Doctor Dissatisfaction

By ARIELLE REICH

The Courant reports today:

Almost one in three Connecticut physicians are thinking about changing jobs or moving out of state because they are sick and tired of practicing medicine here.  The picture of doctor dissatisfaction comes from a survey of 1,077 practicing physicians commissioned by the Connecticut State Medical Society and published today in the society’s journal, Connecticut Medicine.  

There are a number of reasons behind the growing doctor dissatisfaction that need to be addressed.  Specifically, physicians points to high operating costs due to malpractice insurance rates and the high cost of living in the state.  The skyrocketing insurance premiums can be attributed to several factors, including the patients’ ability to sue doctors for negligent care, often receiving multi-million dollar awards as compensation for pain and suffering. The trend of spiraling awards often drives insurers out of the medical practice market, with the few remaining insurers driving up the premium rates to attempt to cover future lawsuit awards.

Rising malpractice insurance costs and fewer insurance companies willing to offer malpractice coverage only fuels the health care crisis. The high premiums also force doctors to charge higher rates, making health care less affordable and driving new patients away. The individual laws of the states, which vary widely, govern the way that medical malpractice claims are prosecuted. In Connecticut, a jury can render an cap-free monetary verdict, which leads to more expensive malpractice insurance for doctors across the state.

What should we do?

Medical society leaders said the results should serve as a blueprint for legislative changes that could improve the practice environment for doctors in Connecticut. The needed changes include cutting malpractice insurance premiums and expanding health insurance for low-income residents, although doctors were divided on the best way to provide health care for all.

The survey provides an important reminder to our legislators that health care reforms are crucial, not only for ensuring that everyone is given healthcare, but to remove the existing barriers that impede the delivery of care to our already practicing physicians.

Foul Language

By MICHAEL K. NORRIS

Suppose some crooks came upon your car and drained the gas tank. Now imagine you’ve called your motor club, and when they showed up with a jerrycan, they looked at you in the eye and said: “The fundamentals of your car are strong,” and drove away.   

If it were me, I’d chase them down on foot and shout at full volume. “No, you (expletive deleted)! The fundamentals of my car are not strong! It may have all the (expletive deleted) things a car should have but it doesn’t do the thing a car is supposed to do!”  I think you’ve figured out by now I’m talking about Congressman Shays, Senator McCain and President Bush. All three have said at some time or another (some more recently than others) some form of the expression “our economy is fundamentally strong.” It’s time to drag that meaningless phrase into a bathtub so we can drown it (to borrow an even sillier expression from Grover Norquist).

Political language can really suck for the listener. Saying that the economy is “fundamentally strong” is an easy way to avoid talking about serious problems and an easier way to dodge accountability. Especially since that particularly empty statement could’ve been said ten years ago when we all know the economy was in better shape. But it’s being said now as a filler in GOP political language that is getting more foul by the day.

Sometimes when you’re especially unlucky you’ll hear the author of the “Fundamentally strong” phrase follow up with something  else, such as ”the economy grew at 3.3% in the last quarter.”  I don’t care for using a measuring cup to determine distance, and the 3.3% growth figure doesn’t measure what’s happening with the person you know who has lost their health insurance, their job, their home, or some horrific combination of those three. Nor does it measure the implications for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history or any one of the complicated things that are happening in the economy.   

The few seconds it takes McCain, Shays or the like to utter this foul political language takes away from time they could be using to come clean about how years of GOP philosophy have completely failed or (gasp!) offer a new solution. In contrast, Jim Himes and Speaker Pelosihad the courage last Saturday to stand with a middle class Fairfield Country family who has fallen on difficult times to show us what the ‘fundamentals’ of an economy really look like and how complicated some of its problems really are. No sound bites, no filler, no nonsense language, no denial. 

I’ve decided to donate $5 to Himes’ campaign for Congress every day I hear foul political langauge from his opponent and/or his opponents’ backers (some people keep a swear jar in their homes; this is no different). I’m hoping more folks do the same since the GOP may use less foul language if they know it’ll line the coffers of their opponents. 

Advocate Article

By ARIELLE REICH

In case you missed it, here is a link to Andy Bromage’s article about Dan Malloy in the Advocate.  I think the author did a great job detailing Dan’s efforts in Stamford and some of his ideas for Connecticut’s future.

Read the entire article here.

