Politics USA: Healthcare Insurance: Single-payer systm 'inevitable,' says economics thinker Rick Ungar; Co-ops possible

"The inevitability of an American single-payer health system," by Rick Ungar (click blog-entry title just above to read Ungar's vital article appearing on the Policy Page, True/Slant (Sep20,2k9). This article, tho not from my own viewpoint, is vital reading in these days.

Virtually all large health insurance companies are publicly held; and public companies have a life force that is unlike any other. They are driven by the desire of current management to show improved profits of about 10% each year so as to sustain share price increases for the shareholders and compensation increases for management. Also understand that while public companies like to talk about the “long term”, the phrase has no true meaning to them.

Management and shareholders worry about this year’s numbers with an eye towards next year’s – and that is as far as it goes. Most shareholders and managers have no expectation of being around in the ‘long term.’ [Especially at the scale of coporations that are "too large too fail."]

Thus, while current management [personnel] of the large health insurance companies may very well realize that they cannot sustain their business model for the longer term, this is not something they can afford to worry about. Their shareholders want returns on their investment as management wants boosts to their compensation and they are looking for it now. The future will be someone else’s problem.

Take virtually any failed industry in America and you will see that the dynamic set forth above is inevitably true. Whoever ran General Motors before the CEO in charge when the industry fell apart probably knew what was down the road for the company. But it wasn’t his problem. An adept shareholder in GM who got out five years ago, really didn’t care where the industry was headed, nor did a CEO who had no plans to be around when the balls in the air crashed to the ground.

So, when the price of health insurance reaches the point where most Americans truly cannot afford it – and the numbers make it more than clear that the point will be reached and reasonably soon – what then?

Will ‘free marketers’ be out there arguing that we should just let the health insurers fail? After all,that’s how a pure, capitalist system is designed to work, right?

So severely distinguishing, Ungar has laid bare how the general capitalist investment ethos in North America, is deadly to the specific corporate interface between healthcare itself and insurance tailored to the task of the separate and sovereign sphere of providing that medical professional care (a signficicant part of "healthcare") in regard to the role of specifically medical healthcare insurance.

Unstated presupposition of the Ungar article: the only options for reform of American healthcare insurance is either the single-payer system (a socialist conception in origin -- but not necessarily socialist when advocated today, lest we fall prey to the genetistic fallacy [Albert Wolters] which often crops up in theoretical thawt and policy decision-making and -advocating) or an alleviated free-market system (on behalf of which many "conservative" public thinkers and rhetoricians are making extreme claims today). Capitalism ossified into an absolutist ideology -- regarding healthcare insurance, of all things!

Update, 2nd update Oct29,2k9; 1st, Sept28,2k9:

The next vital article I recommend to your reading today (second of three) is found at the webs+t of the rather conservative intellectual policy-organization, Heritage Foundation. The study I have in mind (they call it WebMemo #2493). Health Care Co-Operatives: Doing it the right way ," by Edmund F. Haislmaier, Dennis G. Smith, and Nina Owcharenko.

The latter three authors attempt to provide a working definition, at the outset of their brief, under the heading What are co-ops?, immediately contextualizing the question by making reference to Senator Ken Conrad's legislative efforts to write co-ops, independent of govt (thus, jettisoning the single-payer system), and thus, introducing more competition into the overall healthcare insurance industry. In that industry, various models of business enterprise -- individually owned, family owned, partnerships (these can be extremely simple as to internal structure, or very complex involving many persons).

Ungar does us the great service of showing how one form of business enterprise in the healthcare industry in the USA is that of the publicly-traded stockholder-owned legally limited to making a profit for the owners. This one form structures the entire industry and drives the exorbitant rise in fees to patients/clients/consumers of medical help.

Back to Haislmaier, Smith and Owcharenko: the authors of my second recommended article explains that

farmers established co-ops to market and distribute their produce, workers in some industries organized financial co-ops called "credit unions," purchasing co-ops offer members access to a variety of goods and services at favorable terms, and when the term "co-op" is used in New York city, the speaker most likely means an apartment building collectively owned by its residents.
The co-op concept is also longstanding and widespread in the insurance sector, where it is known as a "mutual" insurance company. Thus, such large well-known companies as Mutual of Omaha and Northwestern Mutual Life are in fact cooperatives. There are also successful smaller, niche-market mutual insurers, such as Church Mutual (which offers lines of property, casualty, and liability coverage for member religious institutions) and Jeweler's Mutual (which offers similar coverage lines for members engaged in making or selling jewelry).

When it comes to health care, a group that "organizes" coverage provided by insurers could be structured as a co-op, and a company that provides insurance could also be structured as a co-op. Both could be present in the same market.
Lots of organizations, some of which are member-owned cooperatives, help their members get access to various goods and services on preferential terms. For example, AARP performs this "organizing" function for its members when it arranges to get them access to discounts on travel, entertainment, and insurance. Members of a farm bureau often have access to similar products, such as financial and insurance benefits.
When it comes to buying health insurance, there are employer-based groups, such as the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce and the Cleveland Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), that organize coverage for their members' workers. It is also not hard to envision applying the same model to other groups of individuals. Any of the sponsoring organizations could be member-owned cooperatives.

In the case of cooperative or mutual insurers, while they are a longstanding feature in most other insurance markets, they are not found in today's health insurance market. Instead, current health insurers are organized either as stockholder-owned companies or as non-profits operated (at least in part and at least in theory) for charitable purposes beyond simply selling health insurance. ...

Ungar is blind to all these possiblities. He cannot offer an alternative to stockholder-owned healthcare insurers the stocks of which are traded publicly and legallybound to generate as much profit to the anonymous stockholders as possible (a good capitalist ideologue woud immediately add "in the long term"). Ungar shows why the present capitalist system of healthcare insurance in the USA cannot but help to continue driving the whole healthcare system into life-diminishing continuous crisis, if not collapse.

The article by Hailmaier et al, "Healthcare Co-operatives: Doing it the right way," helps advance my own knowledge of predecessors of the kinds of co-ops we need today. But where the trio mentions once and in passing, actually twice I see but vaguely, the faith- values-dimension of healthcare insurance. The Office of Faith- and Community- Initiatives has tawt us to speak first of the Faith factor, which I will do, and not miss the fact the "Community-Iniatives" are basically conceived as local, where "the community" is somewhat geographic.

But in regard to healthcare insurance, for the sake of relevance it is important to talk first of a faith-based healthcare insurance co-op. Doing so is only to be realistic about the American situation, its societal forces, its differing communities of values and mores, its religious demographics and their societal expression, as in the case of healthcare, and in the segment of the healthcare demographics is a desire for a christianly-principled healthcare insurance, with a differentiated moral distinction between it offerings and their costs as stipulated for various policies.

