[Publib] Needing Librarians

[Fred Beisser]

Sources for the numbers?

Sharon Foster wrote:
> Regarding Q12. Those profits sound small, but considering that private
> health insurance companies spend 31% of their income on administrative
> costs and other non-health-care related overhead, they're still high.
> Medicare, depending on what you read, spends about 3 to 6% on
> overhead.
>
> Sharon M. Foster, JD, MLS
> Technology Librarian
> http://firstgentrekkie.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 12:03 PM, Fred
> Beisser<fredbeisser at mesanetworks.net> wrote:
>   
>> Regarding Q11. It would appear axiomatic that private health insurance
>> companies provide a means of allowing those insured with them to know the
>> cost of medical and hospital needs via a monthly premium versus the way
>> things used to be decades ago when each person paid their own
>> medical/hospitalization expenses directly from their own pocket whether
>> large or small. High risk insureds in the plan are offset by those with
>> better health conditions and lower risk....same as automobile insurance or
>> insuring one's home or business. As a result, the cost to high risk insureds
>> is lower than if they had to pay the actual costs themselves.
>>
>> Regarding Q12:
>>
>> Price Waterhouse studied the reasons for increased health insurance premiums
>> and concluded that increased utilization accounts for 43% of premium
>> increases in their study (see summary at
>> http://www.ahip.org/content/pressrelease.aspx?docid=14702 ). Medical
>> liability and defensive medicine contribute to 10% of medical costs (those
>> darned lawyers again).
>>
>> It is my understanding that health insurance company profits are not high,
>> about 2 to 4% on total revenue after paying taxes, That is about $57 to
>> $85/insured in the three companies looked at. Not very excessive as I see
>> things. For a short study of this, see http://tinyurl.com/n96lzu. As a
>> percent of revenue, about the same as grocery chains.
>>
>> I see in US Census data in Historical Health Insurance Tables that the total
>> number of insureds (both private and governmental programs) has increased
>> from 238 million in 1999 to 253+ million in 2007, so I don't understand your
>> assertion.
>>
>> Sharon Foster wrote:
>>     
>>> 11. Will he explain what value private insurance companies add to the
>>> overall state of health care?
>>>
>>> 12. Will he explain why health insurance premiums have gone up while
>>> health insurance profits have gone up and the number of Americans with
>>> health insurance has gone down?
>>>
>>> Sharon M. Foster, JD, MLS
>>> Technology Librarian
>>> http://firstgentrekkie.blogspot.com/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Fred
>>> Beisser<fredbeisser at mesanetworks.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> It's not my job, but here is something useful to consider the health care
>>>> reform issue.It's a ten-point checklist I ran across to help folks assess
>>>> topics arising in the President's speech tonight.
>>>>
>>>> In his proposals for reform, does the President include litigation
>>>> reform,
>>>> which 84% of Americans believe will help reduce costs and which is the
>>>> number one goal of doctors in any health reform?
>>>>
>>>> Does he include a section onsaving money by stopping payments to crooks
>>>> who
>>>> are bilking the taxpayers for $70-120 billion each year in Medicare and
>>>> Medicaid fraud? For 88 percent of Americans, this is the first place they
>>>> would look to find savings in our health care system. Is President Obama
>>>> willing to look there?
>>>>
>>>> Does his speech reject higher taxes, which the vast majority of Americans
>>>> believe will make the current economy even worse and increase
>>>> unemployment
>>>> even more?
>>>>
>>>> Does it reject all government rationing of health services which the
>>>> American people have vocally opposed at town hall meetings across the
>>>> country?
>>>>
>>>> Does it reject any government run, bureaucratic health plan?
>>>>
>>>> Is President Obama open to four or five bipartisan bills which could pass
>>>> with big bipartisan majorities? Or does he insist on a single omnibus
>>>> bill
>>>> of 1000-plus pages like the one that failed when Mrs. Clinton tried to
>>>> pass
>>>> it in 1993-1994?
>>>>
>>>> Is he for sustaining the Senate rule of 60 votes to ensure a bill that
>>>> has
>>>> wide, bipartisan support? Or is he prepared to destroy long-standing
>>>> Senate
>>>> tradition and ram through a radical bill with 51 votes?
>>>>
>>>> Does President Obama give any indication he is forincreasing the power,
>>>> information and choice of the individual and their doctor or is he giving
>>>> more power to the government?
>>>>
>>>> Does he focus on health, wellness, prevention, early detection and health
>>>> management to avoid or control the severity of chronic diseases? Or does
>>>> he
>>>> spend his time talking only about acute care?
>>>>
>>>> Does his plan invest in science and technology in order to increase
>>>> innovation and accelerate the discovery and adoption of new discoveries
>>>> and
>>>> breakthroughs in diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer and diabetes?
>>>>
>>>> Fred Beisser
>>>>
>>>> Backwage at aol.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>> At the present time the nation is engaged in a series of policy debates
>>>> over
>>>> the future of health care reform.  If you watch the news, you have seen
>>>> politicians convene what are known as town hall meetings—gatherings of
>>>> the
>>>> community which are intended to permit questioning and the expression of
>>>> viewpoints.  Instead of rational discourse, what has occurred is a series
>>>> of
>>>> shouting matches and wild demonstrations with occasional fisticuffs.
>>>> Nothing like genuine debate, which of course requires two preconditions:
