Squaring the Culture

In a passionate speech before the Aspen Institute, bastion of secular humanism and favorite target of Trilateral-Commission-conspiracy-hounds, former CBS anchorman Dan Rather evoked the heart and soul of the American entitlement culture by calling for a Presidential commission to “save the press.” At stake, warned Rather, is the very survival of American democracy.

“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said.

Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive.

At stake, he argued, is the very survival of American democracy.

“A truly free and independent press is the red beating heart of democracy and freedom,” Rather said in an interview yesterday afternoon. “This is not something just for journalists to be concerned about, and the loss of jobs and the loss of newspapers, and the diminution of the American press’ traditional role of being the watchdog on power. This is something every citizen should be concerned about.”

Wall. Forehead. Pound.

It apparently did not occur to the venerable Mr. Rather that the market for news is already accomplishing exactly what he’s calling for, without the White House’s help. New sources, new business models, and new media are arising every year, apparently faster than anything with which the old fossil can keep up. It also, apparently, did not occur to him that he of the falsified National Guard memo personifies one of the reasons the traditional news media are faltering.

I recall watching an exposé of Oral Roberts on 60 Minutes back in the 1980s. At the end of the segment, they ran a video of Oral Roberts’ brother saying simply but emphatically, “Oral Roberts never healed anyone.” From the tone of the piece and the placement of the clip, it was clear that they were supporting the notion that Roberts was a fraud. I discovered in a Christian journal about 2 weeks later that what Roberts’ brother had actually told them in the interview was, “Oral Roberts never healed anybody; God healed all those people.” They ripped a theological distinction clear out of its context and used it to slander the man. It doesn’t matter whether you think Roberts was a legitimate minister or not; there’s no way they did not know they were distorting the meaning of that interview. It was not the first time I’d noted something that sounded wrong from the 60 Minutes gang, but it was the last I would experience personally; I never watched the show again, and I never trusted a word I heard from it.

There’s a lesson for you, Dan. Pay attention. It only takes one outright lie to lose an audience.

It’s a bit of a toss-up, whether traditional news is failing because of widespread perception of bias, or because of the proliferation of new, more accessible sources of information. Both are in the mix, clearly. All media outlets are feeling the pressure to expand into new avenues; who has time to read the paper while rushing out of the house, or wants to have to sit down at precisely 5:30 PM in order to find out what’s happening in the world? Anytime I like, “drudg…” on the keyboard gets me the Drudge Report headlines — and he’s never had to retract a story, not even once. On the other hand, the rise of conservative talk radio and the dominance of somewhat-right-of-center Fox News over traditional-but-clearly-left-of-center news sources like ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC indicate that a large part of the exodus is pent-up demand for news and commentary with a different slant from the one that has dominated news media at least since the advent of television.

I guess we just got tired of the sort of thing that Rather produced just before he was hastily bundled out the revolving door of the CBS building: a “news” report, timed precisely and deliberately to counteract the post-convention “bounce” of a Republican candidate for President, purporting to prove that 30 years ago, the candidate had deliberately avoided military service with the help of his commanding officer — based on a document that was uncorroborated and turns out to have been forged. Of course, Rather produced no comparably-timed report aimed at the Democratic candidate, despite a top-of-the-best-seller-list exposé delivering the ammunition on a platter. God, I miss all that protection of democracy.

What struck me as truly pathetic was that Rather, in his desperation for something, anything, to rescue the vital but beleaguered traditional press from obscure ruin, calls on… President Obama? If anything illustrates the pervasiveness of infantile thinking in the American left, this has got to be it. “Oh, woe!” cries the crusty but respected newsman. “Our industry faces disaster! Help me, Obi-wan Obama. You’re my only hope.” My first reaction was one that every son needs to hear from his father at some point: if “somebody” ought to do something, maybe that somebody should be you. Dan, if you want somebody to figure out new business models for the news industry, could it be that you ought to sit down with some of your contacts and come up with a few ideas yourself? Why the hell are you, a grown man, running to Papa? And why is that your Papa, a guy who’s never earned a dime from a productive enterprise in his entire, narcissism-driven life?