The co-op company here envisioned woud have an inner core of members, nationwide, who woud also maintain and participate in policy discussions, elect a board, assure the professional excellence of all employees. The policy discussions woud take place in local centers wherever they have been formed, across the country. The healthcare policies generated, launched (involves actual selling of policies), and maintained (processing, awarding, and denying claims) by the co-op company woud, lest there be any doubt, made available to all persons desiring to be a purchaser/client of the company and its clients, regardless of their creed or absence of such. They get an actuarially excellent cost-reductive healthcare policy, according to the requirements of the law (for instance, possible new federal legistlation that woud bar the co-op from denying policy purchases to persons who are living with pre-existing medical conditions. Pre-existing conditions that woud make some percentage of our customers / clients more of a risk than the average level of risk involved when the client-pool contains "no pre-existing conditions." But that is expected to become the law nationally and universally.

What a rapid rise of faith-based health insurance co-ops woud do to advance competition with the greed corporations that dominate the present healthcare insurance industry is thinkable today in America.

The final article reflects yet another dimension to be considered: like the old greed corps in the healthcare industry, the new Christian-principled national healthcare co-ops also woud be fashioned to comply with the new regulations, as pertinent.

Brian Wingfield and Aleksandra Kuczuga, "Financial Regulatory Blitz: A barrage of hearings this week is likely to revive opposition to key proposals" presented by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Forbes.com, Sept22,2k9).

The Treasury Secretary is expected to make the case for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and he'll say that regulation must prevent taxpayers from having to foot the bill for future government-funded bailouts, such as those for Citigroup, American International Group and General Motors. He'll also say that the administration's regulatory proposals will not establish a "fixed list" of firms of so-called Tier 1 financial holding companies, also known as firms that are too big to fail.

Wingfield & Kuczuga write anticipatively of Geithner's program for economic recovery, and regulatory reform, all at once. This coud have great and grave significance for structural renewal of the American economy (restructuration). It is important to realize that the healthcare insurance industry is an exceptional kind of industry that awt to have special rules ameliorating the severities of capitalist transaction for the mega-corporate healthcare insurance companies, like Humana (the fourth largest, and of considerable notoriety at the moment).

But, before further mentioning Humana, we move back a moment to the anticipation of regulatory Geithner (pronounced: Gayt•ner, I believe), wondering how these regulations may/coud apply to the unique industry where healthcare becomes a series of actuarial strategies to achieve the greatest profit possible for investors, not the care of healthcare policyholders. Healthcare insurance is only somewhat an industry in the economistic sense of maximizing profits for investors and stockholders. Towards a consumer protection scheme regulating the big banks and financials, Geithner and allies sawt to prevent exploitation of credit cardholders. This is it? This protects healthcare consumers from the two structural defects presented by Ungar.

As for the credit cardusers' protection, this has been set in motion, apparently. The ground was cleared in advance to a considerable degree:

The announcement by Representative Barney Frank, of Massachusetts, comes after weeks of consultations with other members of the fractious financial services committee that he heads. "White House pares its financial reform plan," by Stephen Labaton (Sept24,2k9, NYT)

By slightly modifying the administration’s plan, Mr. Frank appears to have found a middle ground to support the creation of a robust new consumer financial protection agency over the vigorous objections of the banking industry. The agency’s core mission would be to protect consumers from deceptive or abusive credit cards, mortgages and other loans.

Mr. Frank also announced an ambitious schedule to complete the House’s work on the legislation over the next two months. Recognizing that the revisions increased the odds of the bill’s passage, the Obama administration quickly embraced the changes.

I think that's a good thing -- the

Here's a tidbit on what the Humana corporate elite think of themselves, corporately speaking:

Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, is one of the nation's largest publicly traded health and supplemental benefits companies, with approximately 10.3 million medical members. Humana is a full-service benefits solutions company, offering a wide array of health and supplementary benefit plans for employer groups, government programs and individuals.

Over its 48-year history, Humana has consistently seized opportunities to meet changing customer needs. Today, the company is a leader in consumer engagement, providing guidance that leads to lower costs and a better health plan experience throughout its diversified customer portfolio.

There's a case-study tragedy in the midst of all this present round of publicity regarding Humana's having sent recently a letter to its all elderly and disabled folks who, as managed by Humana, are dependent upon the US's Medicare programs in these days when some assure the Medicare is or is almost bankrupt. Humana, no matter how exploitive it may hypothetically be (I do not know in any regard at present, but I've railed on about greedy profit-driven healthcare corporations) -- yet, it is my point here that Humana's letter is only a practice of due diligence toward those in its finanicial medical care, its elderly clients/patients, writing them about the uncertain horizon created for Medicare by the Congressional twists and turns, and the President's stance, regarding the reform of healthcare insurance.

One of the largest private health insurance providers in United State Humana sent a letter to its customers telling them they may lose some benefits if the government goes on with the Health Care reform and cuts funding for Medicare Advantage Plans. According to NPR "the Feds told the company to knock it off." The letter has spurred spats with Feds. ...

"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversees the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled and privately-run Medicare Advantage options, told Humana to stop all associated outreach until an investigation was concluded. CMS stated that Humana's letter suggests “that current health care reform legislation affecting Medicare could hurt "millions of seniors and disabled individuals who could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare advantage health plans so valuable."' The letter could violate federal regulations, it added"

As of this morning the America's Health Insurance Plans which is an industry trade group, expressed outrage that these plans would be excluded from corresponding with their members at a time when proposed cuts "will have a devastating impact on the health security of the more than 10 million seniors enrolled in the program. If these cuts are enacted, seniors will face premium increases, reduced benefits, and, in some parts of the country, will lose access to their Medicare Advantage plan altogether."

House Republican Leader John Boehner attempts to get the last word in by stating; "Would the Administration impose this sort of gag order if seniors were being given information promoting the Obama health care plan?

"Humana letter enlists Medicare customers against cuts," by Tyler Woods, PD, exclusive to E-Max Health (Sep23,2k9).

-- EconoMix

PoliticsUSA: Immigration: Why Rep. Joe Wilson shouted out at Obama Speech

I suggest a political understanding of Joe Wilson's shout-out during President Obama's special speech to a Joint Session of the US Congress (House of Reps and Senate together, plus of course the Cabinet and the Czars). An understanding of Joe's shout-out which credits the concept of political frustration as something of a ground, which was explicitly irritated in Joe's psyche when the Prez made apparently false claims regarding healthcare-framework ideas in regard to automatic free healthcare for illegal aliens.

Now, I tend to think (speculate) Joe coudnt bear to sit there and have his visage telecast back to his South Carolina 2nd district's constituency, and not speak up on the issue that heats them up more than any--namely, illegal immigration. So, when the Prez soared into television-rhetorical niceties (to his mind) on healthcare and who was going to be helped (and who not); he put Joe on the spot in regard to a House District in SC where his watching constituents largely do not want to pay anything for illegal aliens and/or undocumented workers receiving healthcare at the expense of homegrown Americans, legal residents and documented workers.

