though they may in all ways be superior...

To be honest, this "and we're still the most popular" argument is questionable at best as some sort of defense of the twin postulations that "Bigger is Better" and "There's Still Competition". Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, many federal employees live in places where there aren't all that many health plan choices other than the national plans and Blue Cross undoubtedly benefits in these instances by name recognition more than any superiority in coverage (I mean, how many Department of Agriculture employees are going to go with Mail Handlers when a better known entity like Blue Cross is there). I have never been a Blue Cross member (mostly related to the vicious aftermath of my mother's unsuccessful battle against cancer) and the best - and by "best" I mean by far superior - health care plans that I have had over the last three decades have been local plans that would have driven Blue Cross out of business if they had ever decided to extend their reach...

Numbers may inform stories, but they don't tell stories. The idea that market dominance is some sort of good thing in the world of health care insurance is absurd on its own face; despite that obvious fact, it's gonna be an ugly uphill fight against the well-heeled Big Dogs fighting to maintain their dominance in the arena of health care insurance if this sort of gibberish and lies are going to be granted unexamined prominence...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:23 PM 0 comments

Thursday, August 20, 2009

LIghting Political Backfires 

...so, when I read this, I have to ask "Why Am I Not Surprised?" At the same time, when I dig into the article (and You Can, TOO!) and read professional Bush 'War on Terra' apologist Frances Townsend stepping up to refute, without either proof or any hope of ever providing proof, the whole idea that some sort of sordid political motivation had anything to do with otherwise seemingly random elevation of those bizarre M&M's colored threat levels, I have to ask "Why Am I Not Surprised?"

We find ourselves in the interesting position of witnessing two contrary efforts to light political backfires, intended for directly conflicting reasons to salvage two separate political reputations for the sake of history. The available public evidence is pretty clear: Tom Ridge is right and Frances Townsend is wrong. At the largest scale, Sept. 11, 2001, was less an American outrage/tragedy and more an unmeasurably huge political gift that kept on giving for the cold-minded lizard people who actually ran things in the Bushco White House. Tom Ridge wants you to know that the evidence will show that he tried to do the right thing; Frances Townsend wants you to know that the evidence isn't actually evidence, even though it is, and never mind all that loss of Constitutionally-endowed freedoms and all those unnecessary invasions and all those unnecessarily dead people...

In the wildland firefighting world, you light a backfire to burn out a defensible space to stop the advancing flames. In two different political contexts, that's what we're seeing here...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:25 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

59 Shots, One Kill 

...I believe that police officers have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. They face, day after day, the sort of dirty underbelly of American life that many people would be hard to convince even exists to the degree that it does, even though it maybe sometimes be just down the street. Despite an adult lifetime of dealing with people who weren't necessarily favorably disposed to seeing me show up, I have only on a couple of occasions felt as though having an axe-handle within reach might be a good idea. Police officers have to deal with that emotional concern on a regular basis, sometimes multiple times in any given day. Any individual contact, at any moment, could escalate into a life-threatening situation with no warning...

Theirs is a dangerous profession, and we expect them to defend us from the Bad Guys while following The Rules and making sure, for our own peace of mind, that they return home safely to their own families every night. Every once in a while, though, there comes a story that shakes our faith just a little bit...

Yes, the guy had a criminal record. Yes, he was waving a .44 Magnum rifle around and seemed unstable. But the report, if it is to be trusted, says that all six of the officers were armed with .45 caliber sidearms and at least some of them unloaded their clips into him, reloaded, and fired some more over that one half of a Mad Minute. Somehow, 43 wounds from 59 .45 caliber rounds fired in what the police dashcam videos suggest were three volleys of shots sound just a wee bit excessive. I'm thinking primarily about this statement:
Some officers emptied their magazines, reloaded and fired again, while others didn't fire all their bullets, (police spokeswoman Jerri) Weary said.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking that if I have time to eject a clip and slam in another one to resume fire against a single target that is also being shot at with .45 caliber weapons by five of my coworkers at fairly close range, I might just have crossed that bright border line between "acceptable behavior" and "excessive force". Presuming that they were packing weapons that fired .45 ACP rounds, 59 shots and 43 wounds suggests that we are probably dealing with the latter possibility...

