Speaking of health care policy -- and hey, on this blog, we're always speaking of health care policy -- some fairly important public health measures were eliminated from the stimulus when Susan Collins and Ben Nelson worked their centrist magic. The cuts came in comparative medical research, smoking cessation, HIV prevention and testing, diabetes screening and detection, pandemic flu preparedness, health information technology, and much else. So yes, in case you're wondering, the centrist compromises not only cut jobs and increased the long-term cost of health care, but also ensured the preventable deaths of thousands of people. Nebraskans, presumably, think we're saving enough lives already. And the people in Maine, I hear, think we're saving way too many lives.In response to these cuts, Harold Pollack and more than 600 other health care practitioners, scholars, and analysts have signed a letter opposing the cuts. It's the sort of document that the conference committee should take seriously. The sums being discussed are fairly small in terms of the stimulus, but would do quite a lot to harm the affected communities at a time when the social supports they rely on will be falling out from beneath them. And fundamentally, it's simply the moral thing to do. A decent society doesn't spent $70 billion on an upper-class tax cut and then cut costs around around the edges by eliminating public health programs that save the lives of the working poor and ease the lives of the chronically ill. CUTTING THE STIMULUS ON THE BACKS OF THE ILL.
Speaking of health care policy -- and hey, on this blog, we're always speaking of health care policy -- some fairly important public health measures were eliminated from the stimulus when Susan Collins and Ben Nelson worked their centrist magic. The cuts came in comparative medical research, smoking cessation, HIV prevention and testing, diabetes screening and detection, pandemic flu preparedness, health information technology, and much else. So yes, in case you're wondering, the centrist compromises not only cut jobs and increased the long-term cost of health care, but also ensured the preventable deaths of thousands of people. Nebraskans, presumably, think we're saving enough lives already. And the people in Maine, I hear, think we're saving way too many lives.In response to these cuts, Harold Pollack and more than 600 other health care practitioners, scholars, and analysts have signed a letter opposing the cuts. It's the sort of document that the conference committee should take seriously. The sums being discussed are fairly small in terms of the stimulus, but would do quite a lot to harm the affected communities at a time when the social supports they rely on will be falling out from beneath them. And fundamentally, it's simply the moral thing to do. A decent society doesn't spent $70 billion on an upper-class tax cut and then cut costs around around the edges by eliminating public health programs that save the lives of the working poor and ease the lives of the chronically ill. 
