Socialized Medicine is a Lick-It-And-Stick-It Label

Socialized medicine is such a lick-it-and-stick-it label.  It reminds me of a travel bag I had with stickers from Vienna Austria plastered all over it.  I'd been passed down the alligator trunk bag from a good friend.  I've never seen Austria.  The labels are meaningless after the first impression.  They did manage to start a conversation or two for me while I traveled around.

I've been told that debunking the junk put out on health care is a waste of time.  People do not want to know the truth.  Personally I don't buy into that idea wholesale.  Americans tend to be fixated on getting their news and facts through entertainment channels or soundbites for a myriad of reasons.  Word of mouth carries quickly in social circles and some of the more isolated states whose Senators somehow got Magic Proportion Power over our health care still trade heavily on social capital.   So I keep fighting the battle.

In the meantime it looks like the local fish-wrap, the Greeley Tribune, has a bit of a problem covering all sides of the issue.  I've heard tales of people who have written past editorials for the paper having their pro health care reform editorials gutted and placed in the Letter to the Editor section.  Gutted so that the Tribune represented at best a distorted version of the editorial argument and at worst the opinion and information the paper wants the local public to be indoctrinated with.  Social engineering in Greeley Colorado?  Please say it isn't so.

I'm posting in part an article below written by a Canadian insurance executive which a friend also from Canada, who owns one of those glide-and-slide-get-healthy Canadian health cards, forwarded to me.  It is worth a click on the link to read the whole article and to be armed with facts closer to a real knowledge source than Fox News.

TheStar.com | Opinion | A puzzled Canadian ponders surreal U.S. health-care debate

If asked to single out an aspect of Canadian society superior to that of our American neighbours, most Canadians would cite first our health-care system. What I also might have mentioned were aspects of the American health-care debate that Canadians find puzzling, if not downright perverse. These include:

* The use of wildly misleading references to wait times in Canada even though 47 million Americans have no health insurance and, therefore, are forced to line up for treatment in hospital emergency rooms, to say nothing of the thousands who queue in parking lots across the U.S. to receive free treatment periodically provided by "Remote Area Medical" volunteers.
* U.S. opinion polls that show 77 per cent of Americans are generally satisfied with their health care when so many millions of their fellow citizens are uninsured and many millions more under-insured; when three-quarters of the families filing for illness-related bankruptcy actually have health insurance; and when insurance premiums have grown three times faster than wages between 2000 and 2008.
* The negative representation of Canadians' experience with "socialized medicine." That portrayal is at odds with reality. For example: 85 per cent of Canadians have their own primary care physician and 92 per cent would recommend that doctor to a relative or friend; 95 per cent of Canadians with chronic conditions have a regular place of care; of those requiring ongoing medical care most were able to see a doctor within seven days.
* The widespread use of an exceptional and misleading Canadian case. It involves a television commercial featuring an Ontario woman, who (American viewers are told) had to go to the U.S. to have a life-threatening brain tumour removed in order to save her life. Why? Because of a six-month wait time in Canada for treatment. The patient has since admitted to a three-month wait time involving a diagnosed benign Rathkes cleft cyst, the removal of which at a Mayo Clinic in Arizona cost her $97,000 that she is now seeking to recover from the province where its removal would have cost her nothing.
* The fact that a huge contributor to the rapidly rising cost of U.S. health care is the central involvement of insurance companies. They add significant cost due to both administrative complication and inefficiency as well as the pursuit of profit. Canada constructed a health-care "insurance" system from which insurance companies were excluded in favour of single-payer, state-financed insurance. Thoughtful Americans understand that insurance companies are needed for an efficient, patient-oriented health-care system as much as a fish needs a bicycle. Minimizing the payment of health claims by insurance companies is, for executives interested in their compensation and their careers, what the companies' role in health care is all about.

Political Life in Greeley Colorado

Father forgive me for I have sinned.

I think that is how it goes, right? The only Catholic in the family (and I love her dearly for she reads my blog religiously) married in so I apologize if I have breached etiquette.

I said I would never again post a comment as a reader to the Tribune. Unfortunately there just are not many alternative places to get local homegrown news in this town. And, admittedly, I get sucked into the neurotic and wild ranging viewpoints posted about topics like education and economic development issues.