The Prez, instantly putting Joe on the spot, misrepresented the plans for healthcare in both Houses, and simply asserted in the speech of ownership (of his own healthcare plan), thus making now a distinct Obama plan alongside all the others -- and insulting people who dont want free-flow illegal entrants, and up until that moment had been getting figures from the government of 47 million without care, including 12 million illegal immigrants. Either Joe did not quite hear Obama's shift to 30 legitmate million Americans are without care, excluding illegals and undocumenteds -- either Joe did not hear the shift of figures by which the Prez excluded these at least 12 million illegals, when they previously were in the single-payer healthcare plan/s that just went belly up; or Joe did not believe the Prez's claim.

So, there was the President calling out lies, lies, lies to all the critics in order to blunt their critiques with no one able top speak back, labelling as "lies" every criticism of the illformed-plan/s, while one constituency's Rep Joe Wilson spoke out "You lie!" -- directly communicating to his home district that he coud not in good conscience sit meekly by, while Obama beat on these opponents of the healthcare plans' planned entitlement of illegal aliens, raising the costs of healthcare to citizens, legals and documenteds.

I doubt Joe planned his "outburst," but it must have come from the pressure of the situation where he was splashed with Obama's insulting intemperance, the telecasting, and his own constituency. Immediately after, Joe had to get his head together; in the morning he did what must be done, apologize. But I doubt he has regret. He was involved in a political trade-off: keep quiet or seize the moment.

As the dust settled, Representative Joe Wilson won the day not only with his home constitutency but also nationally. He made an apology but refused to prostrate himself before Fancy Nancy the Trigger and her minions.

-------------------------

Obama-supporter, Wilson-attacking reporter Brian Montopoli in "Wilson explosion a boon to challenger" (CBS News, Sept 10,2k9) incorrectly claims the Prez's "proposed healthcare reform woud not extend to illegal aliens." Montopoli actually interjects his own perception and judgment " -- which is essentially true -- ." This questionable interjection arouses the suspicion that in some respect it is quite untrue, but of course nonessentially.

After President Obama said last night that his proposed healthcare reforms would not extend to illegal aliens – which is essentially true – Wilson shouted out "you lie!," prompting shocked responses from other lawmakers. Wilson later apologized amid condemnation from some colleagues.

I suggest that Wilson was correct in there being some lack of veracity in Obama's lawyerlike sl+t of hand and stretch of condors' wings, flailing at those he cast enemies of healthcare.

What colors my thinking here is the fact that the very next day, the Census Bureau made public figures revised up to near the 47 millions level, not including illegals. So, if illegals are included on top of the new official figure, the arithmetic is say 45 millions + 12 million illegals and undocumenteds. Now, I've never yet seen online the augmented 57 total number of new people going onto govt-supported healthcare, apparently. If I'm incorrect please help me with better stats (accompanied by URLs for documentation). Thanks to anyone who helps my math gain greater clarity and accuracy! as I continue my reflection.

Why then did Obama in his speech reduce the number of those without healthcare insurance to 30 million?

And then, finally on my line of thawt, does the following add to the case for Joe's intervention, proving that his statement during the Joint Session was not false? -- however uncivil it may have been. David Smith, "Obama: Legalize illegals to offer them healthcare" (Sept 18,2k9, Dallas County Republican Examiner

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were on hand Wednesday, September 16th for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's awards dinner honoring Marc Anthony. The President spoke on health care and illegal immigration, stating that no illegals would be covered under pending legislation. However, he also stated that the country's immigration system was broken and that we should work to fix the system in order to provide health care for those here legally.

In other words, amnesty for illegals, health care for legals, and the Democrats get to fulfill all promises and the media largely skirts the matter and the President's promises largely go unreported. Has anyone else seen the following on major media, television news or even FOX for that matter?

Politics Mideast: Iran: protesters chanting “death to the dictator” as they walked down Valiasr Street, Tehran, I ran

In Iran, the govt anticipates the end of the month of Ramadan, and sponsors a Jerusalem Day. This year, thousands of opposition demonstraters held a parallel march, including along Valiasr Street that cuts across much of the city of Teheran (protest demos took place in several other cities as well).

In the official program, Prez Ahmadi-Nejab raised his anti-semititic denial of the Holocaust to new h+ts, apparently moving in the style of his expression, from the word "myth" to "lie" -- that is, the Iranian re-elected but protested Prez says the Holocaust is a lie.

Source: Robert F. White, "Amid protests, Iran leader calls Holocaust a lie" (Sept18,2k9, New York Times).

-- Politicarp

Ideas: Journalism: Where does evolution leave God?, Karen Armstrong vs.Richard Dawkins, Wall Street Journal op-ed

Fascinatingly different answers to a newspaper's question ....

Then, there's the Bible's version, In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth ....

Politics USA: Economy: Christian healthcare co-op?, not as advocated in refWrite

Transcipt from CNN Newsroom (Aug17,2k9). Along with the teaser at the top of the transcript, I include a passage quoted from CNN's text:

Obama Administration Softens on Public Option; Health Insurance Co-Ops; Gays Tortured, Killed in Iraq; Blue Dog Democrat Town Hall; Christian Health Care Co-op; Your Electric Bill; Tracking Three Storms Simultaneously; Health Care For All?

HARRIS: Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter stepped back into the fray over health reform today. The senator held a town hall meeting earlier in Philadelphia. Specter says the anger he's seen at some of the meetings is directed at partisan bickering and he's not a part of that. After the meeting, Specter weighed in on the public insurance option. He supports it but says it's not the only option.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, (D) PENNSYLVANIA: I have favored a public option. I believe that the president has to make the evaluation as a matter of leadership as to what the administration wants to do. But there is an alternative to the so-called public option by having co- ops. And I think these matters are subject to exploration. But I would not make a determination that the success of health care reform legislation turns on any one item.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Co-ops. You heard the senator mention co-ops. Health insurance co-ops. We keep hearing them mentioned as a possible alternative to a public insurance option, but how do they work? CNN's Kate Bolduan explains how a Christian health care co-op is meeting one group's insurance needs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the health care debate rages on in Washington, we decided to get outside the beltway. We're heading to Philadelphia to take a look at one alternative people are turning to.

BOLDUAN (voice-over): It's called bill sharing. In this case, a large group of Christians pool their money to cover each other's medical costs. It's not conventional insurance and it's not regulated. Christian activist Shane Claiborne is a member of one, Ohio-based Christian Healthcare Ministries.

SHANE CLAIBORNE, CHRISTIAN CO-OP MEMBER: One of the things I like about it is it's relational and I can see exactly where my money's going.

BOLDUAN: ... Claiborne ... moved in to this rough Philadelphia neighborhood to help clean it up, like this former drug den he took us to.

CLAIBORNE: We talk a lot about practicing resurrection. So, for us, this is a part of it. We bring abandoned spaces to life and try to make thing beautiful.

