Comparing the Health Care Systems of 11 Industrial Countries

Comparing the Health Care Systems of 11 Industrial Countries

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I was going to post this in the Single Payer thread and in the Open Thread for today, but this turned out to be its own post.  This year's Commonwealth Fund International Profiles of Health Systems (PDF) is out. This is particularly useful in detailing how governments cover the health care of their citizens (as in, "single payer" looks different depending upon where you are -- instructive) and in summarizing overall outcomes of these systems. We get middling quality care and pay more than anyone else for it -- 17.7% of our GDP (and this is without covering everybody) vs The Netherlands (the next highest) at 11.9%. We're in the bottom third of countries able to get same day appointments and in being able to get after hours care. We're the highest in the number of avoidable medical system deaths and in the bottom third of overall satisfaction with the medical care system.  So much for the greatest medical care in the world.
Another Year and We Are Still Not Close to Fixing Wilmington’s Violence Problems

Another Year and We Are Still Not Close to Fixing Wilmington’s Violence Problems

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This Sunday featured one more Special Report from the NJ on the current state of violence in Wilmington: A Legacy of Crime Threatens Wilmington's Progress; Wilmington Mayor Wants to Overhaul Police Force to Reverse City's Crime Trend; and Florida City's Police Force Gets Out From Behind Desks is the reporting package on offer. There's alot to think about here and I'm not sure that I can do one more piece on using the policing assets we have better. But I have a few random thoughts:
In Which We Find Chip Flowers Changing the Credit Cards Story AGAIN

In Which We Find Chip Flowers Changing the Credit Cards Story AGAIN

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Delaware State News reports on the Chip Flowers' travel document dump, and we find that that the State Treasurer still can't quite wrap his mind around the escalating mismanagement of these credit card issues. For one (and the most jawdropping to me), we find that Flowers wants us to know that he lost all of those receipts because the corporate world he came from has differing standards:
Not keeping the original receipts was a mistake that Mr. Flowers acknowledged, and he attributed the discarded receipts to following the general policies of corporate business during his transition to public office in 2011.
Saturday Open Thread [11.16.13]

Saturday Open Thread [11.16.13]

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This year is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and there's no shortage of writing and reporting this year attempting to re-examine those days. So here are a few long reads for your consideration:
Yeah, He Lied

Yeah, He Lied

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Any better conclusions than that? Seriously, after the huffing and puffing and bluster that the News Journal and his critics were trying to mislead people or trying to hurt him or trying to delegitimize his function in office -- Treasurer Chip Flowers finally meets with the News Journal and what we find out is that he really is that incompetent. And we find out that records requested are conveniently missing. From this morning's NJ, where Flowers admits that there are financial records missing from his office:

QOTD — When Was the Last Time One of Our Congressional Delegation Had a Town Hall Meeting?

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I saw that our Congressional delegation is having another Job Fair -- which is very cool and certainly people who need jobs could use every bit of help they can get. But when I saw this item in the NJ (an item I passed on to folks I know are looking), I couldn't remember the last Town Hall from these guys. This is particularly odd since the August recess wasn't too far back. I think that John Carney has had a forum on college costs, but that is all I can remember.

Toplines for Delaware Political Polling!

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Following up on my post from Saturday, we now have (courtesy of Mr. Paul Brewer) the toplines of The University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication National Agenda Poll from September 2013. (pdf) I've asked Mr. Brewer about their long term plans for this poll and it looks like this might be a once a year event -- dependent upon available resources. But Fresh Delaware polling! Yay!
More Bigotry from Bill Colley and His WGMD Enablers

More Bigotry from Bill Colley and His WGMD Enablers

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Have you heard about this? The stupid bigotry of Bill Colley has a home at WGMD and he even has a blog there. One of his recent blog posts (see here, because nothing over there gets embedded here) takes a pictures of some mattresses on the side of the road and speculates that this is the doing of latinos. Huh? Who even knew that mattresses on the side of the road was a Latino thing? Ignoring, of course, that the biggest cause of large household goods on the side of the road is the direct result of a bunch of good old boys over-estimating the carrying capacity of their vehicle OR the under-estimating the strength of their tie-downs. I mean, who hasn't seen these people on the road. What we shouldn't ignore is that this is a major Delaware media outlet who thinks that casual bigotry aimed at some of their neighbors is just fine. And it isn't. So contact them and tell them to knock if off and ask if they think that any of their advertisers would be interested in maintaining a relationship with an outlet that accepts this kind of bigotry as part of their business model.