Of course, we don’t have to get philosophical or esoteric to discover flaws in Rather’s reaction. Perhaps the most telling response came from the reader of the Aspen Times who observed,

He’s looking for the government to help the press watch the government? Does this sound crazy to anyone else?

The swan song of the traditional press was the repulsive fawning over candidate Obama. He’s the last person in the world who needs to be consulted on how to resurrect the deceased news industry.

On the other hand, few things will help the news industry recover its credibility faster than for certain, untrustworthy newsmen to vanish from the scene. I would rather it be sooner than later.

The Obama administration added to the suspicion that it may intentionally be crippling the US economy by denying a critical loan guarantee to a major nuclear energy project, reports KnoxNews.com.

Campaign rhetoric for decades from both sides of the aisle has touted the importance of energy independence for American economic security. Recent moves by the Obama administration to suppress development of coal and natural gas resources, and moves by the Congress to suppress domestic offshore oil development, have been rationalized as necessary for the environmental health of the planet, despite their requiring the nation to rely more heavily on foreign imports of energy products.

However, concern for the planet can hardly explain this move: the Department of Energy has denied a loan guarantee to USEC, Inc., which has been developing new refinement technology for nuclear fuel at Oak Ridge, TN. USEC, the only American nuclear enrichment company, was set to construct an enrichment plant after 6 years of testing and development to verify the feasibility of new, more efficient enrichment technology. The project depended on a number of factors, including confirmation of the technological advances, which promise to refine uranium in a manner that reduces the electricity usage of the process by 95%. It’s folding now, not because the technology does not work, but because the Department of Energy, after 7 years supporting the project, simply refuses to endorse it.

According to Knoxnews.com:

The Department of Energy has denied USEC Inc.’s application for a $2 billion loan guarantee, and the company has started “demobilizing” the American Centrifuge Project, which currently employs about 450 at its Oak Ridge manufacturing site…

USEC Chief Executive Officer John K.Welch, after learning that DOE would not grant the loan guarantee, made this statement today:

“We are shocked and disappointed by DOE’s decision. The American Centrifuge met the original intent of the loan guarantee program in that it would have used an innovative, but proven, technology, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and created thousands of immediate jobs across the United States.

“Our application has been pending for a year, and we have addressed any concerns the department raised. Technically, we operated the American Centrifuge technology in a lead cascade for approximately 235,000 machine hours. Financially, we have invested $1.5 billion dollars in the project and offered $1 billion of additional corporate support. It is unclear how DOE expects to find innovative technologies that assume zero risk, but the American Centrifuge clearly meets the energy security and climate change goals of the Obama administration.”

Individual projects may fail for all sorts of reasons; there can be unexpected budget overruns, manufacturing delays, unexpected market collapses, political stalling, even personal disputes that get in the way. However, at a time when energy needs are a central focus, when the government is deliberately spending hundreds of billions of dollars to stimulate the creation of jobs, and when the country is deliberately crippling its ability to produce fossil fuels, for the DOE to simply and quietly shut down a key component of a viable nuclear energy strategy without an explanation is… unfathomable.

Might the Obama administration genuinely intend to cripple the US economically? They at least had a plausible rebuttal to that claim when shutting down fossil fuel development — not that the rebuttal makes scientific sense, but it was at least plausible. But this? I cannot explain it other than to say, they genuinely do not want the US to produce its own energy. Why not?

I’m not a fan of energy independence, as a strategy. The US does not need to be completely independent of the rest of the world for energy any more than it needs to be independent for steel, bauxite, shirts, computers, or any other single product; the economy is global. However, the US economy is suffering from a $700 billion balance-of-payments deficit (we import that much more than we export), and every bit of energy we produce internally reduces that and creates American jobs. Furthermore, the US stands to suffer serious spot shortages of electricity as fossil fuels lose market share (thanks to economically destructive carbon rationing and senseless Congressional limits on development) until alternative sources of electricity are ready to make up the attendant shortfall in the nation’s power needs — which will be decades from now. Developing nuclear power is a key to surviving that transition period. Shutting down this project makes no sense.