BOLDUAN: It is rough work. Claiborne was jumped a few years ago, landed in the hospital with a concussion and broken jaw. That's when his health care stepped in.

CLAIBORNE: You get this bill for $10,000 or $12,000 and then we ended up paying like $6,000 of it. And because I had, you know, thousands and thousands of people carrying that bill with me, I was able to just write -- you know, we just wrote a check for it.

BOLDUAN: The ministry negotiated directly with his doctors to lower the bill. Executive Director Howard Russell says the core of their success is the 20,000 members who have met conditions that include not smoking and being a practicing Christian.

HOWARD RUSSELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHRISTIAN HEALTHCARE MINISTRIES: If everybody in America had the provisions that our members have, there wouldn't be a health care crisis.

BOLDUAN (on camera): It's like a health care cooperative. A community-based, non-profit organization owned by its members. A group that uses its strength in numbers to negotiate competitive rates with health care providers. And that's an idea gaining traction on Capitol Hill.

BOLDUAN (voice-over): Robert Burns, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania, says the key to co-ops is size, 20,000 to 50,000 enrollees minimum needed.

A more reformational Christian approach, as I'd envision it, woud welcome non-Christians as members for insurance purposes, as long as they covenant to go with the leadership and policies voted by the confessing membership that devotes time and relationality as in the case of FaithLife in Canada (which is now open to members of a church in the Canadian Council of Churches and/or the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada), as well as approving outside charities to which a small percentage of returns on a given coop's investments woud be directed.

I can't envision a self-titled healthcare coop that woud pay for abortions, and yet carry the name "Christ" or "Christian" (but there are a scattering of Christian hospitals that do perform abortions}. But I can evision, while an actuarial difference (reflected discriminately in the difference in premiums to be paid by a family of four with no smokers, and a family of four with two smokers, for instance), I woud not be so moralistic as to rule out coverage for smokers or drinkers (Liberty insurances when it was owned by the DeMoss family, operating out of Valley Forge, enticed oldsters and others to promise to abstain from alcoholic beverages).

It seems the question of ethos and healthcare insurance morals, medical moral rules that connect with a demographic segment and come to be determinative for a particular medical healthcare insurance-group as it forms around an original declaration of values to guide its policies, and then perdures (that may differ from coop to coop for healthcare insurance): the way mores appear in the various coops woud have to be faced separately by each Christian healthcare coop in the kind of healthcare policies each markets as its distinctive but competitive (in ideas and of course in dollars that result in a set of prices for premium charged to those who buy that coop's policies).

I'm not disdaining what these bill-sharers are doing, outside the sphere of govt regulation. Yet, the thawt sneaks into my mind that it all sounds like a heavily disguised pyramid scheme to me. Or, some pre-known religious-communal groupage who substitute a bill-sharing ethos for what seems to be more normative today when h+ly differentiated regulated insurance offerings where premiums are paid, say monthly. In the Christian Healthcare Co-Op I woud envision, there woud be no problem with atheists who bawt their policies. To vote in a CHC Co-op's policy-orientations (including moral questions) or staffing decisions, a closer connection than that of policyholder, people who woud become full members and participate in the articulation of the medical-insurance ethos and the ethics that thinks theoretically and modal-scientifically. Like the reformational ethics of profession brawt to the fore by the new wave of Reformational professors at public institutions in the Netherlands.

For instance Maarten Verkerk, who was introduced to refWrite readers already. ; Jan van der Stoep, Ede who "studied biology at Wageningen University and Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In 2005 he obtained his doctorate on "Pierre Bourdieu and the political philosophy of multiculturalism "(Kampen: Kok publishers); and Henk Jochemsen, who has considerable expertize that coud conceivably be focussed as well on an American nationwide Christian Healthcare Co-Operative Insurance Company that coud afford to get the best possible reformational advice worldwide. I woud have two recommendees:

Henk Jochemsen

Dr. Henk Jochemsen (1952) studied Molecular Biology at the Agricultural University in Wageningen. The work for his PhD thesis concerned a subject in pre-clinical cancer research at the State University in Leiden (1979). From 1980-1986 he and his family pioneered in studentwork in Paragu­ay with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. In addition to the student work dr. Jochemsen held the chair in Molecular Biology at the National University in Asunción for five years, and taught Christian Ethics at a Bible College in Asunción for two years.

After his return to the Netherlands (1986) he got involved in the Prof.dr. G.A. Linde­boom Institute, a private centre for medical ethics that was being founded at that time. Since 1987 he is the director of this Institute. In this capacity he has written and (co)edited articles, reports and books, mainly in Dutch, but also in English, German and Spanish. He is a member of the ethics commission of the Federation of Associations of Patients with Congenital Diseases, and advisor of a few other organisations in health care in the Nether­lands . As an ethicist he was involved in the national debate on predictive genetics in the mid nineties and in the debate on cloning in the late nineties and he has been consulted on medical ethical matters both nationally and internationally.

Since the beginning of 1996 he is coordinating the research at another private ethical institute, the Institute for Culture Ethics, at Amers­foort , that is involved in research on ICT (in education and the media), sustainable development and business ethics.

Since January 1, 1998 he holds the Lindeboom chair for medical ethics at the Free University in Amsterdam .

Since September 1, 2002 he is part time lector/professor in the ethics of care at the Ede Christian University for higher professional education.

Currently he is an Advisory Board member of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (Trinity International Universi­ty , Bannockburn, IL ) and a member of the European Editorial Board of the journal'Ethics and Medicine'.

Even more recently Jochemsen was appointed to the special chair for Reformational philosophy, at Wageningen University.

My other recommendee for any broadly-based Christian Healthcare Co-operative Company6 is former Sen William Frist, for his leadership ability and for his global medical horizon. But ... later ...

-- Politicarp


Some publications of Prof Henk Jochemsen

H Jochemsen.
Gevaarlijke genen ?? Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar vanwege de Stichting Prof.dr. G.A. Lindeboom Instituut opde bij de faculteit der geneeskunde van de Vrije Universiteit gevestigde bijzondere leerstoel voor medische ethiek [Inaugural Address upon the launch of the office of reformational professor of the Lindeboom Institute's Foundation in consortium with VU's special professorship in medical ethics. Jun3,1998. (Amsterdam: VU publications, 1998.)


H. Jochemsen.
Bezinning op beelden in biotech en ICT. In: K. Boersema, J. van der Stoep, M. Verkerk, A. Vlot (red.). Aan Babels stromen. Bevrijdend perspectief op ethiek en techniek .
Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn 2002: 77-90.


H Jochemsen.
Hoe humaan is het humaan genoom project ?
Radix 26 (2000) nr. 3, p.137-158.


H Jochemsen.
Medical genetics: its presuppositions, possibilities and problems.
In: C. Romano, G. Grassani (red.). Bioetica. Turin:UTET 1995:291-308.


