Editoral Critique

Response to this editorial:
 

You’re absolutely right. Universal healthcare is a decisive issue and an important one on the minds of voters going into this election. However, it has been a decisive issue for some time. Hilary Clinton, for example, has been an advocate for an American universal healthcare plan for over 20 years, and in fact has proposed similar bills to Congress in the past.

I don’t think that you’re wrong in proposing the idea that the presentation of the bill to the Supreme Court is conveniently timed to draw attention to it, but you have to realize that people were calling it unconstitutional from day one. The American political system takes time. Even if this is a political maneuver by the Right to make voters more aware of the downfalls of Obama’s healthcare plan, I’m sure that they would have liked it to go to the Supreme Court sooner.

As far as if it’s not broken, don’t fix it, this issue isn’t as simple as that. Is it true that the bill has provided coverage for young people that would have otherwise been uninsured? Yes. However, the flip side of the coin is that requiring insurance companies to cover young people – who are the most reckless and injury prone demographic- drives up insurance premiums. Some people rightly argue that an individual mandate only serves to drive up costs. Prices for anything are a function of the market, and people can charge whatever they want to for whatever that have to sell. Then, you’re back where you started. It doesn’t matter if there’s an individual mandate or not if you don’t have the money to pay for it.

War on Drugs Blog Editorial Critique

The blog editorial that I chose to critique is a post at Daily Kos by Barry C. This editorial focuses on an analysis of a Dateline report that Chris Hansen did of a DEA raid of Mexican marijuana grow operations on American soil. The post points out, however, that only speculation had connected the grow-op that Hansen was reporting to the Mexican cartels.

This editorial caught my eye because it's a cause that I am personally convicted about, and I think this editorial draws on some good arguments to end the War on Drugs, at least with respect to marijuana. These include the methods by which it's currently being undertaken as well as benefits to society that allowing legal consumption of marijuana provides.

The intended audience of this editorial is Chris Hansen himself. The majority of the post is formatted as a personal letter to Hansen to make known that while Barry C. respects his work, he feels that this particular report contributes to the country's glorified perception of the War on Drugs, and is thus damaging. In reality, however, I feel that this editorial is meant to push readers that are on the fence about the War on Drugs toward the side of ending it.

While he doesn't advertise any credibility as a journalist or a scholar, Barry C. does draw on personal experience to formulate the arguments in his article. I think that his foray into the history of prohibition is a little bit out of his depth. I don't imagine it's historically fair to state that one photograph of some dead mobsters was responsible for ending prohibition. I don't think that argument is dishonest, but it's certainly hyperbolic. Regardless, it accomplishes the task of pointing out that where the government forbids a product that consumers want, criminals will provide the product.

This editorial has two main arguments. First is that the War on Drugs has turned the DEA into a paramilitary organization operating with military tactics to tackle a law enforcement issue. He argues that this is a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is a Restoration-era law that forbids local or national government from using federal personnel to solve law enforcement problems. The reasoning of the argument goes that by recruiting ex-soldiers and providing them with military surveillance technology, the government is in effect violating the Posse Comitatus Act.

The second argument is that the War on Drugs has prevented people, such as Barry C., from using marijuana in a medical context, such as chronic pain relief. Barry C. provides the example that his body has become desensitized to the legal opiate painkillers he's been prescribed and that marijuana is the only thing that helps with the pain associated with his Post-Polio Syndrome.

Overall, I think this is a very well reasoned editorial. I think that it's true that marijuana law enforcement is not the responsibility of military personnel and that the DEA operating in this way represents a potentially great threat to our civil liberties. I have a bit of an issue with him using the term War on Drugs to refer specifically to marijuana. There are some important considerations to take with other, more harmful drugs.

I think that the case that he makes about current policy preventing Americans with the medical care they need is very compelling. Ethical issues about drug use aside, if someone has pain associated with a medical condition and a natural product can alleviate that pain, that's a no brainer. There are no side effects, no synthetic compounds, and no reason that someone in a situation like Barry C. shouldn't have access to marijuana if it helps him. The only thing standing in his way is reactionary politics and rhetoric.

Cutting Health Care Costs- The Pay-for-Response Model

A March 6th piece in the New York Times by op-ed contributor Samuel Waksal proposes a very interesting way to eliminate waste in the health care industry and medical costs in this country.

