Way to Go Nepal!

AND NOT A DAY TOO SOON!

Nepal’s monarchy comes to an end

KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 28 (UPI) — Nepal’s newly elected Constituent Assembly ended the country’s 240-year monarchy Wednesday and gave King Gyanendra 15 days to vacate the royal palace.

Lawmakers voted 560-4 that Nepal will become “an independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular and an inclusive democratic republic nation,” The Telegraph reported.

The resolution also said that “all the privileges enjoyed by the king and royal family will automatically come to an end.”

The Narayanhiti Royal Palace is to become a museum, The Hindu reported.

Good Riddance Your “Majesty!”

No Longer King! Sketch portrait of Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, King of Nepal from June 4, 2001 until May 28, 2008 when the monarchy was abolished.Image drawn by Duvilar; GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike Version 2.5/2.0/1.0

The Constituent Assembly is now set to amend the country’s constitution and elect a president and a new prime minister of the Himalayan nation, the newspaper said.

The president will be the commander of the army and also have the authority to impose emergency rule on the recommendation of the Cabinet.

King Gyanendra inherited the throne seven years ago, after 10 members of the royal family were massacred by Crown Prince Diprenda. He is expected to move to his Kathmandu mansion, the newspaper said. © 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Who’s Next? King Dracula of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?

China “quake lake” fears compound survivors misery

Will China Proceed with Beijing Olympics, or Focus on Helping Quake Survivors?

Another Desperate Chapter in the Plight of Quake Survivors

About 150,000 people have been evacuated from an area below a swollen lake, created when a 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck the mountainous Sichuan province on May 12, amid fears of flooding if the lake bursts, state media reported.

An aerial view of Tangjiashan “quake lake” formed by landslide and mud blocking the Jianjiang river, Sichuan province, May 26, 2008. Photo distributed by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. REUTERS/Xinhua/Zhu Wei.

The lake was formed when landslides caused by the earthquake blocked the path of Jianjiang river above the town of Tangjiashan in Beichuan county near the quake epicenter.

Meanwhile, the official death toll from the quake rose above 67,000 with about 21,000 listed as missing and 362,000 people injured.

What Will They Do Come Winter?

Earthquake survivor line up for food after losing their houses in May12 earthquake at a refugee camp in Xiaoba town in Anxian county, southwestern China’s Sichuan province Tuesday, May 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Analysis:

• A New Depth in Depravity for New Zealand (Where is the Wenchuan girl now?)
  
• Chinese Government Prevents Aggrieved Parents Lodging Lawsuit

• Why Didn’t China Prevent the Loss of 86,000 Lives?
• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• How Many More Survivors?
• Heavy Death Toll, Corruption, Criminal Incompetence
• Why Was the Girl Removed from Family?

• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath
• Bigger China Disaster Unfolds

• China’s grieving quake parents start to voice anger
• Beijing’s quick response to disaster won’t cover cracks of corruption
• Almost five million left homeless, China says
• Corruption blamed for rising death toll in China
• Parents’ grief turns to anger at shoddily built deathtrap schools

• Earthquake Predictions In China Are Also Political

Related Links:

• China “quake lake” fears force new evacuation
• Swelling China lakes a danger 2 weeks after quake
• Big aftershock causes more misery in China

Relate Videos:

• Long road ahead for quake victims
• China’s shattered villages.
• Aftershock hits China quake zone

.

Stop the Oil Speculators

by Ralph Nader
5/27/08

What factors are causing the zooming price of crude oil, gasoline and heating products? What is going to be done about it?

Don’t rely on the White House—with Bush and Cheney marinated in oil—or the Congress—which has hearings that grill oil executives who know that nothing is going to happen on Capitol Hill either.

Last week the price of crude oil reached about $130 a barrel after spiking to $140 briefly. The immediate cause? Guesses by oil man T. Boone Pickens and Goldman Sachs that the price could go to $150 and $200 a barrel respectivly in the near future. They were referring to what can be called the hoopla pricing party on the New York Mercantile Exchange. (NYMEX)

Meanwhile, consumers, workers and small businesses are suffering with the price of gasoline at $4 a gallon and diesel at $4.50 a gallon. Suffering but not protesting, except for a few demonstrations by independent truckers.