H Jochemsen.
The fallacy of reducing people to genetics, in: JF Kilner et al. (ed). Genetic ethics: do the ends justify the genes?
Grand Rapids : Eerdmans/Paternoster Press 1997.


H Jochemsen.
Is cloning compatible with human rights and human dignity? In: Wagner T, Carbone L. Fifty years after the declaration. The United Nations' record on human rights. (New York : University of America Press 2001, p.33-43.


H. Jochemsen (ed.) (with contributions of E Garcia, A Meir, R Harris and H Jochemsen).
Human stem cells: source of hope and controversy. A study of the ethics of stem cell research and the patenting of related inventions
Ede/Jerusalem: Prof.dr. G.A. Lindeboom Institute/ Business ethics center of Jerusalem , 2003.


H Jochemsen.
Biotech and public policy - the European debate. In: Charles Colson, Nigel M. de S. Cameron (eds). Human dignity in the biotech century (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press 2004: 200-220.)

Politics USA: Economy: Wall Street warned of strict enforcement of new regulations, no more bailouts

At last, President Barack Obama has indicated a strong approach to the financial sector, particularyly superbanks and brokers, like Lehman Brokers, which bellied up in the meltdown. A thawt may be formulated: which the govt allowed to belly up, quickly absorbed by a competitor finance/bank company.

Of course, the particularly r+twing media, particularly FoxNews.com economic ideologues, has piled on Obama for his increase of regulation over this particular industry. South Carolina Republican member of Congress, Jim DeMint, reduced the move on the basis of his time-frozen opposition to regulation in principle. Reformational philosophy and economic thawt informed by it has never weilded the slogan "No regulation by govt" in regard to the relation between our American govt and our American (relatively) free enterprises. I should at least in passing note that Obama has often cited the historical tradition of President's calling for health reform in America, he citing Teddy Roosevelt's advocacy 100 years ago.

I've chosen a passage for quotation a passage by Henry J. Pillizi and Eleanor Laisse, Obama urges Wall Street not to ignore lessons of crisis"m (Wall Street Journal, Sept14,2k9).

Mr. Obama's speech at Wall Street's Federal Hall marks the one-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers' failure. Since then, the government has undertaken an unprecedented effort to stem the financial meltdown, including the Federal Reserve's quantitative-easing measures, the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, initiatives Mr. Obama said are beginning to pay off.

"While full recovery of the financial system will take a great deal more time and work, the growing stability resulting from these interventions means we are beginning to return to normalcy," he said. "But what I want to emphasize is this: normalcy cannot lead to complacency."

Mr. Obama's planned overhaul would dramatically rewrite the rules of the road for the U.S. financial sector, with new protections for consumers and safeguards against the potential collapse of more big banks. But it is unclear if Congress can unite behind a revamp on Mr. Obama's timetable, given the time-consuming debate over health care and disagreements between lawmakers on the major components of the overhaul.

US: Economy: Poverty increases for American by millions due to recession, says US Census Bureau in annual report

Analysts Carol Morello and Dan Keating reporting for Washington Post (Sept11,2k9) baldly declares

Millions more

thrust into

Poverty

Decade of Headway in Household Income Erased, Census Data Find

A new comprehensive economic survey shows that the recession has plunged 2.6 million more Americans into poverty, wiped out the household income gains of an entire decade and pushed the number of people without health insurance up to 46.3 million.

The grim economic statistics unveiled Thursday in the Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance are destined to grow bleaker. Since the data were collected in the spring, millions of people have lost their jobs.

The entire 2-digipages article is important to read to get a key documented and presumably non-partisan statistical analysis of poverty USA, events and apparent trends, and an array of factors (a multifactoral historiographical work of nearly-contemporaneous days to our own, really!) -- of course such docs are riddled and grilled with question marks by the early regiment of analysts analyzing the foundational doc of stats, but there's hardly anything more objective -- except the actual definition of, say, a family of four earning $22,000 annually.

There are Christian economists who woud make such a definitive statistical study on the topic at hand -- trends increasing the number of unemployed poor in America, and the role of the sequence of events Freddie & Fannie instrumentalizing the policy of mortaging insolvents, the gaming of the foregoing that enflamed a financial overburn that resulted in the Wall Street Meltdown, the TARP Bush-Obama Stimulus, and now the Healthcare Showdown @ ~Okay Corral -- as the methodologically favoured discourse consequent to the Preferential Option for the Poor, a Vatican II doctrine, that is the foundation of faith itself it woud seem to Roman Catholic leftwingers and socialjustice activists. God bless them, as He sees fit, I woud say.

Now, a funny thing happened on the way to this blog-entry. I heard the figure of 47 millions of Americans without healthcare. We all heard that in the early days of the quantification of how many govt-insured woud get healthcare, but who didnt have any health insurance. That figure was soon itself analyzed: how many in the 47M class are illegal aliens in USA?

In the media, the figure got whittled down subset by subset of the original figure. It was first sliced by a discount of illegal/undocumented aliens who accounted for 12 or so Millions. Then it was cut by young people who woud rather risk

Then, did I hear wrong when President Obama himself accepted a large part of the whittling down by the media, himself coming to the 30M figure. Didnt I hear him say this while he gave one of last week's hustles on TV? Didnt I hear responsible punditi acknowledge that the Prez acknowledged in his "State of the President" Address to both Houses of Congress, did these punditi not notice his concession in the counting of people to be covered who are otherwise unable to insure themselves against medical exigencies in their lives?

But if I'm not completely stoned, I woud maintain that the Census Bureau's annual report examines statistically by several factors the number of those without healthcare insurance. What about the whittling down from 47 to 30?

Update:
There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage. The foregoing is quoted from the text of the speech (Sept 9,2k9), available at the White House website, scroll down about a sixth of the long digipage.

-- EconoMix

War: Pakistan: Pakistani irregular forces in/near Swat Valley aligned actively against Taliban

The Pakistani English-language press is taking notice of tribal irregular forces who have their own complaints against "the Americans," but who are effectively f+ting the Taliban who have recently tried to take the Swat Valley and then to move on into neiboring districts.

Tribal lashkars pushing Taliban back

* Military says lashkars effectively helping to eliminate Taliban
* Lashkar members praise US for democracy but hate its interference in other countries

Daily Times Monitor, Pakistan

LAHORE: Volunteers as young as 16-year-old Akbar Zaid have joined tribal militias to push back the Taliban from their areas, and have vowed to help the military fight the terrorists, a report by CNN said on Friday.

"I'm doing it for peace," Zaid said, who wants to be a teacher.

Military officials credit the militias, locally called lashkars, with helping chase the Taliban out of Swat and neighbouring districts that were once their terror kingdoms.

"By their nature, they're very tough," Pakistani army Major Hasnain Shah said of these lashkars. "They're sacrificing their lives just to protect their own values and to help us out," CNN quoted Shah.