Humans are such interesting life forms. They remind me of the beautiful sea anemones I used to see while walking the beach. They cling precariously to the rocks fearful of that big storm that will come and try to push them out to sea while waving their tendrils about furiously as if they are in complete control. At first they all look the same. Little plasmid soldiers all gathered together to fend off the world. But if you get down and start looking more closely you begin to see the signs of uniqueness in each one. Each sponge has worn spots and chunks missing from its journey through life. Each one is a different size a bit different shape. Each one has a unique story to tell.

Greeley is fascinating in the same way. I have learned new ways of visioning ideas and concepts since I've landed here.

Originally I lumped conservative thinking into one broad category--keeping government minimal and competition stoked regardless if the system that this mindset produces works or not. But this never made a lot of sense to me. For one I look at the government for infrastructure and as a referee. If you have a lot of players in a game you need a ratio of referees to players. So if you get more players, and then more, and then more players again, eventually you need more referees to keep watch. And once the game becomes massively huge you need a whole new strategy for how to manage the game. Which is the point I think America is at right now.

But if you argue that government has no place in that game or needs to continually be cut--well that doesn't work in my view. What always puzzled me is that I have a great many friends and teachers who have been conservatives calling for less government and they have amazing minds and depth of intelligence. Pieces to my puzzle were obviously missing. I like to understand as many viewpoints as possible because it helps me to derive better solutions.

I think I've found some of those here in Greeley. By comparing the systems that have developed here, and driving around (and around and around and around--lost) I began putting what I could see in front of my eyes into context with the people I have met here and discussed things with. It has dawned on me, clearly, there are distinctions within the anti-government folk that come from an ideological base I had never quite fathomed. Call it development of a complexity of a nuance if you wish.

I often speak about systems in the context of human happiness and what the point of life is all about. To do this I like to describe the context in the most primitive of states--before society forms. The Clan of the Cave Bear type outlook. What motivation did these people face every morning when they woke up in their cave? Why go outside? The answer of course is to survive. To experience being human. And, ultimately, to find ways of making it easier to survive and the odds better. And so on, and so on.

Many times I thought back to how we have added in functions and systems since the beginning in the name of survival. Although lately I think in the name of happiness and establishing that one person is better than the other might be more appropriate.

I've always thought the big picture idea was to create an infrastructure for systems which would lead to the greatest quality of life for the most people. To me that requires people having their survival needs met. Clean water, some sort of shelter, basic foodstuff, transportation, and health care are all included in this package. Then comes education. Education fits in here because it serves both the individual's growth and society's need for survival. This is why I pay taxes to the government. I can't provide these things nearly as well as an individual because I can't get the economy of scale that I can in a group. Hence I see government's responsibility not as a parental figure but as one of mediator, the referee between powerful individuals and not so powerful individuals--between systems and the individual, and to create economies of scale that are in the interest of all people. Hence infrastructure.

Of course this idea is people centric. Humanistic in origins. I believe we should take care of each other rather than try to kill each other... imagine that. If that makes me a liberal then I'll wear the lick-it-and-stick-it label proudly.

But now I live in a community where most people don't see the world from this viewpoint. I mean it isn't like I dropped in from Mars or something. I just moved from another state. And I really like the people here. So it has become a current intrigue for me to sort out the various perspectives I am now surrounded by.

And it ain't easy being green, let me tell ya.

I get it that people don't like government and don't want the nose of government meddling in individual lives. They would rather duke it out with their neighbors than have government mediate things. Like land zoning for instance. Why should government be able to tell someone if they can or can't build on land they own? From an individual perspective it is interference. It is a feeling that robs an individual of a sense of being free as a human to live as they choose. Yet from a tribal perspective we all have to live together and that means you have to also act in the interest of the group.

Although I may not be expressing my new found perspective on this viewpoint well it certainly makes much more sense to me than my previous state of confusion. It explains, at least for now until I get new information, how a town can be quite happy not having integrated planning and systems that work well. The freedom of the personal decision making and lack of government intervention simply has more value for the greater number of persons living, and voting, around here.