The 450 jobs that will vanish as the American Centrifuge Project closes up shop is just the tip of the iceberg. How, precisely, does the DOE propose that the US obtain the necessary refined uranium for new nuclear power plants? And how does the Obama administration explain shutting down this project in the light of their commitment to energy independence?

We are so screwed…

Jared Allen at TheHill.com is reporting that House Democrats have reached an agreement in which the vote on the healthcare bill will not take place until after Labor Day.

Blue Dogs and House leaders have struck a deal to guarantee that the House will not vote on a healthcare bill before August, a leading Blue Dog said on Wednesday.

In exchange for putting off a floor vote until after Labor Day, the Energy and Commerce Committee may be allowed to continue its markup of the healthcare bill this week even if an agreement has not been reached between committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and seven Energy and Commerce Blue Dogs over the content of the bill.

Asked if House leaders had told Democrats that there will be no House vote on healthcare before Friday, Blue Dog Co-Chairwoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) said, “I don’t think [leaders have] made public statements to that regard, but my understanding is that that would be part of an agreement, if they actually do move forward with an Energy and Commerce markup, that there will be no vote on the House floor until after Labor Day.”

This appears to be the result of incidents showing that the House Democratic leadership does not have the votes to pass the bill. Allen reported less than a week ago that talks between the majority leader and Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce committee had broken down:

House healthcare negotiations dissolved in acrimony on Friday, with Blue Dog Democrats saying they were “lied” to by their Democratic leaders.

In advance of a subsequent press conference called by House leadership, Blue Dog liaison Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) said the healthcare bill should be staying in committee.

“I expect the committee process to proceed,” Cardoza said.

The seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stormed out of a Friday meeting with their committee chairman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), saying Waxman had been negotiating in bad faith over a number of provisions Blue Dogs demanded be changed in the stalled healthcare bill.

“I’ve been lied to,” Blue Dog Coalition Co-Chairman Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said on Friday. “We have not had legitimate negotiations.

The story, unsurprisingly, suggests that the Democrats’ Achilles Heel is their arrogance; they think they can ram through anything they like, regardless of the will of the people. We need to remember this the next time a Democrat invokes “the will of the people” as a sound bite to support anything; they simply don’t care about the will of the people (nor, it seems, any other genuine moral imperative, for that matter) except as a convenient sound bite to win some argument.

This is not the time to relax. The President’s health care proposal would be a disaster for America, and would virtually guarantee fiscal collapse if executed in the wake of the new President’s 6-month adventure in fiscal irresponsibility, the wasting of trillions of dollars of revenue that the government has not received and cannot borrow at reasonable rates. If the President’s health care initiative fails, his ability to continue to convert the United States into Soviet Union II will have been severely hampered. Continue to call Congressmen and Senators, write letters to the editor, blog, and in all other ways expose the true danger of ObamaCare.

Hat tip to Hot Air.

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UPDATE 7/29 @ 4:12 PM: Erick at RedState just sent word that the announced delay was a red herring, and that the Blue Dogs and House Democrats plan to ram the bill through the House this week. GOPUSA confirms this report. This would mean that they intend to pass the bill without most Representatives having read it in its final version. Please call your Representatives and let them know that a “yes” vote on a rush basis is unacceptable, and should be sufficient reason to oppose their re-election. Thanks.

In previous installments I’ve established

• that there’s a need for explaining why Christianity is the most reasonable position for an educated, skeptical individual to take (see the post here);
• that there exists such a thing as absolute truth, and that truth claims may be made about religion just as they can about any other topic (see the post here);
• that using the Cosmological Argument, the scientific fact that our universe had a beginning establishes that something like a Theistic God must exist (see the post here);
• that using the Teleological Argument, the anthropic principle establishes that the universe was designed for life, which requires a designer something like a Theistic God (see the post here).
• that using the Moral Argument, the fact that we all recognize that some things are more morally acceptable than others requires that a universal moral standard exists outside of ourselves, requiring a moral God (see the post here).

The sum of these arguments gives us not only confidence that something like a Theistic God exists, but gives us some pretty clear indications what such a God must be like:

From the Cosmological argument:

• We know that the creator must be immaterial, timeless, and non-spatial, because material, time, and space all had a beginning.
• We know that the creator must be immensely powerful, because the entire universe was created out of nothing.

