The following information comes from “The Healing Of America, A Global Quest For Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care” by T. R. Reid, published in 2009, a book the Watchdog whole heartedly recommends.

(New York Times book review:  “ ‘The Healing of America’ blends subjective and objective into a seamless indictment of our own disastrous system, an eloquent rebuttal against the arguments used to defend it, and appealing alternatives for fixing it.” )

1) “The British National Health Service… is dedicated to the proposition that nobody should ever have to pay a medical bill.  In the NHS, there is no insurance premium to pay, no-co-payment, no fee at all, whether you drop by the GP’s [general practitioner’s] office with a cold or receive a quadruple bypass from the nation’s top cardiac surgeon.”

2)      “The Brits …pay through a network of taxes that would make Americans cringe; the sales tax in the UK runs from 15 to 17.5 percent, while income and social security taxes are higher than America’s in every income bracket.” (Editor’s note:  The Brits recently increased the sales tax to 20%.)

3) “It is a model for any country that wants to provide quality care at low cost.  One key reason, of course, is that no-fee funding mechanism.  With no bills, no billing offices, no bureaucracy needed to file or review insurance claims, the administrative costs at the NHS are small – about one-fifth those in the United States.  “

4) “A general practitioner is paid by a system known as capitation – that is, she gets a set fee for each person registered with her practice.  This creates a clear economic incentive for the doctor to practice preventive medicine – another proven money-saver for any health care system.”

5) “…GPs in Britain generally make more money than the specialists – on average, about twice as much.” In the UK, the majority of physicians are GPs.  In the USA, the preponderance is specialists.

6) The National Health Service stipulates the range of medications, tests and procedures unlike in the USA where decisions are made, in large part, by insurance companies.    There is recognition that there is not a limitless supply of funds to provide herculean care to the advanced aged and the terminally ill.  Emphasis is placed on preventing illness.  In part due to “capitation” instead of “fee for services”, the health of the general population in the UK is superior to the population in the USA.  But if you are 90 years old, don’t expect to get a knee replacement.

7) Malpractice insurance is under $5,000 a year, in large part because a doctor cannot be sued if he /she follow the health service guidelines.

For most matters, access to a general practitioner and emergency care is at least as rapid as in the USA.  There are delays in seeing a specialist, but no longer than the Watchdog experiences in Lancaster.

Although not fully recognized as suchy, almost half of health care in the USA including Medicare, Indian Affairs,and  federal prison system  follow the UK model with commendable results!

According to an editorial, “[Joe] Sestak should follow the lead of U. S. Rep. Joe Pitts, whose 16^th District includes Lancaster County.  Pitts hasn’t asked for an earmark in years after coming to the conclusion that the earmark process is deeply flawed.”

“Flawed” or not, earmarked funding  is the way that a portion of the taxes paid locally are returned for local project.  The concept is that locally elected officials have a better sense of how the money should be spent than bureaucrats in Washington, D .C.

So who is Pitts to deprive our community of funds for libraries, public health, schools and other important community services to which we are entitled?

Legislators should serve their constituents, not be blinded by some utopian aspiration.  Sure, work for reform.  But let’s not turn our back on our fair share!

Toomey leads Sestak, 45% to 39% RASMUSSEN: Republican Pat Toomey continues to hold a small lead over Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Pennsylvania Voters shows Toomey earning 45% support, while Sestak picks up 39% of the vote. Six percent (6%) prefer another candidate in the race, and 10% are undecided.

That’s little changed from two weeks ago…

Click here to read the full article.

No disrespect intended but REALLY? REALLY?  Who are they kidding?  This is a state road – did they get permission to do this?

THREE HOURS?!?  Shutting the street down, right before the court house?!?! Are you kidding me?  What on earth is the justification for this?  This is not the President of the United States.

Plus  East Marion Street AND North Christian Street?!

I feel like going to just to see how many show up – after all – many of her peers are long gone.

If ever there was a sign of how much of a ‘one horse town’ Lancaster really is – I can’t think of one.

(The following letter refers to an article “South Square housing project planners seek new grants” appearing in the Intelligencer Journal / New Era.)

“The Lancaster Alliance, a business group that promotes city revitalization”

Isn’t this sweet?  Doesn’t the Lancaster Alliance sound so philanthropic?

Why doesn’t this crack reporter tell us who is involve or how they get their money?

Please note the Penn Square Partners (which originally included partner Fulton Bank) continued use of ‘non-profit’ organizations to take tax money, increase value for business holdings, and advance business interests in general – all hiding behind a non-profit front.

The project is supposed to take 14.8 million dollars and make it disappear into 62 units of 1-3 bedrooms!  That comes to $238,709.67 PER UNIT!   Are you kidding me?  For ONE, TWO, THREE BEDROOM APARTMENTS?   I could buy land and construct really nice townhouses for that much!

The single rooms are currently being rented out by the week but I guess they don’t like the people in there?

