The consolidation of Honolulu's two rival dailies is expected to begin one minute after midnight on Monday when Honolulu Star-Bulletin owner Black Press concludes its purchase of The Honolulu Advertiser from Gannett Co.
Both papers will continue to operate and be distributed for 30 to 60 days until Black Press' subsidiary, Oahu Publications Inc., is ready to introduce its new daily broadsheet, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, said Dennis Francis, Star-Bulletin publisher and Oahu Publications president.
Subscribers will continue to get both publications until they seamlessly transition to the new product, he said, and current subscriptions will be honored. The company also will extend subscriptions for those who take both papers, combining time left on the two subscriptions with no additional charge.
Star-Bulletin employees will work from their Waterfront Plaza headquarters, which also will be the Star-Advertiser's home. Once Oahu Publications determines staffing needs, job offers and layoffs will occur, Francis said. The Star-Advertiser's overall staffing will fall somewhere between the 300-person Star-Bulletin and the 600-person Advertiser, he said.
***
David Black spent more than $100 million and fought along with Star-Bulletin workers for nearly a decade to publish a 52,000-circulation paper and carve out a profitable share of the Honolulu market. But since economies of scale favored Gannett's 115,000-circulation paper, The Honolulu Advertiser, it was an uneven newspaper war.
Many are quick to compare Black to the biblical David who defeated the Philistine giant and went on to become the king of the Israelites, but it is not an analogy that he would use to describe the prelude to Gannett's exit from Hawaii.
"This wasn't a victory," he told Star-Bulletin workers on Feb. 25 when he announced his decision to buy the Advertiser, which Gannett had owned since 1993.
According to industry analyst John Morton, "Gannett was essentially the winner in all this, but they elected to withdraw by selling."
"At some point in a competitive situation, even when you have a company with very deep pockets, if they suspect that their opponent is going to stick in there even if it is losing money—it just might not be worth it for them to stay," he said.
TIMELINE
1962 » The Honolulu Star-Bulletin and its morning rival, The Honolulu Advertiser, set up a third company under a joint operating agreement (JOA), the Hawaii Newspaper Agency, to handle noneditorial and production functions of both papers. The Sunday Star-Bulletin and Advertiser are combined.
1971 » Gannett Co. enters the Hawaii market with its purchase of the 128,000-circulation Star-Bulletin from the Ho-Atherton Group.
1993 » Gannett announces it will sell the 88,000-circulation Star-Bulletin to Liberty Newspapers LP in a move that will allow it to acquire the Advertiser. Later that year it gives the Advertiser complete control of the Sunday paper. The Star-Bulletin, which for some years produced the Sunday features and real estate sections, would no longer be involved.
1999 » Gannett offers Rupert Phillips, the owner of Liberty Newspapers, a payment to close down the Star-Bulletin, whose circulation has fallen to 67,124. The state of Hawaii and concerned citizens groups file lawsuits against Liberty and Gannett to keep the Star-Bulletin running. A court injunction stops the shutdown.
2000 » Gannett and Liberty put the Star-Bulletin on the market to satisfy antitrust concerns.
» Gannett and Liberty sell the 61,976-circulation Star-Bulletin to Canadian-based Black Press.
2001 » The JOA between Gannett and Liberty ends when the Star-Bulletin moves to Waterfront Plaza and begins its new era under Oahu Publications, a subsidiary of Black Press. Gannett starts an afternoon edition of the Advertiser to compete against Black and reports a circulation of 151,808 daily and 176,727 on Sunday, which puts it among the 75 largest newspapers in the country.
2009 » Gannett tells employees the Advertiser is not profitable. It lays off workers and gets its unions to agree to a 10 percent wage concession and furloughs for remaining workers.
2010 » Gannett sells the Advertiser to Black Press and exits the Hawaii news market, although its ties to Honolulu will continue for as long as it retains ownership of its former headquarters at 605 Kapiolani Blvd.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
health care reform fact check
The tumultuous health care debate that brought you death panels and socialism has spun off a catalog of popular myths that will keep growing as President Barack Obama and all sides battle toward the midterm elections this fall.