From the Teleological argument:

• We know that the creator must be extremely intelligent, to plan the universe so carefully.
• We know that the creator must be purposive, that it has what we would call intention, because design implies purpose.

From the Moral argument:

• We know that the creator must be morally perfect, because the moral standard emanates from it.
• We know that the creator is personal, because it cares how we behave.

I would be jumping the gun if I claimed at this point that I had proved that the God that exists is the God of the Christian Bible. However, I’m not going too far when I say that having proved that God must be immaterial, timeless, non-spatial, immensely powerful, extremely intelligent, purposive, morally perfect, and personal, makes the Christian God one of the most plausible candidates. The Jewish and Islamic Gods are also candidates, although I should point out that historically, all three notions come from the same source, which is the Hebrew Tanakh — what we would call the Old Testament.

By proving this, I’ve also demonstrated that the following notions are not plausible, because, being either pantheistic or atheistic, they do not fit the observed facts of the universe:

• Hinduism
• Buddhism
• Atheism
• Secular Humanism
• Mormonism
• Wicca
• Confucianism
• Taoism

This is not to say that everybody whose beliefs fall into one of those categories, or into something similar, are wrong about every particular, are incapable of moral behavior, or any such thing. It’s simply to say that the primary claims of those systems do not fit the observed facts of the universe.

Later this week, I will be posting a discussion of whether miracles can be believed or not. Until then…

Here’s my review of a 2007 film that I watched a couple of nights ago, called August Rush:

The story is a fairy tale, really. A pair of musicians couple and produce a child, then fate separates them. After the mother is injured in an accident, her father deceives her into thinking the child is dead, and puts him up for adoption. The orphan, called Evan (later renamed August Rush), is a musical prodigy, and knows by faith that his music will call his family back together. He escapes the orphanage, lives on the streets in New York City, and follows the music wherever it leads him. The parents wander, search, find themselves, and magically end up at their son’s concert in Central Park.

The story has strong elements of Oliver Twist, with Robin Williams as a musically-minded Fagin. Sadly, though, the first half of the film plays more like a self-important, overly serious version of the 2001 romantic comedy, Seredipity, which wasn’t really good enough to copy. It’s in the second half, when Evan/August picks up a guitar and starts tapping and hammering, that the film takes off. The music soars. It sings. It brings tears to your eyes. The composer, Mark Mancina (who did the music for The Lion King), began by writing August’s Rhapsody, the piece that gets played at the end of the film in a manner that recalls Mr. Holland’s Opus, then merged ordinary street noise with themes from the rhapsody and weaved them into the score throughout the film. We hear the themes more clearly as August’s talent begins to stand out, first in reveries, then in guitar work (the percussive sounds of Kaki King and Heitor Pereira), then in a pipe organ solo in an old church, and eventually when he performs the rhapsody itself with the New York Philharmonic. We’re treated to lots of additional music along the way, from the parents (she plays classical cello, he writes soulful guitar ballads) and August’s acquaintances. All of it works (except Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” which did not fit and should have been cut) to hammer home the movie’s theme: music is everywhere, you just have to listen.

The weakness of the film lies in the direction of Kirsten Sheridan and the script from writers Nick Castle and James Hart. None of these have produced notable work before, and their mediocrity shows. They struggle mightily to achieve profundity, and sacrifice plausibility and coherence in the process. No, I’m not complaining that the Fate theme is too magical; but even a fairy tale needs its characters to make coherent choices, and needs to resolve the conflicts it produces. This film ignores both, frequently, and that makes it downright cheesy at times. If they’d stuck to making it coherent, it would have been profound on its own; just from the story and the sound track, the movie occasionally touches greatness.

Solid, professional performances were turned in by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Bend It Like Beckham), Keri Russell (Waitress), and Robin Williams (what isn’t he in?) Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), the boy playing August, did well enough and had exactly the right look. And keep your eye on Jamia Nash, the tiny black girl who sings; where on earth did that little thing get those pipes?