While I think that this strategy in the short run makes sense, and it would still make sense if the town didn't grow at all and new people weren't added, in the long term this strategy doesn't work for modern times.

When I read the crazy wing-nut posts about various topics discussed in the local news I tend to think "fanatic" less and less. Instead I see people who are scared and frightened and feeling out of control that their world is changing more rapidly than they ever imagined it could. New feelings, new ideas, and new systems are forcing their way in while the magical ideological lifestyle some would choose gets more remote and distant every day.

I am not sure this is how the West was won but I am pretty sure that this is how the West will be changed. I guess the only win/win to be had will be to find a way to express that fondness for independence and freedom from rules, regulation, and the taxes that come with them--while creating an infrastructure that works for the most people, the environment, and the generations to come.

Of course that, the above statement, is not a solution it is just a reiteration of the problem most who live in this community are probably already aware of--whether conscious of it or not.

Redesigning Greeley Colorado--A Political Cow Town

Greeley Colorado is an interesting town to figure out. Especially when you are coming at it from a different point of view than most folks raised here. Currently I have been tracking articles about the District 6 mill levy, the Greeley City Council election, District 6 Teacher Union negotiations, and, one of my favorite snail-snot companies--JBS Swift. Just thinking about writing on these topics is beginning to make me cringe. A lot of good people involved and a lot of bad planning and outdated ideas used.

Combine this with the fact I've never quite got the hang of the East/West versus North/South orientation of the town and end up driving endlessly across the prairie even when I am just popping out for coffee--I get to spend a lot of time just looking at the beautiful mythic trees, architectural styles, and a lot of frothing-at-the-treasure-chest developments running amok to the south and west (I think) of Greeley. Then there are the empty store fronts. Ramshackle buildings leaning too far over the sidewalk. The unkempt and ungreen sections of town. All speckled in between beautiful manicured older developments, the nice college campuses, places where people rarely venture into their front yards to associate with their neighbors but spend hours politely maintaining their end of the bargain.

And never the twain shall meet. Is this libertarianism? Is it protectionism? Is it racism? Or is it just plain lack of a City Council having much idea how to pull it all together--before the treasure chest is emptied trying to encourage big business and special interests to spread Greeley around like melted butter on a counter top.

After a week of being under-enlightened and disillusioned over the lack of zoning and planning and with special interest editorials pouring out of the fingers of the staff at the Tribune I finally turned to my local "tour guides" and other acquaintances for answers. There are so many things to like about Greeley (especially the people) it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why they don't take more interest in their own town. Is it really easier to just move out and let the sprawl mafia take over?

We've spent more than a few hours over coffee educating Jane.

"Greeley is just a cow town that never really wanted to be a city but finds itself now a city..." I was told.

The light snapped on. Now I have been told a lot of other things as well but this item, above, just made all the pieces of the puzzle come flying together.

It makes sense why there has been little prudent economic development planning. My opinion of course. It makes sense why Greeley's overall strategic economic and development position is being more directed by regional economic planners and UNC's concept of business planning than it is by the City "Elders" shall we say. Greeley doesn't want to grow up to be something it doesn't want to be--a big city. Although it still isn't clear why the prairie palace developers are allowed to walk away with spreading out their wings and pooping all over Northern Colorado. I thought that is what zoning was all about and what the ranchers and farmers were all about--making sure that stuff didn't happen. But I digress.

The people in the castle on the hill (Greeley City Council and its Mayor) do not have enough incentive to be fully invested in the long term interests of the town. If you've ever been a public persona, well, let's just say it is a pretty thankless job unless you are paid a lot of money to focus your interest or at least given enough political clout to get a good seat in the top restaurant without waiting.

I once implied to a group of Greelians that someone ought to paid for putting 100% interest into the Greeley Good Ship Lollipop. This was upon finding out that the Mayor only receives a stipend as well as counsel members. Half the room, Republican fiscal conservatives, choked on their coffee while the other half politely explained to me that the Mayor really didn't do anything. Ed Clark might object but then again I heard he got elected on the basis of his pleasing personality and big night stick. Back to Jane's advisers, the main ladies in the room pointed out that mostly the council is white, retired, and special interest laden. (I already figured that part out but didn't think it would make me a very pleasurable coffee companion to bring it up). It was noted several are law enforcement types and public works service types without any serious background in economics and economic development. Makes sense if you take a look at the results of what they have been applying to Greeley over the years. Piecemeal cow town with a corral around any and every culture to keep them from "mixing" in with the herd. On a subconscious level no doubt.