One of these lashkars, the Soltan Kheil lashkar, is made up of 500 gunmen from Lower Dir. The group says they protect their villages against the Taliban fighters in the bordering Swat valley.

The men, having rugged faces and chapped hands and most have rifles strapped across their shoulders.

Asked what they liked most about the US, one said, "It's a democracy."

"They like peace in their country," said another.

But they abhor the fact that the US was “cruel to Muslims" and “interferences with other countries".

"They promote peace within their borders, but they're against peace in other countries," another told CNN.

The lashkar's headquarters are perched atop a mountain range. Swat is to the east and Lower Dir to the west.

"This is the main passing point," said Malik Zaib Khan, the lashkar’s leader. “If we left it open, the Taliban can easily go back and forth."

The fighters go without pay and without their families and a member, Azizul Rehman, said he had not seen his four daughters and two wives in a month. "We're trying to stop the Taliban and establish peace," he said.

These damn wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, a solid beam of l+te woud be most appreciated these days. -- Politicarp

Healthcare USA: Politics: Prez misses chance to warn school kids and Congress about flakey mutations of incoming flue

The incoming flues are mutating most aggravatingly. Now, if Prez Obama last week coud have used his address to teach handwashing etc to the kids, if a few days later (last nite actually) he had included the imminent threat of a pandemic and urged constant handwashing of the Congressmen (like Pilate), he mite have avoided his own personal Katrina.

Afghanistan: Election Juridics: Recent vote in Afghanistan annulled as "fraud" by the Electoral Complaints Commission

Very, very sad .... will there by a 'run-off' vote? -- since Hamid Karzai's totals are too fraudulent to allow him a majority of the vote, say 53% in this first round, a second vote seems necessary. But will it function in any fairer a manner?

-- Politicarp

Politics UK: Labour Backbencher: Jon Cruddas MP speaks out at Party's summer lecture Compass

Jon Cruddas, a Labour Member of Parliament in the UK, has taken the intellectual leadership of the party, according to Allegra Stratton, "Jon Cruddas urges return to Labour core values" (Sept8,2k9, Guardian)

He recommended a list of policies which he described as a route map for Labour renewal, including replacing tuition fees with a "graduate solidarity tax", to be paid by graduates when they went over the basic rate of taxation, with the money earmarked for higher education; putting a fair employment clause in all public contracts; introducing windfall and transaction taxes; and resetting capital gains taxes. He pushed for the remutualisation of the finance sector and a credit card bill of rights for consumers and urged Labour to set up a high pay commission.

Cruddas's criticism of Labour -- which he describes as "meekly" accepting as forthcoming, a Tory election victory -- comes after his reluctance to join June's attempted coup against the prime minister effectively shored up Brown's position. Former cabinet minister James Purnell, whose resignation nearly toppled Brown, appeared alongside Cruddas. They have assumed unofficial status as the key thinkers on the future of the party after Purnell left the government saying the prime minister was hindering Labour's chances of winning the next election. He is now working for the Demos thinktank canvassing opinion on the future of the left.

You can also get a slant on the Conservative Party leader, trying to become the new Prime Minister, by clicking up Patrick Wintour and Nicolas Watt, "Government spending: Tories launch battle of the cuts. (Sept8,2k9, Guardian).

Calendar: Labor Day 2k9: Time to muse on work, work representation, and the adversarial labour relations of North America

Labor Day greetings to all workers, and
thanks to God when good works come along.

Healthcare USA: Juridics: Tort-reform MD gives doctors' side of the problem their practices attract

Dr Marc Siegel, on the FoxNews Health blog, "Tort Reform and Medical Practice" (Aug28,2k9).

In the current push for national health insurance, expensive overuse of technology based on the defensive practice of medicine by doctors is being overlooked. Yet doctors often over-order tests and treatments for fear of missing a remote diagnosis. Doctors are afraid of being sued by the same aggressive trial lawyers who lobby Congress against real reform. Keep in mind that it isn’t just a dreaded error like removing the wrong kidney that motivates doctors to practice defensively, it is the fear of lawyers and having to meet with them as part and parcel of responding to arbitrary lawsuits. Doctors who have done nothing wrong can be targeted with frivolous suits that drag them into the lawyer’s office. The process of having your records scrutinized in an effort to determine how well you’ve documented things and if you’ve made errors can be instructive, but it can also be humiliating. This process can alter the way a doctor practices as he or she struggles to avoid the nightmare of legal exposure in future.

I'd been watching for a good treatment of the Tort issue that are said to drive the rising costs of healthcare (I doubt that as a generalization, but acknowledge of course the problem of patients, scammers, and ambulance-chasing lawyers).

But notably, the doctor-propagandist makes no room for a case like that of the 15-yr-old woudbe h+school football player who was ignored by his coach until the kid collapsed on the field, was sent still alive to the doctors at a certain hospital who cared for the boy somewhat until he died three days later, upon which the "medical examiners" refused to mandate an autopsy to determine factors in the boy's death. This is a case of rationing procedures, presumably to hid the real cause of death.

Siegel's article remains quite informative despite its one-sidedness.

-- Politicarp

Politics: Turkey/PKK: Iraqi Kurds situation with h+ regional stakes and arcane metaphors/symbolisms, particularly in Turkey

Only a student of arcane Turkish metaphors and symbolization, coud be expected to comprehend Turkey today, certainly not with a click and a change of slide projected on the wall.

What's more Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's rapprochement with Armenia is a melt of an Ice Age in Turkey's exceptionalism from most of the Europe it wants to join. The fact that Turkey has been doing "billions of dollars worth of business with Iraqi Kurds for some time now, in every field from constructation to telecommunications" speaks volumes as well as dollars. If Erdogan's foreign policy, which I called "the Turkish Melt" were applied to also Armenia, perhaps there woud be billions in every field where both countries can have a good balance of trade bilaterally.

If the same sane policy coud be developed in relative inconspicuity, with Israel, but also with Lebanon and Greece and Greek Cyprus. Turkish Cyprus is too isolated -- the extreme division of peoples, lands, and exchange is a serious block to peace generally for Turkey too -- and Europe shoud intervene on behalf of Turkish Cyprus.

How my imagination grows,
each rose becomes a pot,
each pot becomes a plot,
I have roses by the lot.

... something like that from the Broadway show Fiorello, about onetime New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia! The marvellous ditty is sung by his wife and is elevated to the sublime by the irony of the final details, overwhelming.

In any case, whether a pipedream or not, I look forward to more slow change in Turkey under Erdogan. I continuously pray for the elevation of the Greek Orthodox Turks and the reinstatement of their seminary as a world-signficant institution of h+er education, spirituality or not. It shoud be legally recognized in full, allowing it to become a seminary within a Christian Orthodox university in the environs of Istanbul.