One more good touch, satisfying a pet peeve of mine: real musicians coached the actors, so they’re actually fingering the notes you’re hearing most of the time. What a relief.

Despite its flaws, if you love music and you’re not a cynic, this film will inspire you. Check your cynicism at the door, and go enjoy the music.

I argued back in February that the weakened life ethic produced by abortion and by the selfishness of the Boomer generation, a decade of economic hardship, and the coming collapse of Social Security, will combine to produce mass killing of the elderly, first as “voluntary” euthanasia and later (but not much later) becoming a lot less voluntary. Several events in the advocacy of President Obama’s national health care scheme are vindicating my prediction.

The current House resolution for health care reform, H.R. 3200, contains a clause entitled “Advance care planning consultation” (Section 1233) requiring senior citizens to meet with a health professional every five years to discuss living wills and limits on measures to be taken when life-threatening conditions occur. Why a state-employed health professional? Why not a private attorney? Why is it required by the state? The clear answer is that with the state paying for medical care, ending life sooner reduces expenses for the national system. Patient’s rights advocates correctly note that the measure is likely to pressure seniors into making life-limiting legal decisions they might not otherwise make. In fact, that’s the point of the consultations.

Erick Erickson from RedState also circulated an email message on Friday reporting an overheard conversation between an aide to Rep. Paul Tonko (D, NY) and an alleged lobbyist regarding the House health care bill. The conversation included the observation that “probably the best part of the bill is the increase in Hospice care which will solve the prolonging of life issue.” Hospice care, as opposed to hospital care, limits access to life-extending technological procedures. To claim that hospice care “solves the prolonging of life issue” suggests that a national health plan will cover hospice care but not hospital care for certain, life-threatening illnesses, with the result that patients will be required by the state to die quietly rather than prolong their lives.

It’s really been pretty obvious that that’s where we’re heading from the discussions of health care “rationing” that we’ve been hearing. Erick at RedState.com listed several prominent progressives who have publicly advanced the weird survival calculus that supports consciously weighing dollar cost against survival odds; Peter Singer wrote just 10 days ago advocating a specific scheme, accompanied by an incredible flood of disingenuous rationalizations supporting the ethics of such a scheme.

They argue that since the calculation is taking place already, there is no reason the state should not engage in it. What they omit is the fact that whatever such calculations take place today, take place in the mind of the person whose survival is on the line, or among that person’s responsible family members. It is one thing for an individual to decide that his own wealth should be saved for his children rather than spent prolonging his life; it is another thing entirely for the state to make that assessment. The former is self-sacrifice; the latter is murder.

The moves to limit care for the elderly give the lie to the entire premise for national health care. Advocates for Obama’s plan argue that the reason for a national program is that some individuals cannot obtain care. Their solution does not provide care for more people, it simply shifts the right to decide who gets care from the market to the government. Just as many people will be denied care, but executive-branch bureaucrats get to decide which ones. I cannot see this as an improvement.

The holocaust has been predictable for decades. We’re just now beginning to see the pieces of it come together. As can be predicted by anybody familiar with 20th century history, wherever Marxian notions appear, mass deaths are likely to follow.

We are so screwed…

It’s a tempest in a teapot, but it’s a tempest created personally by the President of the United States, so it’s worth a few words.

Police arrested noted intellectual Henry Louis Gates Jr. outside his own home in Cambridge last week when he became disorderly upon being asked for his identification. Police were investigating a report of a black man attempting to force the door of a home; Gates was, in fact, forcing the door of his own home because he had forgotten his keys. Gates apparently yelled at the police repeatedly and accused them of racism, and after being warned, was arrested for disorderly conduct. Charges have since been dropped.

A reporter fishing for a race story during the President’s press conference on Wednesday asked the President what the incident said about race relations in America. If the President had simply answered the question generally, none of us would be talking about this a week after the incident. However, this President Knows All, and gave his view of the actual incident, claiming “The Cambridge police acted stupidly.” The arresting officer, who teaches a course in racial profiling at the Lowell, MA Police Academy, refuses to apologize, but also will not comment on the incident.

