Without the state

An end to free movement

Up to now this has been a Brexit free zone, but inevitably as I disengage from Facebook, that must change.

A frequent mantra from the leave side has been the call for an 'end to free movement of people'. It's worth deconstructing that statement to expose the illiberal elements behind so much of the Leave campaign.

The argument is of course couched in terms of stopping 'them' from coming here and taking our jobs. There is no evidence of that in reality, but we'll pass that by for now. Creating the idea of the 'other' is one of the first steps of dictators and would-be dictators everywhere. That 'other ' doesn't even have to exist of course, but if you have a visible target it makes it so much easier. That's what's behind the hyperbole of the leavers as they endlessly and angrily froth at the mouth every time any of the 'little people' has the temerity to speak up.

But we'll pass over that for now, too.

What none of them are saying is that the end to free movement cuts both ways. As we stand, anyone in the EU has unlimited ability to trade, work or study anywhere else in the EU - that's over 500m people and a collective economy worth around $19m representing about 22% of the world economy. The UK economy makes great use of that facility - watch any news item about medical or scientific research and you will see them. According to a report produced by the British Academy some 40,000 non-UK EU staff work in UK universities. These people are critical to maintaining the high standard of UK Universities in international league tables. Looking the other way, research by the Royal Society (pdf) indicates that almost 70% of active UK researchers in the period 1996 – 2011 had published articles for which they were affiliated with non-UK institutions, indicating that they had worked abroad at some point during that period. Some of those researchers may have moved for relatively short periods, but UK-based researchers also move for longer periods: 21% of UK-based researchers worked abroad for a period of two years or more during the same period.

All of this is at risk. In January it was reported that over 2,300 EU academics resigned from British universities in 2016-17,  a 19 per cent increase in departures compared to before the EU referendum, and a 10 per cent rise from 2015-16. It seems likely that this applies outside academia too. The government recently published (pdf) an analysis showing all Brexit scenarios would hurt the economy while a separate report from the Bank of England, warned economic output in the U.K. could drop by as much as 8 percent if Britain drops out of the EU without a deal in place, compared to expectations had the U.K. stayed in. That compares to a 6.25 percent drop during the 2008 financial crisis.

Best estimates for British citizens in the rest of the EU are that there are between 1.8 million to 3.6 million British people living part-time or full-time in the EU27. This is imprecise because of the difficulties of reconciling data from 27 different countries with different definitions (so much for the EU juggernaut) but even the lowest is significantly higher than the suspiciously precise ONS estimate in April 2018 of 748,900, although much closer to the UN estimate that had been previously accepted of 1.22m. The difference lies in the fact that thge ONS definition only includes people living elsewhere in the EU for 1year or longer. This excludes seasonal workers, second-home owners, students and other mobile individuals who move backwards and forwards and who, having exercised their rights to freedom of movement, are as likely as any to be affected by Brexit. I'm a case in point - in 2000-2005 I earned  a substantial part of my income from contracts in Ireland, based in the UK, but travelling regularly to Ireland for meetings and site visits.

British residents in Spain appear to be a significant issue. This paper concludes that "there are some frail, vulnerable people that may fall through a support gap, whereby they are no longer the responsibility of UK welfare services, yet not fully recognised in their new country of residence..." Depending on the outcome of Brexit many of these people may find themselves forced to return to the UK, a country they may have left decades before, possibly impoverished and requiring significant social care. The implications for an already stressed adult care system in the UK are unknown.

You will hear none of this from Johnston, Rees Mogg or their ilk. What you get is magical thinking , self-delusion or meaningless empty phrases (pdf).

In real life though:

You have to believe in facts. Without facts there's no basis for cooperation. If I say this is a podium and you say this an elephant, it's going to be hard for us to cooperate.

Barack Obama

As Obama said in the same speech, the denial of facts could be the “undoing” of democracy.

“People just make stuff up,” he said. “They just double down and lie some more. Politicians have always lied, but it used to be that if you caught them lying, they’d be like, ‘Oh, man.’ Now they just keep on lying!”

