You
have
to
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Showing posts with label world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
today's meditation
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
Love never fails.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
December 7, 1941
USS Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship of the United States Navy and the first to be named "Arizona". On March 4, 1913, Congress authorized the construction of Arizona, named to honor the 48th state's admission into the union on 14 February 1912. The ship was the second and last of the Pennsylvania class of "super-dreadnought" battleships.
She is most remembered because of her sinking, with the loss of 1,177 lives, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the event that goaded the US into World War II. Unlike most of the other ships sunk or damaged that day, the Arizona could not be salvaged, although the U.S. Navy removed several elements of the ship that were reused. The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and was established as a memorial to all those who died during the Pearl Harbor attack. (read more)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
5 Myths About Health Care Around the World
By T.R. Reid
Sunday, August 23, 2009
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.
I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:
1. It's all socialized medicine out there.
Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.
In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.
In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.
Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.
In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.
The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.
Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)
5. Health insurance has to be cruel.
Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.
Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.
The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.
In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.
This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.
Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.
Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.
T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care."
Sunday, August 23, 2009
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.
I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:
1. It's all socialized medicine out there.
Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.
In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.
In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.
Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.
In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.
The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.
Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)
5. Health insurance has to be cruel.
Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.
Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.
The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.
In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.
This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.
Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.
Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.
T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care."
Monday, August 24, 2009
North West Passage
The ice age is melting and the Arctic is turning into water. On some days temperatures can hover around 70 degrees fahrenheit ..turning ice shelves into tropical zones. For me, this conjures up images of smooth sailing, sunbathing on sandy beaches and swimming in emerald lagoons. But I’m a fucking dreamer who needs to see things the way they are. What this really means is greater opportunity for fortune-seekers looking for trade routes to China. What is now home to Eskimos, who still hunt whales and live in igloos ..is about to become an international trade zone ..occupied by oil barons ..land developers ..and casino operators. I have the feeling we are looking at the next wild frontier. Now I picture myself sailing through the North West Passage like it was California during the gold rush ..shooting polar bears instead of buffaloes.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Can Obama Restore World Peace -Agha H Amin
Can Obama Restore World Peace ?
How Far will USA fail and succeed-How far can Obama or Holbrooke go
Agha H Amin
9 February 2009
While Obama in personal terms did well and became the first mixed origin man to become US president it is unfair to expect many changes that Obama or his team can bring. Holbrooke may be giant of a man but his stature has to be judged in correlation to the various complicated and often overwhelming forces of history.
Three major foreign policy issues confront USA. The Arab-Israel Issue, the Afghanistan issue and the India-Pakistan issue. In the background is the more formidable albeit more intangible issue of Islamic extremism. The first and last issues above listed include state actors and the Afghan issue is a combination of non state and state actors.
It appears that Obama can only have a semblance of success in the Arab-Israel Issue. That is if he can just pursue the brilliant plan put forward by Rabbi Michael Lerner, pushing into the garbage all nonsense that the state department pen pusher clerk type bureaucrats or the crafty think tanks may try to put forward. In Afghanistan no amount of Holbrookes can succeed. Here the issue is a complex one. With more than 11 states having extreme outlooks about whether the Talibans should be or should not be allowed to rule Afghanistan. The issue is highly complex. In Bosnia the issue was far simpler with Russia far away and Europe extremely divided.
Nor were the mild Bosnian Muslims a threat to Europe. In Afghanistan we have Russia, Iran, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhastan, China,
whole of NATO as well as USA against Taliban whose only possible allies are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Where will poor Holbrooke fit in in this complex game as the magician who had achieved a miracle at Dayton? Afghanistan is and will remain for many decades a catch-22 for the USA. It is not like a Vietnam from which the USA can withdraw. The Vietnamese were a race using an ideology to survive. In Afghanistan its an ideology with multiple races that the USA is fighting. In Vietnam withdrawal was an option. In Afghanistan withdrawal will not lead to a solution but to another more bitter and deadly phase of the war. If the USA withdraws it will lose and if it stays it will continue to suffer with no end in sight for many decades. This is the tragedy of USA's situation in Afghanistan. Even if thve USA withdraws the Afghan civil war would continue and other state actors would intervene, while the USA would lose all allies that it had created in Afghanistan. So if we have to grade USA in Afghanistan the solution is not in sight. Holbrooke will fail.
Now we come to Kashmir. The Pakistani establishment, and I will not call it a state because Pakistan is controlled by a small clique of about 1000 families and a pathetic equation of highly corrupt politicians and respectably corrupt generals. Now these 1000 families which constitute the Pakistani establishment are trying to sell the idea to the USA that when the Kashmir issue is solved the threat to world peace in the shape of nuclear war can be avoided. As an ex soldier I do not think that Kashmir would solve the issue. Kashmir resolved or not resolved the Indo Pak conflict will continue till one party is defeated or both or one of the two disintegrate. Seen in this context what would poor Holbrooke do. He will in the end emerge as a shattered, immensely weakened and totally confused man. In any case in terms of international law Pakistan and India by agreed terms of Simla Accord of 1973 cannot allow a third party to decide Kashmir Issue. So good luck to Holbrooke, a man of substance, from whom too much should not be expected. What he is expected to do is what no single man can achieve.