I’m having difficulty embedding the shockwave clips of the two interviews: readers may view the President’s full remarks here, and the comments of the arresting officer here.

What strikes me is the contrast between the maturity of the two individuals — and it’s the local cop who’s showing up the President of the United States.

If the first words out of a man’s mouth are “I do not know the facts of the case,” the next words must be “so I cannot comment.” After saying “I cannot comment,” the speaker should not comment. Our leader does not possess the maturity to discipline his speech in this manner. As a consequence, policemen across the entire nation now know that the President does not value their professionalism, and does not trust them to execute their jobs properly. Wags and fools across the entire nation have now been vindicated in their ill-informed critiques of trained law enforcement professionals exercising proper procedure. A good day’s work, Mr. President.

The President’s attempt the next day at winning the argument that he started does not help matters. “It doesn’t make sense to arrest a guy in his own home if he’s not causing a serious disturbance,” lectured He Who Knows All. It is the job of the officer on the scene to judge whether the citizen is causing a serious enough disturbance to warrant arrest; and yet, our President feels competent to second-guess this experienced officer, even without investigation. “I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do,” the president told ABC’s Terry Moran. I think he does not, and I think every policeman in America knows it; if he did, he would be deferring to the judgment of the arresting officer until the matter had been investigated.

Can anybody imagine any prior President, including the appropriately-maligned President “Jimmy”, who would have gone on record as saying “the police acted stupidly” without investigating first? or who would have the bad grace to defend his criticism?

The following article is reproduced here with permission from the National Center for Policy Analysis, where it appeared on March 24, 2009. Pay particular attention to the last item: the American medical system is the chief medical innovator for the entire world. This is a signature characteristic of free markets, and would absolutely disappear under a government-run medical system. Mind you, medicine and medical insurance are among the most completely regulated fields in the American economy (or were, until President Obama went on his nationalization rampage), but they remain sufficiently liberated to exhibit the level of innovation to which we’ve become accustomed.

Not mentioned in this list is the innovation provided us by pharmaceutical companies. Given Obama’s apparent love for protecting the monopolistic power of the largest industrial players, it appears plausible that he’ll work out a way for the Big Pharma to continue to profit from drug innovation; what will vanish will be the energy supplied by smaller, independent startups, which will no longer exist under the growing single-party fascism that America is becoming under the Obama administration.

Share these facts with your friends.

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10 Surprising Facts About American Health Care

by Scott Atlas

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world.  Economists, government officials, insurers and academics alike are beating the drum for a far larger government rôle in health care.  Much of the public assumes their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex.  However, before turning to government as the solution, some unheralded facts about America's health care system should be considered.

Fact No. 1:  Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.[1]  Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom.  Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway.  The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Fact No. 2:  Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.[2]  Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

Fact No. 3:  Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.[3]  Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease.  By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them. 

 Fact No. 4:  Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.[4]  Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:

• Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).

Fact No. 5:  Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.  Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent).  Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor."[5]

Fact No. 6:  Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K.  Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long – sometimes more than a year – to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.[6]  All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.[7]  In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.[8]

Fact No. 7:  People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.   More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding."[9]

Fact No. 8:  Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.  When asked about their own health care instead of the "health care system," more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).[10]

Fact No. 9:  Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K.  Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade.[11]  [See the table.]  The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain.  The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.[12] 

Fact No. 10:  Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.[13]  The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country.[14]  Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined.[15]  In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize.   Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.[16]  [See the table, below.]

Conclusion.  Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.

Scott W. Atlas, M.D., is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center.  A version of this article appeared previously in the February 18, 2009, Washington Times.

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[1] Concord Working Group, "Cancer survival in five continents: a worldwide population-based study,.S. abe at  responsible for theountries, in s chnologies, " Lancet Oncology, Vol. 9, No. 8, August 2008, pages 730 – 756; Arduino Verdecchia et al., "Recent Cancer Survival in Europe: A 2000-02 Period Analysis of EUROCARE-4 Data," Lancet Oncology, Vol. 8, No. 9, September 2007, pages 784 – 796.

