Universal Healthcare

My statistics came from many sites. To understand the importance of Universal Healthcare, you have to understand the impact being uninsured has on people. Consider the following facts:

• The United States spends nearly $100 billion per year to provide uninsured residents with health services, often for preventable diseases or diseases that physicians could treat more efficiently with earlier diagnosis (14).
• Hospitals provide about $34 billion worth of uncompensated care a year (14).
• Another $37 billion is paid by private and public payers for health services for the uninsured and $26 billion is paid out-of-pocket by those who lack coverage (14).
• The uninsured are 30 to 50 percent more likely to be hospitalized for an avoidable condition, with the average cost of an avoidable hospital stayed estimated to be about $3,300 (14).
• The increasing reliance of the uninsured on the emergency department has serious economic implications, since the cost of treating patients is higher in the emergency department than in other outpatient clinics and medical practices (11).

In my book, I also discuss the impact being uninsured has on children. Here is supporting evidence:

Regardless of age, race, ethnicity, income or health status, uninsured children were much less likely to have received a well-child checkup within the past year. One study shows that nearly 50 percent of uninsured children did not receive a checkup in 2003, almost twice the rate (26 percent) for insured children (12)

Finally, the statistics on who is uninsured is staggering. Consider the following facts:

• Nearly 47 million Americans, or 16 percent of the population, were without health insurance in 2005, the latest government data available (1).
• The number of uninsured rose 1.3 million between 2004 and 2005 and has increased by almost 7 million people since 2000 (1).
• The large majority of the uninsured (80 percent) are native or naturalized citizens (2).
• The increase in the number of uninsured in 2005 was focused among working age adults. The percentage of working adults (18 to 64) who had no health coverage climbed from 18.5 percent in 2004 to 20.5 percent in 2005 -- an increase of over 800,000 uninsured workers (1). Nearly one (1) million full-time workers lost their health insurance in 2005.
• Nearly 82 million people – about one-third of the population below the age of 65 spent a portion of either 2002 or 2003 without health coverage (3).

The research was based on:

1. DeNavas-Walt, C.B. Proctor, and C.H. Lee. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005. U.S. Census Bureau., August 2006.
2. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The Uninsured: A Primer, Key Facts About Americans without Health Insurance. October 2006
3. Families USA. One in Three: Non-elderly Americans Without Health Insurance in 2002-2003, July 2004
4. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Employee Health Benefits: 2006 Annual Survey. 26 September 2006.
5. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Number of Uninsured Americans is at an All-Time High. 29 August 2006
6. Clemens-Cope, Lisa, et al, Changes in Employees' Health Insurance Coverage, 2001-2005, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, October 2006.
7. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The Uninsured: A Primer, Key Facts About Americans without Health Insurance. January 2006.
8. Hewitt Associates LLC. Health Care Expectations: Future Strategy and Direction 2005. 17 November 2004.
9. Dalrymple, M., "Senators Seek Tax Credit for Unemployed." Associated Press, 9 October 2003.
10. Institute of Medicine. Insuring America's Health – Principles and Recommendations. The National Academies Press, 2004.
11. Institute of Medicine. Care Without Coverage – Too Little, Too Late. The National Academies Press, 2002.
12. The Urban Institute. Key Findings from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey. 9 August 2004.
13. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Access to Care for the Uninsured: An Update. 29 September 2003.
14. Institute of Medicine. Hidden Costs, Values Lost: Uninsurance in America. The National Academies Press. 17 June 2003.

For additional support Google NCHC for additional facts on health insurance coverage.

NCLB is Just or Unjust - Research Says....

-- The Harsh Bigotry of Flawed Strategies --

The seriously flawed NCLB strategies are hurting minority children the most according to recently released reports from the Project for Civil Rights at Harvard:

The reports demonstrate that federal accountability rules have derailed state reforms and assessment strategies, that the requirements have no common meaning across state lines, and that the sanctions fall especially hard on minority and integrated schools, asking for much less progress from affluent suburban schools.

Source: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/orfield02092004.html

Inspiring Vision, Disappointing Results:
Four Studies on Implementing the No Child
Left Behind Act

Authors: Gail L. Sunderman, Jimmy Kim and Gary Orfield

Additional Reports that failed to make the news: (Again from Havard Researchers)

Recent reports left out the fact that the Federal Government allowed states to ignore some two million minority students, comments from our current educational secretary regarding NCLB as being equitable are not only wrong but remarkably insentive.

For one who is fond (like the President) of accusing others of the "soft bigotry of low expectations," it seems odd that NCLB is considered equitable.