From the article: “Shoemaker, who has been the Alliance president since May, said he remains optimistic about the project.

“Everybody has been very cooperative, and I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t think this project has merit,” he said.”

Isn’t it nice that everyone is getting along to spend our tax dollars on this waste?  But this sycophant says it has merit – so it must?

The following appeared in the Intelligencer / New Era:

“CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS

“An article in last Friday’s Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era contained an incorrect percentage for raises given to two Lancaster County Convention Center staff members. The increases totaled 6.1 percent of the staff members’ salaries. The percentage stated in the article came from authority board members. That percentage referred to single-year increases over a two-year period, with one increase beginning in January and another in July, said Kevin Molloy, the authority executive director.

“The Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era wants to correct substantive errors of fact. To request a correction or clarification, please contact the news desk (291-8622) between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.”

The  response to the Editor’s article about the possible elimination of the Lancaster County HRC is absolutely false. There are now MULTIPLE layers of services afforded to those who think they have been discriminated against. The city (given the dire financial situation they are in, they should follow the lead of the county and terminate their commission too), the county and the state have such agencies.

Many counties within the state did not jump on this bandwagon and preferred to let the state agency do its job. The state agency is responsive and effective. Additionally, there are numerous other special interest agencies that work to protect their respective constituencies.

Thank goodness we have two commissioners are who are not interested in continuing to waste our precious tax dollars on duplicated services. I look forward to waking up tomorrow and reading that commissioners Martin and Stuckey terminated this waste of space agency.

From MINNPOST.COM:

…Now comes word from the Poynter Institute’s Bill Mitchell that Journalism Online’s system has been released into the wild; its first adopter is LancasterOnline,  which serves a swath of south-central Pennsylvania.

What will be metered?  Obituaries! Insert newspaper-audience-dying-off jokes here.

Metering lets publishers determine how much content is free before users pay. In the case of Lancaster Online, non-locals get seven obit pages before the $1.99 monthly charge kicks in.

Laugh if you want — and I’ll admit, I’m tittering — but any small-town newspaper publisher will tell you obits are a pretty big deal for readers. In this case, LancasterOnline is making money coming and going (if you’ll pardon the pun): they charge survivors to place death notices, and now they’ll charge out-of-towners to read them…

Click here to read the full article.

Two Lancaster County Commissioners, Scott Martin and Dennis Stuckey, are recommending the elimination of the Lancaster County Human Relations Commission, the body responsible for enforcing civil rights in Lancaster County since 1964, protecting the rights of individuals in areas such as housing, employment, and education whose rights may be denied based on religion, race, sex, ethnicity, or disability.

If they succeed, they will eliminate the ability of the county to enforce civil rights protections. This will be devastating to people who are victims of discrimination in Lancaster County. It will also send a message that discrimination is once again acceptable in the county. This will have a chilling affect on tourism and new business development in the region.

The vote to eliminate the Human Relations Commission will take place this Thursday night, July 29.

EPA Region 3 Press Release: PHILADELPHIA (July 28, 2010) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that High Steel Structures, Inc. and its sister company High Concrete Group, LLC, have settled alleged violations of toxic chemical reporting requirements at their plants in Lancaster, Williamsport and Denver, Pa.

EPA cited the companies for violating the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), which requires companies that manufacture, use or process more than a threshold amount of listed toxic chemicals to file an annual toxic chemical release form with EPA and the state.  Under EPCRA, companies must also report both routine and accidental releases of toxic chemicals, as well as the maximum amount of any listed chemicals at the facility and the amount contained in wastes transferred off-site.

These annual reports are used to compile the Toxic Release Inventory, a publicly available EPA database that contains information on toxic chemical releases and waste management activities.  This inventory informs the public about toxic chemicals and releases in their community.  For more information, see http://www.epa.gov/tri/.

The alleged violations at the Lancaster plant, located at 1853 William Penn Way, were uncovered during an EPA inspection in 2009. The company did not report releases for lead, chromium and zinc dust for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007.  The company has since submitted these reports and agreed to pay a civil penalty of $165,000.

At the Williamsport facility, located at 3501 W. Fourth Street, and the Denver facility, located at 125 Denver Road, the companies voluntarily disclosed reporting violations in April 2010.  Under EPA?s ?Self-Disclosure Policy,? which encourages companies to monitor environmental compliance, and promptly report and correct violations, the company was eligible for 100 percent mitigation of the penalties, which could have been $227,717 at the Williamsport plant and $98,866 at the Denver facility.

As part of the settlements, the companies did not admit liability for the alleged violations.  However, High Steel and High Concrete have indicated that they have developed and implemented systematic toxic release inventory reporting processes and will conduct annual reviews to prevent violations from recurring.

For more information about EPA’s Audit Policy, visit http://www.epa.gov/compliance/incentives/auditing/auditpolicy.html.