At a White House signing ceremony Tuesday, Obama ventured the hope that Americans on all sides will judge the legislation for what it actually says and does. "When I sign this bill," he declared, "all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform."
Wishful thinking, Mr. President.
Facts are stubborn, the saying goes. But myths about the legislation are likely to persist as well. And a lot of people don't agree on which is which.
Here's a look at some of the myths and realities, from both sides of the issue:
— Obama has put the nation on a slippery slope toward socialism.
Hello? Government's role in health care has been steadily growing since Medicare and Medicaid were established 45 years ago.
— Health care overhaul is going to lower your health insurance premiums.
The budget office didn't say premiums would be lower than currently. It said premiums for some people would be lower than they would have been without the bill. Premiums for others would be higher.
— You will be forced to pay for other people's abortions.
Only if you join a health insurance plan that covers abortion.
— The Democratic bill will lead to government health care rationing.
The legislation sets up a research center to compare the effectiveness of medical treatments. Republicans as well as Democrats had previously called for a major investment in such research to help make sense of which kinds of treatments, medications and technologies are worth the cost.
The legislation specifies that the research findings cannot be used to impose mandates, guidelines or recommendations for payment, coverage, or treatment — or used to deny coverage.
— The American people have already rejected Obamacare.
Although some polls show a majority oppose the bill, most surveys find the public about evenly divided.
— The legislation will save Medicare from bankruptcy.
Democrats say the bill — even as it cuts Medicare to pay for expanded coverage for working families — will add at least nine years of solvency to the program's giant hospital insurance trust fund, now projected to be exhausted in 2017.
Technically that's true — but only on paper.
Savings from the Medicare cuts will be invested in government IOUs, like any other trust fund surplus. The special Treasury securities count as an asset on Medicare's books — making the program's precarious financial situation seem more reassuring. But the government will spend the actual money. And when time comes for Medicare to redeem the IOUs, lawmakers will have to scramble to come up with the cash.
At a White House signing ceremony Tuesday, Obama ventured the hope that Americans on all sides will judge the legislation for what it actually says and does. "When I sign this bill," he declared, "all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform."
Wishful thinking, Mr. President.
Facts are stubborn, the saying goes. But myths about the legislation are likely to persist as well. And a lot of people don't agree on which is which.
Here's a look at some of the myths and realities, from both sides of the issue:
— Obama has put the nation on a slippery slope toward socialism.
Hello? Government's role in health care has been steadily growing since Medicare and Medicaid were established 45 years ago.
— Health care overhaul is going to lower your health insurance premiums.
The budget office didn't say premiums would be lower than currently. It said premiums for some people would be lower than they would have been without the bill. Premiums for others would be higher.
— You will be forced to pay for other people's abortions.
Only if you join a health insurance plan that covers abortion.
— The Democratic bill will lead to government health care rationing.
The legislation sets up a research center to compare the effectiveness of medical treatments. Republicans as well as Democrats had previously called for a major investment in such research to help make sense of which kinds of treatments, medications and technologies are worth the cost.
The legislation specifies that the research findings cannot be used to impose mandates, guidelines or recommendations for payment, coverage, or treatment — or used to deny coverage.
— The American people have already rejected Obamacare.
Although some polls show a majority oppose the bill, most surveys find the public about evenly divided.
— The legislation will save Medicare from bankruptcy.
Democrats say the bill — even as it cuts Medicare to pay for expanded coverage for working families — will add at least nine years of solvency to the program's giant hospital insurance trust fund, now projected to be exhausted in 2017.
Technically that's true — but only on paper.
Savings from the Medicare cuts will be invested in government IOUs, like any other trust fund surplus. The special Treasury securities count as an asset on Medicare's books — making the program's precarious financial situation seem more reassuring. But the government will spend the actual money. And when time comes for Medicare to redeem the IOUs, lawmakers will have to scramble to come up with the cash.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Joe Biden comments on health care reform
Vice President Joe Biden couldn't resist telling President Obama yesterday that signing comprehensive health care reform into law was a "big f***ing deal." It turns out, a number of people on the Internet agree with him.
After the vice president's apparently foul choice of words started to earn some attention, Hotsheet noted that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs embraced the moment, Tweeting, "and yes Mr. Vice President, you're right..."