A consumer and small business revolt could be politically powerful. But what would they revolt to achieve? Their government is paralyzed and is unable to indicate any action if oil goes up to $200 or $400 a barrel. Washington, D.C. is leaving people defenseless and drawing no marker for when it will take action.

Oil was at $50 a barrel in January 2007, then $75 a barrel in August 2007. Now at $130 or so a barrel, it is clear that oil pricing is speculative activity, having very little to do with physical supply and demand. An essential product—petroleum—is set by speculators operating on rumor, greed, and fear of wild predictions.

Over the time since early 2007, U.S. demand for petroleum has fallen by 1 percent and world demand has risen by 1.3 percent. Supplies of crude are so plentiful, according to the Wall Street Journal, “traders of physical crude oil say their market is suffering from too much supply, not too little.”

Iran, for instance, is storing 25 million barrels of heavy, sour crude oil because, in the words of Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran’s oil governor, “there are simply no buyers because the market has more than enough oil.”

Mike Wittner, head of oil research at Societe Generale in London agrees. “There’s various signals out there saying for right now, the markets are well supplied with crude.”

Historically, oil has been afflicted with the control of monopolists. From the late nineteenth century days of John D. Rockefeller, and his Standard Oil monopoly, to the emergence of the “Seven Sisters” oligopoly, made up of Standard Oil, Shell, BP, Texaco, Mobil, Gulf and Socal, to the rise of OPEC representing the major producing countries, the “free market” price of oil has been a mirage. Despite the breakup of the Standard Oil company by the government’s trustbusters about 100 years ago, selling cartels and buying oligopolies kept reasserting themselves.

In an ironic twist, the major price determinant has moved from OPEC (having only 40% of the world production) and the oil companies to the speculators in the commodities markets. What goes on in the essentially unregulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)—without Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforced margin requirements, and, unlike your personal purchases, untaxed—is now the place that leads to your skyrocketing gasoline bills. OPEC and the Big Oil companies reap the benefits and say that it’s not their doing, but that of the speculators. Gives new meaning to “passing the buck.”

Deborah Fineman, president of Mitchell Supreme Fuel Co. in Orange, New Jersey, summed up the scene: “Energy markets have been dictated for too long by hedge funds and speculators, who artificially manipulate the numbers for their own benefit. The current market isn’t based on the sound principles of supply and demand but it is being rigged by companies and speculators who are jacking up prices for their own greed.”

Harry C. Johnson, former banker who worked for many years inside Big Oil and ran his own small oil company in Oklahoma, blames the CFTC, the Department of Energy, the Administration, and Congress, as “asleep at the switch on an issue that is probably costing U.S. consumers $1 billion per day.”

He cites “some industry experts, who profit greatly from the high price of crude, and have stated openly that the worldwide economic price of crude, absent speculators, would be around $50 to $60 per barrel.

Imagine, our government is letting your price for gasoline and home heating oil be determined by a gambling casino on Wall Street called NYMEX. The people need regulatory protection from speculators and an excess profits tax on Big Oil.

In addition, a sane government would see the present price crises as an opportunity to expand our passenger and freight railroad capacity and technology.

A sane government would drop all subsidies and tax loopholes for Big Oil’s huge profits and other fossil fuels and promote a national mission to solarize our economy to achieve major savings from energy conservation technology, retrofitting buildings, and upgrading efficiency standards for motor vehicles, home appliances, industrial engines and electric generating plants.

Those are the permanent ways to achieve energy independence, reduce our trade deficit, create good jobs that can’t be exported and protect the environmental health of people and nature.

Those are the reforms and advances that a muscular consumer, worker and small business revolt can focus on in the coming weeks.

What say you, America?
[EoF]

Related links: Pinheads in the House: Fanning Oil Chaos

mnc

Buffet the Poor

Warren Buffet: World’s biggest moneybag [AND CO2 producer]

The United States is in a recession, one that will be longer and deeper than most people expect, said Warren Buffet, the world’s biggest moneybag.

“[T]he people are already feeling the effects,” said Buffet. “It will be deeper and last longer than many think.”

The world’s moneybags have only one goal in mind: To make more money than everyone else, despite the environmental and social consequences. “If the world were falling apart I’d still invest in companies,” Buffet said.

Warren Buffet listens to a question during a news conference in Madrid May 21, 2008. REUTERS/Andrea Comas. Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF fair Use Notice!

