The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 18, 2004, Page 4, Image 4
T I j^TTTTI AT AT r 110 online poll
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Monday, October 18, B 1 f f B V_>/ 1 A. 1 _L fN—s vote. Results posted Friday.
THE?§iAMECOCK
EDITORIAL BOARD
EDITOR
Adam Beam
DESIGN DIRECTOR
David Stagg
NEWS EDITOR
Michael LaForgia
THE MIX EDITOR
Meg Moore
COPY DESK CHIEF
Gabrielle Sinclair
VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Wes Wolfe
SENIOR WRITER
Kevin Fellner
ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Jon Turner
IN OUR OPINION
Candidates must
be trustworthy
The leaders of this nation should be held to a higher standard of
behavior, but the third and final presidential debate illustrated for
the American public once again that our political leaders have
quite a predilection for twisting the truth, distorting the facts and
outright lying. Both President George W. Bush and Sen. John
Kerry were guilty of distortions and lies on Wednesday night, as
illustrated on the non-partisan Web site www.factcheck.org.
In the last debate, Bush made the gaffe of the night when he said
America’s leaders
need to be held
accountable when
they mislead the
public by distorting
the truth and
outright lying.
Kerry was exaggerating when he
mentioned Bush said that he
wasn’t concerned about Osama
bin Laden. News organizations up
and down the dial subsequently
pulled out the tape of Bush in a
press conference on March 13,
2002 stating, “And I wouldn’t
necessarily say he’s at the center of
any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I —
I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.”
Bush also said that most of his tax cuts went to middle and low
income Americans, which isn’t true. Fifty-three percent of the tax
cuts went to the top 10 percent of Americans, while the bottom
60 percent of people only received 13.7 percent of the tax cuts.
Kerry wasn’t any better, saying Bush had never met with the
Congressional Black Caucus. Actually, Bush has met with the
caucus at least twice. Additionally, Kerry repeated the claim that
his health care plan would cover all Americans. The reality is his
plan would increase the amount of insured people from 84 per
cent of U.S. citizens to 92 percent.
These examples only scratch the surface. We must call out the
candidates when they tell us things that aren’t true and hold them
accountable. If we want good policy and good politicians, we can’t
let candidates get away with distorting the truth with a straight face.
IT’S YOUR RIGHT
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GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS
In the USC Briefs on Wednesday, Ohio State’s mascot should have been
called Brutus the Buckeye. Also, Cocky cannot be disqualified at any time, as
reported in the brief.
The Gamecock regrets the errors.
If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us at
gamtcockopinions@gwm.sc.edu.
ABOUT THE GAMECOCK
EDITOR
Adam Beam
DESIGN DIRECTOR
David Stagg
COPY DESK CHIEF
Gabrielle Sinclair
NEWS EDITOR
Michael LaFotgia
ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Jon Turner
VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Wes Wolfe
THE MIX EDITOR
Meg Moore
SPORTS EDITOR
Jonathan Hillyard
ASST. SPORTS EDITOR
Daniel Kerr
SENIOR WRITER
Kevin Fellner
PHOTO EDITOR
Jason Steelman
SPORTS PHOTO EDITOR
Katie Kirkland
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Jordan, Jennifer Logan,
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Regensheit, Jason
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Sitkowski, Shana Till,
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Wallace
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E.B. Davis
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1
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CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS
Unhealthy system limits flu vaccines
■ America’s misplaced
priorities allowed for
flu shot price gouging
Because a factory in Britain
screwed up, you won’t be getting an
inexpensive flu shot from the Student
Health Center that will keep you
from getting sick during finals.
Neither will tens of thousands of
high-risk patients like nursing home
residents, children and cancer
patients. If you needed any more
proof that what goes on overseas
actually affects us, there it is — one
less needle stick this year, and a lot
more miserable days in bed.
However, instead of just being a
nuisance during the final weeks of
“The Most Important Presidential
Election of Our Lifetimes,” the flu
vaccine shortage reveals a lot about
our misplaced priorities as
Americans.