The micro-blogging site Twitter may be the perfect medium for capturing fleeting, interesting moments like Biden's remarks. Another Twitter user decided to preserve the moment with a new feed called BigFnDealer. The first message left on the feed reads, "FDR had the New Deal. Truman had the Fair Deal. J-Biden's gives us the Big F***ing Deal."
One online t-shirt retailer is exploiting the moment with t-shirts featuring Biden's profound statement, as well as t-shirts poking fun at Biden for being prone to such gaffes. There's also t-shirts smugly expressing the same sentiment as Biden: "I voted for Obama and all I got was this historic victory on health care," it reads.
Of course, the quote has also inspired some new Web sites: www.thisisabigf***ingdeal.com (the actual URL uses the full expletive) has a YouTube clip of the moment -- which you can watch below. And for anyone who wants to learn more about the man who uttered those words, the site www.abigf***ingdeal.com (again, the URL uses the full expletive) redirects visitors to the White House biography of Biden.
***
Dan Boylan comments..
It required the stock market crash of 1929 and the more than decade-long Great Depression to create sufficient national anguish, liberal enough congressional majorities and a determined president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt to give old folks the benefits of Social Security, workers the right to bargain in the National Labor Relations Act, and savers the security of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Those laws constituted “big deals.”
And conservatives didn’t like them. Many on the right called Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the FDIC and a host of other New Deal bills “socialism” at best, “communism” at worst.
And Franklin Roosevelt? He was “a traitor to his class.”
Following World War II, the United States owned the world’s economy, and President Harry Truman thought the nation strong enough and fair enough to insure health care for all of its citizens. Twice Truman introduced comprehensive health care legislation; twice congressional conservatives thwarted him.
Johnson in the White House, liberal majorities in both houses of Congress, and civil rights activists in the streets resulted in a run of “big deals” over the next four years: the Civil Rights Bills of 1964 and 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, Medicare for Americans over 65 and Medicaid for the poor. But still, the wealthiest country in the world failed to provide access to health care for all of its citizens.
Both Presidents Richard Nixon and William Clinton pushed for national health care. Conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans, stopped them.
Last week, after 14 months of some of the most uncivil debate in American memory, a national health care reform bill passed. It required the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, sufficient liberal majorities in Congress and a determined President Barack Obama to do it.
And it is, indeed, a “big deal,” the first in more than 40 years.
After the vice president's apparently foul choice of words started to earn some attention, Hotsheet noted that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs embraced the moment, Tweeting, "and yes Mr. Vice President, you're right..."
The micro-blogging site Twitter may be the perfect medium for capturing fleeting, interesting moments like Biden's remarks. Another Twitter user decided to preserve the moment with a new feed called BigFnDealer. The first message left on the feed reads, "FDR had the New Deal. Truman had the Fair Deal. J-Biden's gives us the Big F***ing Deal."
One online t-shirt retailer is exploiting the moment with t-shirts featuring Biden's profound statement, as well as t-shirts poking fun at Biden for being prone to such gaffes. There's also t-shirts smugly expressing the same sentiment as Biden: "I voted for Obama and all I got was this historic victory on health care," it reads.
Of course, the quote has also inspired some new Web sites: www.thisisabigf***ingdeal.com (the actual URL uses the full expletive) has a YouTube clip of the moment -- which you can watch below. And for anyone who wants to learn more about the man who uttered those words, the site www.abigf***ingdeal.com (again, the URL uses the full expletive) redirects visitors to the White House biography of Biden.
***
Dan Boylan comments..
It required the stock market crash of 1929 and the more than decade-long Great Depression to create sufficient national anguish, liberal enough congressional majorities and a determined president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt to give old folks the benefits of Social Security, workers the right to bargain in the National Labor Relations Act, and savers the security of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Those laws constituted “big deals.”
And conservatives didn’t like them. Many on the right called Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the FDIC and a host of other New Deal bills “socialism” at best, “communism” at worst.
And Franklin Roosevelt? He was “a traitor to his class.”
Following World War II, the United States owned the world’s economy, and President Harry Truman thought the nation strong enough and fair enough to insure health care for all of its citizens. Twice Truman introduced comprehensive health care legislation; twice congressional conservatives thwarted him.
