The American-Western European Values Gap | Pew Global Attitudes Project

The American-Western European Values Gap | Pew Global Attitudes Project:

As has long been the case, American values differ from those of Western Europeans in many important ways. Most notably, Americans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Americans are also considerably more religious than Western Europeans, and are more socially conservative with respect to homosexuality.

Americans are somewhat more inclined than Western Europeans to say that it is sometimes necessary to use military force to maintain order in the world. Moreover, Americans more often than their Western European allies believe that obtaining UN approval before their country uses military force would make it too difficult to deal with an international threat. And Americans are less inclined than the Western Europeans, with the exception of the French, to help other nations.

These differences between Americans and Western Europeans echo findings from previous surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center. However, the current polling shows the American public is coming closer to Europeans in not seeing their culture as superior to that of other nations. Today, only about half of Americans believe their culture is superior to others, compared with six-in-ten in 2002. And the polling finds younger Americans less apt than their elders to hold American exceptionalist attitudes.

This is a fascinating read. If I had to give it a subtitle, I'd say, "More Americans removing heads from butts - finally!" It is difficult to stay small minded in this increasingly globalized world, though many manage to do so, and do so with amazing arrogance.

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Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush - NYTimes.com

Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush - NYTimes.com: “Money is pouring in” from investors even though shale gas is “inherently unprofitable,” an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. “Reminds you of dot-coms.”

“The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work,” an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 28, 2009.

Company data for more than 10,000 wells in three major shale gas formations raise further questions about the industry’s prospects. There is undoubtedly a vast amount of gas in the formations. The question remains how affordably it can be extracted.

The data show that while there are some very active wells, they are often surrounded by vast zones of less-productive wells that in some cases cost more to drill and operate than the gas they produce is worth. Also, the amount of gas produced by many of the successful wells is falling much faster than initially predicted by energy companies, making it more difficult for them to turn a profit over the long run.

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Amgen’s New Enbrel Patent May Undercut Health Care Plan - NYTimes.com

Amgen’s New Enbrel Patent May Undercut Health Care Plan - NYTimes.com:

Something to really dislike about the PPACA!

Enbrel, which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, was one of several biotechnology drugs that were expected to face competition in the next few years from copycat versions, eventually saving the health care system billions of dollars a year.

The 2010 health care law established a way for such biologic drugs, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, to face competition from near generic versions, which are often called biosimilars. A new law was needed because biologic drugs, which are made in living cells, were not covered by the 1984 law governing most pharmaceutical competition.

The main patent on Enbrel was to expire in October of next year. But the new patent could stave off such biosimilar competition until Nov. 22, 2028. By that time, Enbrel will have been on the market 30 years, far longer than the 20 years of protection expected in patent law.

Enbrel had sales of $3.5 billion in the United States and Canada in 2010, accounting for nearly one-quarter of Amgen’s revenue. The drug costs more than $20,000 a year. Pfizer sells Enbrel abroad.

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N.Y. Malpractice Program May Offer Model For Medical Liability Cases - Kaiser Health News

N.Y. Malpractice Program May Offer Model For Medical Liability Cases - Kaiser Health News:

At its core, the New York program, called judge-directed negotiation, is simple: When a medical malpractice lawsuit is filed, a judge with expertise in medical matters becomes the point person for that case. He or she supervises the entire process and brings the parties together as often as necessary to discuss the case and help broker a settlement.

This is very different from what typically happens now: The pre-trial discovery phase, in which depositions are taken and other evidence is gathered, sometimes drags on for months or even years. A number of judges may be involved over that period, and with no one person pushing the parties toward resolution, serious settlement discussions generally don't happen until late in the process, often after a court date has been set.

A judge overseeing the entire case can make sure the parties don't dawdle over such things as procedural meetings to set up discovery dates. From the beginning, that designated jurist can delve into the case with an eye toward settlement, says Judge Douglas E. McKeon, an administrative judge in the Supreme Court of Bronx County, who pioneered this approach in 2002. He discovered that "if you created a process that people knew had the potential to get a case settled sooner rather than later for significant sums of money, they came in and they were ready to talk," he says.

Sorry that a lot of these posts are just snippets, but I keep them for my own future reference, and it's either this or EverNote...

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Using new health law, HHS challenges Pa. insurer's rate increases - latimes.com

Using new health law, HHS challenges Pa. insurer's rate increases - latimes.com:

Insurance premiums have historically been regulated by state governments. But oversight has varied substantially from state to state, with some doing almost no review and some actively blocking rates they deem excessive.