[2] U.S. Cancer Statistics, National Program of Cancer Registries, U.S. Centers for Disease Control; Canadian Cancer Society/National Cancer Institute of Canada; also see June O'Neill and Dave M. O'Neill, "Health Status, Health Care and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S.," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 13429, September 2007.  Available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w13429.

[3] Oliver Schoffski (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), "Diffusion of Medicines in Europe," European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, 2002.  Available at http://www.amchampc.org/showFile.asp?FID=126.  See also Michael Tanner, "The Grass is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health Care Systems around the World," Cato Institute, Policy Analysis No. 613, March 18, 2008.  Available at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9272.

[4] June O'Neill and Dave M. O'Neill, "Health Status, Health Care and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S."

[5] Ibid.

[6] Nadeem Esmail, Michael A. Walker with Margaret Bank, "Waiting Your Turn, (17th edition) Hospital Waiting Lists In Canada," Fraser Institute, Critical Issues Bulletin 2007, Studies in Health Care Policy, August 2008; Nadeem Esmail and Dominika Wrona "Medical Technology in Canada," Fraser Institute, August 21, 2008 ; Sharon Willcox et al., "Measuring and Reducing Waiting Times: A Cross-National Comparison Of Strategies," Health Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 4, July/August 2007, pages 1,078-87; June O'Neill and Dave M. O'Neill, "Health Status, Health Care and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S."; M.V. Williams et al., "Radiotherapy Dose Fractionation, Access and Waiting Times in the Countries of the U.K.. in 2005," Royal College of Radiologists, Clinical Oncology, Vol. 19, No. 5, June 2007, pages 273-286.

[7] Nadeem Esmail and Michael A. Walker with Margaret Bank, "Waiting Your Turn 17th Edition: Hospital Waiting Lists In Canada 2007."

[8] "Hospital Waiting Times and List Statistics," Department of Health, England.  Available at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/Performancedataandstatistics/HospitalWaitingTimesandListStatistics/index.htm?IdcService=GET_FILE&dID=186979&Rendition=Web.

[9] Cathy Schoen et al., "Toward Higher-Performance Health Systems: Adults' Health Care Experiences In Seven Countries, 2007," Health Affairs, Web Exclusive, Vol. 26, No. 6, October 31, 2007, pages w717-w734.  Available at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/26/6/w717.

[10] June O'Neill and Dave M. O'Neill, "Health Status, Health Care and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S."

[11] Victor R. Fuchs and Harold C. Sox Jr., "Physicians' Views of the Relative Importance of 30 Medical Innovations," Health Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 5, September /October 2001, pages 30-42.  Available at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/20/5/30.pdf.

[12] OECD Health Data 2008, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  Available at http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2649_34631_12968734_1_1_1_37407,00.html.

[13] "The U.S. Health Care System as an Engine of Innovation," Economic Report of the President (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2004), 108th Congress, 2nd Session H. Doc. 108-145, February 2004, Chapter 10, pages 190-193, available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/pdf/2004_erp.pdf; Tyler Cowen, New York Times, Oct. 5, 2006; Tom Coburn, Joseph Antos and Grace-Marie Turner, "Competition: A Prescription for Health Care Transformation," Heritage Foundation, Lecture No. 1030, April 2007; Thomas Boehm, "How can we explain the American dominance in biomedical research and development?" Journal of Medical Marketing, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2005, pages 158-66, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, July 2002.  Available at http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/erp/page/8649/download/47455/8649_ERP.pdf .

[14] Nicholas D. Kristof, "Franklin Delano Obama," New York Times, February 28, 2009.  Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01Kristof.html.

[15] The Nobel Prize Internet Archive.  Available at http://almaz.com/nobel/medicine/medicine.html.

[16] "The U.S. Health Care System as an Engine of Innovation," 2004 Economic Report of the President.

Copyright © 2009 National Center for Policy Analysis. All rights reserved. Reproduced on Plumb Bob Blog with permission.

Maneuvers in the Obama administration’s planning for the government’s takeover of health care display a disturbing pattern in their handling of America’s private enterprise; where large corporations thrive, the Obama administration seems to be aligning them with the government and protecting their power, in exchange for cooperation with the new regime.