 

 

Abortion saved my life

The story of a woman who almost died in hospital after a doctor supposed to be looking after her refused to provide the treatment she needed.

...all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn't do abortions. Ever.

Mikki Kendall at Salon

Overdosing on homeopathy.

Image via Wikipedia

From this article it appears that:

The Society of Homeopaths state on their website:

"... it is not possible to take an overdose of homeopathic medicine in the same way as in orthodox medicine (orthodox medicine works on a chemical level).

"Homeopathic medicines are not therefore intrinsically dangerous. Nonetheless, they are clearly capable of stimulating the body's reactive forces powerfully and should be treated with respect."

 

One of the commenters nails it though...

I'm very worried I've been overdosing. I've been drinking tap water all my life which presumably contains infinitesimal amounts every known homeopathic remedy. In one word - am I at imminent risk of a catastrophic homeopathic arse meltdown?

Shaking Hands with Death

If you didn't see Terry Pratchett's Dimbleby Lecture on BBC TV last night then watch it now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qmfgn/Richard_Dimbleby_Lecture_Shaking_Hands_with_Death/

I'm not sure if this will be visible outside the UK, but I suspect it will be on YouTube very quickly.

Because of his condition, he couldn't deliver it himself and asked his friend Tony Robinson to read it for him.  This was itself a remarkable performance, delivered with passion and tenderness, and without once so far as I could see referring to the text in front of him.

Watch it if you can.

EDIT: Here is an extract published in the Independent today.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terry-pratchett-why-stop-trusting-a-doctor-who-has-the-power-to-kill-you-1886159.html

The last abortionist

"After eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 406 death threats, 179 assaults, and four kidnappings, people are still in denial. They say, 'Well, this was just some wingnut guy who just decided to go blow up somebody.' Wrong. This was a cold-blooded, brutal, political assassination that is the logical consequence of 35 years of hate speech and incitement to violence...

Iraq? Afghanistan? Somalia? No - USA

...dodging sick people.

[The US is] the only nation in the world with a health care system based on dodging sick people.

Dr Marcia Angell, quoted in this post at Time Goes By.

Health Insurance Reform Reality Check

Health Insurance Reform Reality Check.  - from the White House

For example:

Linda Douglass of the White House Office of Health Reform answers a question from outside the recent town hall in New Hampshire on why Congress voted to exempt themselves from reform. This is a myth: there is no exemption and there has not been any such vote.

Health Care reform US style

Even if you live in the UK, you are hardly likely to have missed the furore brewing up in the US over reform of their health care 'system'. Given that the US spends about twice the proportion of GDP on health care than we do and still leaves 45m people uninsured - and a disproportionate number of them are black or Hispanic - I'm not sure what they have to be so proud of, so something else is clearly going on.

An unexpected side effect of the debate for me is the way in which the UK system has been singled out by many campaigners as An Awful Warning. Some of this is simple stupidity - the guy shouting, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” and the posters with similar messages are good for a laugh, but they demonstrate a perilous level ignorance of how the present US system works.

More seriously Campaign ads in the US have used numerous interviews with British people to belittle the NHS but at least one of those interviewed is now on record saying she was lied to about the purpose of the interview and that her views have been distorted. In other TV coverage I have seen the most outrageous lies about the way the British system works put forward by both US politicians and demonstrators. One person claimed it took 6 months to get a dentist appointment - which is of course malevolent garbage. What is it about the American obsession with British teeth anyway? Is it a folk memory from WW2 (when we didn't have the NHS by the way)? We have also seen some Conservative Party nonentity appearing on American TV deliberately it seems misrepresenting the position we face here - he has now been repudiated by his own party leader, who of course has his own reasons to be thankful for the British NHS.

Another interviewee claimed that the UK has the worst death rate and the lowest recovery rate in Europe. Perhaps - but the variation across 'Old Europe' ie excluding the former Soviet Bloc countries is minimal. In practice life expectancy in  the UK and most of Europe are marginally better than in the US, while neo-natal death rates are significantly better than the US. (Source OECD and WHO via BBC)

A host of stories have surfaced in the US, of which perhaps the most bizarre is the claim that "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless" to which Prof Hawking responded "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS, I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Some of the other stories are listed here in that bastion of socialist thinking the Daily Telegraph. For example:

Allegation: NHS patients over 59 years of age cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypasses.