-- Politicarp

Politics: Healthcare USA: Pelosi woud like her hand firmly on a trigger to shoot down health insurance co-ops and forprofits

Government Insurance 'Trigger' Draws Bipartisan Criticism in Health Care Debate

"Lawmakers are considering a "trigger" in the health care reform package, which would keep a government-run insurance plan on reserve. But liberals complain the trigger would likely prevent a public option from ever being implemented. Conservatives complain, to the contrary, that it would act as a surefire public option -- only several years down the road." FoxNews (Sept9,2k9).

While I think epithetization of "Pelosi the Trigger" is fair play, due to her partisan meanness in excluding Republicans from the core negotiations, so as to get a bipartisan proposal for healthcare insurance reform that 80% of both parties could agree to. She seems too mean in her utter partisanship.

Now, the public option does not lead among the proposals on the table in House and Senate, tho an effort of recovery of an active status is being made by farleft Senators and the Progressive Democrat Caucus in the House.

-- Politicarp
text rewritten Sept28,2k9

Politics USA: Education: Prez's propaganda TVcast to nation's kids continues to roil parents and media

A rush transcript from Fox's news program Special Report begins with a brief intro remark from the panel's moderator, Bret Baier, live Sept3,2k9:

Fox's news-show 'Special Report' Panel on White House's Controversial Lesson Plan [for School Kids] (Sept4,2k9)

Baier: The Department of Education did adjust the lesson plan that was accompanying the president's speech Tuesday to the nation's schoolchildren. They took out the part where the kids were supposed to write essays about how they can help President Obama.

So what about this? Let's bring in our panel: Steve Hayes, senior writer (The Weekly Standard); Mara Liasson (National Public Radio), and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. ...

MARA LIASSON, National Political Correspondent, National Public Radio: I think they did the right thing by taking that sentence out. There is nothing wrong with the president giving a speech on back-to-school day, inspiring students and telling them to work hard and achieve their goals.

But there is something wrong about telling students that they should write essays about how they can help the president of the United States. That's just wrong, and it was some boneheaded bureaucrat in the Department of Education cooked that up and they were right to take it down.

BAIER: But to see the backsplash, if you will, from all these folks, if you will, saying how wrong it is to raise the question that the president would try to indoctrinate students to his political agenda, and all this talk.

You know, you see the left talkers out there saying how wrong it was to bring this up. Steve, the administration said, obviously we were wrong to put this in there in the first place.

STEVE HAYES, Senior Writer, The Weekly Standard: I think this is a case — look, I'm like Mara. I'm not particularly troubled at the idea that President Obama would give a speech to the nation's schoolchildren.

I don't agree with him on a lot. That's clear. I think he is a good role model. We could do a lot worse than have our kids look up to someone like President Obama.

That said, there is something creepy about how the Department of Education handled this. It wasn't just that question about how can you help the president and what has he inspired you to do? And their revision of that question is not what has he inspired you to do? It is has he inspired you to do anything? It is sort of a silly revision.

So you can see, given the amount of politicization I think we have seen from this administration broadly, you can see why people's concerns have been raised. But I do think some of the conservative talkers on this have gone overboard, making accusations that I think aren't supportable.

Obama's Department of Education is steering him into a stalinesque cult of personality (but in this case tailored to the youngest in an AmericanDisneyland-style ... you know the stalinesque background to Disneyland and Martel-micry consumerism)... But, yes, "stalinesque" if we extrapolate from the usual adult-focussed targets of such manipulation to the manipulation of the actual children by Obamystic Dept of Ed 2k9, teachers and school admins ready to play the game on their victims.

The Prez needs a good stiff lesson in sphere sovereignty within the American representative democracy (republic), applied by another kind of panel, of strong board. Spare the board, and spoil the Prez.

-- Politicarp

Politics USA: School kids targetted by Obama when term begins

Max Fisher is an hysteric over at The Atlantic mag, which long ago saw its best days.

He's trying to frame the narrative of events regarding the public furore in advance of Obomb's telecast on the opening of school, targetting school kids. Or, as the fishing Fissure misconceives the matter, "How Obama's School Speech became 'Propaganda'." But Fisher is the cleverest propagandist of them all, it turns out. Obama and his Department of Ed came up with hideous egomaniacal messianic Prez-as-Icon for kids who don't know who he is. The progeram has the help of zealots supplying lessons plan.

Of course Obama's targetting of schoolkids is suspect. His approach is vastly different from Presidents past who telecast in classrooms fullup with kids; some predecessor may even have been h+l+ting an ed policy. It's clear this Prez is trying to organize another demographic of his vast community organizing project. For the little ones, the plan is obviously to render the Obomb an icon and them his devotees.

I doubt he will be telling them of all the debt he's added to their shoulders. I doubt he's going to tell them about his medical/actuarial advisors who discount life, human life, kids' lives especially, up until they are an economic advantage to society. Which means diasbled kids are a total drag. It's part of Dr Emanuel's analysis that kids and oldsters are a drag on society, economy, medical costs.

Newt Gingrich had a few choice words recently:

The British single-payer bureaucrats arrived at the price of an additional year of life in the same way they decide how much health care all British people will get, through a formula called “quality-adjusted life years.”

That means that if you’re sick in Great Britain, government bureaucrats literally decide if your life is worth living and, if so, how much longer and at what cost.

If it’s more than $45,000, you’re out of luck.

White House Advocate for

Allocating Health Care Based on Perceived Societal Worth

In the highest levels of the Obama Administration there is a theory of how to ration health care that is troublingly reminiscent of the British system of “quality-adjusted life years.”

Dr. Ezekial Emanuel is a key health care advisor to President Obama and the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Earlier this year, Dr. Emanuel wrote an article that advocated what he called “the complete lives system” as a method for rationing health care. ...

The system advocated by Dr. Emanuel would allocate health care based on the government’s perception of the societal worth of the patients. Accordingly, the very young and the very old would receive less care since the former have received less societal investment and the latter have less left to contribute.

The atheist viewpoint, Darwinist to the core, of Zeke Emanuel is quoted by Newt Gingrich in Human Events.

Will Obama tell the schoolkids on TV about his boy, Zeke, having a differential mind for them regarding their healthcare now and, for those who live to a ripe old age, into the far future.

-- Politcarp

Sports: Murder: H+ School football coach kills student in heat practice with no water. Hommage to Max Gilpin, 15.

They shoud lock up this murderous coach and thro away the key. The football program at the school shoud be terminated immediately, and soccer (what the rest of the world calls football) shoud be substituted in. Of course, it takes years to build up a good soccer tradition at a given school. What the switch to soccer shoud ensure is the laying of a groundwork for a future sports morality that approaches a normative standard (indeed, what are the norms of behavior for these h+contact, very physical sports?).

Back to soccer: Applicant coaches shoud be quizzed and investigated about their own coaching approach to an activity that shoud be an expression of norm-realization for soccer.

