Since we’ve spent the last month discussing the problems existing in the American healthcare system as well as possible reforms, I thought it might be useful to consider the highly successful Japanese healthcare system as a model. While Japan spends 5.4% less of its GDP per year on healthcare than the Unites States, unlike the US, Japan provides universal coverage to Japanese citizens. The Japanese system requires all citizens to purchase health insurance. Insurance companies pay privately owned service providers directly at rates set by the government. All employees in Japan are provided health insurance by the Social Insurance System (SIS). Employers shoulder between 50-80% of the cost of insurance, while the remainder is covered by premiums paid by employees based on their financial ability. The average worker’s premium is 4% of their salary. Citizens who are not employed are covered by National Health Insurance (NHI). A third insurance agency caters specifically to the healthcare needs of the elderly. Patients are allowed to choose their own doctors and preferred facilities. This system seems to integrate private healthcare providers with government subsidy quite effectively in a way that might appeal to insured American voters preoccupied with maintaining the freedom of choice they have with private insurance companies. While the Japanese system is highly successful on a whole, primary problems include long waits to see doctors and a shortage of doctors and medical facilities in rural as compared to urban areas.

John McCain has officially declared his candidacy for President in the 2008 Election, and some have wondered whether “his age may be Mr McCain’s biggest handicap. If he won the presidency, he would by then—at 72—be the oldest man ever elected to the White House.”

I think it’s more likely that McCain’s unpopular stances on issues, especially his support of sending more troops to Iraq, would overshadow concerns about his age in the minds of voters. What do you think?

Last Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein graced our very own Cal campus with her glorious presence as part of a conference put on by Boalt to address climate change policy. Feinstein presented the conference attendees with five bills, all of which are designed to lower both future greenhouse gas emissions and the country’s dependency on fossil fuels. In between emphasizing the value of a moderate bill that can be strengthened and recognizing the fact that policy isn’t always perfect, DJ DiFi dropped some mad-crazy metaphors, declaring that “we are looking for the access ramp to the freeway for change,” and warning that global warming may be approaching a “tipping point;” sounds to me like the cow of the ozone layer is in some serious trouble! It’s great to hear that concerns about climate change are transforming into tangible policy changes, and that our campus can be the catalyst for these discussions and plans to be made!

The Daily Cal has more.

This story is infuriating:

Shawqi Ahmad Omar is an American citizen who, according to his family, moved to Iraq to help with the reconstruction effort, [but] was detained by U.S. Forces in October of that year on suspicion of having terrorist connections and has been languishing in U.S. military detention ever since. During that time, he has not been charged with any crime and has had no access to a lawyer. In December 2005, Omar’s family filed a habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the legality of his continued detention….While Omar’s habeas petition was pending, the U.S. government notified his family that it planned to transfer him into Iraqi custody—and conveniently out of the reach of the U.S. justice system.

Our federal judiciary is supposed to serve as a check on the power of Congress and the executive branch, ensuring that Americans’ basic rights are protected. But a radical doctrine promulgated by the Bush administration holds that there are virtually no civil liberties which cannot be trampled on if the president claims that doing so is in the interest of national security.

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You may have noticed that conservatives like attacking programs such as…free health-care, public education, ending corporate welfare, taxation, and any proactive governance as the evil “Big Government.” The old phrase, “government is the problem, not the solution” is spewed forth like the word of God in an attempt to create so-called freedom through the market.

There’s just one problem with this: conservatives don’t practice it. Neither side does; a large government is far more convenient, something we can’t live without today. What we have now isn’t a battle over whether we should have a small government or a big government, but what KIND of big government we should have. What I see as the political/philosophical debate of our day is if we should have a government which invests in people, or one that invests in bombs.

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