Waksal says that while the United States spends $2.6 trillion per year on health care, the most in the world, we see no better medical outcomes than any other country. According to the Waksal, this has a lot to do with the fact in addition to paying high prices for effective treatments, individuals and insurers are also paying for drugs that aren't working. This is especially prevalent among cancer drugs, which have different effects on different people because every cancer is unique to the patient. For one patient, a treatment with a certain drug, even targeted for a very specific cancer might greatly reduce morbidity, while the same drug is utterly ineffective on another patient. But, both patients pay the same amount.

Under Waksal's pay-for-response model, the drug companies would only get paid if the drug was shown to be effective. The criteria for "effective" would have to be ironed out by the FDA, but the principle is that patients shouldn't be paying for drugs that might work, they should be paying for results. Waksal says that this would encourage drug companies to figure out the reasons why a certain drugs works on some people, but not others. As it stands now, drug companies expend a minimum effort but charge the maximum competitive price.

I personally think that this is a great idea. High drug prices are a major contributor to outrageous healthcare costs in this country, and the idea that a drug company would charge as much as they do for "cutting edge treatment" with an ambivalent guarantee that it works sometimes. If drug companies can show that a drug works in some proportion of patients and has limited adverse side-effects, they take it to market. This model would require drug companies to be more meticulous because if they recommend it to a patient and it doesn't work, that's money they've lost. Waksal is the founder and CEO of a Kadmon Corporation, a biotech company. As a business insider, I trust his assessment that this could benefit patients as well as drug developers.

As much as this is intended for a national audience, I think that this is also a piece intended for legislators. We're looking for a solution for the healthcare crisis. Many people, especially young people like me, are uninsured, and insurance premiums remain high because healthcare costs remain high. I think that this is the kind of thinking that's going to bring solutions.

Of course, the only way to put a model like this into place would involve government intervention into the marketplace, which will outrage free market loyalists. Plus, I don't imagine that drug companies will volunteer for this model because it cuts into their profit margins in the short term. However, I think in this case, government intervention to establish a mutually beneficial model, like the one Waksal, suggests might be well justified if it produces results.

Affirmative Action and The Supreme Court

For those of you that haven't heard, it appears that the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Abigail Noel Fisher. Abigail was denied admission to the University of Texas a number of years ago when graduating from High School. She filed suit against the University, claiming that she was denied admission because she is white.

Should the Court rule in favor of Fisher, it would reverse a 2003 decision to uphold the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Fisher's case argues that the University's admissions policies violate both the Constitution as well as a stipulation in the 2003 ruling which states that race-based admissions criteria are allowed only after race-neutral criteria "have failed to achieve a diverse student body."
(via Houston Chronicle)

I think that this an especially relevant story to us and our experiences as students. I imagine that just about all of us received a rejection letter from a college that we applied to. At the time, I completely identified with this girl's frustration, but this is a very slippery slope. This country has made significant strides in the last 50 years with respect to equal rights, and I think a reversal of the 2003 decision is a step in the wrong direction.

I am not an affirmative action crusader, but I don't think we live in post-racial America, despite what we'd like to believe. There are very real disadvantages that minority communities face in this country. That's not to say that white people don't face the same challenges, but generally speaking, I think minorities are very over-represented in this category. Education is too important to not have safeguards for equal access.

Political Bio

I think the USA is the freest country in the world, but I don't think that's why "them terr'ists" hate us so much.

I believe that anyone who's been paying attention has seen our political system hijacked by corporate interests.

I think that the disparity of wealth in this country is systematically perpetuated by the super-rich who run the show, while the rest of us idly sit by and dream about how we would spend our millions.

I fall on the moderate left as far as the spectrum goes. I voted for Obama in 2008 because I was 18 and wanted to do my part. Like everyone else my age, I didn't vote in 2010. I'd vote for Ron Paul in 2012 if his social policy wasn't so crazy.

I don't like war, either on drugs or terrorism. They're both too expensive and perpetuate violence.

I think that there are people in this country that genuinely need help, and while it's our responsibility to help them as compassionate individuals, we don't, which is why the government has to spend our money on that for us.

I'm taking this class because it's required, but I hope that it gives me time and opportunity to be more up to date on current events and political issues.