Invariably, they blame someone else for the ills they create. Buffet, as usual, blamed the derivatives market.

“It’s not right that hundreds of thousands of jobs are being eliminated, that entire industrial sectors in the real economy are being wiped out by financial bets even though the sectors are actually in good health.”

Buffet bemoans the “lack of effective controls,” as if the system ever had any.

“That’s the problem,” he said. “You can’t steer it, you can’t regulate it anymore. You can’t get the genie back in the bottle.”

Thank you for Lesson One, economy 101, Mr “B,” and may you live long enough to witness the full scale of the environmental and social catastrophes, the impact of your lot’s casino economy on the world. May you live in interesting times!

Related Fact:

• Warren Buffet’s Net Worth: $62.0billion [Warren Buffet produced at least 30.628MMT of CO2 in 2007]
• Combined Net Worth of World’s Richest 100 : $1,725 billion
• No. of World’s Billionaires : 1,125
• Combined Net Worth of World’s Billionaires : $4,384 billion (source)
• No. of people who live on less than $2 per day: About 4 billion (Source)

Related Links:

• Buffet the Climate!
• If the world were falling apart!

• Emerging Food Crisis
• Food Riots Grip Egypt, Haiti, El Salvador
• Where Is All the Money?
• Out of Control: War Costs May Total $2.4 Trillion
• The Death of Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Part 1)

• World Poverty Index
• Poverty Index
• State of Our World

• Part 4. Exponential Growth Economy and Oil
• Food: Worse times ahead
• China Under Siege
• Wal-Mart, the Panther Chameleon and Josef Fritzl
• Nature: An NPO

buffy

Corporatocracy killing democracy!

Corporatocracy turns its sights on last remaining pillars of democracy

by Malcolm Martin

http://www.opednews.com

The children are taught that the United States of America is a democracy. As the tale is told, at the founding of the nation, a government “of, by, and for the people” was established. […]

Then there is consolidation by vertical integration and its heavyweight champion is Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation. Wal-Mart has made a partner of the Chinese government. Working together, the partners have turned China into a vast subsistence-wage labor camp. […]

f you watch FOX, the reality is filtered through Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, NBC is General Electric news, CNN is Time/Warner news, ABC brings you into Disney’s world, and Viacom regularly checks the iconic CBS news department to make sure Edward R. Murrow is still dead and buried under a mountain of infotainment. That is when Viacom is not preparing America’s youth for slavery and death through MTV and B.E.T. […]

The corporations have begun forming their own Praetorian Guard. The massacre of Iraqi civilians and the patrolling of the hurricane ravaged streets of New Orleans have made Blackwater Worldwide, formerly Blackwater USA, the most famous of the rising corporate armies. […] Read More …

Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2008

Related Links:

• Wal-Mart, the Panther Chameleon and Josef Fritzl
• Pinheads in the House
• “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved . . .”
• In China, stories of children sold for slavery
• Isn’t the “Green Jobs for America” Campaign Fatally Flawed?

RTSF

China Quake: Why Was the Girl Removed from Family?

Why was the Wenchuan girl photographed below separated from her parents? Where is she now?

[Why is this girl being taken away?] “A girl waves goodbye to her parents as she is airlifted out of the earthquake-hit city of Wenchuan, Sichuan province May 22, 2008. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause (CHINA)” (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

• In China, stories of children sold for slavery

• Post-quake China on alert against disease
• Illegal China organ trade ends in tragedy
• Illegal Human Organ Trade from Executed Prisoners in China

• Quake-hit leg of Olympic torch relay postponed [O RLY]
  
• Bigger China Disaster Unfolds

• China’s grieving quake parents start to voice anger
• China Earthquake, Heavy Death Toll, Corruption, Criminal Incompetence
• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath

• Beijing’s quick response to disaster won’t cover cracks of corruption
• Almost five million left homeless, China says
• Corruption blamed for rising death toll in China
• Parents’ grief turns to anger at shoddily built deathtrap schools

Video Links:

• Quake parents mourn their only child (Every Building survived the quake, except the school!)
• Quake parents grief turns to anger
• Terror in quake’s aftershocks

China Dead and Missing Nos Climb, Again!