Johnson in the White House, liberal majorities in both houses of Congress, and civil rights activists in the streets resulted in a run of “big deals” over the next four years: the Civil Rights Bills of 1964 and 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, Medicare for Americans over 65 and Medicaid for the poor. But still, the wealthiest country in the world failed to provide access to health care for all of its citizens.
Both Presidents Richard Nixon and William Clinton pushed for national health care. Conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans, stopped them.
Last week, after 14 months of some of the most uncivil debate in American memory, a national health care reform bill passed. It required the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, sufficient liberal majorities in Congress and a determined President Barack Obama to do it.
And it is, indeed, a “big deal,” the first in more than 40 years.
U.S. number 1 in health care?
Now, class, move your desks forward and listen up while I offer a short lecture on what you get for your healthcare dollar in the United States of America.
First, you get “the finest healthcare system in the world.” For weeks, months, years and decades, you’ve heard our congressional ladies and gentlemen call it that - “the finest healthcare system in the world.”
you get a healthcare system that is, indeed, No.1 - numero uno, ichiban, no ka oi - in three important categories: total healthcare expenditures per capita, total health expenditures as a share of gross domestic product, and rate of growth in total healthcare expenditures as a share of GDP over the past quarter century.
But our healthcare system leads in other categories as well. For example, we lead in the number of people who do not have healthcare coverage: 46 million and growing. By the reckoning of the Commonwealth Fund, we should be using the number 75 million - which represents the uninsured and the underinsured. Either way, we lead.
* * *
Q: Per polling data, what percentages of Americans and Canadians are satisfied with their current health care system?
A: A study found that 35 percent of Americans (2,500 were surveyed) are very confident they receive quality and safe care, 33 percent are very confident they receive the most effective drugs and 38 percent are very confident they receive the best medical technology, according to a report by The Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private foundation that publishes research on health care issues. That’s compared to 26 percent of Canadians (3,000 were surveyed) very confident they will get quality and safe care, 32 percent very confident they receive the most effective drugs and 28 percent very confident they receive the best medical technology.
* * *
After reading so much rubbish about national healthcare programs, it was refreshing to read Dan Boylan’s recent column.
As a former patient of the Australian, British, French and German national healthcare systems, as well as Kaiser Permanente, Queen’s and Straub, I have no qualms at all in saying that healthcare in the USA is one gigantic scam!
Socialized healthcare systems focus on the early identification of ailments and prompt cure to reduce costs.
The current USA system is for profit, i.e., there is little money to be made in curing patients; profit lies in extending an ailment to the maximum number of follow-up visits and prescriptions possible.
An ailment resulting in surgery is like winning the lottery for an American doctor, so why would one even attempt to prevent such an event?
American taxpayers will fork over an estimated $218 billion in 2009 just for diabetes, and billions more for dialysis treatments. Socialized healthcare systems don’t have those costs because doctors identify and treat the problem long before it becomes necessary to amputate limbs or perform other lifelong detrimental surgeries.
Rico Leffanta
Honolulu
***
We are told that we have the best health care in the world. Is this true? Is there a worldwide organization that researches such information among countries?
Two groups, the World Health Organization and the Commonwealth Fund, issue reports that compare the U.S. health system with those in other countries.
A report by the WHO came out in 2000 as the first analysis of the world. The report, which some researchers said was flawed, found that France provides the best overall health care, followed by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan. It determined that the U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product on health care than any other country; the United States ranked 37 out of 191 countries, according to its performance.
The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation based in New York, also found that although the United States has the world's most costly health system, it "consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries," according to a 2007 report. It said that compared with Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the U.S. system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high-performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity and healthy lives.
First, you get “the finest healthcare system in the world.” For weeks, months, years and decades, you’ve heard our congressional ladies and gentlemen call it that - “the finest healthcare system in the world.”
you get a healthcare system that is, indeed, No.1 - numero uno, ichiban, no ka oi - in three important categories: total healthcare expenditures per capita, total health expenditures as a share of gross domestic product, and rate of growth in total healthcare expenditures as a share of GDP over the past quarter century.
