Yesterday on All Things Considered they ran a piece, Cancer Society’s Ad Dollars Focus on Insurance , that highlights the problem for those without health insurance.

American Cancer Society CEO John Seffrin talked to Noah Adams about the decision to spend all of its advertising dollars to draw attention to the plight of Americans who lack health insurance. The Cancer Society realized that there was no point in trying to get people to have check-ups, when they can’t afford them, and all the expensive testing would tell people is how soon they were going to die, because if they can’t really afford the tests, they sure can’t afford the treatment.

As Jane Hamsher of Fire Dog Lake has written, having insurance is no guarantee of anything.

This is not a sane way of providing health care.

The Pensacola Beach Blog remembers that three years ago we were all hunkered down for the arrival of “Ivan the Terrible.” We still aren’t “whole” and are still screwing around with the moving targets of FEMA and insurance companies.

Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof is another year older. Happy birthday, MB, and keep an eye on the Weather Channel.

McClatchy reports: Medicare auditing program could end up costing U.S. taxpayers

WASHINGTON — U.S. taxpayers will end up paying millions of dollars in commissions to an Atlanta-based auditor even though the firm’s wholesale rejections of Medicare claims from California rehabilitation hospitals are now being reversed on appeal.

The rulings by administrative law judges for the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals will restore money withdrawn from California hospitals, some of which are suffering financial hardships and have trimmed services to Medicare patients as a result of the reviews.

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Update: Mad Kane provides the whole thing in haiku form.

CNN reports: Greenspan book: GOP ‘swapped principle for power’

(CNN) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan slams President Bush and today’s Republicans, while calling Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton “the smartest presidents” he worked with, according to an advance copy of his upcoming book.

He further says the GOP deserved the stomping it took in November’s congressional elections — a ballot that saw both houses of Congress wrested from Republican control — because the party “swapped principle for power.”

His book, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” is scheduled for release Monday. CNN obtained a copy Saturday.

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In a series of totally unfair attacks on the Hedgemony, various groups in the Persian Gulf are using facts and logic to counter the claims made by the US.

The BBC notes: Iranian supreme leader slams Bush

The supreme leader of Iran has launched a scathing attack on United States President George W Bush.

Speaking at Friday prayers, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he was sure President Bush would be tried in an international court for what had happened in Iraq.

This scurrilous attack is based on nothing more than admitted violations of major treaties and protocols to which the US is a signatory.

[Read more →]

Día de la Independencia
Estados Unidos Mexicanos

¡Viva México!

Some background on 16 de Septiembre and El Grito de Dolores.

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.