"First, to be clear, there is now no strategic missile defense in Europe. In December 2006, just days after becoming secretary of defense, I recommended to President George W. Bush that the United States place 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and an advanced radar in the Czech Republic. This system was designed to identify and destroy up to about five long-range missiles potentially armed with nuclear warheads fired from the Middle East — the greatest and most likely danger being from Iran. At the time, it was the best plan based on the technology and threat assessment available.

That plan would have put the radar and interceptors in Central Europe by 2015 at the earliest. Delays in the Polish and Czech ratification process extended that schedule by at least two years. Which is to say, under the previous program, there would have been no missile-defense system able to protect against Iranian missiles until at least 2017 — and likely much later."

"...In the first phase, to be completed by 2011, we will deploy proven, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles — weapons that are growing in capability — in the areas where we see the greatest threat to Europe.

The second phase, which will become operational around 2015, will involve putting upgraded SM-3s on the ground in Southern and Central Europe. All told, every phase of this plan will include scores of SM-3 missiles, as opposed to the old plan of just 10 ground-based interceptors. This will be a far more effective defense should an enemy fire many missiles simultaneously — the kind of attack most likely to occur as Iran continues to build and deploy numerous short- and medium-range weapons. "

...

"The new approach to European missile defense actually provides us with greater flexibility to adapt as new threats develop and old ones recede. For example, the new proposal provides some antimissile capacity very soon — a hedge against Iran’s managing to field missiles much earlier than had been previously predicted. The old plan offered nothing for almost a decade.

Those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting what we are doing..."

...

"I have been a strong supporter of missile defense ever since President Ronald Reagan first proposed it in 1983. But I want to have real capacity as soon as possible, and to take maximum advantage of new technologies to combat future threats.

The bottom line is that there will be American missile defense in Europe to protect our troops there and our NATO allies. The new proposal provides needed capacity years earlier than the original plan, and will provide even more robust protection against longer-range threats on about the same timeline as the previous program. We are strengthening — not scrapping — missile defense in Europe."

Those are pretty strong arguments for moving forward with the current proposed system.  Also mentioned in the piece was that research will continue to move forward on long-range interceptors, such as those planned for Poland.  Far from being a weakening of the missile defense program this appears to be a strengthening of the program.  There might be some serious political fall-out from this change in direction and if nothing else the timing and method of announcing this change either show a callous disregard for stalwart allies or a blatant overture to appease Russia. 

Once again I think the right is over-reaching in this matter and it could come back to haunt them in the long run.  Not every action taken by the current Administration is part of a secret plan to destroy our country.  The sooner the pundits on the right realize this and compliment the good as well as criticize the bad, the sooner they gain more credibility with those in the middle.  The right-wing talking heads are starting to sound like the left-wing crazies during the last eight years and it's not a good sound.

So credit where credit is due, this appears to be a positive step in realizing the long delayed dream of Ronald Reagan in implementing a serious missile defense system.

Evil Out

Last Wednesday the President gave a speech to a joint session of Congress in an attempt to “take control” of the health care reform debate.  I gave a brief opinion of the speech earlier, but I wanted to revisit the speech and highlight three articles that have been “fact checking” the speech.  In the light of the “YOU LIE” comment from Rep Wilson and the President’s own statements that opponents are lying to, err misleading, you; I felt this would be a great time to see exactly where the President himself was steering the debate with misleading statements and facts.

We’ll start with FactCheck.org, a non-partisan fact checking organization.  In general they lean a bit left of center, but overall during the election and after I have found them to be a good source of fact-checking on major speeches and debates.  I’m just going to post their summary of the speech, if you want to know more be sure to follow the link above and read their detailed analysis of each point.

• Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants; the House bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally. Conservative critics complain that the bill lacks an enforcement mechanism, but that hardly makes the president a liar.
• The president said “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” But the House bill would permit a “public option” to cover all abortions, and would also permit federal subsidies to be used to purchase private insurance that covers all abortions, a point that raises objections from anti-abortion groups. That’s true despite a technical ban on use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion coverage.
• The president repeated his promise that his plan won’t add “one dime” to the federal deficit. But legislation offered so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
• The president overstated the degree of concentration in the insurance industry. He said that in 34 states the "insurance market" is controlled by five or fewer companies, but that’s true only of insurance bought by small groups, not the entire "insurance market."
• Obama said his plan won’t “require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.” It’s true that there’s no requirement, but experts say the legislation could induce employers to switch coverage for millions of workers.

