Wednesday, January 14, 2004
    
	 
    
  
    What part of "universal" do you not understand?
From a landmark report released today:  "Lack of health insurance causes roughly  18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage. To help policy-makers, elected officials, and others judge and compare proposals to extend coverage to the nation's 43 million uninsured, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies offers a set of guiding principles and a checklist in a  new report, Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations.  The report is the culmination of a series that offers the most comprehensive examination to date of the consequences of lack of health insurance on individuals, their families, communities and the whole society." 
 The committee proposes a clear and compelling overall recommendation —  by 2010 everyone in the United States should have health insurance -- and urges the president and Congress to act immediately by establishing a firm and explicit plan to reach this goal...
In Insuring America’s Health: Principles and Recommendations, the committee offers a set of guiding principles, based on the evidence reviewed in the Committee's previous five reports and on new analyses of past and present federal, state, and local efforts to reduce uninsurance:
 Health care coverage should be universal. 
 Health care coverage should be continuous. 
 Health care coverage should be affordable to individuals and families. 
 The health insurance strategy should be affordable and sustainable for society. 
 Health insurance should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable.
(This is the FIRST major report to STRONGLY come out and say that health care coverage should be universal.  For all those who are proposing just expanding healthcare to all children, or expanding the private market, etc -- a friend of mine has said before "What part of UNIVERSAL do you not understand?")   Thoughts?  
     
    posted by Unknown  |   
1/14/2004 04:03:00 PM  | 
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	| cure this! | 
	 
	
	
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We've MOVED!  and grown!  
  Join us at Cure This!...
 
 
...where we invite you to create a user account, read, comment, write your own posts. Let's discuss health in its broadest sense, share personal stories, creatively make positive change, and build an online community along the way...
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	| what's "to the teeth"? | 
	 
	
	
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To the Teeth is a weblog discussing issues of health justice, medicine, race in America,
public health in its broadest sense, healthcare at a local clinic level, and honest discussions around strategies in advocacy.  Ok, so it's not so focused, but it's all connected.  The regulars who post to this site are:
  
Anjali Taneja, a resident physician in Family Medicine at Harbor-UCLA in Los Angeles, 
California (a recent transplant from the east coast).  She also blogs at Los Anjalis and the 
Harbor-UCLA Family Medicine Residency blog.  She's on the national leadership of the National Physicians Alliance and previously worked as the Jack Rutledge Fellow for Universal Health Care 
& Eliminating Health Disparities at AMSA.  She dj'ed for several years with the 
M U T I N Y dj crew and currently DJs and produces electronic music.  (email: movement-at-gmail-dot-com)
  
and Andru Ziwasimon, a family medicine physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a lead member of the Community Coalition for 
Healthcare Access, a diverse group of providers/patients/advocates addressing access issues with the state hospital system, translation and interpretation issues, billing for under and uninsured patients, and other disparities locally.  
He created and runs a sustainable and innovative clinic that serves 
uninsured patients with quality care and fair prices.  He also serves on the leadership of the National Physicians Alliance.  (email: aziwa-at-null-dot-net)
  
   
and Sri Shamasunder, a resident physician in Internal Medicine at Harbor-UCLA in Los Angeles, CA.  He's passionate
 about health justice, good music, and spoken word/poetry.  (email: elsrizee-at-yahoo-dot-com)
  
"to the teeth" (idiom):  
-> in opposition; directly to one's face 
-> completely, fully 
-> title of a song by Ani Difranco 
-> alotta alliteration 
  
For them RSS lovers (more about rss here), here's the atom site feed for To the Teeth.
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	| hot links | 
	 
	
	
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Inspiring spoken word from Poetic License 
Conversation: Growing up in the Shadow of Chemical Pollution - Michigan and Bhopal 
Missing: Minorities in the Health Professions 
Angell: The Truth about Drug Companies 
Wonderful animation on procrastination! 
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	| dope orgs/sites | 
	 
	
	
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        National Physicians Alliance 
	American Medical Student Association 
         The Peoples' Institute 
        Alternet 
        The Policy Action Network 
        The Principles Project 
        Common Dreams 
	No Free Lunch campaign 
        Kaiser Family Foundation 
        Families USA 
        Consumer Project on Technology 
        Campaign for a National Health Progam NOW 
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	| poem: history | 
	 