Authorities in Florida promised to
prosecute a company that was selling
the vaccine for a price that was well
above the going rate before the
shortage. Pharmacies and public
health officials expressed outrage that
anyone would be so inhuman and
cruel to profit from people’s
misfortune. Personally, I don’t see
what was so wrong with the company
making more dollars off a product
that is both hard to find and for
which the demand is high. Isn’t that
how economics works?
, Isn’t this why gas is hovering
PATRICK
AUGUSTINE
FOURTH-YEAR
POLITICAL
SCIENCE
STUDENT
around $2 a
gallon? Lower
production in
the Middle
East, plus
unrest in
Venezuela,
hurricanes in
the Gulf of
Mexico and
more people
driving SUVs
has contributed
to crude oil
breaking the
$55-a-barrel
price. Fuel
prices like this make everything more
expensive, from fruit at the grocery
store to shipping your mom a
birthday package via UPS. It’s
reasonable to be angry about having
to donate a kidney to be able to
afford gas. It’s equally unforgivable
that our government hasn’t taken
steps to ensure that another health
crisis like the flu shot shortage never
happens again.
After all, we have historically put
tariffs on steel imports from overseas
to protect American manufactures
because having a domestic industry is
critical to national security. Extreme
fuel shortages are equally dangerous
to our economic well-being, hence
why the national reserves will be
tapped if oil prices continue to
wander higher. We’ve been told
repeatedly that in this new post-9/11
world, terrorists are likely to exploit
our weaknesses, especially when it
comes to an epidemic like smallpox.
Yet, we aren’t even prepared for the
flu. I don’t feel any safer, and I think
I know why.
Economics isn’t the answer to all
our problems, any more than simply
killing every terrorist is. Violence and
hatred breed more of the same, and
trying to get cheaper gas without
reducing our dependence and use of
it will never work.
If we are to follow the law of
supply and demand, which in
America we’ve been implicitly taught
is the new Golden Rule, all we get is
$900 flu shots. This is just as wrong
as gouging Florida residents for water
and bread after a hurricane, and yet
this is the environment in which
most of our businesses operate.
You see, in this election I don’t
believe that simply casting a vote and
doing one’s civic duty will suffice. No
matter which candidate is chosen, we
each must choose if we will allow our
nation to slide further down the slope
of disinterested consumerism or if we
will, like our grandparents, see
ourselves as members of our
communities.
It is time for us to cease being
duplicitous in our rhetoric while
supporting profit as the ultimate goal
and acting offended when companies
like Enron take this philosophy to its
logical conclusion. No one in need
should be forced to choose to pay the
price of tuition to keep from catching
the flu.
IN YOUR OPINION
Draft, like Kerry’s
demise, is untrue
The Selective Service (the
organization that would manage the
draft) stares that the draft bill,
introduced the first week of January
in 2003, was introduced “despite
nearly total opposition in Congress.”
Additionally, “Both President
George W. Bush and Senator John
F. Kerry have stated for the record
that they oppose a draft.” So, it may
be easily concluded that those few
members of Congress behind the
proposed draft bill do not, by any
means, reflect the will of the party
they represent, Those actually afraid
of this draft rumor are probably part
of the same group as those easily
swayed by right wing rhetoric.
As for an imploding Kerry
campaign (“Liberal scare tactics
grounds draft lies,” Wednesday), this
is as much nonsense as the
reinstitution of the draft. The most
recent Gallup Poll (Oct. 12, 2004)
puts Kerry actually ahead of
President Bush among likely voters
(Kerry 49 percent, Bush 48 percent).
It may also be worth mentioning that
less than half of those polled approve
of Bush’s job in'the White House at 47
percent, while 49 percent actually
disapprove. These are nonpartisan
numbers.
SAM WELLBORN
Third-year international
studies student
Submission Policy
Letters to the editor should be less
than 300 words and include name,
phone number, professional title or year
and major, if a student. E-mail letters to
gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu. Letters
will be edited. Anonymous letters will not
be published. Call the newsroom at 777
7726 for more information.
'I'M NOT LAWNS THe Looks of THAT LAVA DoMe....'
Have an
opinion on
one of the
presidential
candidates?
