Thursday, August 20, 2009

A satisfactory system of health insurance should provide:

1. That everyone should have access to adequate health and medical services.

2. That everyone should have the kind of services, and all the services, he needs to promote better health.

3. That everyone should be able to obtain these without regard for the level of his personal income.


-- Oscar Ewing, Director, Federal Security Agency,
The Nation’s Health, A Ten Year Program: A Report to the President, 1948

Flexible rules

Today on related articles I'm seeing a bunch of comments, including headings like "Vote yes for decent streets," clearly advocating a specific vote on the initiative. The Courier supposedly has a rule against using the comments for electioneering, and I've seen many comments deleted specifically for advocating a candidate. This sure smells like electioneering to me.

I guess some animals are more equal than others.

Fat Wednesday

What's eating you today?

Editorial: SRP shows good sense of irony

The unnamed Courier editor is amused that a large, complex, semi-public corporation is taking advantage of every possible means of increasing its bottom line. Wow how funny.

Would it not be more useful to discuss SRP's special constitutional status and how that gives it anticompetitive market advantages? Most Arizonans have no clue how we've been grabbing our ankles for SRP for decades, and how difficult it will be to change that. Legislators take heat for even thinking about reform, which would require a constitutional amendment and a statewide initiative.

Some joke.

ToT: Seek out real facts about health care

The headline writer provides a Freudian-slip clue about what we'll read here, urging us to seek "real facts," presumably as opposed to "facts." And Barbara Nelson does not disappoint, turning in a fact-free column. The bio says she used to be an attorney (I'm glad I never had occasion to hire her), and she has cats, which apparently qualifies her as an expert on health-care legislation.

I guess the editors have yet to figure out that this sort of mindless rant is causing backlash against the ranters, moving them into the same room with 'creation scientists' and flat-earthers, and in favor of reasoned debate on this vital issue at last. Since reason and facts favor sensible, civilized reform, it's OK by me if they keep printing 'em. Go on, Barb, knock yourself out.

Push-poll group unmasked

Group behind telephone survey reveals identity

Cindy Barks tells us that the push-poll against the "Taxpayer Protection Initiative" comes from the Central Arizona Partnership, punking Jason Soifer's Tuesday speculation. What she doesn't tell us is who's behind the CAP.

Not long ago a bunch of Prescott's more money-oriented good ol' boys came together because they didn't think the Chamber of Commerce was doing enough to make them rich. The CAP includes ex-mayors Simmons and Daly, former Senator and now Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and the big developers: the Fanns, the Fains, and Senator Steve Pierce. Their mission statement speaks of "a balance between economic and ecological sustainability in Central Arizona," which means to me, given their aggregate track record, less concern about the environment, and their method is to act as an alternate, more politically active Chamber. Check out the CAP site.

This is not the first less-than-appropriate act I've seen from this group in relation to the election. Jason Gisi stood up at the end of the Chamber candidates forum at Yavapai College and harangued the audience to vote for the street tax, which struck me as naked electioneering in what was supposed to be a balanced setting.

I have a feeling we're going to have to keep an eye on these people. It's clear they think they're above the rules.