Making a Difference

By DAN MALLOY

Being a delegate at the Democratic National Convention in Denver was a truly incredible experience.  I was amazed at the unprecedented level of enthusiasm that I saw for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and energized by the passion the Party had on display throughout the week. Senator Obama’s ability to inspire and engage a new generation of voters is something our country hasn’t seen in a long time, and something we need now more than ever.  As I witnessed this defining moment in our nation’s history, I thought of how important it is for us to mobilize on the local level, at home in Connecticut. That’s where I am hoping you come in. 

The challenges that our country faces are serious, and we’ll need strong leaders to make real, effective change in the coming years. Thankfully, President Obama will be ready on day one to boost our troubled economy, fix our broken health care system, ensure the safety of our troops, and protect the rights of all our citizens regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.  He knows what Democrats and even many Republicans know – we simply can’t afford four more years of the past eight years. 

To win, the campaign and the country need your help, and need it now.  Click here to make a donation to the Obama campaign. Anything you can give, whether it is $5, $25 or $2,300 dollars, your donation will make a difference.  This is one battle worth waging — the battle for America’s future.  I hope you’ll join us!

Can Education Prosper as the Economy Contracts?

By COLIN WILSON-MURPHY

Our current economic situation (housing downturn, $1.7 trillion in estimated credit losses looming, over 30% of corporate debt either distressed or defaulted, many high-profile companies such as Bear Stearns, Pope & Talbot and General Motors have already defaulted on corporate issuances) together with higher oil prices and other inflationary concerns, have led me to believe that the U.S. economy has been in a recession since the end of 2007.  While it is too early to know how long or deep the U.S. slowdown will be, or if global economic growth will prove sufficient to lessen the blow, there clearly has been a thematic shift in the financial markets from greed to caution.  With this shift back to more prudent re-pricing of risk comes the inevitable consequence of increasing US unemployment.  

In this contracting environment, the theory that laid-off workers will head back to school to learn new skills as the economy softens is a theory which many believe to be true.  However, what about those students that are currently in school? 

Can the same theory – people head back to school in an economic downturn – be taken one step farther and applied to current students?  For example, does it make sense that current high school students have an incentive to stay in school as we continue in this credit crunch?  In turn, over the next few years are states throughout the US going to report year over year increases in high-school graduation rates?  

Historically, states report high-school graduation rates in a variety of ways, but most say they exceed 85%. Said another way, a million high-school students drop out each year, according to research done for America’s Promise Alliance.  Will the financial pain that many Americans are currently facing actually produce a positive unintended consequence and keep students in school?

Pandering Politicians

By MICHAEL K. NORRIS

Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman said during Tuesday’s convention address that John McCain “never said no to a challenge.”

I guess Norm neglected to read the stories, most notably the one which appeared in The New York Times this week about out how Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Lieberman. Turns out John McCain wanted to select Joe Lieberman all along, but a handful of powerful delegates threatened to make a stink about Lieberman on the convention floor. So McCain backed off his first choice and settled for Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Like him or not, it was Lieberman who got passed over, and he wasn’t touring the country with John McCain to collect air sickness bags; he was reaching out to voters. The two have been friends for years, have always talked about the value of bipartisanship (even if neither of them meant it most of the time, but whatever) and McCain didn’t choose him. The media has been strangely silent about what that means.

As it turns out, some unrecorded moment in history, John McCain stopped being the gutsy maverick he once was and became just another politician who leased his soul to Bush/Cheney for a seat at the cool kids’ table. With his choice of Palin, he’s done it again; this time to social conservatives who rejected Lieberman, whose main failure in their eyes is he’s pro-choice.  Think of the John McCain we used to know. How would pre-Y2K McCain have responded to someone telling him he couldn’t pick his friend as his running mate?

“Joe’s my choice. That’s final. I want to talk to the American people about working together and bipartisanship and Joe’s the kind of person to help me do that. You want a floor fight? You go right ahead. Because after the Democrats’ incredible display of party unity I think television viewers would just love the contrast between their convention and ours. It would be the biggest hit YouTube has ever seen. And when it’s all over, Joe will still be the nominee and I will get more Democrat and Independent voters with him than I will lose social conservatives. I’ll get the White House without you and will make sure every Republican candidate who seeks higher office is going to know that. I look forward to the floor fight.”

Of course, McCain wouldn’t have won with Lieberman anyway since the public knows pandering career politicians when they see them. 

At any rate, McCain didn’t say those things: he’s a very brave soldier but a very cowardly politician.  Senator Coleman and the like can’t deliver the never-say-no-to-a-challenge line with conviction, and, after digesting the lies in Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s RNC speeches, I made a donation to Barack Obama’s campaign for the very first time. The choice of Biden tells me Obama considered the needs of the country before the needs of the ‘base.’