The Pakistani state should forget about any hope of getting Kashmir through Holbrooke. If Pakistans politicians and generals can preserve what is left of Pakistan, posterity will remember them as heroes. From the type of strategy or more correctly apology of strategy that the Pakistani state is purusing in Frontier and Balochistan, even preserving what is left of Pakistan would be a great achievement.
Lastly with economic depression engulfing USA and the West little should be hoped from USA or Obama or Holbrooke. All would be at a loss and all should be commended if they can retain what they have rather than doing what no one could do. Little good should be accepted. In this age the guiding precept should be Neither Hope Nor Fear.
How Far will USA fail and succeed-How far can Obama or Holbrooke go
Agha H Amin
9 February 2009
While Obama in personal terms did well and became the first mixed origin man to become US president it is unfair to expect many changes that Obama or his team can bring. Holbrooke may be giant of a man but his stature has to be judged in correlation to the various complicated and often overwhelming forces of history.
Three major foreign policy issues confront USA. The Arab-Israel Issue, the Afghanistan issue and the India-Pakistan issue. In the background is the more formidable albeit more intangible issue of Islamic extremism. The first and last issues above listed include state actors and the Afghan issue is a combination of non state and state actors.
It appears that Obama can only have a semblance of success in the Arab-Israel Issue. That is if he can just pursue the brilliant plan put forward by Rabbi Michael Lerner, pushing into the garbage all nonsense that the state department pen pusher clerk type bureaucrats or the crafty think tanks may try to put forward. In Afghanistan no amount of Holbrookes can succeed. Here the issue is a complex one. With more than 11 states having extreme outlooks about whether the Talibans should be or should not be allowed to rule Afghanistan. The issue is highly complex. In Bosnia the issue was far simpler with Russia far away and Europe extremely divided.
Nor were the mild Bosnian Muslims a threat to Europe. In Afghanistan we have Russia, Iran, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhastan, China,
whole of NATO as well as USA against Taliban whose only possible allies are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Where will poor Holbrooke fit in in this complex game as the magician who had achieved a miracle at Dayton? Afghanistan is and will remain for many decades a catch-22 for the USA. It is not like a Vietnam from which the USA can withdraw. The Vietnamese were a race using an ideology to survive. In Afghanistan its an ideology with multiple races that the USA is fighting. In Vietnam withdrawal was an option. In Afghanistan withdrawal will not lead to a solution but to another more bitter and deadly phase of the war. If the USA withdraws it will lose and if it stays it will continue to suffer with no end in sight for many decades. This is the tragedy of USA's situation in Afghanistan. Even if thve USA withdraws the Afghan civil war would continue and other state actors would intervene, while the USA would lose all allies that it had created in Afghanistan. So if we have to grade USA in Afghanistan the solution is not in sight. Holbrooke will fail.
Now we come to Kashmir. The Pakistani establishment, and I will not call it a state because Pakistan is controlled by a small clique of about 1000 families and a pathetic equation of highly corrupt politicians and respectably corrupt generals. Now these 1000 families which constitute the Pakistani establishment are trying to sell the idea to the USA that when the Kashmir issue is solved the threat to world peace in the shape of nuclear war can be avoided. As an ex soldier I do not think that Kashmir would solve the issue. Kashmir resolved or not resolved the Indo Pak conflict will continue till one party is defeated or both or one of the two disintegrate. Seen in this context what would poor Holbrooke do. He will in the end emerge as a shattered, immensely weakened and totally confused man. In any case in terms of international law Pakistan and India by agreed terms of Simla Accord of 1973 cannot allow a third party to decide Kashmir Issue. So good luck to Holbrooke, a man of substance, from whom too much should not be expected. What he is expected to do is what no single man can achieve.
The Pakistani state should forget about any hope of getting Kashmir through Holbrooke. If Pakistans politicians and generals can preserve what is left of Pakistan, posterity will remember them as heroes. From the type of strategy or more correctly apology of strategy that the Pakistani state is purusing in Frontier and Balochistan, even preserving what is left of Pakistan would be a great achievement.
Lastly with economic depression engulfing USA and the West little should be hoped from USA or Obama or Holbrooke. All would be at a loss and all should be commended if they can retain what they have rather than doing what no one could do. Little good should be accepted. In this age the guiding precept should be Neither Hope Nor Fear.
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