Universal health care must become a top priority

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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “If criminals have a right to a lawyer, I think working Americans have a right to a doctor.” – Harris Wofford It is one of the great failures of American public policy that we do not have universal health care. At the risk of repeating arguments that most readers have heard before: • Nearly every industrial society in the world, except the United States, provides universal health care. • A healthy workforce is a more productive workforce. • We are a wealthy country and can afford it. • Providing a universal system would probably be less costly that the existing non-system, which is duplicative and inefficient. Continue Reading

10 questions locals need to deal with in 2007

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By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek “Being in politics is like being a football coach; you have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it’s important.” – Eugene McCarthy Heath Haussamen has offered the opportunity to write a monthly political column for this site, which in this writer’s opinion is the best source for local political news. To start with, here’s a series of questions that local citizens and policy makers in Doña Ana County need to deal with in 2007. As James Thurber said, “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” • How will Doña Ana County and Memorial Medical Center care for the medically uninsured (40 percent of the population) when the “Extended Care” funding from the hospital sale runs out this year? • Will we get a full accounting of the costs, revenues and expenses of the county’s extensive utility system? • Similarly, will we get an updated accounting of the city’s recent expansions of its utility systems and an independent analysis of the equity of its rate structure? Continue Reading