Category: Politics & Causes

California/General interest/Health/Politics & Causes/Women
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Doctors oppose abortion cuts in health bill

by Fran Johns

The San Francisco Medical Society has come out in opposition to removal of abortion coverage in the health reform bill, pointing out the potential danger to women’s lives if they are denied access to such care. Charles Wibbelsman, MD, President of SFMS, writes in today’s San Francisco Chronicle that the board of directors will urge congressional representatives to find a compromise.

It is a shame that such a complex issue as health care reform has been hijacked in the form of the Stupak amendment, which would ban all public funding for abortion (“Amendment to House bill reignites abortion debate,” Nov. 10).

Experience has shown that denying coverage of abortion does not stop or even curtail it, but rather shifts the costs elsewhere, and threatens to delay a woman in seeking and obtaining this medical procedure, thus potentially endangering her.

The San Francisco Medical Society’s board of directors has voted to urge our elected officials, particularly Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, to find a compromise that will not ban such funding and keep women with unwanted pregnancies safe.

Women’s lives should not be held hostage to politics.

At last, a ray of sanity from the medical community. I, for one, am proud of SFMS for standing up for the uncounted thousands of women, most of them poor and disadvantaged, who will suffer harm from denial of access to care should the conservatives and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops win the day on this matter.

via Stupak amendment hijacks health care reform.

Education/General interest/Politics & Causes/USA
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Thinking about the Bush think tank

by Fran Johns

Why am I not encouraged by reports of the official launch of the George W. Bush Institute on the campus of Southern Methodist University? According to Dallas Morning News reporter Lori Stahl,

Former President George W. Bush will make his first scheduled Dallas appearance at SMU today when he and wife Laura unveil plans for the Bush Institute before an audience of 1,500 people at McFarlin Auditorium.

The Institute has been described by foundation officials as a scholarly forum that will conduct research and promote dialogue on four core principles identified by the Bushes.

These core principles, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, include education, global health, human freedom and economic growth. Hmm.

My father Earl Moreland, who grew up to be, among other things, president of Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, VA for 28 years, died in 1987 without voting for either of his fellow Texans. He was in the first class ever to enter what would become SMU, and one of my fond memories is of accompanying him to Dallas for his 60th reunion.  I believe it is safe to say he would not be proud to have a Bush think tank on the campus of his alma mater.

For my part, I am just stumbling over those “core principles,” and their connection to our former president. Education? Global health? Embodied by someone who condemned millions throughout Africa and beyond to sickness and death through his ill-advised policies? Economic growth? Hello? Times are surely tough today, ten months into Barack Obama’s presidency, but did he create this mess or inherit it?

Some of my favorite people voted for George W. Bush. All of them are, in my humble opinion, smarter than he is. One of them did graduate work at SMU years ago, but does not support placement of the Institute on campus.

During our trip to Dallas for his reunion (the school opened in 1915, you can do the math) my father remarked that he would come back for his 65th if there were anyone around to reune with. Turned out he never made that return visit. If he were here today I’m not sure he would be making plans for his 100th.

My father had a favorite response to all things he considered outrageous (often applied to his daughters) which sounded like “Poosharisha!” It was from his second language (which I sadly never learned), adopted during a 12-year period in Brazil at the Instituto Porto Alegre. Long after he died I learned it was a Portugese expression that  translates, roughly, “That is beyond anything within the natural order of the universe.”

Somewhere in the ethernet I hear my father contemplating the coming of the George W. Bush think tank, and clearly also hear his voice. Poosharisha.


George W. Bush to unveil Bush Institute programs today at SMU | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News.

California/General interest/Lifestyle/Money/Politics & Causes/Sports/USA
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Housing, homelessness & other inequities

by Fran Johns

Today’s Sonoma County (CA) Press Democrat features a front page story about Joe Montana’s digs near Calistoga, available for $49 er–million. It is right above a photo of homeless vet Jack Saltzman reading in his hatchback, the juxtaposition of photos hard not to notice.

Others vets don’t have hatchbacks. Press Democrat feature writer Jeremy Hay reports that according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, approximately 400, or 12%, of Sonoma’s 35,000 vets are homeless, which fellow homeless vet Don Bridges says is “just the tip of it.” Some 131,000 of the nation’s 24 million veterans are homeless on any given day.

Hay details some of the measures being undertaken to alleviate the problem, including $3.2 billion recently pledged by the V.A. to be spent over the next five years toward getting veterans off the street and keeping them from falling into homelessness. But returning vets have been part of another world most of us only see in the extreme abstract and can’t possibly comprehend; fitting right back into mainstream America can be harder than anywhere they have served, where at least, another vet explains, “you’ve been part of your tribe.” More vets will return, and more will wind up on the streets.

None of this is the Montanas fault.

Another Press Democrat front page story, a New York Times article by Andrew Martin and Lowell Bergman, mentions a 91-year-old Florida woman who got a letter from Citibank last month advising her that her new credit card interest rate was 29.99 percent, up 10 points from the previous rate. Haven’t we been reading about Citibank lately?