On the other hand: To hell with football in American h+ schools! H+school football is not a license to murder, no matter what FoxNews, the particularly spineless newscaster with his Fox production "controllers" (their terminology, not mine) who slanted this story in the most vile way to protect the miscreant Coach -- as I just said, no matter what the foxites or the newbie headcoach think to the contrary. Fox here is most unfair to the admitted truth and unbalanced about the unbalanced headcoach the football killer.

The worst propagandist for the murder coach is the clown, Gregg Jarrett, from the newsdesk at FoxNews TV. FoxNews is not going to jeopardize or otherwise fairly report a story that coud bring a pall on its own FoxSports (adult) professional footballcasts which bring in so much revenue to the news megacorporation. The obscenity of such newscasting and support for coaches who just shrug and tell us "Everybody else does it," referring to fellow coaches (there were some six h+school students' deaths last year due to crazed coaches anxious to proclaim their own normalcy in bringing at-risk kids to the edge of death, and who then push the lads beyond the edge).

After two-plus hours of practice, Pleasure Ridge Park [Kentucky] football coach David Jason Stinson had seen enough of players goofing off.

[Look at how this pseudo-"report" uses Stinson's apparent own private thawt processes as proper reporting, pseudo-"reporting" that stacks the conceptualization of this atrocity against the deceased, as expressed in the anti-player pejoration "goofing off." H+school sports are not the military! Max 15 shoud not be put into a movieland psychosexual Marine training!

A H+school football coach who seduced and performed fellatio on a 15-yr old in his care, would be railed against by all the FoxNews anchors, deskers, and reporters; fine, a good stand it would be to my foregoing hypothetical; but such a serious offense pales in its significance relative to a coach's game-plane of risking death in a way that amounts to and, in this Stimson case, probably was a sadistic murder, however conscious the act may or may not have been ... and I think, sex-driven sadism (is there any other kind?), in such cases, is most likely a deeply unconscious drive in a fatso coach who wants to toy with his charges' vitality and mortality, male students who just want to be precisely onfield football heroes and jocks all and each off those who survive to end up on the finally sorted team, like Max who wanted to be a genuine stud (almost) at 15 -- that scenario hypothetically woud fit a creep like Stinson, instead of one that woud perhaps have the Coach diddling them all.

Give him the death penalty for the death he set in motion, whatever his motive or lack thereof, conscious or not. And fine the professional sports orgs to which he belongs for not checking out his mental health and probably quite perverted sexual drives or whatever drives Stinson's be. He certainly was driven by more than football practice with his h+schoolers.]

Stinson, a first-year head coach at the suburban Louisville high school, ordered the group of about 100 players to run a series of sprints, known as “gassers,” until someone quit the team.

The players started running. Five got sick and left the field, two eventually quit the team and, as practice finished on Aug. 20, 2008, 15-year-old sophomore offensive lineman Max Gilpin collapsed. He died three days later at a Louisville hospital.

Accounts of that day reveal a football practice where most players didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary — until the end.

Stinson is scheduled to go on trial Monday on a charge of reckless homicide, in a case that many observers say could be the first time a coach has faced criminal charges in a player’s on-field death

(Max actually died a few days later, never leaving the hospital to which Coach sent him)

. On Aug. 11, a grand jury added a charge of first-degree wanton endangerment against the coach. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges, which will be part of the same trial.

Murder-coaches to jail! and pay an indemnity to the 15-yr olds' parents! Is there a nutball father in this case who shoud be named a co-conspirator in his son's death? Fathers who plant such extreme desires that their son/s are thereby led to submit to psychosexual nut Coaches -- such fathers are often part of the blame in these h+school football deaths, I woud think. Otherwise, take all the coach's savings and stocks and bonds, and give it all to the family of the son whom the football coach snuffed out, Max.

H+school football fosters death and always has. The threat of serious injury and death is always behind the rah-rah-rah of coaches, admins, some students, and most of all that weird sect called "coaches" that keeps alive the death-inviting sports for the young. They promote a woeful cult of macho that drives the young woudbe studs and jocks pushing themselves into the coaches' death wish for "their boys", their "players".

Tom Steltenkamp, a certified athletic trainer who gave a symposium on heat-related illnesses to high school coaches — including Stinson — in June 2008, testified that heat stroke and exhaustion symptoms are not always readily apparent. But he said he only spent 10 minutes talking specifically about heat stroke.

How many minutes does it take an adult trained coach to get the point. When Stinson checked his termomator and it read "only" 94, one point short of the 95 that woud make stopping the practice mandatory by his own profession's rules, this sneaky psychopath gambled, as it were, that the heat woud not rise hairline or the effects of overheating the kids woud not be fatal, those that had endured his ordeal up to that point. Just a hairline, one degree Fahrenheit.


Young jocks, studs, American footbnallers: If you're out of h+school and still want to play the death-defying and -inviting sport of American football, then by all means kill yourself, if that extremism is what you want outtuv sports. You're an adult.

But as for those who make a living and finance the larger sports, news and other institutions which profit off the football kids, sacrificing that portion of their own institutional tasks to supposedly advance the well-being of the youth in the care some of these institutions, to play the push-football game on the dead bodies of teenagers, punish the whole lot of them. Punish their professional associations which actually are conspiracies to harm kids. These who profit off the death of youthful athletes are real sickos, and hide what's happening in the fields of this sports-legimated death", legitmate" death, the practice fields for nonadult suckers who turn their well-being over to these monsters of wicked morality. I'm sad for Max, that he was cawt up in this societal monstrosity.

As for Gregg Jarret the scabrous stench who made himself and Fox (Jarrett's "controllers") are complicit to some extent with Stinson who did the actual killing. Jarret and his Fox controllers slanted his whole "news" report insultingly to favour the coach and h+school murder-sports' normalcy -- with 6 deaths h+schoolers the previous year. Did 6 coaches die? So, this cadaver on Fox TV, twister of the news, is shameless -- again, apparently at the behest of his Fox "controllers," as he calls them.

There's one further matter: The hospital to which Stimson sent the not-yet-deceased Max 15 may figure into the fatso Coach non-diddler's profile: what connection was there between the "medical examiners" who decided against / refused to do an autopsy on the boy's corpse after he died, and the cult of which Stimson is an exponent? We need a beam of br+t l+t beaming on this question in order to understand the closeness of small hospitals (especially), their affilated and onstaff doctors, and medical examiners who won't do autopsies -- of course, a coach who sends a near-dead boy he killed in football practice, a near-dead boy sent the local hospital of the Coach's choice, staffed with doctors and sporting "medical examiners" who just want to close the case, skip the autopsy, and protect the coach. That how medicine and medical personnel fit like hands in a glove to cover one another. This last item relates directly to health insurance schemes which restrain tort suites when doctors don't do enuff tests or perform proper autopsies to let the truth come out of Max Gilpin's corpse.

The case is being hurried thru the court system. First, there shoud be a coroner's investigation, to determine why the "medical examiners" refused to do an autopsy. Who are these so-far shadowy figures in the death and coverup?

-- Sportikos