But our healthcare system leads in other categories as well. For example, we lead in the number of people who do not have healthcare coverage: 46 million and growing. By the reckoning of the Commonwealth Fund, we should be using the number 75 million - which represents the uninsured and the underinsured. Either way, we lead.
* * *
Q: Per polling data, what percentages of Americans and Canadians are satisfied with their current health care system?
A: A study found that 35 percent of Americans (2,500 were surveyed) are very confident they receive quality and safe care, 33 percent are very confident they receive the most effective drugs and 38 percent are very confident they receive the best medical technology, according to a report by The Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private foundation that publishes research on health care issues. That’s compared to 26 percent of Canadians (3,000 were surveyed) very confident they will get quality and safe care, 32 percent very confident they receive the most effective drugs and 28 percent very confident they receive the best medical technology.
* * *
After reading so much rubbish about national healthcare programs, it was refreshing to read Dan Boylan’s recent column.
As a former patient of the Australian, British, French and German national healthcare systems, as well as Kaiser Permanente, Queen’s and Straub, I have no qualms at all in saying that healthcare in the USA is one gigantic scam!
Socialized healthcare systems focus on the early identification of ailments and prompt cure to reduce costs.
The current USA system is for profit, i.e., there is little money to be made in curing patients; profit lies in extending an ailment to the maximum number of follow-up visits and prescriptions possible.
An ailment resulting in surgery is like winning the lottery for an American doctor, so why would one even attempt to prevent such an event?
American taxpayers will fork over an estimated $218 billion in 2009 just for diabetes, and billions more for dialysis treatments. Socialized healthcare systems don’t have those costs because doctors identify and treat the problem long before it becomes necessary to amputate limbs or perform other lifelong detrimental surgeries.
Rico Leffanta
Honolulu
***
We are told that we have the best health care in the world. Is this true? Is there a worldwide organization that researches such information among countries?
Two groups, the World Health Organization and the Commonwealth Fund, issue reports that compare the U.S. health system with those in other countries.
A report by the WHO came out in 2000 as the first analysis of the world. The report, which some researchers said was flawed, found that France provides the best overall health care, followed by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan. It determined that the U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product on health care than any other country; the United States ranked 37 out of 191 countries, according to its performance.
The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation based in New York, also found that although the United States has the world's most costly health system, it "consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries," according to a 2007 report. It said that compared with Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the U.S. system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high-performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity and healthy lives.
Only 1500 each
The U.S. and Russia reached a breakthrough agreement Wednesday for a historic treaty to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the former Cold War rivals, the most significant pact in a generation and an important milestone in the decades-long quest to lower the risk of global nuclear war.
After long and trying negotiations, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are to sign the treaty in two weeks in Prague, once final technical details are worked out, officials in Washington and Moscow said. The accord is expected to cut the number of long-range nuclear weapons held by each side to about 1,500, and it raises hopes for further disarmament in the years ahead.
The agreement would still leave each country with a large number of nuclear weapons, both deployed and stockpiled.
Norris, the nuclear weapons expert, and Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, estimate that the U.S. has 2,150 deployed strategic nuclear weapons and the Russians have about 2,600. The U.S. has another 2,600 warheads held in reserve, plus 500 non-strategic nuclear weapons, by the two experts' estimate. Another 4,200 retired U.S. strategic warheads are awaiting dismantlement.
After long and trying negotiations, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are to sign the treaty in two weeks in Prague, once final technical details are worked out, officials in Washington and Moscow said. The accord is expected to cut the number of long-range nuclear weapons held by each side to about 1,500, and it raises hopes for further disarmament in the years ahead.
The agreement would still leave each country with a large number of nuclear weapons, both deployed and stockpiled.
Norris, the nuclear weapons expert, and Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, estimate that the U.S. has 2,150 deployed strategic nuclear weapons and the Russians have about 2,600. The U.S. has another 2,600 warheads held in reserve, plus 500 non-strategic nuclear weapons, by the two experts' estimate. Another 4,200 retired U.S. strategic warheads are awaiting dismantlement.
Friday, April 09, 2010
more Krugman on health care
In every other advanced nation, insurance coverage is available to everyone regardless of medical history. Our system is unique in its cruelty.