80,000 people are dead or missing in China’s earthquake, 300,000 injured

The government’s figure for the dead is 51,000 with 29,000 missing. It’s not known how many survivors were rescued from the rubble. In Beichuan county, about two-thirds of the population were killed.

[You Killed My Baby!] “A mother gestures as she confronts Zhu Qi (R), education dean of Mianyang city, while she and more than 100 parents attend a memorial service for their dead children at the destroyed Fuxing Primary School in the earthquake-hit Wufu town of Mianzhu county, Sichuan province May 21, 2008.” REUTERS/Jason Lee. (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

A mother holding a portrait of her dead son confronts Zhu Qi (L), education dean of Mianyang city, as she and more than 100 parents attend a memorial service at the destroyed Fuxing Primary School in the earthquake-hit Wufu town of Mianzhu county, Sichuan province May 21, 2008. Parents said their children died unnecessarily because of the bad quality of the school’s classrooms. REUTERS/Jason Lee (CHINA). (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

Related Links:

• Quake-hit leg of Olympic torch relay postponed [O RLY]
  
• Bigger China Disaster Unfolds

• China’s grieving quake parents start to voice anger
• China Earthquake, Heavy Death Toll, Corruption, Criminal Incompetence
• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath

• Beijing’s quick response to disaster won’t cover cracks of corruption
• Almost five million left homeless, China says
• Corruption blamed for rising death toll in China
• Parents’ grief turns to anger at shoddily built deathtrap schools

Video Links:

• Quake parents mourn their only child (Every Building survived the quake, except the school!)
• Quake parents grief turns to anger
• Terror in quake’s aftershocks

Bigger China Disaster Unfolds

We all know that earthquakes are natural disasters. But what happened to our children also has human causes, and they’re even more frightening. —A grieved parent who lost his son.

Zhao Deqin Lost Her 15-year-old Twins, Yajia and Yaqi

JUYUAN, China (Reuters) – Zhao Deqin keeps a kerbside memorial to her twin daughters killed when their school collapsed in China’s earthquake, and a petition-signing site alongside that has become a focus of protest by grieving parents.

The most lamented victims of the quake that shattered parts of Sichuan province in southwest China eight days ago have been the thousands of children killed when school buildings collapsed.

Earthquake survivor, Zhao Deqian, the mother of twins Zhao Yajia and Zhao Yaqi, 15, who were killed when their school building collapsed in the earthquake, cries at their memorial altar in the town of Juyuan in the quake-hit area of Dujiangyan, Sichuan province, May 20, 2008. REUTERS/Nicky Loh (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

As the ruling Communist Party seeks to maintain a staunch front of unity and stability after the quake, the incipient protests by parents could be troublesome, for many of them blame official graft and laxity, more than nature, for the deaths.

“How come all the houses didn’t fall down, but the school did? And how come that happened in so many places?” Asked Zhao.

“This was a tofu dregs project and the government should assume responsibility,” said Pu Changxue, whose son Pu Tong died in a classroom.

“To think that I lived and they died,” said an old woman living opposite Zhao’s shrine. “That is just too unfair.” (Source)

Related Links:

• China’s grieving quake parents start to voice anger
• China Earthquake, Heavy Death Toll, Corruption, Criminal Incompetence
• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath

• Beijing’s quick response to disaster won’t cover cracks of corruption
• Almost five million left homeless, China says
• Corruption blamed for rising death toll in China
• Parents’ grief turns to anger at shoddily built deathtrap schools

Video Links:

• Quake parents mourn their only child (Every Building survived the quake, except the school!)
• Quake parents grief turns to anger

Google Gag

Haunted by Big, Bad Google

The blog moderators condemn Google Inc in the strongest possible terms for content censorship. Google search engines permanently or periodically exclude specific posts, contents or information from the blogs thereby abridging the freedom of speech.

Google Inc poses a clear and present danger to freedom of speech. To minimize this threat, we urge those of the lawmakers who still believe in the Constitution to break up Google into smaller units.

China, US: Brothers In Torture!

The China Beast: From Massacre at Tiananmen to Waterboarding in Guantanamo

Report: U.S. Soldiers Did ‘Dirty Work’ for Chinese Interrogators

Alleges Guantanamo Personnel Softened Up Detainees at Request of Chinese Intelligence

By JUSTIN ROOD (ABC News)
May 20, 2008

U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men — or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report. […]

U.S. Army troops stand guard over Sally Port One at Camp Delta where detainees are held at the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (REUTERS/Joe Skipper) Image may be subject to copyright. see RTSF Fair Use Notice!

