SHOULD THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA TAKE OVER PRISON HEALTH CARE?

No, I’m not kidding. The AP has the story.

The University of California will form a special committee to study whether it should take over inmate health care for the state’s troubled prison system, the chairman of the university system’s Board of Regents said this week.

Regents Chairman Russell Gould announced the committee, which university officials said will study issues including the cost, effect on labor relations, and the university’s liability in inmate lawsuits. Health care has been so bad in the state’s 33 adult prisons that a federal judge appointed a receiver in 2006 to make improvements.

A study by a company affiliated with the University of Texas has criticized the receiver for running up costs as part of the improvement effort. It projected California could save more than $4 billion over five years and $12 billion over 10 years by shifting control to the University of California…..

Scott Henson, of the always stellar Texas criminal justice blog, Grits for Breakfast, has some thoughts on the matter.

A COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY OF THE US POLICY OF “ENHANCED INTERROGATION”

In the current New Yorker Magazine, Jane Mayer, author of the award-winning The Dark Side, reviews Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, by former Bush speechwriter Marc A. Thiessen—and yanks the wings and legs off Thiessen’s “facts” one by one. To do so, Mayer uses solid, verifiable, reality-based information that she has acquired the old fashioned way—through real reporting.

The last ‘graph of Mayer’s review is clearly what she means to be the takeaway:

Thiessen’s effort to rewrite the history of the C.I.A.’s interrogation program comes not long after a Presidential race in which both the Republican and the Democratic nominees agreed that state-sponsored cruelty had damaged and dishonored America. The publication of “Courting Disaster” suggests that Obama’s avowed determination “to look forward, not back” has laid the recent past open to partisan reinterpretation. By holding no one accountable for past abuse, and by convening no commission on what did and didn’t protect the country, President Obama has left the telling of this dark chapter in American history to those who most want to whitewash it.

Read the whole thing.

MEANWHILE, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS DIVIDED ABOUT HOW TO HANDLE DETAINEES

Charlie Savage reports in the NY Times on Monday about the dueling secret memos dealing with how the US is—and isn’t—legally empowered to handle detainees who are deemed to be terrorism-related.

Here are the relevant 2 ‘graphs:

….behind closed doors, the debate flared again that summer, when the Obama administration confronted the case of Belkacem Bensayah, an Algerian man who had been arrested in Bosnia — far from the active combat zone — and was being held without trial by the United States at Guantánamo. Mr. Bensayah was accused of facilitating the travel of people who wanted to go to Afghanistan to join Al Qaeda. A judge found that such “direct support” was enough to hold him as a wartime prisoner, and the Justice Department asked an appeals court to uphold that ruling.

The arguments over the case forced onto the table discussion of lingering discontent at the State Department over one aspect of the Obama position on detention. There was broad agreement that the law of armed conflict allowed the United States to detain as wartime prisoners anyone who was actually a part of Al Qaeda, as well as nonmembers who took positions alongside the enemy force and helped it. But some criticized the notion that the United States could also consider mere supporters, arrested far away, to be just as detainable without trial as enemy fighters.

THE CHURCH CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL AND SHOOTING THE MESSENGER

More than just a few Catholic church higher-ups have suggested in the last few days that the criticism leveled at the church and at Pope Benedict XVI for actions not taken to protect kids from pedophile priests—here and in Europe—amounts to Catholic bashing, or things even more conspiratorial

LA Times editorial board member Michael McGough blogs about the issue here.

He concludes (and I agree):

The pope may have plausible deniability in the cases reported by the New York Times. But the best defense for the Vatican and its supporters is to contest the accuracy of these and other reports, not to accuse journalists (or activists) of selective criticism, let alone an ignoble conspiracy. Playing the anti-Catholic card just won’t work. The sex-abuse scandal in the United States should have demonstrated that.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As most of you likely know by now, on Saturday afternoon, on the eve of the health care reform vote, Obama spoke to the Democratic caucus who listened with uncharacteristically silent attention. There was no pep rally atmosphere.

Obama centered the speech around a Lincoln quote: “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”

It was a very smart, very emotional, very carefully crafted speech—and worth listening to in its entirety.

One of the models being talked about for its importance to journalism’s future is the collaboration between journalism schools and public news organizations, particularly non -profits.

Today, Thursday, Neon Tommy, one of the student run online publications coming out of the Annenberg School of Journalism demonstrated a case in point with their exploration and analysis of swine flu deaths in LA County, yet did it without the aid of an outside news agency.

