Write Stripes

I read the article “Health Care Reform: Why? What? When?” concerning health care reform in the United States. It was written by Stanford professors Victor R. Fuchs and Ezekiel J. Emanuel. It was published in Health Affairs volume 24, number 6. The article discusses the significant need for health care reform as it relates to two specific areas; finance and structure. The financial issues of health care reform include Medicare, employer-based insurance, and means-tested insurance. Fuchs and Emanuel believe that each of these is flawed and must be restructured in order to improve the U.S. health system. The second issue is the organization of our health care system. They discuss why health care reform is crucial and how its current structure is causing significant problems. Some specific issues they discuss include the fact that over half of America’s physicians are in private practice, cost-benefit trade-offs (best care or lowest price?), and shortage of workers. They also address how health care reform should be carried out; incrementally (through subsidies or employer mandates) or comprehensively (national system). The main question, then, is which area should be given priority, economic or organization? Fuchs and Emanuel did a good job of presenting the different proposals for reform. The best part of the article was a figure that compared the different proposals. They made some very interesting points that we can consider for our collaborative project. So, what is there final point? They believe that a national crisis, whether a war, depression, or pandemic, will be the motivation for reform, which will most likely be in the form of a national health care system.

I found an article about oil companies that had flawed drilling leases. These flawed drilling leases allowed the companies to drill for oil while not paying the royalty fees for the drilling. There were some leases that were given by the government in 1998-1999 that allowed the drilling to go on but the companies did not have to pay a royalty fee. This happened when the price of oil was really cheap. But now that the price of oil has gone up, the government wants the companies to pay the royalty fee. So now the companies and the government are having to sort all of this out because of the mistake that the government made over eight years ago.

Recently, there have not been many articles about stem cell research, but in late august there was a significant article about a new way to develop stem cells. This included using the 8 cell stage of development and extracting one of the cells. This allows the embryo to still survive, and the procedure has been used safely for a number of years for selection of embryos from in vitro fertilization in patients with a high risk of genetic disease. The critics are still as negative about this procedure, saying no part of the human developmental process should be susceptible to genetic studies, among other arguments.

The article I found tells about how scientists have recently discovered a way to harvest stem cells from a dead (called "arrested") embryo. An arrested embryo is one that has stopped dividing and therefore is considered to be dead. Scientists have been able to extract cells from these embryos and grow them into stem cell lines that pass the same tests as other stem cells.

Scientists believe this may help solve the ethical debate about stem cells because the embryos are dead, so the ethics are more similar to those of organ donation. However, opponents still argue that the reason the embryo died is that it was not implanted into a womb, and therefore it was laboratory conditions that killed it just as if it had been used in research. At this point, scientists are also unsure as to whether or not these cells taken from arrested embryos will be able to function as well as other stem cells or if they will have some sort of defect in them as a result of their source.

I found a great article last week from the San Francisco Chronicle that dealt with oil prices. Some critics of big oil companies have stated recently that these companies were price gouging after the hurricanes last fall as prices soared. It is true that in the third quarter of last year, some oil companies, such as Exxon Mobile posted record profits and sold more gas than they ever had before. However, when one keeps in mind that the supply of world oil is fairly fixed right now due to the current policies of OPEC countries, and the fact that demand for oil is ever increasing due to new countries such as China expanding their industrial activities, it makes sense that the price of oil and gasoline would rise so much. Therefore, we can be fairly certain that we are not being taken advantage of by the oil companies, however, the government definitely needs to keep and eye on the companies and make sure that nothing like that happens in the future as the demand continues to rise.

Reading through articles to find a juicy one to summarize, I discovered one other potential area that will need to be explained to our audience – the economics of the situation. What truly is most beneficial to the consumer in the long run?

To put it as one Washington Post article did, “consumers will pay the freight any way you look at it. That's Economics 101. They will either pay the telephone and cable companies via higher rates, or they will pay the online firms the same way. Since costs are passed through corporations to actual people in competitive markets like this one, consumers will get "stuck with the bill" either way."

However, two economists from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business have a different view on the matter. After lengthy economic modeling, they feel the following would happen if regulations requested by the proponents of net neutrality were enacted:

~ Consumers who would otherwise have consumed a low-quality variant are priced out of the market. Consumers at the bottom of the market - the ones that a single-product restriction is typically intended to aid - are almost always harmed by the restriction.

~ Consumers in the "middle" market consume a higher quality product than they would have consumed if a firm offered multiple products.

~ Consumers at the top of the market consume a lower quality product than they would have consumed if a firm offered multiple products.

