Interesting Stuff # 43

No Proof of Secret C.I.A. Prisons, European Antiterror Chief Says

The European Union's antiterrorism chief told a hearing on Thursday that he had not been able to prove that secret C.I.A. prisons existed in Europe.
"We've heard all kinds of allegations," the official, Gijs de Vries, said before a committee of the European Parliament. "It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt."

When There Was No Jewish Lobby

I am speaking, of course, of the Hitler era, 1935-1945, when there was no powerful political lobby in the United States representing Jewish “parochial” interests. These were the years when millions of European Jews were desperately trying to flee the charnel house on the continent and the Jews of America were too weak, or too intimidated, or too assimilationist and anti-Zionist to effectively petition their government to extend a helping hand. [Click, and keep reading]

Fighting to Speak: Tunisia vs. a fundamental right.

It has been more than two years since President Bush requested Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to allow political freedoms and freedom of the press. Ben Ali ignored Bush's request. There have been no substantive reforms. Rather, Ben Ali has increased oppression under the guise of combating terrorism. In reality, it is not terrorism the Tunisian regime is combating; its wrath is directed at even the most moderate and peaceful political voices….

Liberalism will perish unless the White House and its European allies keep up the pressure to keep Arab liberals safe.

How to Stop Medicaid Fraud

For more than a decade, Medicaid has been the fastest-growing item on many state budgets. Unfortunately, state and federal efforts to uncover and stamp out the astonishing amount of fraud in the program (whose costs the states split with Washington) have lagged. Experts estimate that abuses of Medicaid eat up at least 10 percent of the program’s total cost nationwide—a waste of $30 billion a year. Unscrupulous doctors billing for over 24 hours per day of procedures, phony companies invoicing for phantom services, pharmacists filling prescriptions for dead patients, home health-care companies demanding payment for treating clients actually in the hospital—on and on the rip-offs go. The cheating is brazen because scam artists have figured out that years of lax oversight have made Medicaid easy plunder.
… [Much detail]…

Even with tougher enforcement, states must confront the troubling reality that Medicaid programs have grown too large and complex to manage easily. With even faster growth rates projected in the immediate future, trying to minimize fraud, waste, or simple errors in Medicaid will only get harder. “All this complexity has created a breeding ground for fraud and abuse,” Florida governor Jeb Bush said last year.
That’s why the best idea for reducing fraud over the long term may be Florida’s push to overhaul its entire Medicaid program. Last fall, the federal government gave Florida permission to try a drastic revamping of the system. The state will stop acting as a giant health insurer and instead move recipients into private plans. Florida will pay the insurance companies a yearly fee to enroll the recipients, in the same way that a private employer now pays for its employees to receive health coverage. As in the private sector, each insurer will be responsible for auditing bills and sniffing out fraud by providers or recipients in its system. In effect, Florida will be breaking its Medicaid system into dozens of smaller units, managed by the private sector, where lax efforts to eliminate waste, inefficiency, and incorrect billings will eat away at companies’ bottom lines.

Terrorists, Inc.

The Hamas government of the Palestinian Authority underscored its terrorist nature by placing one of the more notorious terrorists in charge of its new Islamist security forces. Jamal Abu Samhadana, whose track record includes the murder of US Marines in Gaza during a diplomatic mission, will create and command the new force…

The US should immediately challenge Qatar and Saudi Arabia for their support of this regime and their funding of its operations. We need to make clear that those people who participated in the murder of our Marines while on a mission of peace -- remember that the diplomatic mission was to help the Palestinians in Gaza! -- will never comprise any government with which we will engage. Those Marines and their families deserve that much for their sacrifice. We should point out that nations who pay the salaries of those murderers will not be viewed as friends by the US.
Addendum: I find it interesting that the Washington Post put this report on page A16. Doesn't the creation of an Islamist terrorist force by the PA, headed by a man responsible for the murders of three Marines, justify a little more visibility than that? I do have to commend the Post for at least reporting the development; so far the LA Times couldn't be bothered, and the New York Times puts the issue of the murdered Marines below the "friction" Samhadana's appointment and the Islamist force will create with Mahmoud Abbas. Also, the NYT never quite gets around to mentioning that the force will comprise Islamist terrorists -- instead, it calls them "militants". All the news that fits our mindset, eh?