These bits of information are being digested by those of us who elected Mr. Obama and now feel sad and frustrated because our expectations were, perhaps, too high. Some of us are wondering why he ever wanted the job in the first place.

We don’t have an answer to homelessness. We may not make an offer on the Montana estate — even though, with a Tuscan-style mansion, equestrian center, full-sized basketball court, gym, pool, etc, etc it is probably worth that matching 49er price — because with 20% down and a 30-year 6% fixed rate mortgage the monthly payments of $235,023 would be a stretch. And we are not planning any credit revolt, despite the fact that it is the responsible credit users who are being penalized by the likes of Citibank. What we are doing is just trying to comprehend the surreal nature of today’s news as covered on one front page.

And keep the faith.

California/General interest/Health/Lifestyle/Politics & Causes/USA/Women
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Abortion, health reform and me: who is making our choices?

by Fran Johns

Am I the only person around who is squirming — make that fuming a little — over the concessions made to the anti-choice guys before the House passed its health reform bill? Does no one else find it offensive to turn from reading on page one of today’s New York Times about this sad state of events to page 14 for a large photo of President Obama shaking hands with Cardinal Sean O’Malley? They were meeting at the funeral for Senator Ted Kennedy in August, where reportedly the good clergyman told the president that the Congress of Catholic Bishops really wanted to support health reform ——– oh, but only if everybody caved to their wishes that abortion remain unavailable.

It is not as if we weren’t forewarned. I posted a brief note in this space a few days ago (see Abortion Foes Winning Health Concessions, 11/4, below) and tried to resume a position of calm.

It is hard to remain calm. Somewhere the lines about separation of church and state have to fuzz themselves back into reality. I believe in the right of the U.S. Congress of Catholic Bishops to tell Catholics how to behave (despite the fact that of my many Catholic friends I know almost none who pay any attention in matters of personal choice.) I even believe in the right of the Pope to tell the Bishops to tell their parishioners how to behave. I even believe in the responsibility of all individuals, including my Presbyterian self, to behave according to their conscience and their faith. I just hate being governed by someone else’s faith.

This is not a small distinction. My own church, admittedly starting with a small group here in woo-woo San Francisco, passed a fairly strong national resolution denouncing our country’s torturing folks and seeking justice. As far as I know, no one threatened the president about withholding support for these occasionally immoral wars we keep fighting unless the instigators of torture-in-our-name were sent to jail. However strongly I would like to see the latter happen, I believe there are limits to what faith communities should do.

I had personal experience with back-alley abortion, in the dark days pre-Roe v Wade. It was not pleasant. Is there any way a celibate Catholic bishop could even remotely understand the horrors to which he is condemning poor, desperate pregnant women with the relentless push to make abortion totally unavailable? No. I wish there were.

We still have got to have health reform. But what prices we are paying.

General interest/Health/Politics & Causes
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End-of-life counseling stays in health care bill

by Fran Johns

Here’s a piece of very good news just in from Associated Press reporter Ricardo Alonzo-Zaldivar:

It’s alive. The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to “death panels” for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday. The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.

The business of thinking ahead toward end-of-life decisions and making  one’s own wishes known through legal documents such as advance directives has long been encouraged by federal policies. But when coverage for talking things over with one’s doctor was incorporated into health reform it was quickly distorted by Republicans.  Sen.Charles Grassley led the successful campaign to strike it from the Senate bills. But saner heads have prevailed in the House.

“There is nothing more basic than giving someone the option of speaking with their doctor about how they want to be treated in the case of an emergency,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-OR. “I think the outrageous and vindictive attacks may have backfired to help raise awareness about this problem, which is why it’s been kept in the bill.” The legislation would allow Medicare to pay for a counseling session with a doctor or clinical professional once every five years. The bill calls for such sessions to be “completely” voluntary, and prohibits the encouragement or promotion of suicide or assisted suicide.

The counseling provision is supported by doctors’ groups and AARP, the seniors’ lobby. It was not included in health care bills passed by two Senate committees.

It’s alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill.

Health/Politics & Causes
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How public is your option?

by Fran Johns

Not very, in all probability.

According to current reports, only those whose coverage exceeds 12.5 percent of their income, only the smallest businesses, or those who aren’t covered by Medicare or VA programs… a very few onlies will have access to the public option. Still, the public option is less important than the reform bill itself. We may have reached the point at which the perfect is indeed the enemy of the good.

Early on in this process my friend Catherine Dodd, whose extensive health policy credentials include stints on Nancy Pelosi’s staff and as a Regional Director for the Department of Health and Human Services, advised an audience inundated with numbers and percentages and data to remember just one figure: “Nineteen point seven,” she said. It has taken an average of 19.7 years after one health reform measure failed to raise the issue again.

Many of us do not have another 19.7 years to wait for the next battle.

California/General interest/Health/Politics & Causes
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Cancer Gurus, CDC – Whom can you trust?

by Fran Johns

In the news of the past several days are reports that the American Cancer Society is about to concede that screenings for breast and prostate cancer — long touted as the holy grail of preventive medicine — have instead led to a great deal of over-treatment, and worse. Plus admission by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that their pooh-poohing of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has left a lot of folks suffering, perhpas needlessly, for decades.