The Obama administration this year announced it would review any rate increase above 10% in states that do not have the capacity to do reviews themselves.

The Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing 35 such increases. And administration officials have completed two, including the Everence rate hike in Pennsylvania.

They have already determined that an 11% increase that Everence is imposing on customers in Montana is reasonable.

Another 77 rate hikes of more than 10% are being reviewed by state regulators around the country, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

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To save pennies on food and fuel, we let industries poison our children

To save pennies on food and fuel, we let industries poison our children:

In 2005, researchers at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York released their finding that mercury air pollution was costing the U.S. economy $8.7 billion a year in lost earnings due to diminished IQs of children exposed to mercury in the womb.

Mercury is well known and well understood as poison -- to both children and adults -- but it also is a developmental toxin. It affects developing fetuses and children in a way that it doesn't affect adults, and its effects are permanent and irreversible.

Lowered IQ. Lessened ability to learn. Reduced capacity for life. Why?

Because we like cheap electricity, and in today's market coal-fired electricity is the cheapest. When coal is burned, mercury is released into the air. Then it makes its way into the nostrils, lungs and brains of our children.

The solution is simple: Require all coal-fired power plants to install equipment that captures mercury before it escapes into the air.

Try that idea out on the power and coal companies. You won't have long to wait for the denials, evasions, knee-jerk rejections of data, lobbying and the charming PR that is churned out by the industry resistance machine.

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The Fracturing of Pennsylvania - NYTimes.com

The Fracturing of Pennsylvania - NYTimes.com:

This is less than 20 miles away from my home...

That same day, when Voyles told Range Resources she had developed blisters in her nose, it offered to put her up in a hotel, as it does for all nuisance complaints, but she didn’t want to leave her dogs and horses behind. (Range later said that it had no record of the complaint.) Next door on McAdams Road, Haney and her kids began to have intense periods of dizziness and nosebleeds. Of the three, Harley was the worst off. Haney took him to their family physician, Craig Fox, in the nearby town of Washington. Like most local doctors, Dr. Fox had never seen such symptoms before.

Haney says that Dr. Fox’s advice to her was unequivocal: “Get Harley out of that house right away. I don’t want him anywhere near there, even driving by, for 30 days.” So Haney took Harley to a friend’s house in Eighty-Four, a town named for the lumber company. She took her daughter to her parents’ house in Amity. Each day, she spent about four hours in the car shuttling the kids from school, to and from friends’ homes and driving to the farm to feed the animals, which were O.K. some days and vomiting or collapsing on others. Haney found a cousin willing to take her pigs, but she had nowhere to house the other animals, so they remained at the farm. She stayed home for less than an hour at a time, long enough to put a load of laundry into the washer. Every two days, she spent $50 on gas. Their farmhouse stood abandoned. “Our home has become a $300,000 cat mansion,” Haney said when I visited her in July.

Haney is no left-leaning environmentalist; she is a self-proclaimed redneck who is proud to trace her roots here back at least 150 years. This is not the kind of fight she usually takes on. “I’m not going to sit back and let them make my kids sick,” she says. “People ask me why I don’t just move out, but where would I go? I can’t afford another mortgage, and if I default on this place, we will lose it. ”

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Why Doesn’t No Mean No? - NYTimes.com

Why Doesn’t No Mean No? - NYTimes.com:

We talk, as a society, of our need to get health care costs under control. Conservatives, in particular, insist that Medicare must be reformed. Here is an enormously expensive drug that largely doesn’t work, has serious side effects and can no longer be marketed as a breast cancer therapy. Yet insurers, including Medicare, will continue to cover it.

If we’re not willing to say no to a drug like Avastin, then what drug will we say no to?

This is the nub of the argument to control health care costs. We have to say no to things that don't work, whether they have excellent lobbyists or not.

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America's new poor - CBS News

America's new poor - CBS News:

In Forsyth County's rolling subdivisions near Atlanta, Easy Street seems to run forever. What recession? The average household here earns $88,000 - the highest in Georgia, 13th highest in America.

But for more families here, prosperity is a pretense. The job's lost, the savings are gone, and the big house is either in foreclosure or on its way. And just keeping food on the table is a struggle.

So Forsyth's newly-needy file into local food banks.

Yesterday's GIVERS have become today's TAKERS.

