2008 Woodie Awards
Hugh Hewitt’s exemplifying the tendency of many on the religious Right to obscure the truth about RU-486 (aka, the “morning after pill”). The facts, which they would rather not tell you, suggest that the pill isn’t anything like the bad medicine they’re describing:
-all four of the women who have died after taking RU-486 didn’t follow the instructions- they took it viginally rather than orally, an off-label use not approved by the FDA;
-four deaths after thousands and thousands of successful uses is not enough evidence to that RU486 poses any sort of harm, much less a significant one. Just because someone takes Advil before they die doesn’t mean Advil caused their death (if you feel otherwise, you probably need to re-take elementary statistics);
-even considering these four deaths, RU486 is much safer than either surgical abortions or childbirth;
-the far right has ignored all of the above because their criticism of RU486 is not based on science but instead on religion. I don’t want religious fundamentalists telling me what medicines I should be allowed to take, and my guess is most Americans feel the same way.
This summer, I’m living and working in China, a country equally renowned for its impressive history and its lack of free speech. Yet one thing is particularly striking to me. Despite its rigid control of the press, its advanced internet filtering systems, and alarming censoring of political criticism, China is surging ahead of the United States in its willingness to freely offer sex education. Just a decade ago, sex education classes at Chinese schools were a rarity. Furthermore, the PRC did its best to keep a growing AIDS problem tightly under wraps. But in the past couple of years, things have changed dramatically. Sex education classes are now taught in many schools and universities throughout the country. Hotlines have been set up in dozens of Chinese cities for people to call if they have questions. Several localities have even opened up sex museums to keep the public informed (I plan to go to the one in Tongli tomorrow which focuses on “ancient” Chinese sex. The Chinese may not have the Kama Sutra, but they’ve been “doing it” for thousands of years as well).
But even more important than this new focus on sexual education is the sort of material that is actually being taught. Unlike the United States, China has increasingly embraced a more comprehensive form of sexual education that both includes information on the health risks of sexual activity and on how to use contraceptives like condoms. The economy isn’t the only area in which the United States could fall behind. Some might suggest that China’s “One-Child Policy” is at the root of all of this newfound appreciation for the importance of sex-ed. But even if this is true, both the United and China are trying to use sex education to solve the exact same social problems: STDs and teen pregnancy.
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Imagine your neighbor works five days a week. You know that he recently fell ill and isn’t earning enough to fully cover medical costs because he is uninsured, and you know he is sometimes giving up meals in order to buy much needed medication. What would you feel?
Now imagine there were 1 million of these people, and multiply that feeling by 1 million. Imagine 10 million, and do the same. What would you feel?
The truth is that around 45 million people are uninsured, many of whom come from poor, working class families. According to this US Census Bureau report (pg 15), 2/3 of the uninsured come from families with income less than $50,000 a year, a full one third of the uninsured come from families with incomes of less than $25,000 a year. While many are not constantly ill, there are those who cannot possibly afford treatment because of their low budgets– and there are many of them.
Many have pointed to expanding Medicare to cover those left out, Paul Krugman presents it comprehensively and simply here.:
We need to do this one right. If reform fails again, we’ll be on the way to a radically unequal society, in which all but the most affluent Americans face the constant risk of financial ruin and even premature death because they can’t pay their medical bills.
Not really. What I am suggesting is that you shouldn’t believe what gets peddled in two recent op-eds (via Malkin) denouncing the apparent failures of expansive, public health care programs in Britain and Canada, respectively. In spite of the machinations of the right-wing, it is possible to create a highly efficient public, universal health care system. And in spite of the overwrought ambitions of some on the Left, who think we need some new and different policy-fix, the solution is actually amazingly simple. Professor Jacob Hacker of Yale has laid out a brilliant solution called Medicare Plus.
It’s actually quite a simple concept: expand on Medicare, which has worked quite well, to create a system that provides incentivized universal coverage while maximizing choice, access to care, and flexibility. Read about it yourself; Hacker’s presentation on it was one of the high points of the Take Back America conference last week.
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