The Homework Debate

In the book, I mentioned that homework pretty much serves the teacher and not student. Well, for those challenging me, I recommend the book, "The Case Against Homework" as a start. Nancy Kalish and Sarah Bennett are the authors. The publisher is Crown. The book layouts a framework why homework is punitive and a waste of time. Harris Cooper, who is the head of Duke University's Education Department found no link between homework and student performance. He used 60 studies to support his conclusion.

Pot v. Alcohol

People have read my chapter on Pot v. Alcohol and had many takes on what I was trying to say. I have never used pot. However I have seen the impact of alcohol and pot on our society for 21 years. Knowing the reality that I saw, versus the reality that is portrayed by the media, I decided to support an alternative view on alcohol and pot.
Pot really does not have the negative impact on our society that alcohol does. My data was from cites like the CDC. They would give statistics on alcohol that were grim, such as:

Number of alcohol-induced deaths, excluding accidents and homicides: 21,081

Number of alcoholic liver disease deaths: 12,548

This statistic is just from one year of data. The data on Pot collected from government agencies supports the fact that Pot is not detrimental like alcohol. Why do we not discuss this?

The American Journal for Public Health furthers the discussion about alcohol by analyzing the impact alcohol has on violence.

• Alcohol availability is closely related to violent assaults. Communities and neighborhoods that have more bars and liquor stores per capita experience more assaults. ¹

• Alcohol use is frequently associated with violence between intimate partners. Two-thirds of victims of intimate partner violence reported that alcohol was involved in the incident. ²

• In one study of interpersonal violence, men had been drinking in an estimated 45 percent of cases and women had been drinking in 20 percent of cases. ³

• Women whose partners abused alcohol were 3.6 times more likely than other women to be assaulted by their partners. ⁴

• In 2002, more than 70,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 were victims of alcohol-related sexual assault in the U.S. ⁶

• In those violent incidents recorded by the police in which alcohol was a factor, about nine percent of the offenders and nearly 14 percent of the victims were under age 21. ⁷

• Twenty-eight percent of suicides by children ages nine to 15 were attributable to alcohol. ⁸

• An estimated 480,000 children are mistreated each year by a caretaker with alcohol problems.

The data is accurate and strongly supports my assertions in the book.

Marijuana as an illegal drug has been enforced unfairly in our country. The statistics come from our own government data bank. My feeling is if a law is unjust, than why should we not abolish the law.

Poverty Debate

In the book, I cite the significance of Federal Poverty statistics. Here are some statistics from Habitat for Humanity that question the reality of our government's poverty rates. Now remember, this is Habitat for Humanity, not some rogue group out to defame anyone. Think about the reality of people living above poverty. Is 25 -30 thousand enough to live on? Does this rate fluctuate in areas of high cost of living? The reality is poverty is very real for many people. For more information about poverty, check out what is left out of the poverty equation by copying the link below. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/povdef.html#5

Freakonomics - A Great Place to Start

Many people use statistics for manipulation. However, few use them to help explain societal problems. I cite Freakonomics in the chapter about abortion. The data in the book is cited from U.S. Government statistics Pre-Roe v. Wade. What I try to do is correlate the data from Freakonomics to the theme of decency. We only hear one argument in today's modern media. Abortion is debated on emotions created by the reality presented by conservative Christian thought. We never ask why a woman would chooses an abortion. We instead worry about the restriction of rights of the woman to choose based on religious dogma.

How to Lie with Statistics - The Truth About Research

I challenged myself not to respond to criticism that I knew would come from readers that had a neoconservative point of view. However, I realized it was important to address a common criticism of a book like mine.
Those who read with a closed mind will challenge the book by saying I never cited resources regarding research. In other words, I made it up. I want to reassure readers that I spent 14 months of my life researching the stories, interviewing hundreds of people for first hand accounts, and combed Federal Government Databases to support my book.
It is funny how many times people like Bill O'Reilley, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity can mislead the truth without their fans becoming angry. It has been documented time and time again, yet people do not challenge this common reality.
I felt it was important to demonstrate to people that statistical data can be used to mislead people. I strongly believe that the ruling elite's challenge of data is based on their own knowledge that truth is not far from fiction. Think about the passage in my book that challenges statistical data regarding the shape of our economy. What is a more accurate data for how well your community doing. Which statistic is more accurate, unemployment statistics or school free and reduced lunch rates. I argue that school data is a more accurate picture. I give the example in my area of 5% unemployment yet school districts having 50-60% free and reduced lunch. The data I care about is who needs a hand up, not how many people report their employment.

For this reason, I will be sharing with you statistics and data that really matter. There will also be news articles and additional research that supports key areas of social justice. I openly ask that readers contribute supporting data. Together, we can take the manipulation out of the statistical data that suggests: EVERYTHING IS GREAT.