Health and Medicine

Ethics Quote of the Week: Prof. Paul Horwitz

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“I can think of a number of posts about the ACA from legal scholars last week that were clearly and openly offered as advocacy and did a fine job of it. And I can think of others that were clearly not offered as advocacy at all, and said useful and interesting things about the oral arguments…But I do believe that some posts last week traded on the authority of their authors, made overconfident or disingenuous claims about the state of current law and the strength or weakness of opposing arguments, and did so for strategic reasons. I see those reasons as more inculpatory than exculpatory. I don’t see the minimal requirements for scholarly integrity that I offered as changing because of the medium, or because of the importance and currency of the case.”

Hey, Professor! We assume you're smarter than we are: don't play games with our trust!

—-University of Alabama Law Professor Paul Horwitz, writing about the confounding number of liberal law professors and scholars who wrote internet posts professing that the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate was obvious and undeniable, and that the provision’s Supreme Court approval was assured. As Ethics Alarms did regarding other commentators, Prof. Horwitz suggests that some of the commentary was designed as spin, or to use his term, to “shape the narrative.” He argues that in cases where the scholar was deliberately over-stating the case for constitutionality, this constituted a breach of integrity and honesty. Hie professor-speak for this is “inculpatory.” He means that it was unethical.

Which, of course, it was. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Day: The Editorial Board of the Washington Post

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Sadly, even before the sessions on health-care reform had ended, some liberals were preemptively trying to delegitimize a potential defeat at the court. If the justices strike down the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, they said, they will prove themselves partisan, activist and, essentially, intellectually corrupt. We share in the disappointment that the justices on both sides of their ideological divide are, for the most part, so predictable. That’s not, in the ideal world, how judging is supposed to work. But we also think there’s a kind of cynicism, or at least intellectual laziness, in asserting that this is an easy or obvious call — that no justice could possibly strike down the mandate out of honest, reasoned conviction.”

—The Editors of the Washington Post in this morning’s superb, balanced and fair editorial entitled “Civics Lesson From

the Supreme Court.”  The Post leaves no question that it supports the individual mandate as necessary—at least now, after the fact of

"Biased political hacks!! The ones who disagree with us, that is..."

Obamacare’s passage into law—because “no American should go without health care, and that society as a whole should be willing to pitch in toward that end.”  But the editors also properly chastise the cynical and cowardly political calculations by the bill’s supporters that placed the constitutionally-dubious mandate in the position to jeopardize the whole law, as well as criticize the unethical phenomenon that Ethics Alarms discussed here-–the preemptive effort by Democrats and their pundit allies to blame the rejection of Obamacare, if it occurs, on “judicial activism” and political bias by the conservative justices. Continue reading →

Obamacare Defenders, Spinning

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Are you hypnotized yet?

It would be nice, it really would, if partisans on both sides of a legitimate, close issue of national importance would admit that there are valid arguments on each side, show some mutual respect, and not frame their arguments as if anyone who thinks differently is deluded, stupid or evil.

Thus it has been elevating, if, I suppose, misleading, to read over a year’s worth of debate on the topic now under consideration by the Supreme Court, Obamacare’s so-called individual mandate, over on the scholar and lawyer- glutted blog, the Volokh Conspiracy. Written by distinguished and articulate academics, it is a right-leaning and libertarian site for sure, yet manages to cover all sides of most of the issues it considers thoroughly and fairly. Nobody could read the detailed, case and precedent-filled essays about the individual mandate and think for a moment that its constitutionality is an open and shut case. It’s obviously a very close question, and one that involves far wider implications than merely one health care law. This is one of the periodic landmark constitutional cases in which the Supreme Court is being asked to approve another key adjustment in the meaning of our remarkably flexible but hard to amend national by-laws, or, in the alternative, put up a red flag and a brick wall that reminds our government that there are some things is cannot do, even if it would dearly like to.