The next is an article in the Wall Street Journal by Scott Harrington that delves into a statement that the President makes over and over again in his attempt to sell health care reform.  As time has gone on the President has sharpened his attacks against private health insurance companies and has been making them scapegoats in order to sell his plans.  Part of this attack is this quote, "More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care. It happens every day."  Harrington spends his article dissecting this assertion and the examples the President gave in his speech.  Excerpts from the article:

Clearly, this [dropping health coverage] should never happen to anyone who is in good standing with his insurance company and has abided by the terms of the policy. But the president's examples of people "dropped" by their insurance companies involve the rescission of policies based on misrepresentation or concealment of information in applications for coverage. Private health insurance cannot function if people buy insurance only after they become seriously ill, or if they knowingly conceal health conditions that might affect their policy.

Traditional practice, governed by decades of common law, statute and regulation is for insurers to rely in underwriting and pricing on the truthfulness of the information provided by applicants about their health, without conducting a costly investigation of each applicant's health history. Instead, companies engage in a certain degree of ex post auditing—conducting more detailed and costly reviews of a subset of applications following policy issue—including when expensive treatment is sought soon after a policy is issued.

            …

To highlight abusive practices, Mr. Obama referred to an Illinois man who "lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about." The president continued: "They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it."

Although the president has used this example previously, his conclusion is contradicted by the transcript of a June 16 hearing on industry practices before the Subcommittee of Oversight and Investigation of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The deceased's sister testified that the insurer reinstated her brother's coverage following intervention by the Illinois Attorney General's Office. She testified that her brother received a prescribed stem-cell transplant within the desired three- to four-week "window of opportunity" from "one of the most renowned doctors in the whole world on the specific routine," that the procedure "was extremely successful," and that "it extended his life nearly three and a half years."

The president's second example was a Texas woman "about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne." He said that "By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size."

The woman's testimony at the June 16 hearing confirms that her surgery was delayed several months. It also suggests that the dermatologist's chart may have described her skin condition as precancerous, that the insurer also took issue with an apparent failure to disclose an earlier problem with an irregular heartbeat, and that she knowingly underreported her weight on the application.

These two cases are presumably among the most egregious identified by Congressional staffers' analysis of 116,000 pages of documents from three large health insurers, which identified a total of about 20,000 rescissions from millions of policies issued by the insurers over a five-year period. Company representatives testified that less than one half of one percent of policies were rescinded (less than 0.1% for one of the companies).

…He asserted that 90% of the Alabama health-insurance market is controlled by one insurer, and that high market concentration "makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly—by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates."

In fact, the Birmingham News reported immediately following the speech that the state's largest health insurer, the nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, has about a 75% market share. A representative of the company indicated that its "profit" averaged only 0.6% of premiums the past decade, and that its administrative expense ratio is 7% of premiums, the fourth lowest among 39 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans nationwide.

…

In addition to these consumer friendly numbers, a survey in Consumer Reports this month reported that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama ranked second nationally in customer satisfaction among 41 preferred provider organization health plans. The insurer's apparent efficiency may explain its dominance, as opposed to a lack of competition—especially since there are no obvious barriers to entry or expansion in Alabama faced by large national health insurers such as United Healthcare and Aetna. 

The final article is from Newsbusters.org and directly addresses the President’s repeated assertion that opponents of his health care reform are offering no alternatives and just standing in the way of his reforms.  There are at least three separate Republican sponsored bills on health care reform that were proposed back in April, but also the Republicans have been attempting to amend or modify the current Democrat bills that have been sent to the floor.  This article takes the interesting task of using the President’s own stated goals and contrasting them with Republican sponsored amendments and bills tackling those exact issues.  I highly recommend the piece as it puts a big “You Lie” to one of the most repeated straw-man arguments given by the President.  Here is the opening of the article:

You wouldn't know it from reading much of the mainstream media's coverage of the legislative battles over health care reform, but Republicans and President Obama share a number of prominent goals. Republican lawmakers have tried address the same problems that the President highlights, but congressional Democrats won't allow GOP amendments to get past committee votes.

With the exception of the public option, President Obama and GOP lawmakers agree on most major provisions on health care reform: increasing competition in the health insurance market; keeping bureaucrats out of the doctor's office; passing a health care bill that helps, or at least does not hurt, the economy; keeping legislation deficit neutral; preventing increases in taxes for the vast majority of citizens; preserving Medicare benefits for seniors; and preventing taxpayer dollars from funding abortions.

Here are some bullet points extracted from the article, there is more in there than I am listing so be sure to give the article a good read:

·         Increasing Competition

o        President Says: “[My] guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. That's how the market works."

o        Republicans Offer:  Arizona Republican Rep. John Shaddeg's bill (H.R. 3217) would allow Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines

·         Reducing Bureacracy

o        President Says:  “I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need."

o        Republicans Offer:  Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., offered an amendment in the Energy and Commerce Committee that would explicitly prohibit federal officials from making those decisions.