After all I'm sure everyone would be thrilled to have a highly educated Somali with citizenship run for City Council. Right? Right? The point is to get the job done, right? Same with the local School Board. Right? It's who can do the best job not who can maintain the existing social status quo. We ended coffee chat at this point. Two many "rights" from someone labeled "left".

So I went home and took a look at the Greeley City Charter. Obviously not something to read over candlelight and a football game. Oh, that makes sense--the mayor gets the title of being executive officer but all the official powers and prerogatives of being executive officer have been gutted and handed over to the City Manager, Chief Administrative Official of the City. You have to read, sorry, a bit further to see the gutting of the fish. The actual authoritative decision making is given in detail over to the City Manager later on down the charter pages. An unelected official by the way. One that the electorate can't vote out of power if they should be unhappy. Not good on the direct representation or concept of democracy scale Greeley.

The proposed Charter provides that the Mayor shall be the Chief Executive Officer of the City, the City Council shall be the policy-making authority, and a City Manager to be appointed by the City Council for an indefinite term, the Chief Administrative Official of the City.

Who designed this burg, again? Oh yeah, it is a cow town. It doesn't want planning, design, regulation, zoning, and government. Just financial conservatism and corrals around all the "types" of people that are "different".

Well I hate to be the one that pops the balloon because I kind like the folksy cow town idea. I grew up around one of those. However it is hard not to point to the fact that while tending the cows the horse has now left the barn and ain't comin' back. Greeley is a small city. And it is a small city without any real obvious direction on how to create an effective government that will spend enough money to plan for the best future of the town at the least cost to the individual taxpayer. In other words fiscal constraint doesn't work without prudent investment and good long term social integration policies. It isn't just about today. It is about the infrastructure your children inherit tomorrow.

Yes, I'm sorry Virginia, there isn't any Santa Claus. Somebody is going to have to connect the cement sidewalks, water pipes, and city services to all those roaming red-nose developers in the middle of nowhere. That is you and me, babe. The guys back at the local Greeley government ranch are just gonna let the developers ride into town as tax free as possible and plop down where ever they point to the ground with the cry of "Jobs!" Tsssk. Tsssk. Then there is the whole issue of educating the public. All the public not just the kids in the charter schools on the right side of town. You want a real gang problem Greeley? Just refuse to invest and redevelop the "other" side of town. Disrespect breeds disrespect in any culture. Let education continue to fail the masses in District 6 and the lack of all day Kindergarten and textbooks for the kiddies won't be all that comes tumbling down.

Time to think of Greeley's value investment. Time to think of Greeley as an investment. Time to think of Greeley as a cow town that can kick ass if someone cares enough about it.

Diversity of business (Mom and Pops), economic development, revitalization of the downtown strip, redevelopment, education and gang management, and federal grant management hopefully is going to pop up on some one's view finder. Put the cow town politics to bed and start demanding someone manage the entire ranch and build good fences.

But then as the Greeley Tribune Cheerleader says today in its editorial, they are just happy so many citizens are interested in government. *Without really being paid to do the job (my addition). Yes, they are interested, I'll toast to that... but the real question is will the person they elect have to be the right color, the right sex, the right age group, local only, and do they have to represent a special interest or authority figure to get elected.

We, living in Greeley, already know the answer to this question... don't we?

Time for a change. Right turn Clyde.



Supreme Court Upholds Mill Levy Freeze

A Short Review of JBS Swift's Negative Publicity

Well this has been interesting. I didn't find any archived materials on old issues people have told me about involving JBS Swift. The Tribune recently covered the ICE Raid so I left that out. I had been told that JBS Swift was once called in front of Congress on the issue of bribing Sheriffs or authority figures in the Southeast States. I didn't find anything online about it though. I did find the following commentaries associated with the Brazilian probe. Keep in mind the source as you read. Reuters is a good source the others just seem to be going over the same content. If you click on the links you can get the entire articles.

