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Low Cost Healthcare » 0number of comments:

I just saw this fascinating TED talk about how an organization called Aravind is providing high quality, low cost eye care to India.

Let me spoil the punchline: They provide eyecare approximately equal to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service in terms of volume. Statistically, the quality is superior to the NHS in terms of complications. And they do it, profitably, at 1% of the cost of the NHS.

Their mission is to eliminate needless blindness. Instead of viewing eyecare as a business, Aravind seems to view it as a religious calling. From the video, their founder says:

When we grow in spiritual consciousness, we identify with all that is in the world, so there is no exploitation. It is ourselves we are helping. It is ourselves we are healing.

I think this has some implications for the health care debate in the United States.

In the US, health care is big business. At every step, everyone is trying to make a lot of money. Drug companies, hospitals, insurance companies–at each step, everyone is trying to grab their share of the profit, rather than focusing on healing patients.

Income is vital, of course. Doctors, nurses, technicians, researchers, ambulances, and all that need to be paid for. But I wonder what the system would look like if everyone in the health care supply chain, from drug companies and ambulance manufacturers to doctors and hospitals, did their work as non-profits instead of as companies.

What would it look like if health care providers in the US viewed patients as people to help instead of as profit centers to be exploited? How many lives and livelihoods could they save if they viewed health care not as a business opportunity, but as a moral obligation?

Neo-Hooverism » 2number of comments:

Jonathan Chait has written a lengthy but excellent article rebutting the current conservative argument against Obama’s plans to stimulate the economy. It deconstructs The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, the book endorsed by Republican luminaries as an argument against the so-called “New New Deal.” (This is not an accurate term, as no one is arguing for a complete emulation of every New Deal policy Roosevelt enacted, but it will do.)

One thing I come away with is this: Government spending stimulates the economy. This is inarguable. It worked when the government bought public works projects in the New Deal. It worked when the government bought bullets and tanks in World War II. It worked when the government bought planes and ships in Reagan’s administration.

The Republicans are arguing for cutbacks in public spending, conveniently returning to the position of “fiscal responsibility” now that they are out of power. Generally, I want balanced budgets and a smaller government too, but cutbacks during a financial crisis this would be irresponsible. I would rather have more debt than another Great Depression. And if the government must spend money, I would far rather we buy better infrastructure than more guns.

The Republicans today are parroting Herbert Hoover, who warned that the spending of the New Deal portended “gigantic socialism.” The comments after the article linked above do nothing to help the Republicans argument–They are barely coherent, badly spelled, full of name name-calling, aggressive statements of faith without any supporting facts.

It’s a shame, really, because the Democrats need strong, thoughtful opposition if the country is going to succeed in the long term. We need at least two parties with intellectual honesty and good sense, and the Republicans aren’t doing their part right now.

In any case, if you have any interest in the current argument over the economy, read the article linked above. It’s well worth the time it takes to get through it.

An Interesting Point on Abortion » 0number of comments:

After hearing that John McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade1, Randall Balmer posted an opinion piece for the Washington Post today that’s given me a lot to think about:

Let me put it succinctly: I have no interest in making abortion illegal; I would like to make it unthinkable.

In terms of morality, I have no problem saying that abortion is always regrettable – even though it may be justifiable in some cases, especially in instances of incest or rape. In many other circumstances, abortion rises to the level of moral abomination. As a legal matter, however, I am decidedly pro-choice. I believe that the government should have no jurisdiction whatsoever over gestation.

The only point of agreement between both sides of the abortion debate is that making abortion illegal will not significantly reduce the number of abortions. It will only endanger the lives of women. But the larger question here is how those who favor making abortion illegal would enforce those laws.

After examining the deeply unsettling idea of every miscarriage becoming a potential criminal investigation, Balmer proposes combination of public service campaigns against abortion, sex education (teaching about both abstinence and contraceptives), encouraging adoption, and improving the economy to reduce abortions.

This, I think, is the wisest path. First, leave the Partial Birth Abortion ban in place, as there is no possible moral ambiguity there. We can argue over when life begins and whether abortion is acceptable or not earlier in the process, when we’re talking about a nearly microscopic cluster of cells. But partial birth abortions deal with viable children; at that point, the mother should be signing adoption papers instead.

Second, promote the idea that abortions are wrong, rather than that they should be made illegal. When it comes to the law, I prefer a pragmatic approach over moral grandstanding. An out-right ban would only prevent a handful of abortions; the majority would still be carried out, but without medical supervision. This doctor describes how before Roe v. Wade his hospital would see 10-30 cases a day of people with severe complications as a result of botched abortions. After Roe v. Wade, these cases stopped.

In terms of a moral calculation, if you save a handful of lives while causing the torment and (in some cases) death of many other people, have you really gained anything?

I do not favor abortions; I think that in most cases they are immoral. But I think that an outright ban does more harm than good.

1. McCain’s position is that abortion should be illegal except in the cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother. He co-sponsored the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act, along with 42 other senators. This law was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in 2007. He is for embryonic stem cell research.

Obama, on the other hand, voted against a partial birth abortion ban in the Illinois Senate. (However, according to the link above, the bill’s wording would have criminalized all abortion and included no provision for the health of the mother.) His position is clear: NARAL (the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) rates him at 100% Pro-Choice, while the National Right to Life Committee rates him at 0%. Naturally, Obama also supports embryonic stem cell research.

Obama and McCain » 0number of comments:

Initially, I was a little ticked off at the attacks from Giuliani and Palin the other night, especially the digs against Obama as a “community organizer.” (What, we don’t want community service? Republicans don’t want average citizens involved in fixing the problems in their communities? Just leave the problems for the government to fix? That isn’t what Republicans used to believe.)

On the other hand, the target of those attacks doesn’t seem to be bothered:

Here’s what I think: Obama is a diplomat, a peacemaker. His speeches tend to be about bringing people together to fix the nation’s problems. McCain and Palin are self-proclaimed “bulldogs with lipstick.” They’re combative and aggressive, two attributes that tend to be unhelpful in problem solving.

I also think that the Republicans had a clean shot at making the country better, and they blew it. We’ve had 8 years of Bush, 6 of which had a Republican House and Senate. When the “small government” Republicans had the reins, they took the budget from a surplus to a deficit and they started a new multi-billion dollar prescription drug program. They embroiled us in a war that’s tripled the cost of oil and cost the country billions of dollars (let alone the untold cost in human lives) on manufactured pretenses. For all their bluster about following terrorists to the gates of hell, we still don’t have Osama bin Laden. The Republican government is so badly run that even McCain is calling for change.

Obama’s plans look better to me than McCain’s plans. His proposed budget lowers taxes for all but the most rich, giving the biggest tax breaks to the poor who need them most. Our country needs universal health insurance. We need to carefully withdraw from Iraq. We need to fund the science and education programs that the Republicans have neglected.

So, I’m voting for Obama this time around. Hope you will too.