Even if this was a case of 'suicide by cop', 59 shots and 43 hits in three volleys over somewhat less than half a minute seems like remarkably enthusiastic cooperation in the fulfillment of that death wish...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:22 PM 0 comments

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Wherein We Discuss The Wormy Vermin Opposed To Health Care Reform 

...I have to confess that I haven't had much of anything to say, either here or in comments on other blogs or to family or friends or neighbors or anybody else, about the raging health care/insurance/system/program debate that has pretty much chewed up all the oxygen in the room over the last several weeks. I haven't had much to say because I fear that I won't be able to make much of a coherent argument without dissolving into the sort of hate-filled spittle-flecked ranting that seems to be the only argument that the wingnut side of this debate has going for it, and going there just doesn't seem to make much sense to me...

It's not that I don't have any concerns about health care reform. I have friends; I have family; I have seen people who I personally know and care deeply for get blindsided and devastated both emotionally and financially by decisions of for-profit health insurance companies that offered those people I care for a range of options that extended only from "die" to "permanent indebtedness". As it so happens, I have one of those spiffy special Cool Guy health insurance programs that is exactly like the stuff that Members Of Congress have. Aside from the fact that my FEHBA plan doesn't cover - without several fairly expensive rider components - much of anything in the way of dental or vision benefits, it is a pretty good deal that covers most of the costs of my blood pressure medication and my second-born's insulin and other supplies vital to the management of his Type 1 diabetes...

But that latter fact is the point where the current state of the health care system crosses over the event horizon into Total Fail. My kid - for that matter both of my kids - are on that ugly backside of the health care debate. One or both of them are my personal version of the people who will fall through the cracks if the Republican party is successful in killing health care reform. I'm going to be OK because of my career choices (at least as far as basic coverage is concerned), but at least one of my kids will have to enter into the Big Kid world facing the prospect - in a difficult economic environment - of trying to either snare a job with health benefits or one that pays enough to afford him the opportunity to both keep a roof over his head and pay over $600 a month for the absolute basic necessities to stay alive...

The Republican party doesn't care about this. It does not give a wit whether or not my kids live or whether they die because of a lack of affordable health care. It, and the wormy vermin of the health insurance industry that would cheerfully stand on the sidelines while my children are forced to make life-shortening decisions just so those corporations can properly offer dividends to their investors, has no interest in seeing a change to the status quo. My Congressman, Republican Greg Walden, will likely be the only one of the five members of the House of Representatives from the State of Oregon to not hold anything looking like a 'town hall' meeting, and he probably doesn't need to do so anyway. He's on what's starting to look like the winning side, after all; the lies and the misrepresentations about health care reform have started to wiggle their way into the public discourse as "fact", so it's starting to look like this deal is pretty much done, and native-born American citizens like my children are going to be faced with health care options that are no better than they would have had available to them even if we had never gone down this powerfully divisive road to begin with...

I completely understand that mine is not a unique story; there are millions of American citizens who have been brutalized by - or been put at risk of being brutalized by - the current state of affairs that passes for 'health care' in the United States. It is an absolutely failed system that will, in that current incarnation being supported by the Republican party and its patrons, leave millions of citizens behind...including (and this is more important to me) the children that I brought into this world with a promise that everything would be alright. Turns out that I may have been wrong about that promise that I made in those first moments after each of them were born. Turns out that nominally human-like creatures who would have better served society by being eaten by wharf rats are trying to make sure that my children can never feel any sense of security regarding their health care options and may well suffer to a degree that I swore they never should at the hands of these wormy vermin...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:13 PM 0 comments

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