The last link is to the Tribune's, light-weight, piece on the issue published a few days ago. It looks like a press release, pretty much intact, they have published from JBS Swift. I could be wrong. I am not very objective about the Tribune's "reporting" right now. I'll get over it. Eventually.

CORRECTED - UPDATE 2-Brazil beef giant JBS under police probe | Reuters

CORRECTED - UPDATE 2-Brazil beef giant JBS under police probe
Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:38pm EDT

(Corrects to show that Margen, not JBS, filed for bankruptcy protection, paragraph 11)

SAO PAULO, June 16 (Reuters) - The world's biggest beef processor JBS (JBSS3.SA) is under investigation by Brazil's federal prosecutor's office in a widespread corruption case that has targeted several companies in the beef industry.

Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter of beef, and its cattle industry has come under increasing criticism from environmentalists at home and abroad for its role in the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

Other meatpackers and leather companies including Bihl, Margen and Curtume Nossa Senhora Aparecida are also part of the investigation into the bribing of public officials, racketeering, corruption, fraud and collusion, a representative at the federal prosecutor's office told Reuters on Tuesday.

In an statement released earlier on Tuesday, the prosecutor said several people from the beef, dairy and leather industries were being rounded up and held in police custody in a broad-reaching sting operation spanning several states.

Big Meat to seize rancher’s home: Tyson vs. Herman Schumacher « Food Freedom

The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 (PSA) was established to protect family farmers and ranchers against unfair and deceptive practices by the highly concentrated meatpackers. In 2006, both the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that USDA had failed for nearly a decade to properly enforce the PSA. As a result, anticompetitive practices and anti-trust actions by the concentrated meatpackers have gone unrestrained, causing hundreds of thousands of cattle producers to exit the industry.

During the prolonged non-enforcement of the PSA, USDA implemented a new price reporting requirement, but made a horrendous mistake. Over a six-week period, from April 2, 2001, to May 11, 2001, USDA miscalculated beef values and underreported those values to the public. It was widely believed that Tyson and the other two largest meatpackers – Cargill Meat Solutions, d/b/a Excel Corporation (Excel), and Swift & Co. (Swift), now JBS Swift – knew that beef values were being underreported and were purposely underbidding the actual value of cattle. Prices paid for Schumacher’s and other cattle feeders’ cattle were forced lower during this period, causing producers to lose millions of dollars in income. USDA refused to take any action to correct this injustice.

JBS under investigation in Brazil | Drovers.com - Industry News

JBS S.A., along with a handful of other Brazilian companies, is under investigation by that country’s federal prosecutor in what is described as a widespread corruption case. Officials said Tuesday that 22 people have been arrested, and charges may include bribing public officials, racketeering, corruption, fraud and collusion.

In a statement issued Wednesday, JBS officials said the company is not involved in crimes associated with the Brazilian government's probe of alleged corruption among meatpackers. The company said it does not yet know the full details of the probe but is cooperating with federal authorities.

The investigation began about a year ago and developed into a broad-reaching sting operation called “operation slaughter” that spanned several Brazilian states. The prosecutor’s office said that officials at the Banco da Amazonia bank, and local and federal officials of several government offices and ministries are also involved. The prosecutor said companies under investigation had paid inspectors and public servants to approve projects and clear products such as meats for consumption.

JBS S.A. became the world’s largest beef processor last year and a major player in the U.S. market when it purchased Swift & Co. and Smithfield Beef Group. It also purchased Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, which owns 10 feedlots with a capacity of 1.5 million head. JBS also made a bid for National Beef, the fourth-largest U.S. beef packer, but that acquisition was terminated last February.

JBS S.A. is currently the world's largest beef producer and exporter, with a daily slaughtering capacity of 65,200 head, and the largest global exporter of processed beef. The company's operations include 22 plants located in nine Brazilian states and six plants located in four Argentine provinces, in addition to 16 plants in the United States, 10 in Australia and 10 in Italy. Additionally, JBS S.A. is the third-largest pork producer in the United States, with a slaughtering capacity of 47,900 head per day.