>>>> that the participant have a genuine desire to be convinced of another
>>>> viewpoint, and that he arrive in possession of at least the bare outline
>>>> of
>>>> the matter at hand.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It might seem that the asylums of the nation had been emptied to fill
>>>> these
>>>> meetings, but your intelligent observer knows otherwise—that these people
>>>> really are a slice right out of the middle of the American pie.  You hear
>>>> them talking on the train and cringe; their sources of information tilt
>>>> toward rumor and the internet legend.  Obama is going to kill off old
>>>> people; Obama is going to make insurance free for everybody.  We are
>>>> headed
>>>> for fascism and socialism, simultaneously, while also being left
>>>> completely
>>>> without leadership.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As librarians you are in for no surprise if you ask these folks where
>>>> they
>>>> get their information.  And the folks on the train would be in for a
>>>> surprise if they were told that they (1) had no idea what they were
>>>> talking
>>>> about, and (2) that they could very easily find out the history, current
>>>> prospects and likely outcomes of the health care debate by visiting their
>>>> local library.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I am not one of those folks who believes that the internet is God.  In
>>>> fact,
>>>> I regard it as a failure.  The only previously occurring failure of
>>>> similar
>>>> magnitude was television, and the internet is worse.  You see, television
>>>> could have been something other than the “vast wasteland” but that it
>>>> didn’t
>>>> do better has to do with its owners as much as its consumers.  After all,
>>>> ordinary folk didn’t write Congress asking for reruns of the Beverly
>>>> Hillbillies any more than they asked for the original broadcast, and it
>>>> wouldn’t have made much difference anyhow—the folks at home are only
>>>> responsible for having made such shows an unfortunate part of our shared
>>>> heritage.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The internet on the other hand is terrifically varied, in effect millions
>>>> of
>>>> television channels broadcasting all at once.  Certainly 90% of what is
>>>> there is trash but the viewer has a choice, and some of the choices are
>>>> superb—far better than the best stuff of television at any time in its
>>>> history.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The sin and crime of the internet comes from the failure of its users to
>>>> employ the thing to its highest and best uses.  Given a sort of universal
>>>> channel changer, they stick to the same sort of stuff that appears on
>>>> television.  And consider themselves “informed” because they spend hours
>>>> a
>>>> day looking up movie stars’ profiles.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If you suppose that I consider the average person an idiot, you are
>>>> wrong.
>>>> The average person is average—by which figuring idiocy is rendered normal
>>>> and commonplace.
>>>>
>>>> The ordinary person needs a guide to information.  It is not and has not
>>>> ever been true that most folks will on their own seek out the right way
>>>> to
>>>> live, the better sort of entertainments or food worthy of the name.  In
>>>> fact, they will not even bother to find out whom to vote for.  Though
>>>> they
>>>> certainly will vote.  And eat, and everything else (and with what
>>>> discernment!)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The librarian can be a guide, and should be.  At the very least to
>>>> sources
>>>> of genuine information, which as we all learned in library school (before
>>>> it
>>>> became information science, a science fiction term if ever there was one)
>>>> possess something called authority.  It is authority they need, and
>>>> authority we have—in ourselves and in the sound references we can
>>>> provide.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Mind you, not very many will approach.  Here we see that the idea of the
>>>> passive librarian is simply wrong and moreover harmful.  Librarians need
>>>> to
>>>> advertise their availability and the strength of their resources.  What
>>>> could be a better remedy for the current fracas than for a local library
>>>> to
>>>> advertise itself as the place to find the answers, the information, the
>>>> past
>>>> of the whole ball of wax?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The librarian is the only reliable human guide to the internet.  The
>>>> librarian is the one person in town who can dig up print sources.  The
>>>> librarian is, bless her heart, largely impartial, generally genial, and
>>>> bound by profession to serve.  Who better to dust off Clinton’s old plan
>>>> so
>>>> that it may be compared to Obama’s formulations?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> We gave them the Federalist Papers and the Pentagon Papers and everything
>>>> in
>>>> between.  We gave them Billy Mitchell’s reports and John Hersey’s
>>>> Hiroshima.  We can give them health care in all its hideous and expensive
>>>> complexity.  They are waiting for the truth.  We should be ready to throw
>>>> it
>>>> at them.   Don’t sit back and wait for the kids to come by with their
>>>> term
>>>> papers; don’t let the internet rumor mill determine the course of debate.
>>>> Maybe they won’t listen—but if they don’t know the truth when the time
>>>> comes
>>>> to decide, don’t let it be because your library didn’t point the way.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Tomorrow morning, get off your chair and put together something useful.
>>>> That’s our job, isn’t it?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> M. McGrorty
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>         
>>>       
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