In a report recalling the furor over Vice President Dick Cheney’s meetings with energy company officers, the LA Times reported today that the White House has refused a Freedom of Information Act request from the citizen’s group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, asking for information regarding meetings with representatives of health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical providers. CREW has filed suit to obtain the records.

According to the Times:

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.

The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the “presidential communications privilege.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics said it would file suit against the Obama administration as early as today. The group already has sued the administration over its failure to release details about visits from coal industry executives.

Candidate Obama ran on a platform of greater openness in government; in fact, he claimed he would invite C-SPAN into his negotiations and discussion regarding overhauling health care. President Obama, by contrast, seems intent on closed-door negotiations with the powers that be, far from the public, with no opposition party allowed. And the resulting negotiations seem always to favor the powerful.

According to Tom Carney at the Washington Times:

Democrats’ plans for health-care reform include many policies that would benefit drug makers, insurers, and others in the health-care sector, which favored Obama over McCain by 2.5 to 1 margin in 2008 campaign contributions.

For instance, Democrats are now planning to mandate that all individuals carry health insurance and that most employers offer it. Health-care reform also includes subsidies that will help drug-makers, insurers, and providers.

In earlier moves from the White House, plans to improve seniors’ access to prescription medication favor brand-name pharmaceuticals over generics, apparently as a reward for pharmaceutical companies’ contributing to the health care overhaul. Also, the Obama administration back in June signed a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco companies that was favored by tobacco industry giant Phillip Morris but opposed by smaller competitors, apparently because the bill creates barriers for competitors trying to enter the market.

The power nexus between a powerful, central government and the largest industrial companies historically indentifies a fascist government, and has been the focus of opposition from progressives for many decades here in America. Free-market conservatives tend to welcome the contribution of large corporations, but dislike market concentration and oppose barriers to new entrants into the market. The Obama approach seems aimed at consolidating power more than anything else, and should be opposed by activists on both sides of the aisle. It will be interesting to hear whether progressives object to Obama’s closed-door meetings with industry in the same terms they used for Cheney’s meetings.

After I observed about a week ago that the Bork hearings in 1987 had changed the judicial selection process into a blood sport, I found an interview with Judge Robert Bork concerning the Sotomayor hearings. I was intrigued to discover that he does not entirely agree with me concerning the reason for the change. He blames the political nature of confirmation hearings on the growing activism of the Supreme Court itself.

Here’s Judge Bork’s version:

Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella observed that Bork’s “savaging by the left” forever changed the way judges are confirmed, with politics and demographics becoming more important than competence and qualifications.

“That’s entirely true,” said Bork, whose latest book is “A Time to Speak — Selected Writings and Arguments.”

“But the Supreme Court has only itself to blame for that. The Supreme Court made itself, starting in the 1950s, into an increasingly political institution, and once you’re a political institution with that kind of power, people are going to fight to control the institution any way they can.

This sounds right to me, and I stand corrected. The real shift is the result of judicial activism — the Court inserting itself into current politics and making law, whereas its constitutional role limits it simply to deciding constitutional issues regarding existing law. As soon as the Court asserted itself as a maker of federal policy, judicial confirmations became political events.

Bork actually does not roll the clock back far enough; I’m thinking that the real damage was done by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, when Roosevelt was prevented from turning the United States into a socialist paradise by that oh-so-inconvenient Constitution, and tried to circumvent it by packing the Court. As with so many other things in recent American history, the real deterioration traces back to the insertions of Marx and his stepchildren into modern politics. The judicial activism of the 1950s was certainly the work of Marx-influenced judges flocking to the courts in the 1930s to “change the world.”

In case you’re wondering, Judge Bork does not consider Judge Sotomayor qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, and says he does not take her seriously when she says she’s governed by law.

Bork called confirmation hearings such as Sotomayor’s “something of a dance. The opposition asks tough questions, the nominee gives a soft and evasive answer and assures everybody that fidelity to the law is the only thing that matters.

“Then having gotten past that, when they’re on the bench they go back to their prior practice of deciding politically. I don’t take Sotomayor’s protestations that she’s entirely governed by law seriously. I think the statements she’s made and the rulings she’s made show that she’s not governed entirely by law.”