JBS S.A. denies involvement in government probe | Greeley Tribune

JBS S.A. has said the company is not involved in crimes associated with the Brazilian government's probe of alleged corruption among meatpackers.

JBS S.A. is the parent company of JBS USA which has headquarters in Greeley.

The Sao Paulo-based beef giant said federal police visited a JBS plant in Porto Velho, a city in the state of Rondonia, with a warrant to search and collect certain documents, according to Meatingplace.com.

JBS said it cooperated with the police, which collected documents including audit reports and copies of plant operations licenses. No electronic data storage devices, computer or any other kind of equipment was seized, the company said, "due to a lack of evidences that any crime was committed."

In a statement released Wednesday by the company it "affirms that it does not have any involvement in crimes associated with this Federal Superintendence of Agriculture investigation in the state of Rondonia, or in any other state.”

From the Greeley Tribune With Love To Jane

Got to love their timing. Just goes to show you can't ruffle the big dogs feathers. Thank you Mr. K. I hope JBS' public offering goes well.

From this evening's email. I've asked them to delete my profile.

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Amy Nickelson wrote:
Janepaudaux,

Hi, I’d like to thank you for your contributions to the www.greeleytribune.com comment boards. We encourage and appreciate dialogue between our readers. However, your posts have recently been brought to my attention by the online community. Specifically, we do not allow repeated promotion of personal Web sites in comment posts. This falls under the spamming violation in our Terms of Use, available via link at the bottom of each page of our Web site.

We ask all of our users to adhere to our Terms of Use. Therefore, we request that you stop posting a link to your personal blog with your comment posts. Failure to follow Terms of Use on our site will result in further action.

As an alternative, I’d like to suggest that you fill out your user profile on our site. You are welcome to post the link to your personal blog in the biography section of your profile. Other users will still be able to see it and link to your blog from there.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at the e-mail below.

Thank you,

Publish Post

Amy Nickelson
Online Community Manager
Northern Colorado Communication Group
970-352-0211, Ext. 11237
anickelson@northerncoloradocommunications.com

Kidney Failure--a JBS Byproduct for Greeley Citizens

It shouldn't have to come to people dying or losing their life savings for management to be held responsible. The voters of this country, of this community, should need to be smacked in the face with a decaying hunk of meat before understanding that the "good old boys" have hijacked the Good Ship Lollipop for their own bottom lines. Misfeasance and malfeasance are two different things but both can lead to a very unpleasant criminal trial. I suspect that nothing however could be as unpleasant as facing kidney failure. Premeditated murder by a gun or murder by corporate negligence is the same thing in my book even if the law may not agree with me. I don't care if upper management pressures middle management from their lofty white carpeted offices and throws profit and loss statements in their faces and threatens to fire them. Quit. Just quit. It isn't worth it. Integrity and a backbone aren't bad things to step into the coffin of poverty holding onto. JBS management needs to be held accountable for their bad practices and questionable history in a criminal court if negligent. No political white-washing. Hopefully the related records are not going through a shredder at this very moment. I wonder how chipper their public relations person will feel when they look in the mirror in the morning. Or the professor that called this a minor bump.

Egad something is rotten in Denmark. Have we given birth to the bastardisation of ethics fathered by Greed? Please let this be an isolated incident.

12 hospitalised in connection with E. coli in beef | Greeley Tribune

WASHINGTON — At least 12 people, two of them suffering kidney failure, have been hospitalised in connection with a possible E. coli outbreak in beef suspected of having sickened people in nine states, federal health officials said Wednesday.

The victims may have become ill after eating beef produced by JBS of Greeley, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. The number of people reported ill so far is 23.

Another addendum from the Tribune article

As part of the recall, The Kroger Co. said earlier this week that it is recalling packages of meat with “sell by” dates of April 27 to June 1 in the Cincinnati-Dayton region that includes northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana; and in western Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Illinois and eastern Missouri. The company said the suspect beef was sold under its store brands in more than a dozen states.

Soopers and City Market is Kroger. Now we have a label to potentially boycott. I'm bummed. I like the fact Soopers employs senior clerks. Maybe they will find another supplier for their label and upgrade to an organic beef line and give shopper's a better choice and better price than Safeway.