Around 30 students worked on the package, which consists of an overview of the deaths, what they suggest in the way of patterns and a sharp look at LA County’s shifting policy of secrecy about its records, portraits of seven of those who have died, plus a legal analysis of what LA County and other counties in the state have an obligation to tell us about who exactly is dying from the swine flu. (There is also a map of where the deaths occurred in the county.)

Just to give credit where credit is very much due, the students who worked on the swine flu package are the following.

Reporting staff: Hillel Aron, Briana Galper, Catherine Cloutier, Sharis Delgadillo, Bethany Firnhaber, Jessica Flores, Michael Green, John Guenther, Stephanie Guzman, Neila Jamee, Julia James, Olga Khazan, LeTania Kirkland, Len Ly, Meghan McCarty, Jaclyn Matthews, Jonathan Polakoff, Natalie Ragus, Walter Redmond, Rob Schwandt, Madeleine Scinto, Callie Schweitzer, Amy Silverstein, Susannah Snider, Amanda Tran, Christine Trang, Jessika Walsten and Kelly Williams.

Editors: Mark Evitt and Richie Duchon

Map design: Kim Nowacki

By the way, just so you know, to my knowledge, this project was not part of a class assignment for anyone. (I know it wasn’t for those of my students who worked on it.) The Annenberg reporters simply did the work in their spare time because they wanted to learn and believed the reporting was important.

There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.

But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem of the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won’t pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.

Barack Obama, September 9, 2009

I will return to local issues tomorrow, but the undeniable story of moment-is President Obama’s Wednesday night address to the joint session of Congress.

There are plenty of other people who are commenting well—and poorly—on Obama’s speech (which, for the record, I thought was a game changer), so instead, I want to say something personal here.

Like many Americans, I pay a fortune for health insurance.

It doesn’t matter that I have never (knock on wood) been ill, other than occasional colds and rare bouts of the flu—for which I never, I mean never-— go to the doctor.

My only trip to the hospital in my adult life was to have my wonderful son, Will, nearly 24 years ago.

I pretty much show up in medical offices solely for my single yearly check-up and about once every ten years when I get a nasty case of poison oak (and that only when the dog strays into the stuff without my knowing it).

Furthermore, my weight is on the low side of normal, I exercise regularly, have great cholesterol, perfect blood pressure and no chronic conditions.

Yet, although I have good health, and a gazillion dollar deductible, I pay through the nose every month. Why? Because I’m self employed—which means that my insurance is two or three times the cost of what one pays through an employer. And I am middle-aged. Late middle aged, if I am to be honest.

But that isn’t the most vexing part. Not only is my health insurance—which happens to be Blue Shield—absurdly expensive, it pays for almost zero, unless something truly hideous happens to me. Then, once my deductible is used up, it is supposed to pay most of the bills.

(Operative phrase “supposed to.” We have all heard the horror stories. Many of us know somebody or several somebodies who have lived through the horror stories.)

Moreover, even things that Blue Shield, used to pay for, like yearly mammograms, they have found new ways to get out of. And certainly my insurance doesn’t cover common sense preventative care. For instance, although as a small-boned, slender woman I am the potential poster girl for osteoporosis, my insurance company wouldn’t dream of paying for a baseline bone density scan—although, as a preventative measure, it is likely to save long term costs, not to mention heartache. (I just had one and was thankfully informed I have the spine of a 25-year old. For now, anyway.)

Except for part of one yearly check-up I pay for all doctor visits, plus any of my preventative tests, the diagnostic sonograms that my mammographer rightly advises, my eye exams to make sure that nothing creepy like glaucoma is lurking, whatever—all entirely out of pocket. As I said, my insurance will pay for (most) of one yearly doctor visit. But, if every other year I think it wise to be checked by both an internist and a gynecologist—fuggedaboudit. And any kind of specialist? You must be joking.

If, heaven forbid, I ever do get actually, even marginally sick, or find some suspicious spot on my arm that needs to be removed and biopsied, or maybe get some test for some recently acquired allergy, I fear that my insurance will really go sky high. Or if something worse than that happens, they’ll try to drop me.

So quite frankly I notice that put off having some of the exams, or tests, or check-ups that I know I should have—because there is that niggling, back-of-the-mind worry about my insurance doubling or worse, like my close friend’s did, just because she got a prescription for an inhaler for those occasional moments when she’s at someone’s house and has a mild allergic reaction to cat dander.

Yet, I know I’m churlish to complain at all. I am, after all, one of the incredibly lucky ones. I have health insurance. And I make a respectable amount of money doing work I love— teaching, book writing, and nattering journalistically about issues of social justice— so I can afford my ever-rising premiums and the mortgage on my canyon house, and life’s other necessities.

