Don’t Go to the Dentist in Great Britain
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It’s long been obvious that you don’t want to get cancer in Great Britain. (Obviously, you don’t want to get it anywhere, but especially in a country which will take your money to provide health care but then won’t provide the drugs necessary to save your life.) You don’t want to have kidney disease there. Or suffer most any other ailment.
You also don’t want to have to go to the dentist there.
Changes in the way dentists are paid mean they effectively have no financial incentive to give appropriate treatment, the Commons Health Select Committee said.
Under the new contract, dentists receive an agreed annual sum rather than being paid for each individual treatment.
The committee found the number of dentists extracting a decaying tooth rather than carrying out a more complicated procedure had increased.
As a result, the volume of more complex work like crowns, bridges and dentures has fallen by 57%.
Evidence presented to the committee also suggested that patients were being pushed unnecessarily into the hospital system.
A survey carried out by the British Dental Association in 2007 found 78% of clinical directors had seen an increase in referrals from general dentists.
“We are concerned about the increase in referrals of patients requiring complex treatment to dental hospitals and community dentists,” the MPs said.
“This can be bad for those patients who would prefer to be treated by their general dental practitioner and can also have adverse effects on patients who are traditionally treated in these settings and have to wait longer for treatment.”
The report said it was “extraordinary” that the Department of Health did not carry out pilot studies on the new system before introducing it across England.
And it said that, despite assurances from the Government that the new arrangements would work if Primary Care Trusts and dentists acted more flexibly and used common sense and goodwill, the Committee “saw little evidence this will happen”.
Figures released last month showed that almost a million fewer people are now seeing an NHS dentist than before the Government’s reforms.
Well, why worry about the quality of your care? You’re equal with everyone else, who also is not receiving proper medical attention. So there’s no cause for complaint, right!?
Hostage Rescue and Free Trade with Colombia
The Washington Post cites Colombia’s dramatic rescue of American hostages to endorse passage of the free trade agreement between Colombia and the U.S. (The hostages were being held by a left-wing terrorist group. A liberal Congressman from Massachusetts, who is a leading opponent of the free trade deal, earlier offered that terrorist group help in undermining Colombia’s democratically-elected government).
The free trade agreement would create jobs by eliminating Colombia’s tariffs on U.S. products. Liberal congressional leaders have refused to even allow a vote on the deal. They bash Colombia’s pro-American government, while cozying up to Venezuela’s anti-American dictator.
Although the U.S. would be the primary beneficiary of the free trade deal, since its products currently face tariffs in Colombia, Colombia would also get some benefits. While Colombian products are free from many tariffs at the moment, that would only become permanent under the free trade agreement, encouraging investment and job-creation in Colombia’s export sector. The refusal by Congressional leaders to even allow a vote on the deal will have serious international repercussions, making it more likely that foreign trade blocs will discriminate against American products in the future.
Sun-Phobia Kills
Researchers are discovering that Vitamin D cuts deaths from a host of illnesses. Exposure to the sun provides crucial Vitamin D, especially for lactose-intolerant people. Yet people avoid the sun based on small risks of skin cancer, even though people in warm sunbelt cities live longer than people who live in cold northern cities. Vitamin D deficiency kills thousands of Americans and Canadians every year.
Finally, a good use for a Che t-shirt
The story of the Colombian army’s daring, flawlessly executed, rescue of hostages held by the FARC terrorist group has an interesting detail:
The stunning caper involved months of intelligence gathering, dozens of helicopters on standby and a strong dose of deceit: The rebels shoved the captives, their hands bound, onto a white unmarked MI-17 helicopter, believing they were being transferred to another guerrilla camp.
Looking at helicopter’s crew, some wearing Che Guevara shirts, Ms. Betancourt reasoned they weren’t aid workers, as she’d expected — but rebels. This was just another indignity — the helicopter “had no flag, no insignia.” Angry and upset, she refused a coat they offered as they told her she was going to a colder climate.
But not long after the group was airborne, Ms. Betancourt turned around and saw the local commander, alias Cesar, a man who had tormented her for four years, blindfolded and stripped naked on the floor.
Then came the unbelievable words: “We’re the national army,” said one of the crewmen. “You’re free.”
I noted just earlier this week the morally repugnant idiocy of Che fashion, a vile, and way too long-lived, trend — which Bureaucrash, among others, has countered with irony to turn the famous Alberto Korda photo on its head.
The Colombian army’s feat, of course, goes way beyond that — they used Che Guevara’s likeness to help a group of people regain their freedom. What better way to dishonor a totalitarian thug? (Thanks to Margaret Griffis for the news link.)
Private Coalition to Establish Mobile Web Standards
Today, a bunch of telcos got together to form a consortium to create standards for developing mobile-friendly websites - an important task as more and more people start getting iPhones and other web-capable mobile devices. The group will also establish privacy and security standards so customers can feel safe surfing the web on their cell phones. Yet another example of something we don’t need government to do.
Politicians to Subsidize Housing Bubble in Washington, D.C. Suburb
Fairfax County, Virginia, is going to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to try to prop up the housing bubble a little longer. They’re planning to buy up foreclosed houses and use them to house well-paid county employees. What’s most amusing about the plan is that it is being done in the name of “affordable housing.” But even if it succeeds, it will make housing more unaffordable by propping up home prices in Fairfax County, where even a small home costs a minimum of $400,000. Jim Bacon describes this ludicrous scam at Bacon’s Rebellion.
We earlier commented on the folly of federal mortgage bailout bills here.
Environmental Regulation Harms Environment
A law called NEPA requires costly and expensive environmental assessments before the government does a lot of things — even if what the government is doing would likely help, rather than hurt, the environment. Solar power is viable in consistently sunny areas, and expanding its use would cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but the federal government was blocking solar power plants from being built on federal land, in order to comply with NEPA. Now, the government has belatedly ended its freeze on solar power plants.
