Healthcare, crimes and questions galore
Monday, 4 January 2010
Fazal M. Kamal
IT was supposed to be the crowning glory of his first year in the exalted office. He had put himself -- and his word, pledge, name, credibility -- all the way behind health care reform, once declaring that reform in this sector has taken nearly a century long struggle to become a reality. So far the US Senate and the House of Representatives have passed their own versions of the reform bills. They naturally will now have to be reconciled before the bill can go to the President for signing into law.
However, despite the presidential promise of reform and the fact that millions of Americans remain beyond insurance coverage for different causes -- mainly stemming from the reality that the insurance companies are driven by business motives -- the efforts to get the reforms turned into an ugly partisan messy matter with one Republican politician threatening, the reform attempt will prove to be Barack Obama's "Waterloo".
It's certainly worth noting that when millions of dollars (i.e. taxpayers' money) were offered to the banks and other financial institutions by a Republican administration there was not much talk from them against it. But when a measure that is meant to help millions of citizens is being legislated the Republican Party is crying hoarse by claiming it's socialism and that government should keep away from the choices the people will make.
The merger of the House and Senate bills is expected to be a tough job with one commentator stating, "One reason the final negotiations (between the two houses of Congress) will be so daunting is that both bills contain hundreds of provisions that would impose new rules on insurers, healthcare providers, employers and patients, while also setting up numerous pilot programs to experiment with ways to provide better, cheaper care."
Aside from the political divide along party lines the fact that there are various lobbies -- and powerful ones with great weight and deep pockets -- that are busily at work making the president's top legislative priority an extremely difficult task. Nevertheless, the American Medical Association has provided support for the reforms saying that the AMA is committed to health care reform while its chief added that the bill would give more support to physicians.
Disagreements between the House of Representatives and the Senate versions of reforms will continue to dog legislation on health care till a final merged version is negotiated and presented to President Obama. The biggest battles will come over how the legislation would be paid for, whether to include a government-run insurance plan and how much to spend on subsidies to help lower- and middle-income Americans afford insurance.
Abortion remains perhaps the thorniest issue, according to Jordan Rau of Kaiser Health News. The Senate bill would allow insurance plans that operate in newly created exchanges, or marketplaces, to offer abortion coverage, but enrollees would have to write separate checks for it. The House bill has even tighter language: Insurers in the exchanges that accept federal subsidies -- which is likely to be most if not all of them -- couldn't provide abortion coverage at all.
While health care reform is a greatly needed measure especially affecting those millions of US citizens who don't have or can't afford to have health coverage -- and without health insurance it's almost impossible to afford the medical costs -- ironically the bickering over the reforms has made it a most controversial issue. One reader pretty much summed up the feelings among the people when he wrote to a newspaper that "The Senate finally has the votes to pass the health care bill, and nobody likes it -- not the left, nor the right, nor the middle. It's not what anybody originally wanted."
The overhaul, Mr. Obama's top legislative priority, would lead to the biggest changes in the $2.5 trillion U.S. health care system since the 1965 creation of the government-run Medicare health program for the elderly and disabled. The bill would extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured, covering 94 percent of all Americans, and halt industry practices such as refusing insurance to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
It also would require most Americans to have insurance, give subsidies to help some pay for coverage and create state-based exchanges where the uninsured can compare and shop for plans. Major provisions such as the exchanges would not be effective until 2014 but many of the insurance reforms like barring companies from dropping coverage for the sick will begin in the first year, according to published reports.
Crimes nose-dive:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has this week released what it calls its "Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report" which says that "violent crime declined 4.4 per cent nationally, while property crime decreased 6.1 per cent." Violent crimes include murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crime includes offenses of burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft.
Simultaneously crimes in New York City have also demonstrated a persistent drop over the past nineteen years, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg lost no time in talking about it. (Naturally.) He said, the year 2009 has set new record lows for criminal acts in New York. The mayor added, "…crime is down more than 10 per cent this year as opposed to last…Since 2001, the NYPD (New York Police Department) has reduced crime by nearly 35 percent," and called it "an amazing achievement."