If you care about the case being argued in the Supreme Court as I write this, go read some—it would take you a month to read it all—of the discussions on this topic over at Volokh. If you can understand the sometimes technical and overly-dense writing, you will recognize how difficult a legal issue this is. If you can’t understand it, then stop rendering opinions about the case, the mandate, and the inevitability of its approval or rejection. Journalists and pundits should follow the same advice. Continue reading →

Our Untrusted Professions: Another One Bites The Dust…Or Should.

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Come to think of it, Mr. Gower would have put poison in a boy's medicine if it hadn't been for George Bailey...

America’s trust crisis, which has seen virtually all its institutions decline precipitously in public trust, hasn’t left the professions unscathed. Far from it: Gallups’ annual poll of the public’s regard for the professions, the most recent of which was released last December, showed accountants trusted by only 43% of the public (abysmal for a profession whose only mission is to accurately determine the truth and to relay it—funeral directors are trusted more), journalists at just 26% (which is more than they deserve), bankers at 25%, lawyers at an insulting 19% (for a profession that includes honesty as a core ethical requirement), business executives slightly less at 18% (but no lower than those champions of the 99%, labor leaders, also at 18%). Stockbrokers, who figure to have fallen even lower after Greg Smith’s anti-Goldman Sachs diatribe, came in at a “can’t be trusted to deliver the water bill payment” 12%, and then we’re really in the pits of utter distrust, with lobbyists, used car salesmen, and members of Congress, all tied for last place at 7%.

In contrast, one of the professions that always is on top of the list or near it is pharmacists. In 2011, the friendly neighborhood druggist scored a trust rate of 73%, better than doctors and second only to the perennial champs of the last decade, nurses.

Well, all that trust in pharmacists appears to be misplaced. Continue reading →

A Question For President Obama and His Campaign: Why Lie?

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

I have an iron-clad rule for all Presidents, regardless of party, ideology and political philosophy: Don’t use deception as a tool of governance. I have a related rule for Presidents who get elected by pledging honesty and transparency in government: Especially you!

The President’s health care law, a.k.a. “Obamacare,” whatever its merits, was probably the most dishonestly sold, packaged and passed major law in U.S. history (if someone has another candidate, please submit it.) Not all of the dishonesty was due to President Obama’s personal efforts–he didn’t tell its House and Senate not to bother to read the various versions of the bill, for example, or submit to the CBO patently manipulated assumptions to ensure its projection of a net budget surplus from the law immediately prior to its passage, assumptions that were substantially revised later. He is the one who pledged over and over again that if you liked your current coverage, nothing the law did would stop you from keeping it, a promise that seemed dubious at the time and that has in fact proven to be either mistaken or deliberately misleading.

Still…the law was passed. Utilitarian justifications and rationalizations for various tactics and maneuvers to get it passed are unnecessary now. So why does the President and his campaign team feel that they have to skirt the truth in their public relations and re-election efforts?

The Tom Hanks-narrated Obama campaign film “The Road We’ve Traveled” has already been charged with truth fouls by objective analysts on many points, including Obamacare. In the assessment of FactCheck.org, the best and most objective of the various political fact-checking websites, the film dissembles regarding, among other things... Continue reading →

“Goody Goody” to the Least Sympathetic Betrayal Victim of the Year, Former Senator Arlen Specter

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

First, this musical introduction, courtesy of the brilliant and tragic Frankie Lymon:

Ironically, over the weekend I wrote, in a reply to a comment, about how badly I felt when I finally met Arlen Specter and he was very complimentary to me, after I had described his 2009 defection from the Republican Party in very uncomplimentary terms. Now comes the news that the former Pennsylvania Senator’s new book includes a lament that neither President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid nor other key Democrats delivered on the promises that caused him to betray his party and those who had voted for him.