“Hot Topic: Neutral Net: A Battle for Control of the Web” ran in the June 24, 2006 issue of The Wall Street Journal. It contained many useful statistics for our group. The article focused on presenting the two sides of the issue and why each side feels the way it does (everyone just wants to get rich). Here are some of the facts:

~ A U.S. Internet user with a typical cable-Internet service pays about $12 for one-megabit-per-second of download speed each month, compared with $4.20 in France and $1.73 in Japan, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

~ Internet-service providers say a small percentage of subscribers use most of their total bandwidth. In 2003, 6% of Comcast subscribers used 78% of the company's bandwidth. ~ As of May, 143 million Americans used the Internet at home, 72% of which had a broadband (high-speed) connection, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

~ In 2005, the Federal Communications Commission fined Mebane, N.C., Internet-service provider and phone company Madison River $15,000 for blocking its DSL customers from using rival Web-based phone service Vonage.

~ Net-neutrality proponents enlisted the support of musicians Moby and REM's Michael Stipe, and a trio known as The Broadband, which released a song called "God Save the Internet" about the recent debate.

~ Between 1996 and 2005, the cable industry spent $105.3 billion in capital expenditures, which included new fiber-optic cables that deliver television, phone and broadband Internet, according to Kagan Research.

The article concluded with a vivid figure (pasted below) which included bandwidth usage and capacity, the amount companies involved spent on lobbying, and the comparative bandwidth usages of different types of files.

Yesterday afternoon, I was continuing my search for credible sources when I ran across this news report on CNN. com. This story was actually reported on the news and thus, I was merely reading the transcript of an old story. However, this report directly relates to my portion of the research our group is conducting. The story begins with the acknowledgement of higher gas prices around the country. The effects of such gas prices are being felt through the country and the economy. As the broadcast continues, the reporters explain how rising prices are contributing to a rise in the price of other commercial goods. The resulting rise in clothes and food can not be avoided because of the rising price of shipping cost. Most people do not directly correlate such price hikes to the rise in shipping cost, even though it is the direct cause. For example, Fed Ex is currently charging customers up to 8.5% surcharge for fuel. The reporter continued to say that the cost of home deliveries and transporting goods to vendors is costing more money for the distribution companies because of the price of gas. Thus, the customers will continue to feel the effects of gas prices through rising shipping costs. Another reason commercial goods are seeing heightened prices is because of the petroleum used as a material in the manufacturing process. For example, GE is raising the price of its large appliances because of the rising cost of raw materials. A copy of the transcript can be viewed at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/09/ldt.01.html.

I read an article on ars technica (http://arstechnica.com) entitled "Poll: Americans don't want net neutrality (or maybe they don't know what it is)" by a guy named Ken Fisher. In this article he reports that a poll of 800 registered voters was taken and found that they cared more about providing better television and video options rather than caring about net neutrality. However, as the article goes on to explain, most of those polled had not heard of net neutrality prior to this poll and once the issue was explained to them almost 20% responded it was more important than improving television and video services. Still, as Mr. Fisher goes on to say, the poll only mentions net neutrality 2 times in 13 questions to voters which skews the results more in favor of improvements in the television industry. When the voters were asked if a "Consumer Bill of Rights" would be important a large majority said that it would be "important", and some went so far as to say it would be "very important," yet still the questions did not do a good job representing what net neutrality is and providing questions that would give a good guage as to how the registered voters really would feel about such legislation. The poll was given by a group with both "Democratic and Republican histories" and had a "95 percent certainty with 3.46 percent margin for error." This article relates to how we need to find out what people our age know and feel about net neutrality but shows that when questions are phrased in certain ways, then the results can be very different. If you would like to read the article you can find it here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060918-7772.html

For net neutrality we feel that it is key for the audience to understand what net neutrality is. We feel that the audience needs understand the basics of the internet and how information is provided to them. They will need to understand that the internet is not simply just pipes and that there is a complicated network of wires, routers, switches, hubs, repeaters, and servers all interconnected that allow them to access the internet. They will need to understand the concept of bandwidth and how those can differ. They also need to understand that in order to provide greater speeds for users that the network hardware needs to be upgraded which costs money, and that there is a big debate over who is going to foot this cost.

-katie, russell, andrew

I read an article called called " Time for a debate in the USA on health care" by Joe Santangelo from the Lancet. This article discusses the need for Congress to address health care reform. Santangelo refers to polls conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, a non-partisan group. In these polls Americans said that they had trouble paying for health insurance and health care for themselves and their families. Americans said when they did need health care they were recieveing low quality care. Santangelo demands that political leadership is needed and that Congress stop putting off this debate.

The article I read about stem cell research was called "How Bush Got There", from Time magazine's online archives, written August 12, 2001 by Richard Lacayo. The article was really interesting- it focused on how Bush had to develop a more detailed platform on stem cells as time went on during his Presidency.

When Bush was elected, stem cells weren't anything anyone knew much about. But, as time went on and technology allowed for increases in research and the advancement of stem cell lines, he was forced to develop a more definite stance to the whole issue of government funding. He didn't want to go against the platforms of those who supported pro-life positions towards the funding, who had the view that if he allowed research to be funded, he was supporting the destruction of live human embryos. On the other hand, he heard a lot of compelling arguments from scientists and researchers, along with some of those pathos appeals we were talking about in class from people parading their cute, poor little sick kids and great uncles and what not in front of him and championing their respective causes.

