• Fred Thompson,  President 2008

    Fred Thompson Watch: Thompson to Announce for Presidency in Summer?

    thompsonapril30aweb

    Actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, center, Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla, left, arrives at the Capitol Hill Club on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 to speak to Republican House members.

    Thompson mulling summer announcement

    Advisers to Fred Thompson have begun exploring a range of staffing options — including talking to potential campaign managers — as the actor and former Tennessee senator firms up his plans to enter the Republican presidential contest, according to people involved in the conversations.

    Thompson has not made a final decision but is on track to be ready to announce his candidacy in June or July, his advisers say. Thompson has already been polling better than some of the announced GOP candidates, and his entry would shake up a field that has left many Republican faithful dissatisfied.

    June or July in this Presidential election cycle is too late in the game.

    Flap continues to think that this is all bluster and hype so that Thompson can negotiate a better deal for his radio and televison career.

    However, should Thompson run, it would put a stake in the heart of Mitt Romney’s candidacy and maybe even McCain’s.

    A Giuliani v. Thompson primary battle would be an interesting race.

    Would one then consent to be the Vice President?

    Thompsonmarch26aweb

    Previous:

    Giuliani Notes: Giuliani – Thompson Ticket?

    Fred Thompson Watch: Thompson Has Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

    Previous:

    Fred Thompson Watch: Thompson Takes Bites Out of Rudy and Mitt


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  • Dentistry,  Socialized Dentistry

    NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentists May Be Forced to Refund Government Millions

    dentistryapril30aweb

    The Times: NHS dentists who missed targets may be forced to pay back millions

    The impact will be even greater on dental care as incomes will be reduced, sparking fears more dentists will leave the NHS

    Dentists may have to pay back millions of pounds to the NHS because they have failed to reach their targets in the first year of a new contract.

    Some dentists face repayments of tens of thousands of pounds, and in a few cases more than £100,000. The impact on dental practices will be even greater because their income next year will be reduced, and it is feared that the problems may lead to even more dentists leaving the NHS.

    The problem is the latest to hit the troubled NHS dental contract, which rewards dentists for the “units of dental activity” (UDAs) that they complete. Many dentists – nobody yet knows how many – have failed to achieve the UDA targets that were set by primary care trusts, and for which they have already been paid.

    One dentist said that the contract had turned him into “a UDA factory”, working flat-out to achieve the targets. Others said that the only way to reach the targets was to take on quick jobs such as extracting teeth, rather than root-canal surgery to save the tooth, which earns the same UDA score.

    Good Grief.

    The NHS Dental system in the United Kingdom has gotten much worse not better with increased government scrutiny and involvement. Should this be surprising?

    If my colleagues in Britain want to fix their system, they must privaitize their dentistry health care delivery system. After all, even other former Commonwealth countries, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia have primarily private dental systems.

    Or they could model their system on the American private system.

    What the NHS provides their dentists and patients today is the worst of all worlds: a government run system with bureucratic HMO targeted contracts where the provider is at financial risk.

    Why would any dentist wish to participate in this system? Why should the individual dentist be held financially responsible for the health and health care decisions of individual citizens?

    As my fellow blogger, Dr. John Crippen says:

    “The overwhelming majority of British dentists are decent, caring, and hard-working.”

    Government targets have pushed them towards working unethically. Towards working unprofessionally. They will not do that. The Times quotes a dentist who says:

    “I a patient comes in and needs more than two crowns, it costs me more to do the work than I get paid. So there is a temptation not to do the things that need doing. There is a huge potential for supervised neglect.”

    This government has done it to the doctors; it has done it to the teachers (see : “Life after the job from hell” ); it has done it to the lawyers (see : “Half the Cost of a no frills meal“); so I suppose it is only fair that it does it to the dentists.

    But ask yourself this. How many of these NHS dentists, faced with financial disaster, will still be working in the NHS next year?

    Answers on a post-card to Patricia Hewitt.

    And what adds insult to injury are the high tax rates in the United Kingdom to pay for these “government” benefits.

    Perhaps the British Dental Association should consider an orderly phase into a private system so as to minimize a dislocation of patient care. If not, the individual dentists will chose privitization with their feet by walking out of the NHS entirely.

    The Stats:

    50% Amount of average dentist’s income from private work. Fifteen years ago it was 6%

    20,887 Number of NHS dentists at end of 2006. On March 31 last year it was 21,111

    £100,000 Estimated income of one in ten dentists before the new contract system

    46% Percentage of adults registered with a dentist (children 62.9%)

    Let’s look at some of the comments:

    From the Times:

    Oh dear!

    Means my local NHS Dentist might have to get rid of one of their 2 brand new Porsche Boxters and might have to downgrade the new Range Rover Sport as well.

    Hard times ahead indeed.

    Bry Barnes, Somerset, Uk

    ********

    Another “Target debacle” ruled over by this government! “Targets, targets, targets” should have been Blair’s sound-bite when he came to government, not “education, education, education”. This is why the NHS is not making headway when it has money pouring into it – there is a whole industry in government (and the NHS etc) just to set and measure targets.