Arlen, Arlen, Arlen. Continue reading →

Ethics Train Wreck Chronicles: Villains, Victims, Hypocrites and Unlikely Heroes In the Contraception / Limbaugh / Fluke Debacle

/ Jack Marshall / 66 Comments

If this isn’t the Ethics Train Wreck of the Year, we have something truly horrible in store for us down the line. A no-so-brief brief re-cap:

  • The Obama Administration announces that church-run institutions like hospitals and universities will still be required to offer insurance coverage for abortions, sterilizations and other medical matters that might be in direct opposition to church beliefs. It’s a cynical move, designed to cater to the Democratic base at the expense of religious institutions. It is also irresponsible, since it jeopardizes the huge proportion of medical services performed by church institutions.
  • Conservatives scream that the measure is a breach of religious freedom. The is either ignorant or a lie. The Constitution has no provision requiring the government to make special accommodations for churches or church-operated institutions.
  • Caught by surprise by the intensity of the backlash, the Administration crafts a “compromise,” which is essentially deceitful sleight-of-hand, form over substance. The insurance companies now have to provide those services but the religious institutions don’t have to pay for it. But of course they will, through increased premiums elsewhere.
  • Flagging the deceit, Republican attacks on the measure continue. Democrats successfully frame the debate as a conservative attack on contraception, which it is a misrepresentation, and a “war on women,” which is ridiculous and unfair. The issue is churches being forced to provide or pay for services that violate their faith—which the government has every right to do.
  • The controversy activates GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who is a fringe extremist in sexual matters and toes the Roman Catholic line. He really thinks birth control is immoral. This position, which is unethical, is suddenly given exposure it doesn’t deserve in the 21st Century Continue reading →

The NFL, Battling Its Own Sick Culture

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

"OK, it's a deal then: we put this guy in the hospital, and split the bounty 50-50..."

The last Super Bowl was phenomenally successful, as its audience size shattered previous records. Yet for many years, I have not been able to enjoy the sport, because of the unethical conflict at its core. Pro football’s appeal and swagger is based on violence, and we now know that the violence damages its players to an unacceptable extent. The players are paid both to accept the crippling and often-life shortening abuse, as well as administer it. For this former fan, that makes football too close to boxing from an ethical perspective. If the NFL is paying  players to do permanent harm to each other, then so are the fans that pay the NFL.  Sorry: there are too many other forms of entertainment that don’t require me to endorse and subsidize brutality. Thus I was not surprised to read this, in the New York Times:

“During the past three seasons, while the National Football League has been changing rules and levying fines in an effort to improve player safety, members of the New Orleans Saints’ defense maintained a lucrative bounty system that paid players for injuring opponents, according to an extensive investigation by the N.F.L. The bounty system was financed mostly by players — as many as 27 of them — and was administered by the former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who also contributed money to the pool. The N.F.L. said that neither Coach Sean Payton nor General Manager Mickey Loomis did anything to stop the bounties when they were made aware of them or when they learned of the league’s investigation.  According to the league, Loomis did not even stop the bounties when ordered to by the team’s owner. “

This practice is not only unethical and against NFL rules, it is criminal.  Continue reading →

Weekend Ethics Catch-Up

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

If you took an ethics break this last weekend of February, here’s your Ethics Alarms make-up assignment:

 

Unethical Quote of the Week: The Washington Post Editors

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“In their anti-abortion fervor, they thought that requiring ultrasounds, even transvaginal ones, was justified if it would change the minds of some women who’d considered ending their pregnancies”

—The Washington Post, in an editorial condemning the efforts of Virginia’s Republicans to pass a measure requiring an ultrasound scan of the fetus before a woman could get an abortion. The bill, which had been poised for passage, evaporated after it was revealed that women in the earliest stages of pregnancy would be required to suffer an invasive procedure, and Republican Governor Bob McDonnell announced that he would not sign it in its current form.

Seldom has an editorial managed to be so frighteningly dismissive of human life while being entirely correct on the issue it was discussing. Continue reading →