According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China’s ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators.

Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar. […]

“Why are we doing China’s dirty work?” Manning said. “Surely we’re better than that.”

“The agent stated that he understood that the treatment of the Uighur detainees was either carried out by the Chinese interrogators or was carried out by U.S. personnel at the behest of Chinese interrogators,” the report by the Department of Justice inspector general stated. (Full Report)

Related Links:

• Report: U.S. Soldiers Did ‘Dirty Work’ for Chinese Interrogators
• Tiananmen Square Massacre (video 3 mins., many other videos are available at YouTube and Google.)
  
• Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao and the Politburo Gang: Criminally Incompetent, or Calculating Mass Murderers?

• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath

–

Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath

Clueless Wen Jiabao: Criminally Incompetent!

To climb a tree to catch a fish is talking much and doing nothing.” —Chinese Proverb

Wen Jiaboa, like the rest of the ruling gang in China is a criminally incompetent leader, incapable of protecting the interest of the Chinese people.

“Wen, seen repeatedly on state TV cradling infants and offering hope to earthquake victims, hailed the ‘order the country has maintained for the past 80 hours,’ the report said.”

What if the order does break up? Will the ruling criminal regime send in the special forces to do a Tiananmen Square job?

• China parachutes 100 soldiers to cut-off quake area
• Paratroopers land in China quake zone

In the mind of Wen Jiaboa the Olympics comes first, disaster victims second! [Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrives in Yingxiu Town, the quake epicenter in Wenchuan County of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, May 14, 2008. (Xinhua Photo and caption). Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!

• Premier Wen Jiabao and rest of the Ruling Gang in China (RGC) criminally underestimated the extent of the disaster.
• Premier Wen and rest of the RGC delayed sending in the rescue troops in the early, crucial hours after the quake had struck.
• Premier Wen Jiabao and rest of the RGC accepted a miserly ¥500million ($5m) from the government of Japan, which is probably more of an insult to the people of China than an offer of financial aid for disaster relief.
• By accepting Japanese rescue troops (rather than teams from all other nations), a direct insult to the people of China, Premier WenJiabao and rest of the RGC proved their leadership skills are fatally flawed and that their personal interests supersede the national interest, the welfare of their 1.3billion subjects.
• Premier Wen Jiabao and rest of the RGC are incapable of protecting the interest of Chinese people!

[ Note, the Ruling Gang in China (RGC) thought no one was watching! They lied even about the quake magnitude. The mainshock was recorded as a 7.9 magnitude earthquake by USGS, but the Chinese authorities reported it as 7.8 Mw.]

A rescuer from Japan receives an interview after arriving at Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, on May 16, 2008. A Japanese rescue team arrive in the quake-hit Sichuan Province in southwest China early on Friday to assist local disaster relief efforts. The Japanese rescue team, comprising 31 members including technical workers and medical stuffs, is the first group of foreign aid personnel to China following the devastating 7.8-magnitude quake which jolted a wide range of areas on Monday. (Xinhua Photo and Text). Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!

More photos: Click here!

Q: Is a corrupt, criminally incompetent regime in China good for the “Free world?”

Related Links:

• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
  
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• China Earthquake, Heavy Death Toll, Corruption, Criminal Incompetence

-.-

Merkel: A “Neocon,” Or A Lucky Woman?

“A political descendant of Adolf Hitler and German fascism.” —Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [Who recently accused Merkel of urging Latin American leaders to avoid forging ties with Venezuela’s government.]

Q. If The Soviet Block Hadn’t Disintegrated, What Might Merkel Be Doing Now?

“She is from the German right, the same that supported Hitler, that supported fascism, that’s the Chancellor of Germany today,” Chavez said.

The daughter of a Lutheran pastor and an English and Latin teacher, Merkel was educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig (then East Germany), where she studied physics from 1973 to 1978. Merkel worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Adlershof from 1978 to 1990. Angela Merkel speaks Russian fluently, and even earned a statewide prize for her proficiency. After being awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) based on a doctoral thesis on quantum chemistry she worked in research. (Source)

Answers:

A. Housewife?

B. Priest?

C. Teacher?

D. CIA Agent?

E. KGB Spy?

F. Stasi Informer?

G. All of the above?

Health Business in Uninted States of Sheepland

The Sorry State of Health Care in the United States

By Ralph Nader

This is a tale of pay or die that recurs again and again all over our country and only in our country in the entire western world.