Understanding Key Parts of the Massachusetts Health Plan

Any comprehensive plan to reform health care will contain complex, and likely contentious, provisions. The recently enacted Massachusetts plan, based on a proposal by Governor Mitt Romney, is no exception. It contains complex provisions that have raised questions and concerns. But much of this controversy stems from confusion about the provisions. Therefore, understanding these provisions, especially in the context of the larger reform, is important.
The individual “mandate”: Thanks to regulatory changes that are a part of the Massachusetts plan, residents will be able to satisfy the mandate merely by purchasing catastrophic coverage through a high-deductible health plan or a Health Savings Account (HSA). With this regulatory change, the plan will promote HSA/high-deducible plans and make health care coverage more accessible and somewhat more affordable for individuals. The state will also provide lower-income individuals with a subsidy

The new employer “mandate”: This new fee can easily be avoided: firms subject to it need only offer their employees a Section 125 Cafeteria Plan and give them the opportunity to buy coverage through the new health insurance Connector on a pre-tax basis to escape the levy at little expense. Further, the actual assessment is likely to be less than the statutory maximum of $295 because the other legislative provisions in the plan are designed to reduce the demand on the uncompensated care pool.

The regulation of health insurance: The health care reform plan achieves four regulatory changes. First, it allows small businesses and individuals to buy insurance through the “Connector,” which will expand coverage options, especially for those in the individual market. Second, it allows HMOs to also offer HSA-qualified high-deductible health plans, which are more affordable than other plans. Third, it permits insurance plans offered through the Connector to contract with health care providers as they choose, relieving them of the costly “any willing provider” requirements that prevent plans from steering patients to providers that offer the best value. And fourth, it permits insurers to offer plans to individuals between the ages of 19 and 26 subject to fewer costly state mandates and puts a two-year moratorium on any new insurance mandates while the state conducts a review of all mandated benefits. The Governor projects that this new flexibility could reduce average premiums for individuals from $350 to $194 per month

The role of the “Connector”: It is also similar, broadly, to the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP), which allows federal employees to choose from a variety of competing, private health insurance plans and keep the plan of their choice if they change jobs within the federal government.

LONG LIVE SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM

But reform isn't dead. It can't die. Reform is inevitable, because the Social Security system really is in crisis, in the sense that the accounting mirage of the Trust Fund doesn't hold any real assets to pay off the system's obligations. Even if it did, the assets would be exhausted in a few short decades as the baby boom generation retires.

So the Left remains mobilized t keep reform off the table as long as Republicans are in power. The Left wants to be sure that their favored constituencies -- unions and minorities -- get all their entitlement goodies left intact. And the Left wants to be sure that reform doesn't diminish the size and scope of government interference in our lives, as President Bush's proposal for individual investment accounts would surely have done….
When the Trustees' report finally comes out in a week or two, it will undoubtedly show the existing system's continuing downward spiral into bankruptcy. When the opponents of reform are done griping that the report was late, maybe they should actually read it, and find out how deep the crisis really is. And for the good of the country, maybe they should forget their partisanship and actually do something about it.

STILL EMBEDDED

Remember embedded reporters? Most people probably forgot about them after the fall of Baghdad. They were regarded with suspicion on the right and openly reviled on the left. But I thought they did, for the most part, a good job.
Since the fall of Baghdad, I think they've done a much better job. The pell-mell chase across the desert was a difficult thing to capture in words and an easy inspiration to enthusiasm and hyperbole. Reporting on the slow grind of a fight against insurgents and terrorists, however, is exactly the kind of thing that requires close and long-term contact with the grunts. And the question of military morale is so important to the domestic debate about the war, with widely ranging estimates of where it stands, that you'd think the embedded reporters would have everyone's attention right now.
You'd be wrong....
Exactly when they became useful, the big media seemed to lose interest in them. Who will give you better pictures of realities from Iraq? An embedded freelancer in Ramadi or Mosul, or a high-priced son of the First Amendment who never leaves the Green Zone except for a ride home to Manhattan?
My money's on the embeds. But they rarely seem to get into print outside their hometown newspapers. I keep up with them via the occasional update wraps provided by Greyhawk and others.