We earlier wrote about how environmental lawsuits sabotage attempts to fight infestations and prevent forest fires that devastate the environment, and how environmental regulations have caused other environmental catastrophes and starvation. Iain Murray explores these issues in his bestselling book The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About – Because They Helped Cause Them.
OECD Employment Outlook — some intriguing data
The Financial Times noted today that the OECD’s recently released report on employment prospects in the developed world showed an uptick in unemployment through 2009, largely due to credit problems in the aftermath of the subprime lending crisis.
The full report, the OECD Employment Outlook 2008, is only available online to subscribers and journalists. One can review summaries, a limited selection of tables, as well as the Statistical Annex, which looks at trends in employment over the past several years.
Some of the data are intriguing, such as Table G, which shows the incidence of long-term unemployment as a percentage of total unemployment. For 2007, the data show that in Germany a whopping 56.6 percent of the jobless have been unemployed 12 months and over. That compares with only 10 percent in the U.S. In fact, Germany has a higher rate than the Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Portugal, among others. The country with the lowest rate of long-term unemployed is Korea, at 0.6 percent for 2007. And that’s not an anomaly; since 2004 that rate has been either below or slightly higher than 1 percent.
The data in Chapter 5 were compiled in response to the question: Do multinationals promote better pay and working conditions? The answer was “yes,” or in the words of the report:
The evidence suggests that MNEs [multinational enterprises] tend to provide better pay and working conditions than their domestic counterparts, especially when they operate in developing and emerging economies . . .
So much for the “race to the bottom” that anti-globalization activists mouth.
What’s the Standard for Location-Tracking?
The ACLU and EFF are filing a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how the government decides when to use triangulation from cell phones to determine someone’s location. Enchanced 911 rules require cell phone providers to pinpoint a phone’s location. The E911 rules were originally designed to aid emergency responders. But now, some reports suggest that federal police officers are using the location tracking information as part of routine investigations. The ACLU and EFF want to know whether the feds are getting the information using probable cause or some lesser standard. I doubt they’ll find any good news (if the government even complies with the FOIA request), but I’m still hoping.
Will Tax Increases Cause Capital Flight?
The Washington Examiner argues that recent proposals to increase federal tax rates to 55 percent on households making over $250,000 per year would result in the U.S. having some of the highest marginal tax rates in the world, higher than “such socialist havens as Sweden.”
It says that ”this quantum leap in the U.S. tax burden would have deep and destructive consequences for all Americans. Tax shelters and evasion gimmicks not seen since the Carter years would resurface. Investment capital — which is the engine of economic growth — would flee overseas, taking jobs and opportunity with it.”
The economy also faces other risk factors, such as short-sighted federal policies designed to prop up overextended borrowers. Those policies may also be reducing the flow of investment in the U.S., in addition to costing taxpayers and people who save rather than borrow money billions of dollars.
FCC Indecency Process Seriously Flawed
On the heels of a report showing the odd, politically-driven fluctuations in indecency complaints submitted to the FCC, two advocacy groups are claiming that the FCC’s indecency complaint process is “flawed.” As Ars reports, “central to the commentary is the assertion that activist decency groups encourage thousands of people to complain to the FCC about programs that they may not have seen themselves.” The groups say that “these crackdowns force TV producers and writers to second guess their own work, or have it second guessed for them.” In fact, “the FCC’s confusing decency rules deny children access to good TV programming.”
The groups’ qualms about the FCC indecency process is reminiscent of Brennan’s dissent in FCC v. Pacifica (quoted by Cord Blomquist in his media release about the death of George Carlin):
As surprising as it may be to individual Members of this Court, some parents may actually find Mr. Carlin’s unabashed attitude towards the seven “dirty words” healthy [ . . . ] Such parents may constitute a minority of the American public, but the absence of great numbers willing to exercise the right to raise their children in this fashion does not alter the right’s nature or its existence. Only the Court’s regrettable decision does that.
Another Deal Hold-Up: XM-Sirius
What is it with delayed mergers and agreements today? I just reported about the DoJ beginning its investigation of Google-Yahoo. Now, Ars reports that, after imposing draconian restrictions on the new company, the government is still holding up the XM-Sirius merger. Senators are telling the FCC to wait to approve the merger until they can tack on even more stringent minority-ownership mandates. Will the merger ever be approved - or will XM and Sirius just give up after another 450 grueling days?
Another Loss for Eliot Spitzer
A New York appellate court has ruled that former state attorney general Eliot Spitzer lacked the authority to challenge the huge pay package of former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso. (Spitzer subsequently went on to become New York’s governor, before resigning in a prostitution scandal). During his tenure as state attorney general, Spitzer acted as if he had the power to regulate everything in or affecting New York State, as if he were a superlegislature. A CEI study, The Nation’s Top Ten Worst State Attorneys General, rated him the third worst attorney general in America.
New Burdens for Employers and Small Businesses
New burdens for employers and small businesses are on the way. The House of Representatives passed the ADA Amendments Act by a vote of 402-to-17 last week. Among other things, it would allow people with trivial impairments to claim the special accommodations previously reserved for the truly disabled. We earlier commented on a similar bill, the ADA Restoration Act, and discussed lawsuits by disabled plaintiffs against internet businesses and schools.
Clever Method for Defeating Chinese Filters
The Wall Street Journal reports on a clever method Chinese bloggers have been using to get around automatic keyword-based censorship programs that China uses to restrict content: writing backwards. Apparently, programs are used to convert normal writing into backwards writing - and it’s actually relatively readable. Yet another example of the failures of government censorship: the content you’re trying to block will always get through.
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