The most recent statistics indicate that 2009 has the lowest murder rate in recorded history, totalling 461.
The report on crimes says that during the 1960s the city always had more than 600 murders every year. "The progress that we're making," the mayor asserted, "is simply astounding when you think that a couple of decades ago we routinely experienced 2,000 homicides a year." The city's Police Commissioner added, "Persistence and professionalism were the watch words of the NYPD in 2009, and they paid off with record crime reduction."
Bangladesh can definitely draw lessons from these and similar successes in other countries on matters that affect the people on an immediate basis and are, moreover, possible to bring into action instead of trying to emulate peripheral acts which have ludicrously little or no relevance to the citizens of the country as they boldly and resiliently attempt to overcome both natural and man-made obstructions.
Questions galore:
The reported deployment of Indian security personnel for the protection of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka has begun a firestorm of questions that remain largely unanswered. Certainly, a foreign mission has the prerogative of utilising its country's security force if it feels that an urgent need is present. However, the host government must have prior knowledge of this deployment and the security personnel can man the defenses within the embassy premises only.
But in the case of the Indian High Commission, at least one TV report said that their security people were also controlling access and exit in some adjoining areas outside the mission premises. Moreover, when asked neither the Home Ministry nor the Foreign Ministry had adequate responses; rather their answers raised myriads of queries. Consequently, it's merely natural that these questions will linger in the minds of the people and, more significantly, continue to bother them.
Among others, questions that maybe on the people's mind, especially against the backdrop of the awkward responses provided by the Foreign and Home Ministries, will naturally relate to issues such as how does the government function, who knew what and when and how much, who are supposed to know about such matters, and why were administration honchos taken off guard by the queries from the media. Later, as it was reported in the media, the Home Minister was reprimanded by the Prime Minister for her off-guard remarks on the issue.
Fazal M. Kamal can be reached at e-mail: fmk222@gmail.com
IT was supposed to be the crowning glory of his first year in the exalted office. He had put himself -- and his word, pledge, name, credibility -- all the way behind health care reform, once declaring that reform in this sector has taken nearly a century long struggle to become a reality. So far the US Senate and the House of Representatives have passed their own versions of the reform bills. They naturally will now have to be reconciled before the bill can go to the President for signing into law.
However, despite the presidential promise of reform and the fact that millions of Americans remain beyond insurance coverage for different causes -- mainly stemming from the reality that the insurance companies are driven by business motives -- the efforts to get the reforms turned into an ugly partisan messy matter with one Republican politician threatening, the reform attempt will prove to be Barack Obama's "Waterloo".
It's certainly worth noting that when millions of dollars (i.e. taxpayers' money) were offered to the banks and other financial institutions by a Republican administration there was not much talk from them against it. But when a measure that is meant to help millions of citizens is being legislated the Republican Party is crying hoarse by claiming it's socialism and that government should keep away from the choices the people will make.
The merger of the House and Senate bills is expected to be a tough job with one commentator stating, "One reason the final negotiations (between the two houses of Congress) will be so daunting is that both bills contain hundreds of provisions that would impose new rules on insurers, healthcare providers, employers and patients, while also setting up numerous pilot programs to experiment with ways to provide better, cheaper care."
Aside from the political divide along party lines the fact that there are various lobbies -- and powerful ones with great weight and deep pockets -- that are busily at work making the president's top legislative priority an extremely difficult task. Nevertheless, the American Medical Association has provided support for the reforms saying that the AMA is committed to health care reform while its chief added that the bill would give more support to physicians.
Disagreements between the House of Representatives and the Senate versions of reforms will continue to dog legislation on health care till a final merged version is negotiated and presented to President Obama. The biggest battles will come over how the legislation would be paid for, whether to include a government-run insurance plan and how much to spend on subsidies to help lower- and middle-income Americans afford insurance.