So what’s the answer? Americans overwhelmingly favor guaranteeing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions — but you can’t do that without pursuing broad-based reform. To make insurance affordable, you have to keep currently healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that everyone or almost everyone buy coverage. You can’t do that without financial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can pay the premiums. So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies.
Or to put it another way, you end up with something like the health care plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts in 2006, and the very similar plan the House either will or won’t pass in the next few days.
So what’s the answer? Americans overwhelmingly favor guaranteeing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions — but you can’t do that without pursuing broad-based reform. To make insurance affordable, you have to keep currently healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that everyone or almost everyone buy coverage. You can’t do that without financial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can pay the premiums. So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies.
Or to put it another way, you end up with something like the health care plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts in 2006, and the very similar plan the House either will or won’t pass in the next few days.
Star-Bulletin letters on health care reform
I was stunned by Richard Webster's letter imploring U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono to vote against health care reform ("Please vote 'no' on health reform," Star-Bulletin, March 16). According to a recent Harvard University study, 44,600 Americans die prematurely each year for lack of adequate health insurance. They are sent to early graves for the crime of being unable to afford health insurance.
This is more than a 9/11 each and every month.
If Mr. Webster and those who agree with him succeed, this shameful situation will continue indefinitely.
I implore Rep. Hirono to vote yes, and save these people.
Rick Lloyd
Honolulu
***
Doctors worried by 'Obamacare'
A newsletter affiliated with the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine — Recruiting Physicians Today — has just published a survey showing that almost half of practicing doctors in the U.S. will give serious consideration to leaving the practice of medicine if Obamacare becomes law.
Also just published was a study from the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Massachusetts that concludes Obamacare will cost America up to 700,000 jobs by 2019.
It's time for our sole House representative in Washington to reconsider her past support for what amounts to a governmental takeover of a sixth of the U.S. economy.
Not only will Obamacare increase the federal budget deficit, but it's now clear that it will founder miserably on other criteria, not the least of which is that it will cause a severe shortage of doctors and cost our economy badly needed, good-paying jobs.
Rep. Mazie Hirono needs to wake up! Obamacare will hurt the availability of quality care in Hawaii and nationally.
Dr. Michael P. Rethman
Kaneohe
[P.S. he's a dentist]
***
Please vote 'no' on health reform
Again I implore U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono to vote against the pending health care bill in Congress.
This proposed bill is clearly unconstitutional in many sections.
In addition, this bill is a socialistic step of huge and disastrous proportions that will destroy the best health care system in the world. It takes so many personal freedoms from our citizens that it will effectively place us into socialistic servitude.
Finally it is economically unsustainable and will further accelerate the demise of the dollar.
Those who vote for this bill must surely be listed in the annals of history as the legislators who did the most to destroy the freedoms afforded U.S. citizens in the Constitution by supporting the worst bill in the history of our country.
Richard Webster
Lahaina
This is more than a 9/11 each and every month.
If Mr. Webster and those who agree with him succeed, this shameful situation will continue indefinitely.
I implore Rep. Hirono to vote yes, and save these people.
Rick Lloyd
Honolulu
***
Doctors worried by 'Obamacare'
A newsletter affiliated with the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine — Recruiting Physicians Today — has just published a survey showing that almost half of practicing doctors in the U.S. will give serious consideration to leaving the practice of medicine if Obamacare becomes law.
Also just published was a study from the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Massachusetts that concludes Obamacare will cost America up to 700,000 jobs by 2019.
It's time for our sole House representative in Washington to reconsider her past support for what amounts to a governmental takeover of a sixth of the U.S. economy.
Not only will Obamacare increase the federal budget deficit, but it's now clear that it will founder miserably on other criteria, not the least of which is that it will cause a severe shortage of doctors and cost our economy badly needed, good-paying jobs.
Rep. Mazie Hirono needs to wake up! Obamacare will hurt the availability of quality care in Hawaii and nationally.
Dr. Michael P. Rethman
Kaneohe
[P.S. he's a dentist]
***
Please vote 'no' on health reform
Again I implore U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono to vote against the pending health care bill in Congress.
This proposed bill is clearly unconstitutional in many sections.
