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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (348872)	8/28/2007 6:31:08 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573841

" They are adjusting for certain factors but not others." Right. And their choices makes their conclusions suspicious. " You aren't adjusting for anything" Sure I have. I have pointed out that the overall mortality rate is no worse, and in many cases, better in the US than in other countries. And that means that Americans tend to die at a younger age. I have shown that the homicide rate, while higher in the US, is still pretty low when compared to other mortality factors. In addition, I have shown that the suicide rate in the US is much lower than it is in many countries with a higher life expectancy. The only way to get the figures to work like those posters claim is to have an accidental death rate much, much higher than it is in other countries. And there really isn't any good data to show that. There isn't any data I've been able to find that shows otherwise, but it doesn't pass the smell test to get to that point. I do know that the US had a dramatically lower traffic fatality rate than any other country up through the 1970s. And that was true regardless of how you counted it, either per 100k population or per 1 million miles driven. Given that the roads are less crowded in general, the speed limits lower and the cars larger than in many countries and we have at least the same if not better safety features, I doubt seriously that the traffic fatality rates are much higher than other countries. Certainly not the double or more that is seen in the differences in suicide rates. So that isn't really going to change the standings much. And, while obesity is an unquantified parameter, it also is unlikely to make a huge difference. Because many of the complications that crop up due to obesity are also ones that the US excels at in treating. So things like cardiovascular conditions, cancer and the other risk factors due to obesity tend to be exactly the ones that our medical system treats better than other countries. Face it Tim, your arguments have been busted.

To: TimF who wrote (348872)	8/28/2007 6:58:43 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1573841

re: They are adjusting for certain factors but not others. You aren't adjusting for anything, just guessing that other factors may work to counter the ones they mention, then there are even more factors that I've mentioned (like obesity), and still others that haven't even entered in to the conversation, or even may be important but totally unrecognized. Taking all of that and saying its about the different forms of payment for medical care seems unsupported to say the least. Really weak Tim. Back to the drawing board.

To: TimF who wrote (348872)	8/29/2007 7:29:55 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573841

Editorial A Sobering Census Report: Americans’ Meager Income Gains The economic party is winding down and most working Americans never even got near the punch bowl. The Census Bureau reported yesterday that median household income rose 0.7 percent last year — it’s second annual increase in a row— to $48,201. The share of households living in poverty fell to 12.3 percent from 12.6 percent in 2005. This seems like welcome news, but a deeper look at the belated improvement in these numbers — more than five years after the end of the last recession — underscores how the gains from economic growth have failed to benefit most of the population. The median household income last year was still about $1,000 less than in 2000, before the onset of the last recession. In 2006, 36.5 million Americans were living in poverty — 5 million more than six years before, when the poverty rate fell to 11.3 percent. And what is perhaps most disturbing is that it appears this is as good as it’s going to get. Sputtering under the weight of the credit crisis and the associated drop in the housing market, the economic expansion that started in 2001 looks like it might enter history books with the dubious distinction of being the only sustained expansion on record in which the incomes of typical American households never reached the peak of the previous cycle. It seems that ordinary working families are going to have to wait — at the very minimum — until the next cycle to make up the losses they suffered in this one. There’s no guarantee they will. The gains against poverty last year were remarkably narrow. The poverty rate declined among the elderly, but it remained unchanged for people under 65. Analyzed by race, only Hispanics saw poverty decline on average while other groups experienced no gains. The fortunes of middle-class, working Americans also appear less upbeat on closer consideration of the data. Indeed, earnings of men and women working full time actually fell more than 1 percent last year. This suggests that when household incomes rose, it was because more members of the household went to work, not because anybody got a bigger paycheck. The median income of working-age households, those headed by somebody younger than 65, remained more than 2 percent lower than in 2001, the year of the recession. Over all, the new data on incomes and poverty mesh consistently with the pattern of the last five years, in which the spoils of the nation’s economic growth have flowed almost exclusively to the wealthy and the extremely wealthy, leaving little for everybody else. Standard measures of inequality did not increase last year, according to the new census data. But over a longer period, the trend becomes crystal clear: the only group for which earnings in 2006 exceeded those of 2000 were the households in the top five percent of the earnings distribution. For everybody else, they were lower. This stilted distribution of rewards underscores how economic growth alone has been insufficient to provide better living standards for most American families. What are needed are policies to help spread benefits broadly — be it more progressive taxation, or policies to strengthen public education and increase access to affordable health care. Unfortunately, these policies are unlikely to come from the current White House. This administration prefers tax cuts for the lucky ones in the top five percent. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

To: TimF who wrote (348872)	8/29/2007 7:30:39 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1573841

Editorial A Sobering Census Report: Bleak Findings on Health Insurance The Census Bureau’s report on the state of American health insurance was as disturbing as its statistics on poverty and income. The bureau reported a large increase in the number of Americans who lack health insurance, data that ought to send an unmistakable message to Washington: vigorous action is needed to reverse this alarming and intractable trend. The number of uninsured Americans has been rising inexorably over the past six years as soaring health care costs have driven up premiums, employers have scaled back or eliminated health benefits and hard-pressed families have found themselves unable to purchase insurance at a reasonable price. Last year, the number of uninsured Americans increased by a daunting 2.2 million, from 44.8 million in 2005 to 47.0 million in 2006. That scotched any hope that the faltering economic recovery would help alleviate the problem. The main reason for the upsurge in uninsured Americans is that employment-based coverage continued to deteriorate. Indeed, the number of full-time workers without health insurance rose from 20.8 million in 2005 to 22.0 million in 2006, presumably because either the employers or the workers or both found it too costly. Sadly, the one area where the nation had made progress — reducing the number of uninsured children — took a turn for the worse. The number of uninsured children under 18 dropped steadily and significantly from 1999 to 2004, thanks largely to an expansion in coverage of low-income children under two programs operated jointly by the states and the federal government, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Then last year the number of uninsured children jumped more than 600,000 to reach 8.6 million. The main reason, advocacy groups say, is that access and funding for the low-income programs became tighter while employer coverage for dependents eroded. The challenge to the White House and Congress seems clear. The upward trend in the number of uninsured needs to be reversed because many studies have shown that people who lack health insurance tend to forgo needed care until they become much sicker and go to expensive emergency rooms for treatment. That harms their health and drives up everyone’s health care costs. The most immediate need is to reauthorize and expand the expiring State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It has already brought health coverage to millions of young Americans. It should be reinvigorated to bring coverage to many millions more. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company