Advised by her physician to go to M.D. Anderson for urgent treatment of her leukemia, Mrs. Kelly was told she had to pay $105,000 up front before being admitted. The hospital declared her limited insurance unacceptable.

Sitting in the business office with seriously advanced cancer, she asked herself – “Are they going to send me home?” “Am I going to die?”

Time out from her torment for a moment. M.D. Anderson started this upfront payment demand in 2005 because of a spike in its bad debt load.

The Journal explains – “The bad debt is driven by a larger number of Americans who are uninsured or who don’t have enough insurance to cover costs if catastrophe strikes. Even among those with adequate insurance, deductibles and co-payments are growing so big that insured patients also have trouble paying hospitals.”

It isn’t as if non-profit hospitals like M.D. Anderson are hurting. Look at this finding in an Ohio State University study: net income per bed at non-profit hospitals tripled to $146,273 in 2005 from $50,669 in 2000. And you also may have noticed the huge pay packages awarded hospital executives.

M.D. Anderson, exempt from taxation, recipient of funds from large government programs and research grants has cash, investments and endowment totaling $1.9 billion, with net income of $310 million last year, the Journal reports.

A twelfth-century Byzantine manuscript of the Hippocratic Oath in the form of a cross dagger.

Hippocratic Oath Modern Version written by Louis Lasagna, former Dean of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences of Tufts University, in 1964.

Back to the 52 year old, Lisa Kelly. She and her husband returned with a check for $45,000. After a blood test and biopsy, the hospital oncologist urged admittance quickly. Then the hospital demanded an additional $60,000-$45,000 just for the lab tests and $15,000 for part of the cost of the treatment.

To shorten the story, she received chemotherapy for over a year. Often her appointment was “blocked” until she made another payment.

In a particularly grotesque incident, she was hooked up to a chemotherapy pump, but the nurses were not allowed to change the chemo bag until Mr. Kelly made another payment.

She endured other indignities and overcharges. Reporter Martinez cites $360 for blood tests that insurers pay $20 or less for and up to $120 for saline pouches that cost less than $2 retail.

Imagine anything like Mrs. Kelly’s predicament and pressures occurring in Canada, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Holland, England or any other western country. It would never happen.

These countries have universal single payer health insurance. No one dies because they cannot afford health care. In America, 18,000 Americans die each year because they cannot afford health care, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Many more get sick or become sicker.

None of these countries spend more than 11% of their GDP on healthcare. The U.S. spends over 16% of its GDP on health care and does not cover 47 million people and tens of millions are under covered

In the U.S. the drug companies charge their highest prices in the world, even though we, the taxpayers, subsidized them in large ways. In other countries like Mexico and Canada, they cannot get away with such drug price gouging, with a pay or die ultimatum.

In the U.S., computerized billing fraud and abuse cost over $200 billion last year, according to the GAO arm of Congress. In other counties, single payer prevents such looting.

In other countries, administrative expenses of their single payer system are about a third of what the Aetna’s and other insurers rack up.

In other western countries, medical outcomes for children and adults and paid family leave are far superior to that of the U.S. The World Health Organization ranks the US health care system 37th in the world.

When apologists in Washington hear these statistics, they say “but we have the best medical research centers in the world, like M.D. Anderson.”

Clearly much is wrong with the nature of pricing health care.

Like other hospitals, M.D. Anderson is caught in a macabre spider’s web of cost allocations mixing treatment costs with research budgets, cash reserves, and just plain accounting gimmicks that burden patients. (Documents from Mrs. Kelly’s case are available at http://online.wsj.com today.)

When a friend showed the Journal’s article to a Dutch visitor, the latter blurted in anger – “you are a nation of sheep.” Not a very flattering description of “the land of the free, home of the brave.”

Someday, soon maybe, Americans will finally band together and say “enough already,” we’re going for full Medicare for all- without loopholes for corporate profiteers and purveyors of waste and fraud.

Last month after being in remission, Lisa Kelly’s leukemia has come back.

END.

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