"People lost their jobs and went from great incomes to no incomes," said Sandy Beaver, Sandy Beaver leads The Place, Forsyth County's biggest non-profit center for social services. She calls those who visit The Place "the new poor."

Indeed, the poor you will always have with you. But what if "they" are you?

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Charts: 6 Big Economic Myths, Debunked | Mother Jones

Charts: 6 Big Economic Myths, Debunked | Mother Jones: #1: The stimulus failed.

Everyone from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (PDF) to private-sector forecasting firms have concluded that the 2009 stimulus package increased economic growth, reduced unemployment, and put millions of people back to work. It just wasn't big enough, or long-lasting enough.
Bust or Boost?



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amednews: [interactive graphic] How much do health plans make? - Revenue falls, but stock buybacks boost per-share earnings. ... American Medical News

amednews: [interactive graphic] How much do health plans make? - Revenue falls, but stock buybacks boost per-share earnings. ... American Medical News: - Sent using Google Toolbar

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Study: Well fees still aren't enough

Study: Well fees still aren't enough:

Plugging an abandoned Marcellus Shale gas well in Pennsylvania could cost $100,000 or more, and well bonding changes proposed by the Corbett administration could stick taxpayers with almost all of that bill, according to a study from Carnegie Mellon University.

The CMU study found that the new Marcellus gas well bonding fees, recommended by Mr. Corbett's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission and now under consideration in the Republican-controlled Legislature, would require drilling companies to cover only a fraction of the costs of plugging and decommissioning old, nonproducing and abandoned gas wells.

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Commitment to Development Index : Center for Global Development

Commitment to Development Index : Center for Global Development:

Just in case you were wondering how the US does in foreign aid.

2011 Commitment to Development Index

Which wealthy nations are helping poor ones most? Rich and poor are linked in many ways. Each year, the CDI scores wealthy governments on helping poor countries via 7 linkages: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology. It averages over the 7 for an overall score.

Here are the graphics for foreign aid, by itself. We in the US are 17th.

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Patients’ Grades to Affect Hospitals’ Medicare Reimbursements - NYTimes.com

Patients’ Grades to Affect Hospitals’ Medicare Reimbursements - NYTimes.com: Winning praise from patients has become a pressing — and often elusive — obsession for NYU and for hospitals nationwide. In the coming months, Medicare will start taking patient satisfaction into account when reimbursing hospitals. Disgruntled patients will mean reduced revenue, a frightening prospect for hospitals already facing empty beds because of the recession and pressure from insurers to hold down costs.

Medicare’s new rule, mandated in the Affordable Care Act, pits hospitals against one another in a competition to best satisfy patients; those with the best scores will receive more money.

But some hospitals are worried that assessments from patients like Ms. Schwartz can be influenced not just by the quality of their care, but also by amenities like single rooms, renovated units and tasty food. And hospitals in cities and certain regions, like the Northeast and California, tend to get lower ratings, raising concerns that their revenues will be reduced simply because patients in those places are more disposed to grumble about things that a polite Midwesterner or Southerner would forgive.

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Temperatures Rise Over Costs Of Care | Worcester Business Journal

Temperatures Rise Over Costs Of Care | Worcester Business Journal: Higher Sentiment For ‘Single Payer’?

Presumably, doctors are more familiar than the general public with the pressures driving up health care costs, and an overwhelming majority of them also say there needs to be some government involvement in the health care system. A survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society this fall found that 41 percent of doctors thought the best option for health care reform in the U.S. would be to adopt a single-payer system like Canada’s. That number was up from 34 percent in 2010.

Another 23 percent favor a mix of public and private plans, while 17 percent support reforms along the lines of the 2010 national health care reform act, including an individual mandate like Massachusetts’. Fifteen percent favor a system in which insurers can sell limited-benefit and high-deductible policies and the government gives subsidies to help low-income people buy insurance.

Lynda Young, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) and a Worcester pediatrician, said doctors who favor a single-payer system may see it as a way to avoid administrative burdens. She noted that a recent article in the policy journal Health Affairs found that Canadian doctors spend two or three hours a week on administration, compared with about 10 to 15 hours for doctors in the U.S.

Pretty remarkable, especially when you look at the numbers in the graph. 41% plus 23% for 64% favoring either single payer or a 'public option' added to the current mix. 17% OK with the PPACA as it is, and another 15% seeming to favor high deductible plans.

That's a grand total of 81% favoring PPACA at least, the distinct minority,  with the significant plurality favoring single payer. Wow.

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