Election 2012 // Current

5 Reasons Sarah Palin Would Lose a 2012 Presidential Bid

Before John McCain’s presidential bid had even ended, many were touting Sarah Palin as a possible GOP presidential candidate... more

YesWeDid
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WASILLA LOOKS TO PALIN'S FUTURE 2012!

From NBC's Peter Alexander WASILLA, Alaska -- At the Wasilla Sports Complex in Sarah Palin's hometown, it was the first... more

Cher214
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Sarah Palin Vows to Remain Player in 2012: 'Not Doing This For Naught'

From ABC News: In an interview with ABC's Elizabeth Vargas, Gov. Sarah Palin suggested that if the Republican ticket is... more

jogglef
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a "Palin and McCain administration."

During the long slog to the Democratic Party nomination, folks used to joke that if Barack Obama chose Hillary Clinton as his... more

starr111
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Is globalized healthcare the solution?

Health-care reform is a major election issue. Yet while Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama offer comprehensive plans, important gaps remain. Neither plan addresses the need for more doctors, a problem that Gov. Mitt Romney ran into when he introduced comprehensive medical coverage in Massachusetts in 2006.

The other problem is the cost, an issue that earlier this year killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious attempt at reform in California.

No presidential candidate can afford to ignore the potential of international trade in medical services to address these issues.

Foreign doctors providing telemedicine offer yet unrealized savings. The savings in health-care costs could easily reach $70 billion-$75 billion. Today, many foreign hospitals and physicians are offering world-class services at a fraction of the U.S. prices. Costly procedures with short convalescence periods, which today include heart and joint replacement surgeries, are candidates for such treatment abroad.

The importation of doctors is even more critical in meeting supply needs than in providing lower costs. According to the 2005 Census, the U.S. had an estimated availability of 2.4 doctors per 1,000 population (the number was 3.3 in leading developed countries tracked by the OECD).

Comprehensive coverage of the over 45 million uninsured today will require that they can access doctors and related medical personnel. An IOU that cannot be cashed in is worthless.

Massachusetts ran into this problem: Few doctors wanted (or were able, given widespread shortages in many specialties) to treat many of the patients qualifying under the program. The solution lies in allowing imports of medical personnel tied into tending to the newly insured.

This is what the Great Society program did in the 1960s, with imports of doctors whose visas tied them, for specific periods, to serving remote, rural areas. U.S.-trained physicians practicing for a specified period in an "underserved" area were not required to return home.

It is time to expand such programs – for instance, by making physicians trained at accredited foreign institutions eligible for such entry into the U.S. But in order to do this, both Democratic candidates will first need to abandon their party's antipathy to foreign trade.Health-care reform is a major election issue. Yet while Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama offer comprehensive plans,... more

smorrisey
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6 months ago

Archaic lingo makes green cars less appealing

What sounds like an arithmetic brain teaser could in fact hold the key to reducing the amount of gas consumed by Americans – and by extension their CO2 emissions.

Richard Larrick and Jack Soll of Duke University in the US say that a simple switch from expressing a car's fuel efficiency in miles per gallon (mpg) to gallons per 100 miles makes it much easier for people to assess how much money they could save on fuel.

They showed that people think of fuel efficiency as linear. If this were true, doubling the fuel efficiency of a gas guzzling SUV would save the same amount of fuel as doubling the efficiency of a smaller more efficient car.

In fact, the relationship is not linear and doubling the efficiency of an SUV saves far more than if you own a small car

For instance, trading in an SUV that travels 10 miles for every gallon of fuel for another that can go 20 miles, saves 5 gallons on a 100 mile journey. However, trading a small 25-mpg car for a 50-mpg car saves only 2 gallons per 100 miles travelled.

The team tested 78 participants in a focus group. These were asked to imagine they were in charge of two municipal fleets of 100 cars.

The first was composed of a hundred 15-mpg SUVs; the second was a hundred 34-mpg sedans. They were then asked to reduce their carbon emissions by replacing either the 15-mpg SUVs with 19-mpg SUVs or the 34-mpg cars with 44-mpg cars.

Half the participants were given additional information: they were told how many gallons each make consumed per 100 miles. Just one quarter of the less informed group made the right decision – to upgrade the SUVs. In contrast, 64% of those who had the gallons-per-100-miles figures got it right.

"The big saving comes from getting rid of the most inefficient car and replacing it with a similar model that's more efficient," says Larrick.

The team believe their findings could help inform policy makers by showing that making small improvements in gas guzzlers is more urgent than improving on hybrid-car technologies which already are very fuel efficient.

"I do believe that there should be lots of reasons to push people to the very high end of the efficiency scale," says Larrick. "There's no question about the need for greater efficiency, but if we are simply thinking about getting rid of cars and replacing them, the urgent place to do it is at that low end."

The researchers also think consumers could make more informed choices if car magazines and dealerships helped them make the correct calculations and point out that a metric equivalent of miles per gallon is already used in some European countries.What sounds like an arithmetic brain teaser could in fact hold the key to reducing the amount of gas consumed by Americans –... more