health care reform

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

—-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her speech before the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties, dicussing the need to pass health care reform.

Many, including me, assumed that reports and YouTube clips of this comment were just typical examples of the increasingly common deceitful tactic of taking one sound bite out of context to make the speaker sound irresponsible or, in some cases, unhinged. But read the speech: Pelosi really is asking her audience to trust her, the House, Senate Democrats and President Obama to pass a sweeping, life-altering, expensive and vaguely defined law, that the legislators haven’t read and the public cannot begin to comprehend. Continue reading →

Who’s Lying About Reconciliation? Republicans!

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

If the House Democrats can agree to pass the Senate’s version of health acre reform with a few tweaks here and there, the master plan of President Obama and his Congressional allies is to get the remaining bill through the Senate and the Scott Brown-bolstered filibuster-ready GOP opposition using a Senate device called “reconciliation.” It is a somewhat complicated procedure and has some significant limitations. The Republicans are telling everyone who will listen that the device is not supposed to be used for such major legislation, and that the Democrats’ tactic borders on being unconstitutional. The Democrats counter that the GOP’s critics are suffering from either dishonesty or senility, because Republicans have been willing to use the device themselves when it suited their agenda.

Who is misleading the public? This time, it’s the Republicans. Continue reading →

Premature Ethics Alarm on Obama’s Judicial Appointment, Day 2

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Amazingly, even liberal journalists are now presuming that Obama’s appointment of attorney Scott Matheson signals that a deal has been struck with his Congressman brother to reverse his previous votes and support the health care bill, whatever its current form may be. And they are saying that this is hardly sinister, as such deals are commonplace in the rough-and-tumble, amoral world of politics.

Deals like this one, if that’s what it is, are not commonplace. Not when the object is a major systemic overhaul costing billions, not when so much of the public is dubious about it, not when the legislation is so complex that almost nobody completely understands it and definitely not after previous efforts to buy votes–as in the “Louisiana Purchase” and Ben Nelson’s extortion—caused so much public revulsion that they swept a Republican into a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts. Nobody knows what unsavory back-room tactics L.B.J. used to get the civil rights legislation passed, but that’s the point: you don’t mind the little piece of rat in your sausage if you’re not certain it’s there. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“Let me just make this point, John, because we’re not campaigning anymore.  The election is over.”

———-President Barack Obama at the so-called “Health Care Summit” at Blair House, in response to Sen. John McCain’s complaint that the process used to craft the Presidents’ health care reform bill expressly violated promises Obama made during the 2008 campaign. Continue reading →

A Looming Ethical Dilemma: Family Health Incentives

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Over at The Juggle, Sue Shellenbarger examines the increasing tendency of employers to attempt to control health care costs by encouraging behavior and life-style changes on the part of employees and their families. I think this is inevitable, but it opens up a slew of ethical issues. Do we really want our employers trying to influence how we eat, exercise,and spend our free time? On the other hand, do we give up the right to complain when we expect them to pay for our health problems, even those that are self-induced? Where do we want to draw the lines regarding what is acceptable employer interference among such measures as… Continue reading →

Stats, Polar Bears, and “Truth by Repetition”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

When I did marketing for a company that created annuities for the recipients of large court damages, I was armed with alarming statistics I had gleaned from the annuity industry’s publications.  Half of the recipients of large lump sum settlements or damages from personal injury and medical negligence lawsuits had dissipated all of the funds (usually calculated to last a lifetime) within two years or less. More than 75% had blown through all the cash, often millions of dollars, within five years. These figures were accepted as fact everywhere,  and we used them profitably to persuade plaintiffs, lawyers and courts to approve annuity arrangements that would parcel out the funds over the years, keeping the money safe from needy relatives and spending sprees. Then, one day, I decided to track down the studies that were the sources of the statistics I was using.

There weren’t any. I discovered a circular trail, with various sources quoting each other. Continue reading →

Ethics Notes on a Busy Week

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment
  • Sen. John McCain, who had well-earned credibility on military matters,  released a statement after the State of the Union address saying that “it would be a mistake” to repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell” as President Obama pledged, and added…

“This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels. At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy.”

John, John, John. You have, in other interviews, stated that you served with many gay soldiers who performed their duties with distinction, so the current policy continues a form of bias and discrimination without any  justification. The fact that it may be “successful” is not sufficient reason to continue a practice that is unethical, unfair, and a violation of the principles of civil rights. Success is no excuse for violating core ethical principles; one of the primary justifications for the U.S. allowing torture, an outright violation of the Declaration of Independence, was that it was “successful,” an argument you properly rejected. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Sen. Jim Webb

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Naming Virginia’s Senator Webb as an Ethics Hero really gilds the lily, for he has been a hero much of his life, most spectacularly in the Vietnam War, where he was its most decorated Marine. It isn’t surprising, then, that while his party was reeling from Martha Coakley’s loss of Ted Kennedy’s former seat in Massachusetts, and some of his colleagues were spinning plots to find some way to pass health care legislation before Sen. Brown got to Washington, Jim Webb, a Democrat, released this statement before the echoes had even faded away from Scott Brown’s victory speech: Continue reading →

Roshomon Ethics: Capping Jury Damages for Malpractice

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Critics of the Democratic health care reform proposals routinely raise capping  jury awards for medical negligence and malpractice as a missing ingredient that would lower health care costs by making doctors’ malpractice liability insurance premiums less costly. It’s a legitimate issue worth debating, but cap advocates typically cite jury awards of outrageous damages in cases where the doctor’s conduct was defensible, while ignoring cases like this one. Continue reading →

What Should REALLY Matter in the Massachusetts Senate Race

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The Senate race in Massachusetts has now deteriorated to the “anything goes” stage, with both Democrats and Republicans using intellectually indefensible and unprincipled arguments to get the decisive edge in a neck-and-neck battle. Continue reading →