    B. Cox, cambridge, uk

    *********

    GPs met the targets set by their new contract and saw their pay being cut in the form of a reduction in pension.
    If dentists had hit their targets one wonders if the government would have clawed back the pay in other ways on the grounds of ‘affordability’

    john phillips, edinburgh

    From NHS Blog Doctor:

    Couldn’t have said it better myself.
    And to add insult to injury we now have to throw away a large number of precision instruments after one use; which isn’t necessarily a problem, except that the government isn’t giving the dentists any more money to pay for this non-evidence based dictat.
    student dentist | 30.04.07 – 5:15 pm | #

    ********

    The Guardian today hints that Gordon Brown will give the NHS political independence in his first 100 days as PM rather like he did with the Bank of England in his few few days as chancellor. Given the incredible amount of incompetence the Government has shown over its management of the NHS, is it high time this happened or just another smoke screen? You guys who actually work in the NHS would know best…

    I would really like to hear your views on this Dr Crippen. You describe the NHS as bowing to government control freakery – is this where the heart of the NHS’s problems really lie?

    http://www.pickinglosers.com/ adv…litical_control
    JG | Homepage | 30.04.07 – 5:58 pm | #

    *********

    Dr. Crippen:

    Who are you (or anyone else) to say the Harley Street docs, or the dentists, SHOULD be in their NHS clinics?

    The mentality that physicians (and dentists) are somehow “owned” by the people, hence by the government……almost a public utility……that’s how we got into this trouble in the first place.

    I say “we” ’cause we’re not that much different in the USA.

    Given what you describe of the NHS, I daresay the dentists are behaving rationally.
    arf | 30.04.07 – 6:41 pm | #

    ********

    What a picture. At least he won’t eat swans again.
    dearieme | 30.04.07 – 7:08 pm | #

    ********

    ideological preferences aside, arf, these dentists agreed a contract and have been paid (in advance) for work they have not done. The real unfairness here is that private surgical clinics paid by the government on the same basis (per units) have been paid even though they did not do all the contracted work (I assume the contracts differed, still, it is unfair).
    jayann | 30.04.07 – 8:10 pm | #

    ********

    Ah, different story, of course.

    We had a similar problem with Medicaid dentistry in our area. Medicaid is a state/government program for the poor.

    They got a sum of money from the government to provide dental services to a population of indigent people in our area. Yet I was repeatedly being called after-hours for pain medicines, etc., for dental pain. It’s a problem, as most people calling in that scenario are really seeking narcotics (in my area at least).

    One time I got so fed up with it. Someone called seeking analgesics, and the person had just had dental work a few days earlier. “Why aren’t you calling your dentist?”. “The answering service says there’s no one on-call”. So they call me, ’cause I answer the phone. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who answers the phone.

    I took the person’s name, all the relevant numbers, called the dental service myself. What do you know, the person was right. No one was listed as being on-call for emergencies, contrary to their contract. They took the money and didn’t provide the service.

    And to add insult to injury, the work we physicians did….work the dentists were supposed to do but didn’t…..that work came out of our own Medicaid budget, so we look that more spendthrft in our services, and the dentists look that much more “efficient”.

    I took that story, named names, and made a big stink.

    They cleaned up their act, at least for the time being.
    arf | 30.04.07 – 8:25 pm | #

    ********

    John, you forgot one profession that has also been stuffed by the government and that is the profession of Nursing.
    doctorno | 30.04.07 – 8:58 pm | #

    ********

    In my profession’s defence, Most dentists work an on call rota between a few practices in the area so real emergencies shouldn’t slip through the net.
    Some practice’s haven’t met their targets, from what i understand this is often because they are in an area of high need. i.e. people who require 12 fillings, three molar root canals and a course of perio treatment. This could take up to 10 hours, for which the dentist ‘earns’ 3 UDA’s and as an example my trainer next year has a target of 11’000. There are also incidences of the work completed in the ‘test period’ being overestimated by as much as 10%.
    Of course the other side of the story (and the one i hear more often) is dentists meeting their targets early, applying for more funding to meet the needs of the population from the PCT and being refused. In this instance the only option is to close the practice until the new financial year.
    I really believe in the NHS but i’m not sure how i will manage to work in this system and provide the treatment i want to.
    student dentist | 30.04.07 – 9:20 pm | #

    Previous:

    NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentistry Reforms Are Failing

    NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Dentistry for NHS Dentist Short Britain

    NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story

    NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned

    NHS Dentistry Watch: One in five dentists ready to leave NHS

    Dentistry Today: Failed Asylum Seeker Poses as a Dentist

    Dentistry Today: Many Dentists “Set to Quit NHS”

    NHS Dentistry Watch: Poll Says Dentists Will Still Quit

    NHS Dentistry Watch: More Dentists Now, More Dentists Later

    NHS Dentistry Watch: Dentists Reject £295 million Scottish Executive Deal

    Dentistry Today: NHS Dentistry Near Collapse?

