Today is Mother's Day in the U.S. and mothers in Vermont may have additional reason to celebrate - three days ago, Vermont passed the first Universal Health Care bill in the U.S. Here's a blurb from the HuffPo piece written by Anja Rudiger yesterday about it:

On May 5 the Vermont House followed the Senate in passing the final version of a health reform bill that creates a path for a universal, publicly financed health care system in Vermont. Governor Peter Shumlin has confirmed he will sign the bill into law.

This makes Vermont the first state in the country to move toward a universal health care system that will provide health care as a public good for everyone. Legislators and advocates alike have compared Vermont's role to that of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, which half a century ago spearheaded the establishment of universal health care in Canada.

Nicely done, Vermont.

In other news, two imams on their way to an anti-Islamophobia conference¹ were tossed off the flight by the pilot, who had gone so far as to turn the plane - which was taxiing down the runway after leaving the gate - back to the gate. Authorities are investigating.

Insofar as new words and definitions go, you can add Teach-i-cide to the list. Kudos belong to Shakespeare's Sister of Daily Kos. Here's the definition as excerpted from the nub of her gist in the diary:

Simply put, in all areas of teaching, over-emphasis on "drill and kill" activities to build vocabulary recognition or even skills - some of which cannot be directly taught - is removing the emphasis from students actually learning, and removing the power from teachers to actually teach. Teachers are more and more forced into the "bubble box" where we have to teach to the test - our district's standards are prioritized in terms of what the state test emphasizes. In many cases, those standards are not what our students need, and therefore we, as teachers, are not meeting their needs.

I'll leave you with this final quote, amalgamated from Gallagher and Schmoker:

As Gallagher (2009) writes, "a terrible price is paid" when the exigencies of testing supersede authentic literacy [or any true learning] activities (p.26). Teaching to the test, which so many continue to do, is both unethical and patently counterproductive.

It would be a tragedy if you didn't go read the whole thing - it's well worth it.

And on that final note, we'll leave you with this parting thought about teaching:

"Teaching is more than imparting knowledge; it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts; it is acquiring understanding."

      - William Arthur Ward

Namaste, and Happy Mother's Day.

Only footnotes below the fold.

Universal health care.

It's very simple, really. He made it plain, I don't have to.

Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaway in White House Deal with Big Pharma, by Ryan Grim,

A couple weeks ago pharmaceutical companies pledged to "voluntarily" reduce their revenues by $80 Billion over 10 years. Forgive me for not standing up to salute that initiative.

Maybe it's because I can... like, do the math in my head.

$80 Billion / 10 years = too damn little $8 billion per year.

That won't stop the spinmeisters who are brazenly pushing this as a great sacrifice, however, some people see this offer for what it is.

To be sure, $80 billion is less than one-tenth the projected cost of healthcare reform. But by striking this cost-sharing deal with one of the reform effort's leaders--Sen. Max Baucus--and the White House, drugmakers could shame other providers into cutting their prices, too.

Crossposted from DailyKos.

It yanks my chain whenever I see a show like MSNBC is putting on at noon Monday through Friday. Health care is at a tipping point, so what does MSNBC do? They put on fluff. She gets meaty guests, then flubs it. This interview with Tom Daschale is all broad strokes and no nitty gritty. She asks some tough questions, but lets Daschale skate without answering them.

Dr. Snyderman has been around tv for years. She was on ABC regularly. Now she's got her own spot on MSNBC at noon. The problem is she relies too much on her "authority" as an MD and she doesn't do what it takes to back up what she says.

Dr. Snyderman, trying to win an argument by saying, "Because I said so" or "I've read the research and it says I'm right on this" (without citing the source) doesn't do it for me. Take a page from Ross Perot's book and do the charts and show them to your audience. Cite your sources, don't use suspect sources. Spend less time grinding your ax and spend more time exploring ideas different than your own.

Cross-posted from dKos with permission of author, JDWolverton.