	
	
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They caught the peasant walking home from the field. 
On the dark road they gagged him and cut off his nose. 
This they took to the museum and stuck to the king's noseless statue. 
Thus was born the history that is taught in schools. 
     - Amitava Kumar, "History"
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	| Willing to Fight | 
	 
	
	
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From Ani Difranco's "Willing to Fight": 
"'cause i know the biggest crime 
is just to throw up your hands 
say 
this has nothing to do with me 
i just want to live as comfortably as i can 
you got to look outside your eyes 
you got to think outside your brain 
you got to walk outside you life 
to where the neighborhood changes"
  
Excerpts of lyrics to Ani Difranco's poem "Self-evident" (hear her recite this poem on her official website:
  
yes,  
us people are just poems  
we're 90% metaphor  
with a leanness of meaning  
approaching hyper-distillation...  
here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation  
under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore 
  
here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors  
who daily provide women with a choice  
who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city  
just to listen to a young woman's voice 
  
here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now  
awaiting the executioner's guillotine  
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads  
to find peace in the form of a dream 
  
cuz take away our playstations  
and we are a third world nation  
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son  
who stole the oval office and that phony election  
i mean  
it don't take a weatherman  
to look around and see the weather  
jeb said he'd deliver florida, folks  
and boy did he ever 
  
and we hold these truths to be self evident:  
#1 george w. bush is not president  
#2 america is not a true democracy  
#3 the media is not fooling me  
cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation  
i've got no room for a lie so verbose  
i'm looking out over my whole human family  
and i'm raising my glass in a toast 
  
here's to our last drink of fossil fuels  
let us vow to get off of this sauce  
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes  
and find that train ticket we lost  
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river  
and peeked into all the backyards  
and the laundry was waving  
the graffiti was teasing us  
from brick walls and bridges  
we were rolling over ridges  
through valleys  
under stars  
i dream of touring like duke ellington  
in my own railroad car  
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches  
in a grand station aglow with grace  
and then standing out on the platform  
and feeling the air on my face  
give back the night its distant whistle  
give the darkness back its soul  
give the big oil companies the finger finally  
and relearn how to rock-n-roll...  
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	| subcity | 
	 
	
	
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Lyrics from Tracy Chapman's "Subcity"
  
People say it doesn't exist 
'Cause no one would like to admit 
That there is a city underground 
Where people live everyday 
Off the waste and decay 
Off the discards of their fellow man
  
Here in subcity life is hard 
We can't receive any government relief 
I'd like to please give Mr. President my honest regards 
For disregarding me
  
They say there's too much crime in these city streets 
My sentiments exactly 
Government and big business hold the purse strings 
When I worked I worked in the factories 
I'm at the mercy of the world 
I guess I'm lucky to be alive 
They say we've fallen through the cracks 
They say the system works 
But we won't let it 
Help 
I guess they never stop to think 
We might not just want handouts 
But a way to make an honest living 
Living this ain't living
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	| the revolution will not be televised | 
	 
	
	
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Lyrics from Gill Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"
  
You will not be able to stay home, brother. 
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. 
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, 
Skip out for beer during commercials, 
Because the revolution will not be televised.
  
The revolution will not be televised. 
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox 
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions. 
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon 
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John 
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat 
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary. 
The revolution will not be televised.
  
The revolution will not be brought to you by the  
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie 
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. 
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal. 
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs. 
The revolution will not make you look five pounds 
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
  
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May 
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run, 
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance. 
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32 
or report from 29 districts. 
The revolution will not be televised.
  
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down 
brothers in the instant replay. 
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down 
brothers in the instant replay. 
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being 
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. 
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy 
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and 
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving 
For just the proper occasion.
  
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville 
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and 
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with 
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people 
will be in the street looking for a brighter day. 
The revolution will not be televised.
  
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock 
news and no pictures of hairy armed women 
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. 
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, 
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom 
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth. 
The revolution will not be televised.
  
The revolution will not be right back after a message 
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. 
You will not have to worry about a dove in your 
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl. 
The revolution will not go better with Coke. 
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. 
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.
  
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised, 
will not be televised, will not be televised. 
The revolution will be no re-run brothers; 
The revolution will be live.
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