Abortion remains perhaps the thorniest issue, according to Jordan Rau of Kaiser Health News. The Senate bill would allow insurance plans that operate in newly created exchanges, or marketplaces, to offer abortion coverage, but enrollees would have to write separate checks for it. The House bill has even tighter language: Insurers in the exchanges that accept federal subsidies -- which is likely to be most if not all of them -- couldn't provide abortion coverage at all.
While health care reform is a greatly needed measure especially affecting those millions of US citizens who don't have or can't afford to have health coverage -- and without health insurance it's almost impossible to afford the medical costs -- ironically the bickering over the reforms has made it a most controversial issue. One reader pretty much summed up the feelings among the people when he wrote to a newspaper that "The Senate finally has the votes to pass the health care bill, and nobody likes it -- not the left, nor the right, nor the middle. It's not what anybody originally wanted."
The overhaul, Mr. Obama's top legislative priority, would lead to the biggest changes in the $2.5 trillion U.S. health care system since the 1965 creation of the government-run Medicare health program for the elderly and disabled. The bill would extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured, covering 94 percent of all Americans, and halt industry practices such as refusing insurance to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
It also would require most Americans to have insurance, give subsidies to help some pay for coverage and create state-based exchanges where the uninsured can compare and shop for plans. Major provisions such as the exchanges would not be effective until 2014 but many of the insurance reforms like barring companies from dropping coverage for the sick will begin in the first year, according to published reports.
Crimes nose-dive:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has this week released what it calls its "Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report" which says that "violent crime declined 4.4 per cent nationally, while property crime decreased 6.1 per cent." Violent crimes include murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crime includes offenses of burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft.
Simultaneously crimes in New York City have also demonstrated a persistent drop over the past nineteen years, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg lost no time in talking about it. (Naturally.) He said, the year 2009 has set new record lows for criminal acts in New York. The mayor added, "…crime is down more than 10 per cent this year as opposed to last…Since 2001, the NYPD (New York Police Department) has reduced crime by nearly 35 percent," and called it "an amazing achievement."
The most recent statistics indicate that 2009 has the lowest murder rate in recorded history, totalling 461.
The report on crimes says that during the 1960s the city always had more than 600 murders every year. "The progress that we're making," the mayor asserted, "is simply astounding when you think that a couple of decades ago we routinely experienced 2,000 homicides a year." The city's Police Commissioner added, "Persistence and professionalism were the watch words of the NYPD in 2009, and they paid off with record crime reduction."
Bangladesh can definitely draw lessons from these and similar successes in other countries on matters that affect the people on an immediate basis and are, moreover, possible to bring into action instead of trying to emulate peripheral acts which have ludicrously little or no relevance to the citizens of the country as they boldly and resiliently attempt to overcome both natural and man-made obstructions.
Questions galore:
The reported deployment of Indian security personnel for the protection of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka has begun a firestorm of questions that remain largely unanswered. Certainly, a foreign mission has the prerogative of utilising its country's security force if it feels that an urgent need is present. However, the host government must have prior knowledge of this deployment and the security personnel can man the defenses within the embassy premises only.
But in the case of the Indian High Commission, at least one TV report said that their security people were also controlling access and exit in some adjoining areas outside the mission premises. Moreover, when asked neither the Home Ministry nor the Foreign Ministry had adequate responses; rather their answers raised myriads of queries. Consequently, it's merely natural that these questions will linger in the minds of the people and, more significantly, continue to bother them.
Among others, questions that maybe on the people's mind, especially against the backdrop of the awkward responses provided by the Foreign and Home Ministries, will naturally relate to issues such as how does the government function, who knew what and when and how much, who are supposed to know about such matters, and why were administration honchos taken off guard by the queries from the media. Later, as it was reported in the media, the Home Minister was reprimanded by the Prime Minister for her off-guard remarks on the issue.
Fazal M. Kamal can be reached at e-mail: fmk222@gmail.com