It happened again this morning. Some talking head on CNN was talking about making sure consumers had adequate choice in health care. What the heck was he talking about? I don't have a lot of choices when it comes to "choosing" my health insurance. ...and I don't have a lot to say about what my doctor recommends for me.

My choice for health insurance is either

• Take my company's plan
• Take my spouse's company's plan
• Go out on the individual market which offers less coverage at a higher price
• Go bare and pray we don't get sick

Similarly, my choice of health care treatment is

• Select and pay the balance (after my insurance pays) for the treatment my physician orders.
• Cajole my physician into ordering a treatment my insurance company allows that will most likely be less effective or the doctor would have ordered it in the first place.
• Go against physician advice and skimp on care or skip care.
• Pay the mortgage, car payment, electric bill or skip on food or get health care.

This "choice" meme is particularly irritating to anyone who has faced these "choices".

Posted with permission by Nicholas Benton, Owner/Editor of the Falls Church News Press.

by Nicholas Benton

The Fourth of July festivities across the U.S. this Saturday are going to elicit a qualitatively different sense of deep joy and national pride than perhaps has been felt since the nation's triumph over totalitarianism in 1945, before most Americans today were even born.

The fireworks and the red, white and blue will evoke something more profound and beautiful, I predict, than most of us expect. It may catch many of us off guard.

As one dear friend remarked to me recently, since President Obama took office, it seems like every day is Christmas. Every day, she said, there is some new bold initiative, some added resounding commitment to keep the campaign promises that elicits joy.

We are, indeed, right in the midst of a profound turnaround in the course the nation has taken in recent decades, a course that took the country to the very precipice of the worst economic meltdown in modern history, brought on by the anti-regulatory orgy of greed and exploitation sanctioned under the previous administration.

posted by permission, originally featured on his blog.

Robert Reich

During the presidential campaign, I thought Obama made only one big policy mistake. He criticized John McCain for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. McCain’s overall health plan was regressive – he would have turned the savings into tax credits for purchasing health care – but he was right about where the revenues should come from. I worried that Obama would come to regret the position he took.

I received this in an email on May 8 but inadvertently did not post it. Now however it is more timely than ever in its message about why it is not a good move to trust health insurers.

I subscribe to the weekly Top Ten Headlines from the Women's Health Policy Report, which provides links to the daily articles attached to them.  Both the daily and weekly reports are published by the National Partnership for Women and Families.  In today's report there was a piece about Tuesday's Senate hearing on healthcare reform

We received two communications from MoveOn. org today. The first is includes a video of an ad they have produced satirizing the conservatives stand on Public Health Care reform and the second is a recording of Dr. Dean's Monday online conference call. 

We made this ad a couple weeks ago—and we've been so eager to show you! It's funny and memorable, and we smile every time we see it.  :-)

But we wanted to wait until there was a critical moment on health care to break it out.

That moment is now. The right wing just launched a million-dollar attack on President Obama's health care plan, scaring people off from a critical provision that could guarantee coverage for every American. If their lies stick, we could miss the biggest chance in a generation to achieve universal health care. The first draft of legislation will be finalized in just two weeks—so we need to fight back right now.

Please watch the ad (trust us, you'll like it), pass it around to your friends and family, and, if you can, contribute $25 to help run it far and wide.

Watch our ad

 Enjoy! And thanks for all you do.

The second message is below the fold

crossposted at DKos.

by JDWolverton 

 We have socialized the losses and privatized the profits in health care.

Reality Check

Thanks to Campaign for America's Future for making available this video interview between Isaiah Poole and Roger Hickey (who attended the conference as a representative of  CAF. Hickey reviews the meeting and gives his evaluation of the direction of the Adminsitration at this time. According to Hickey's account the President was firm on going ahead with key issues such as Health Care Reform but might be too optimistic about what the economy as a whole will look like in two year--specifically whether it will be possible to cut back on fiscal stimulus at that time without throwing the economy back into recession should it be on the path to recovery.