Let us
know.
E-mail
The
Gamecock
***>!».„ a^naMpa*
gamecock
opinions®
gwm.sc.edu
Medical
insurance
becomes the
scapegoat
u Suits against hospitals
and insurance providers
will be devastating
Welcome to the future of American
health care — the current system’s demise
won’t be long. Class-action suits ver
sus health care providers have spread to
ouuui Carolina
- hospitals, such as
l St. Francis in
I Greenville. It’s the
tobacco bonanza
i all over again, and
* it will devastate
I U.S. hospitals.
« The suits
concern mat
COREY bogeyman of first
GARRIOTT resort. indeed our
FOURTH-YEAR eternal blame
ECONOMICS ,
STUDENT takers: insurance
companies —
who else? These
risk managers save
a lot of money the
way department stores cut prices:
negotiating the cost of care with the
collective weight of thousands of clients
behind them. Flu shots sold under an
insurance contract cost 10 bucks; the same
vaccine costs $80 without.
And the uninsured therefore pay
higher prices. That is, when they pay at all.
Public hospitals provide care regardless of
the ability to pay and by law cannot coerce
payment.
Essentially, they care for the poor
under the table. This is the font of
inherited tradition, which modern lawyers
will replace with mean notions of surface
equality. Medical traditions are laden with
tacit codes. Doctors treat patients who
can’t pay and recoup it by overcharging
others. Insurance added an interesting
layer, using the economic power of
collective negotiation to bring down the
price.
On the other hand, we have Canada,
which wants to see your insurance card at
the door (or you just go home and die,
eh?). The country preferred the stultifying
influence of the law to the practices of its
own doctors.
So U.S. patients are now suing public
hospitals because their nominal prices are
higher than those for insured patients. It
doesn't seem lair, until compared with the
tradition in which many of these patients
aren’t expected to pay, and the insurance
companies pay more to keep the system
going.
In the end, the poor will pay. The
malaise of public hospitals means trouble
for health care. They serve the
socioeconomically depressed and don’t
make a lot of money. Like thin ice, they
are the first to fracture under pressure.
The legalistic impulse codifies,
federalizes and therefore dehumanizes. To
dissect an animal is to kill it; to eliminate
the relationship integral to the most
humane of professions is to cast out its
soul. If the suits hang another weight on
the already strained public hospitals, to
say nothing if they win, they will send the
last resort of the poor crashing to the
ground.
Who with malice not aforethought
would drink long and hard from the tray
of the poor? These suits have in their cross
hairs the St. Joseph’s, Baptist Medical
Centers and Beth Israels of the country.
They are suing St. Mary’s.
One wonders about the true intentions
of these lawyers — could this be a devious
takeout? Once we have disposed of the
foundation of this imperfect but
functioning system, the state will have to
swoop in — deus ex machina — and piece
together the resulting anarchy. And how
seldom the government departs after being
invited!
Because human demands are infinite
while supply is finite, we have to ration
health care somehow. Canadian-style
health care would ration care not by the
conventions of the medical profession but
by the decree of an administration.
Alternatively, we could cut off care for
the old, say at 75 like Britain does, saving
resources for the young. In the end, it
must be rationed. I hope our own method
of nuance and tacit understanding will
J COLLEGE QUOTE BOARD
DAILY NEBRASKAN
rff-au , UNljEliSlTY OF NEBRASKA
After several of the harder questions of the night like the overturning of Roe v.
Watjdi Ceorge W. Bush failed to respond to the topic at hand. Instead, he switched
to another topic — education. We’re all for higher learning, but the issues skipped
needed their tfm e too.
' .: : ' v . . . .
>' 1 \ ■
THE COLLEGIATE TIMES
VIRGINIA TECH
While compassion for the youth of America is an important agenda of the mod
ern day, we must not fail to recognize that the youth are not universally incapable,
inept or mentally underdeveloped — we cannot ubiquitously excuse them from
responsibility for their actions. The Justices of the Supreme Court should uphold
Simmons’ sentence, and reiterate current precedent limiting capital punishment
to those over the age of 16.
*