Health care reform President Obama used the “bully pulpit” of last night’s press conference ( transcript here) to push harder on health care reform. He denounced insurance companies, saying “”Right now, at the time when everybody’s getting hammered, they’re making record profits and premiums are going up,” and said that much of the cost of the health care reform package will be paid by saving “over one hundred billion dollars in unwarranted subsidies that go to insurance companies as part of Medicare.”
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Tag Archives: South Africa
News Day: Health care reform / MN pushes Medicare reform / Beautifying garbage / Honduras crisis continues / more
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News Day: Swine flu / MN taxes / Naked hikers / more
Swine flu: Emergency? Epidemic? Pandemic? A new kind of flu — H1N1 –has fearmongers topping the headlines everywhere else, so we may as well follow suit. For actual information, check the CDC, the Minnesota Department of Health, and the University of Minnesota Center for Infections Disease Research and Policy. As the story progresses, these will be good links to keep on hand. And now for the facts: A new strain of flu, caused by a virus with genetic components from pigs, birds and humans, emerged in Mexico. This virus is different from previous swine flu because it can spread from human to human.
No one knows how many people in Mexico have the virus, but Mexico has reported more than a hundred deaths from this flu and hundreds of other people who are sick. The government has closed schools and daycare centers in Mexico City to try to stop the spread of the flu. Far smaller numbers of cases have been reported in at least five U.S. states (CA, TX, KS, NY, OH) and in Canada and Spain. (No cases in MN yet.)
Most people who get swine flu get better. That’s one reason that the extent of the outbreak is hard to track. Tracking the begins with a throat culture, and most people who have flu do not visit a doctor.
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News Day: MN Budget Watch / A few laughs / Trying hard for a MN-pirate connection (and headlines) / more
MN Budget Watch The House tax bill passed out of committee by a narrow margin, with Rep. Tom Rukavina providing the last necessary vote, but Rukavina says he may not support the plan on the House floor. Meanwhile, reports Steve Perry in Politics in Minnesota, the Senate omnibus bill would work “by essentially reinstating the tax rates that existed in the state in 1998, before the first of a pair of extensive income tax cuts during the Jesse Ventura adminstration,” and adding a new top bracket of 9.25 percent for adjusted gross incomes over $250,000. The increases would be spread over 85% of all taxpayers, and would revert to today’s levels in 2014.
And over at MinnPost, Doug Grow says it is “virtually impossible to create reform,” despite hard work and careful analysis put into the House bill.
In coming days, amendments will be loaded up on both the House and Senate bills. Then, somehow, the House and Senate majorities will have to come together with a single bill, which almost certainly will be vetoed by the governor, who has pledged no new taxes.
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News Day: Subsidizing corn for a sacred cow / The professor is a man / MN Job Watch / Around the world in 90 seconds, more
Subsidizing corn for a sacred cow A 107-page report (PDF) from the state legislative auditor’s office says the state should stop subsidizing ethanol and questions the potential for increased environmental benefit from increasing production of corn-based ethanol.
The recommendation to end public subsidies for ethanol producers is based on strictly economic analysis that shows increased profitability for ethanol producers has eliminated the justification for subsidies. The state program, begun in 1987, is a producer payment program. The Job Opportunity Building Zones (JOBZ) program has also provided subsidies for recently-built ethanol and biodiesel facilities. According to the report, “the producer payment program has paid $93 million over the last five years to companies that have earned profits of $619 million” during the past five years, and “about $44 million is scheduled to be spent on the producer payment program from fiscal year 2010 through 2012.” The report recommends ending the subsidy and “redirecting the funds to programs designed to further reduce fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.” That, of course, is not going to happen because the ethanol industry has a lock on legislative support, as well as the support of the governor.
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Helen Suzman: Voice for justice
I first heard of Helen Suzman 40 years ago, when I first learned of the battle against apartheid in South Africa. As a white South African and a member of parliament, she was in a position to speak out against apartheid, and she did. She was a lone voice for justice in the South African parliament. Her opponents insulted her Jewish religion and called her a communist. Undaunted, she continued to speak, write and act against apartheid. She visited Nelson Mandela in prison. She befriended Mandela’s wife. Throughout the long years of struggle, she stood strong for justice.
After the end of apartheid, she continued to speak out for justice. In a 2008 BBC interview, she said:
“I’m extremely disappointed at what’s happening, and I have to put most of the blame on Thabo Mbeki (the former president) for two particularly obnoxious things he’s done – his denialist attitude to Aids, and secondly Zimbabwe and the dreadful backing of Robert Mugabe.”
“But there are other things too – crime, corruption, the failure to deliver on the promise of a better of life for all, the unemployment and the appalling conditions under which millions are still living,” she said.
Suzman died on January 1, 2009, at the age of 91.
She will be missed.
Suzman ‘brave voice’ on apartheid
Anti-apartheid icon Suzman dies
BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour special on Helen Suzman
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Mary Turck
News Day 