    NHS Dentistry Watch: Disaster Warning

    National Health Service Watch: The Doctors Complain

    NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Extraction

    Related:


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  • Los Angeles Times,  Media

    Los Angeles Times Watch: Times Loses 4.2 % in Daily Circulation

    latimesapril22bweb

    The Los Angeles Times continues to lose circulation:

    The comparisons are based on the six-month period ending March 2007 and the six-month period ending March 2006.

    4.2 % loss in daily circulation to 815,723

    4.7% loss in Sunday circulation to 1,173,096

    Other notable newspapers:

    The three large national papers made some strides in increases. However, The New York Times, which usually experiences small gains, lost daily circulation, down 1.9% to 1,120,420 while Sunday fell 3.3% to 1,627,062. USA Today reported that daily circulation was up 0.2% to 2,278,022. As reported earlier, The Wall Street Journal also increased, up 0.6% to 2,062,312.

    The Washington Post lost 3.4% of its weekday circ to 699,130 copies. Sunday fell 3.2% to 929,921.

    Daily circulation at The Orange County (Calif.) Register slipped 5% to 284,613 while Sunday was down 7% to 329,549.

    Flap is happy to report that blog readership has increased.

    But, it is a rare event indeed that I see anyone reading a newsprint newspaper in public and most of my colleagues, friends and acquaintances do not subscribe.


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  • Barack Obama,  Hillary Clinton,  President 2008

    Hillary Clinton Watch: Hillary Trails Obama in Latest Rasmussen Poll

    hillaryapril30aweb

    U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) speaks at the California Democratic Party convention in San Diego April 28, 2007.

    2008 Democratic Presidential Primary: National Poll: Obama 32% Clinton 30%

    For the first time in the Election 2008 season, somebody other than New York Senator Hillary Clinton is on top in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

    The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows Illinois Senator Barack Obama with a statistically insignificant two point advantage over the former First Lady. It’s Obama 32% Clinton 30%. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards remains in third with support holding steady at 17%. No other candidate tops 3%. The survey was conducted April 23-26, 2007 meaning that the overwhelming majority of the interviews were completed before last Thursday’s debate in South Carolina. The impact of the debate will be measured in polling conducted this week.

    Following a surprisingly strong fundraising report released at the end of March, Obama steadily gained ground during April. The last Rasmussen Reports poll released in March found Clinton enjoying a dozen-point lead. Since then, Clinton’s support has fallen seven percentage points while Obama’s total has increased the same amount. Obama now leads among voters under 40. Clinton is strongest among those 65 and older. Clinton has a two-point edge among Democrats. Obama has a nineteen-point lead among independents likely to vote in a Democratic primary.

    Is Hillary in trouble?

    It is too early to tell but this poll cannot make the Clinton Cabal happy.

    Flap wonders when the personal attacks on Obama increase? Or is Hillary too concerned with alienating the African-American vote that she so desperately needs to win?

    Previous:

    Giuliani Notes: Hillary Touts Socialized Medicine

    Hillary Clinton Watch: Kentucky Fried Hillary Southern Accent PANDER Part Three

    Hillary Clinton Watch: Southern Accent PANDER Part Two

    Hillary Clinton Watch: Two for One? Part Two

    Michael Ramirez on Hillary Clinton and Working the Iraq War

    Hillary Clinton Watch: Barack Obama 1984 Ad


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  • George Tenet,  Iraq War

    Iraq War Watch: Dissecting George Tenet

    National Review (Via MM): Tenet Does 60 Minutes

    But the question begs: Why do the Iraq naysayers never confront the counterfactual scenario of their dreams? If we had left Saddam in place, the sanctions would have disintegrated in short order — Security Council members France, Russia and China were bought and paid for in Oil-for-Food bribes. Once the sanctions had collapsed, Saddam would have been right back in business — his WMD programs ready to be up and running again (to the extent they were not running already) as he sat there with about $20 billion in Oil-for-Food profits and an ongoing relationship with al Qaeda (among many other jihadist groups).

    If you want to say we shouldn’t have gone to Iraq, and should have anticipated the present chaos there, fair enough. But at least have the honesty to say you’d prefer the alternative: A Saddam Hussein, emboldened from having faced down the United States and its sanctions, loaded with money, arming with WMDs, and coddling jihadists.

    George Tenet’s Imaginary Encounter…

    tenetapril30aweb

    Then CIA Director George Tenet testifies about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States in this March 24, 2004 file photo. A senior White House counselor on Friday April 27, 2007 dismissed former CIA Director’s George Tenet portrait of a Bush administration that rushed to war in Iraq without serious debate. ‘The president did wrestle with those very serious questions,’ Dan Bartlett said.

    Let’s see, former CIA Director Tenet accepts millions for a book to bash President Bush, to be disingenuous and untruthful at the same time.

    Hummmmmm, sounds like good work if you can swing it.

    Update:

    From Hotline:

    Quote of the Day

    George Tenet will have to explain why he waited this long to speak out and why he took the Medal of Freedom.”

    Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), “Late Edition,” CNN, 4/29

    Indeed on both counts………

    Why?

    The more BUZZ, the more book sales…………


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