Millions of other Americans work long hours at one or more jobs, but don’t make enough to afford to pay insurance premiums. This means if they can scrape together the money to take their kids, or themselves, to the doctor, they go. When they can’t, they put it off. Sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Still other Americans—some of them my close friends and family members,—have fought cancer or some other serious illness. Now they are uninsurable on the open market because they once had the bad sense to get sick. If they don’t have jobs that force insurers into carrying them, or spouses with similar jobs—or if they lose their jobs, God forbid—they are screwed.

So, yes, I want health care reform that would make it illegal to deny coverage for preexisting conditions. And I also want the public option.

I’d like to buy into some kind of insurance that doesn’t charge usurious rates, or jump in price by 30 percent or more per year, and doesn’t have a zillion dollar deductible. I would like that insurance to pay—with a non-stratospheric co-pay—for my ordinary doctor visits, and for whatever sensible preventative treatments or tests my test-conservative doctor thinks necessary.

I also want to be able to go to a physician without always having to weigh the larger, long-term fiscal consequences, when going would be the wise and healthful thing to do.

I want that for me, for my son, my nephew, and many of their friends, and for a pile of my own best friends, all of whom also work their butts off, pay their taxes, and either run small business or are also self-employed. And I want it too for the 30 million fellow Americans who cannot get coverage at all, and the many million more who are under insured.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask. I really don’t.

UPDATE: Two USC/Annenberg grad students—Len Ly and Hillel Aron— watched Obama’s health care address along with patients waiting for care at two different LA emergency rooms. Clever idea.

Here’s what they reported.

*Note: I managed to insert some strange moment in coding that erased nearly a fully paragraph from an earlier version of this post, making that section of it confusing to read. Obviously it’s corrected now.

SOME QUICK NOTES ON TWO LA STORIES:

**************************************************************************************************

1. DESPERATE FOR CARE

Remote Area Medical Care is a nonprofit that used to airlift medical relief to isolated regions of the Amazon. A couple of years ago, RAM began doing 60 percent of its work in rural America because, said the organization’s founder, the need in rural US is just so great.

Starting Tuesday, in case you aren’t already aware, Rural Medical Care went a step further and decided to do some desperately needed urban clinics. Los Angeles is one of their first and they are providing a free medical and dental clinic at the LA Forum for a week.

KPCC’s Patricia Nazarrio was there on Tuesday as thousands of LA residents, who otherwise couldn’t afford care, lined up., many for most of the night. But still there were too many to be treated.

The Daily Breeze also has a good story on the clinic, reporting that people came from both San Diego and Santa Barbara counties

[ RAM founder, Sam Brock] said although health care reform has become a hot-button issue, RAM quietly continues its work of helping people.

“An infected tooth can’t wait while Congress debates health care reform,” Brock said. “We’re taking care of people who need help now.”

Yet, while an expected 10,000 of our fellow Californians sorely in need of medical and/or dental care will stand in lines hour after hour in the hope of getting just a bit of that needed care, the national television news channels have devoted an obscene amount of time talking about the complete and unconscionable falsehood about “death panels”—as if it was an actual topic for discussion instead of dismissing it for what it is: the most deliberate and cynical kind of lie.

The disconnect is getting a bit hard to take.

*****************************************************************************************************************

2. DRUGS & MURDER ON SKID ROW;

One more article that is worth your time is by Ari Bloomekatz for the LA Times about how the LAMP Community, one of Skid Row’s most respected housing providers for the area’s homeless, seemed to have failed to see when drugs were being dealt regularly out of Lamp Lodge, a facility for the mentally ill homeless run by LAMP. The dealing, Ari reports, ultimately led to a double homicide inside the Lodge when fighting over drug selling turf suddenly escalated.

Bloomekatz is very even-handed in his presentation of the issue, going for complexity rather than a sensational, black and white story.

He writes: “The case underscores the difficulty of keeping even “safe zones” free of narcotics activities in such a drug-plagued area, despite efforts by the LAPD in recent years to crack down on skid row crime.”

“One of the questions that we do have to ask is how a narcotics dealer and a hit man ended up meeting inside of a room inside the Lamp Lodge that was actually supposed to be a secure facility for mentally ill people,” said Capt. Blake Chow.

Yep. Despite LAMPs excellent work on Skid Row, we definitely need to be asking those questions.

************************************************************************************************************
Okay, now back to Alan.

PS: I learned yesterday that Alex Sanchez bail hearing has been put off until October.

**********************************************************************************************************

Photo by Robert Casillas for the Daily Breeze