In the end, he did a lot of sifting through information and opposing views and finally came to a compromise: he would allow funding for research on the small number of already existing stem cell lines, but deny money for any work with stem cells derived from embryos destroyed in the future. This allowed him to walk the fine line of staying in his original position, which was that taxpayer funds should never pay for research that involves the destruction of live human embryos but to still make those lobbying for advancements in the medical field of stem cell research happy by allowing some funding.

It was interesting to read this article, because it touched on some of the ethical debates that stem cell research brings up. We identified the ethical debates as a major key issue that many people need to be aware of and educated on in our presentation, so the article warmed me up for beginning the researching process for that section of the paper.

Term people need to understand:
1.Medicare
2.Medicaid
3.Health care reform
4.health insurance
5.national health care plan
6.free market plan
7.statistics: average cost per household for healthcare
8.quality of life
9.malpractice insurance
10.healthcare worker shortage
11.politics-who is involved and what they stand for
~ people need to understand these terms so that they can grasp the issue being discussed and they can fully comprehend the problems evolving
~ misconceptions of vocabulary can lead to uneducated decisions
~ collaborative post: Candice and Meredith

Key Issues for our audience to understand:
-What are stem cells? How are they harvested? How are they stored? How long do they last/do they degenerate over time?
-Embryonic vs. Somatic Stem Cells
-Potential benefits of stem cell research
-What the current law says regarding stem cell research- what is allowed, what is not?
-Public vs. Private funding for stem cell research
-Ethical issues regarding stem cell research?

Key Terms:
-stem cell
-differentiated cells vs. undifferentiated cells
-regenerative medicine
-in vivo vs. in vitro
-cell culture

I'm sure there will be many others once we start researching in depth :)
Heather, Charles, Nicole

Ali and Michaela: Immigration Issues

Some things that people reading our guides will need to understand in order to understand our information are:

Illegal vs. legal immigrants- how many allowed from different countries
Alien
Deportation
Labor immigrant
Conditional resident
Bill and law passing
Define border and federal laws about border
Work force terms

Sam, Kandace, Courtney
Today in class we discussed a logos based appeal and what our audience needs to understand in terms of technical jargon when they hear our presentations or view our flyers. Our audience will definitely need to understand some economic terms like supply and demand, also what certain percentages mean about the cost of goods, and some general knowledge of fossil fuels and alternative fuels and what they are. If the audience understands these terms, then they will be able to process the information we present them.

The article that I read concerning immigration issues comes from the Reuters website and was written by Dan Wilchins, published Monday, September 18, 2006. In "Western Union Sees Near-term Immigration Woes," the main issue is that Western Union's share value has dropped by about 8 percent. The reason for the drop in value is because of the immigration debate going on in the U.S. WU claims that legal and illegal immigrants have feared that wiring money back to their homes will attract government attention and are not useing the service as much as before.

President Bush backs legislation such as tighter patrolling of borders, and he wants immigrants that are here illegally already to be able to follow a path to acquire citizenship. The Senate has passed Bush's bills, but the House has not. These decisions will have to wait until lawmakers are back from their break that begins at the end of this month.

I was wondering if anyone found a good program to use to make a Gantt Chart, I have just spent the most miserable 5 hours of my life trying to figure out how to make one trying Excel and a bunch of free programs from the internet, but it still looks terrible. If anyone knows of an easier way, I would really appreciate any help. Thanks.

The main gaps in knowledge about net neutrality are that students know that the internet exists, just not how it's exactly regulated--or that it's regulated at all. They are unaware of how regulating the internet will effect their lives--and that it will probably effect their everyday lives (since the internet is used so often.) Also, students probably don't know that they are the main effectors of change on this political issue, since the older generations are as acustomed to using the web for just about everything.

For net neutrality we have chosen to focus on the college student as our target audience. We decided this because the college age (and younger) will be those primarily affected by the net neutrality issue as this age group uses and relies on the internet so much in their every day lives. Because of their dependence on the internet, these laws will have the biggest impact on them and we feel that they understand the ramifications of these laws and would be more willing to listen to the issue to make educated decisions on what the best solution is. In order to explain the issues to this age group, we feel that we need to present information in a way that is clear to explain the points with as little bias as possible and remain as short as possible as this age group is less likely to take the time to read lots of information. We feel that web pages that contain graphics, visuals, and audio will keep students attention long enough to inform them of the issue at hand. In addition we feel that providing additional reading material would be useful to those students who want to know more details. Flyers, posters, and other handouts could also be useful but we feel they would need to be attention grabbing with bold headlines that they could relate to (i.e. do you use the internet?) as well as probably contain some sort of graphics that is visually appealing. Because students are so busy and not likely to read a lot of information, we feel that being visually appealing with videos and graphics is needed to catch their attention in order to best provide information that is short, unbiased, and clear.