Who in the world is there left to trust?

I do trust my physicians at Kaiser, and continue to hope the crafters of our elusive health reform bills are looking in Kaiser’s direction. My breast cancer was detected through a regular mammogram. How frequent these screenings should be is still a matter of debate, but in my case early detection led to a quick mastectomy, a small price to pay for living happily a few more years after. (The ever-after business is not a principal to which I subscribe.) On the other hand, small as my tumor was, who’s to say it might have sat there harmlessly a few more years untreated? Please don’t get me wrong; I would not have opted for waiting to see. Just wondering.

I’m not so sure about prostate cancer screening. But since what seems nearly every man I know over 65 has been diagnosed with prostate cancer after a routine screening, it’s possible to wonder about this too. An October 21 New York Times article cites a new analysis by Dr. Laura Esserman, a professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco and director of the Carol Frank Buck Breast Cancer Center and Dr. Ian Thompson, professor and chairman of the department of urology at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio that “runs counter to everything people have been told about cancer: They are finding cancers that do not need to be found because they would never spread and kill or even be noticed if left alone.” We the healthcare consumers aren’t getting any breaks. Here’s a whole new dilemma to mull over and decide upon: to screen or not to screen, to treat or not to treat. In one group of gentlemen friends I know, others newly diagnosed with prostate cancer are invited to hang out for an hour or so and listen to the pros and cons of the various treatment options — because within the group are men who have gone down at least 4 or 5 different paths.

Another re-evaluation, this one a little more sinister, centers around the dismissive attitude long held by the venerable Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guardian of our national health and welfare where things like viruses and other causes of infectious disease are concerned. In a Times op ed piece titled ‘A Case of Chronic Denial‘, Hillary Johnson reports on a recent study in the journal Science about a virus found in prostate cancers which will be referred to here by its shorter name, XRMV. It now turns out that there may be a link between XRMV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, more commonly referred to these days as CFIDS, and the work now going on in this area of research could be significant in treatment of the latter. Having had a number of friends and family members suffering from CFIDS, I admit to being among those who occasionally thought it might be partly in one’s head, but also aware of the degree of misery and disability CFIDS can bring.

This space is not a health authority. It is, rather aimed at those of us 50-somethings and over, many of whom have trusted many of the above. Trust is good. Open-mindedness is better. Questioning might be best of all.

California/General interest/Health/Lifestyle/Money/Politics & Causes/USA
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Obama shifts justice department resources away from medical marijuana

by Fran Johns

A little ray of sanity from President Obama: the feds won’t be going after legitimate users of medical marijuana. This will be welcome news in San Francisco, where federal raids on legal suppliers during the Bush administration met with widespread protests; possibly unwelcome news in Los Angeles, which is cracking down on its over-supply of dispensaries; and interesting news in the U.K., where guardian.uk.com reported on it Monday.

The US justice department today told federal law enforcement officials to shift resources away from investigation and prosecution of medical marijuana users and suppliers.

In a memo sent this morning to federal prosecutors, officials at president Barack Obama’s justice department said that prosecutions of individuals who are clearly using or supplying marijuana for medical purposes are “unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources” if the targets otherwise comply with state and federal laws.

Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes, though it remains banned under federal law. The Bush and Clinton administrations – the first to grapple with the conflict – essentially ignored the state laws, treating medical marijuana as illegal.

“The federal government is no longer at war with the 13 states that have chosen to allow patients to use marijuana for medical purposes,” said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which favours decriminalisation of the drug.

“It’s going to provide relief to a lot of people who have been anxious about whether or not they’re going to be arrested for helping patients get their doctor-recommended medicine,” said Tom Angell, a spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which claims 1,500 former police, prosecutors, border patrol agents and other one-time fighters in the war on drugs among its membership.

This would’ve been good news for my sister, whose brief search for relief a few decades ago was mentioned in the post below. It would’ve made life a little easier for a lot of people with AIDS in recent decades.  Set aside the arguments pro or con recreational use; when a drug is known to help suffering people, and is legal in a particular city or state, wasting federal tax dollars to interfere seems to make very little sense.

The memo doesn’t legalize marijuana or end prosecution of illegal, for-profit sales etc. It does, though, leave these to local federal officials. And clarifies the federal government’s position.

It puts into writing remarks by attorney general Eric Holder, who in March said the federal government would end raids on legitimate medical marijuana dispensaries. Obama has indicated he is sympathetic to medical marijuana use, noting during the presidential campaign that his mother had died of cancer and that he saw no difference between morphine prescribed by doctors and marijuana used to relieve pain.

I don’t do pain very well. Given its prevalence in long, drawn-out illnesses today, I’m in favor of whatever palliative care and pain-relieving medicines there are. It is nice to have a president who understands.

via Obama justice department to shift from investigating medical marijuana cases | World news | guardian.co.uk.

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