·         The Deficit

o        President Says:  He won’t sign a bill that "adds one dime to the deficit"

o        Republicans Offer:  Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., offered an amendment that would have prohibited any health care legislation from going into effect unless it were deficit neutral.

·         Medicare

o        President Says:  "Don't pay attention to those scary stories about how [seniors' Medicare] benefits will be cut,"

o        Republicans Offer:  Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., offered an amendment in the Ways and Means Committee that would strip the bill of language that cuts funding for Medicare Advantage.

It is about time the President acknowledged his own “misstatements” and “misleading” assertions.  This will only happen if the public pressure against the President’s reforms continues.  So look up those articles and the next time someone starts to extol the President and his plans and disparages those who stand against him, you will have some ammunition to throw back at them.

If you don’t want your freedoms to disappear into even more Government bureaucracy than now is the time to continue standing up.

Evil Out

"Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply. Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry. Man seems to insist on ignoring the lessons available from history."

-- Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Lecture

 

The September 11 attacks (often referred to as September 11th or 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.^[1][2] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights.

In total 2,993 people, including the hijackers, died in the attacks.^[3][4] The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 90 countries.

Eight years ago today was one of several earth shattering events during my lifetime.  The Challenger shuttle disaster, The fall of the Berlin wall, the beginning of the First Gulf War, and the LA Riots after the Rodney King verdict...each of these events happened and I remember where I was when I found out about them.  Over time those memories have faded. 

9/11 was different, though.  I can still remember the events as clearly as the day it happened.  The only other times I remember feeling that much sorrow and pain were the days when I found out two of my closest friends had passed away.  It is a memory that lingers with me today.  I remember the feelings of anger and hopelessness, sorrow and regret, fear and numbness.  I wanted revenge on those who had caused this damage and I still hope that the leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin-Laden, will come to justice under the boots of our brave marines still fighting in Afghanistan.  9/11 is a day that changed me in some ways that I may never really understand, but I know that it has colored my outlook in subtle ways. 

Take this day to remember those who died, both in the attacks and in the battles that have followed.  Remember their families and their loved ones and pray for those who have been touched by this aggression.

Take some time today to reflect and remember.

Eight years may seem like an eternity, but it is too short a time for all the wounds to have healed.

Pray for us all.

Evil Out

Finally, many in this chamber - particularly on the Republican side of the aisle - have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It's a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.

"if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have."

So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly - by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

As we remember this history, let us reflect on its meaning in our own time. Like so many Americans, you work hard and meet your responsibilities. You play by the rules and pay your bills. But in recent years, the American Dream seemed to slip away, because from Washington to Wall Street, too often a different culture prevailed.

Wealth was valued over work, selfishness over sacrifice, greed over responsibility, the right to organize undermined rather than strengthened.

That's what we saw. And while it may have worked out well for a few at the top, it sure didn't work out well for our country. That culture-and the policies that flowed from it-undermined the middle class and helped create the greatest economic crisis of our time.

So our Recovery plan is working. The financial system has been saved from collapse. Home sales are up. We're seeing signs of life in the auto industry. Business investment is starting to stabilize. For the first time in 18 months, we're seeing growth in manufacturing.

On Friday, we learned that the economy lost another 216,000 jobs in August. And whenever Americans are losing jobs-especially so many-that's simply unacceptable. But for the second straight month, we lost fewer jobs than the month before and it was the fewest jobs lost in a year. So make no mistake. We're moving in the right direction.

Ohio, we're on the road to recovery.

We've never been this close. We've never had such broad agreement on what needs to be done. And because we're so close to real reform, the special interests are doing what they always do-trying to scare the American people and preserve the status quo...

...we know what that future looks like. Insurance companies raking in the profits while discriminating against people because of pre-existing conditions and denying or dropping coverage when you get sick. It means you're never negotiating about higher wages, because you're spending all your time just protecting the benefits you already have.  It means premiums continuing to skyrocket three times faster than your wages. More families pushed into bankruptcy. More businesses cutting more jobs. More Americans losing their health insurance-14,000 every day. And it means more Americans dying every day just because they don't have insurance.

"As children across America go back to school, President Obama will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of taking responsibility for their success in school..."

"He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens," Duncan said in a press release.

"The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power," Chairman Jim Greer said in a press release

 

"Make September 8 Parentally Approved Skip Day. You are your child's moral tutor, not that shady lawyer from Chicago."