In addition, this bill is a socialistic step of huge and disastrous proportions that will destroy the best health care system in the world. It takes so many personal freedoms from our citizens that it will effectively place us into socialistic servitude.
Finally it is economically unsustainable and will further accelerate the demise of the dollar.
Those who vote for this bill must surely be listed in the annals of history as the legislators who did the most to destroy the freedoms afforded U.S. citizens in the Constitution by supporting the worst bill in the history of our country.
Richard Webster
Lahaina
Saturday, April 03, 2010
who (or what) is Barack Obama?
Who is Barack Obama?
If you ask a conservative Republican, you are likely to hear that Obama is a skilled politician who campaigned as a centrist but is governing as a big-government liberal. He plays by ruthless, Chicago politics rules. He is arrogant toward foes, condescending toward allies and runs a partisan political machine.
If you ask a liberal Democrat, you are likely to hear that Obama is an inspiring but overly intellectual leader who has trouble making up his mind and fighting for his positions. He has not defined a clear mission. He has allowed the Republicans to dominate debate. He is too quick to compromise and too cerebral to push things through.
You’ll notice first that these two viewpoints are diametrically opposed. You’ll, observe, second, that they are entirely predictable. Political partisans always imagine the other side is ruthlessly effective and that the public would be with them if only their side had better messaging. And finally, you’ll notice that both views distort reality. They tell you more about the information cocoons that partisans live in these days than about Obama himself.
The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book “The Audacity of Hope” to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.
Liberals are wrong to call him weak and indecisive. He’s just not always pursuing their aims. Conservatives are wrong to call him a big-government liberal. That’s just not a fair reading of his agenda.
Take health care. He has pushed a program that expands coverage, creates exchanges and moderately tinkers with the status quo — too moderately to restrain costs. To call this an orthodox liberal plan is an absurdity. It more closely resembles the center-left deals cut by Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, or Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. Obama has pushed this program with a tenacity unmatched in modern political history; with more tenacity than Bill Clinton pushed his health care plan or George W. Bush pushed Social Security reform.
Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term. Obama conducted a long review of the Afghan policy and was genuinely moved by the evidence. He has emerged as a liberal hawk, pursuing victory in Iraq and adopting an Afghan surge that has already utterly transformed the momentum in that war. The Taliban is now in retreat and its leaders are being assassinated or captured at a steady rate.
In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office.
-- David Brooks, New York Times
If you ask a conservative Republican, you are likely to hear that Obama is a skilled politician who campaigned as a centrist but is governing as a big-government liberal. He plays by ruthless, Chicago politics rules. He is arrogant toward foes, condescending toward allies and runs a partisan political machine.
If you ask a liberal Democrat, you are likely to hear that Obama is an inspiring but overly intellectual leader who has trouble making up his mind and fighting for his positions. He has not defined a clear mission. He has allowed the Republicans to dominate debate. He is too quick to compromise and too cerebral to push things through.
You’ll notice first that these two viewpoints are diametrically opposed. You’ll, observe, second, that they are entirely predictable. Political partisans always imagine the other side is ruthlessly effective and that the public would be with them if only their side had better messaging. And finally, you’ll notice that both views distort reality. They tell you more about the information cocoons that partisans live in these days than about Obama himself.
The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book “The Audacity of Hope” to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.
Liberals are wrong to call him weak and indecisive. He’s just not always pursuing their aims. Conservatives are wrong to call him a big-government liberal. That’s just not a fair reading of his agenda.
Take health care. He has pushed a program that expands coverage, creates exchanges and moderately tinkers with the status quo — too moderately to restrain costs. To call this an orthodox liberal plan is an absurdity. It more closely resembles the center-left deals cut by Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, or Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. Obama has pushed this program with a tenacity unmatched in modern political history; with more tenacity than Bill Clinton pushed his health care plan or George W. Bush pushed Social Security reform.
Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term. Obama conducted a long review of the Afghan policy and was genuinely moved by the evidence. He has emerged as a liberal hawk, pursuing victory in Iraq and adopting an Afghan surge that has already utterly transformed the momentum in that war. The Taliban is now in retreat and its leaders are being assassinated or captured at a steady rate.
In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office.
-- David Brooks, New York Times
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