Response: A national audit on cardiac surgery showed that one in five of all patients was aged over 75.

If you want to see what life can be without accessible health care look at this photo. This is the  christening photograph of my grandmother, taken in 1887. The man standing at the back is her father, my great-grandfather. His wife isn't there because she was either dead or dying as a result of childbirth. She died about three months after the birth from anaemia - effectively she bled to death.

I was born before our NHS started. I was born with a crippling condition known as talipes - otherwise known as club foot. I had to wait until the NHS came into being before it could be treated, and that delay was critical in causing many of the health problems I face some 60 years later. Without the NHS, I probably would be dead by now, because of the stresses of the crippled life I would have faced.

Without the NHS I wouldn't have a wife - she has MS and would probably again have died by now without the health and social care we can take for granted here.

Without the NHS I wouldn't have a daughter - my wife had several miscarriages and without NHS treatment she would never have carried a pregnancy to term.

Not for the first time America is meddling in the affairs of other countries. The Republican Party and the health insurance lobby are lying about OUR health service to defend their own financial positions. They certainly are not interested in the health of the average American. Despite the stupidity - or perhaps gullibility - of many of those protesting in the US against reform, they would do well to think about the stories I have told. Stories that are being repeated now across Africa. Stories that in only slightly less harrowing forms are still being told in America.

Surely, no country that calls itself civilised can allow its citizens to live in the sort of fear and despair that lack of health insurance can cause, IS causing in the US, now, today and day after day. Some reform is essential. Hiding behind fairy stories about death panels (the egregious Sarah Palin), lying to your citizens about what happens elsewhere, deliberately promoting ignorance to defend your privileged position is not civilised. Something must change.

Lying about other countries has other effects too of course. We have no shortage of venality in this country. There will be politicians who want to protect their own status, who will seek to curry favour with the Mail readers who blame it all on immigration, who will try to dismantle our own system using the same lies as are being told in the US.

America - you are being told lies.

(Posted as part of Ronni Bennett's blog campaign - see more here)

Health care reform in the US

From Ronni Bennett's blog "As Time Goes By". Go here to read the full post.

Even though it is always easier to rage against an idea – particularly when your argument is fact-free – than to intelligently debate the pros and cons; even though I suspect the kind of people who shout down speakers at town halls and are becoming increasingly violent cannot be reasoned with, that is what I am asking every elderblogger who reads Time Goes By to do – to explain reasonably why you support health care reform.

Here is what I propose:

• That next week, on Thursday 20 August, elderbloggers rise up on their blogs in support of health care reform including a public option
• That we denounce the say-no-to-everything Republicans and their handmaidens, the Blue Dog Democrats
• That we call out the health industry and their lobbyists who are bribing Congress with campaign donations to maintain the health care status quo and preserve their staggering profits
• That we fact check the lies, half-truths and exaggerations of the scare-mongering media nitwits who dare to compare the health care bill to Nazi Germany and who shout fascism, socialism and Communism without a gram of understanding of those terms
• That we reinforce the the fact of the backbreaking cost of health care that will skyrocket so high in the next decade, without health care reform there can be no economic recovery.

And so on.

Post your stories in support of health care reform on Thursday 20 August. Then email me the link and I will keep a running list of those links on my post throughout the day. If there are enough, we can make an impact elsewhere on the web and maybe in other media. If there are enough to be impressive, I will do my best to see that word gets around.

Health 'care' in the US

...during a speech in Cleveland on 20 July 2007, President Bush had this to say about health care:

"I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

I remember reading this statement and thinking that it could only come from someone who had never had to use US emergency facilities. Now Ronni Bennett, from whom the quote above is taken draws attention to a study that confirms my initial feelings.

“When compared with an insured white patient, black patients with equivalent injuries but without insurance had a 78 percent higher risk of dying; for uninsured Hispanics, the risk was 130 percent higher.” (Newsweek)

Read her full story here.