Category Archives: Health

What? Only $25 more per month for smokers?

Yes, of course smokers covered by the state health plan should pay more, because they cost more.

But $25 a month? What is that, a joke? That’s not enough either to cover the added cost of their filthy habit, or to encourage them to quit. It’s desultory. As the story said:

State health insurance system officials said an extra $25 a month would
not cover the full cost of smoking-related expenses. It is more
effective, they said, to encourage smokers to quit.

And $25 a month won’t do that.

Who even notices a $25-a-month increase in insurance premiums, the way they go up these days? That’s less than the increase most of us deal with in most years, without engaging in stupid and harmful behavior.

Two cheers to the governor for supporting the increase, pathetic though it is.

footnote: I have a shorter answer to the question posed in the sidebar with this morning’s story, QUESTION: I’m a state employee. How will the state know I’m a smoker? Answer: By the smell.

Good call by DHEC on Lexington Medical’s revote request

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The DHEC board was right to grant Lexington Medical’s request for a revote on a previous action by an advisory committee before proceeding with the much, much larger issue of whether LexMed’s umpty-umpth request for reconsideration of its quest for an open-heart center:

Do it over.

Those are the marching orders passed down
Thursday by the DHEC board on a committee vote cast six weeks ago that
seemed to end Lexington Medical Center’s four-year pursuit of a new
open-heart surgery unit.

The decision, reached after complaints
lodged by Lexington Medical over how the State Health Planning
Committee conducted its June vote, breathes temporary new life into the
issue.

Of course, in the end, DHEC must stick to its guns and say no yet again on the open-heart center, as we said again editorially on Thursday. DHEC shouldn’t have approved the Palmetto Richland expansion request several years ago; it must not compound the problem by approving a third program. That would quite likely take us in short order from the enviable position of having had one truly exceptional, excellent open-heart center (Providence) to having three mediocre ones. As we’ve explained time and again, you’ve got to do a lot of these to be good at it, and there won’t be enough bypasses done in the Midlands to keep three separate operations at the top level of excellence and competence (and remember, it’s less about the surgeons that it’s about the impossibility of keeping that many full surgical teams at razor sharpness).

But that final decision must be made against a backdrop in which nobody has an excuse to say that it was dealt with unfairly at any step of the way.

So by all means, have the advisory committee redo its vote. And then, deny the CON request, again.

Our lack of a national health plan is preventing me from fully enjoying the Olympics

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So last night, I read all about this cool thing the TV folks are using at the Olympics. The WSJ had a half-page story explaining how a clever, but simple, device called the DiveCam enables viewers in their homes to see the following:

On TV, a diver walks out onto a platform. The camera fixes on him. He
waits. He leaps. And then — somehow — the camera stays with him as he
plunges. In the instant it takes him to break the water’s surface, the
picture suddenly cuts to an underwater shot — and we watch in
disbelief as the dive culminates in a burst of bubbles.

This sounded very cool, so I went into the TV room and lo and behold, diving was on at that very moment. So I watched, and — basically saw the same kind of camera angle I saw when I watched Olympics back in the 60s, except that we had a black-and-white set then. So I asked my wife, who had watched a LOT more Olympics than I had, whether she had seen the DiveCam shots, and I explained what that meant. No, she hadn’t.

So I looked at the WSJ story again, and then noticed something in the lead paragraph:

BEIJING — High-tech televisual bells and whistles have carried
couch-based Olympic watching way beyond the mere reality of being here.
Thousands of cameras are catching the action in China — every one of
them high-definition. Yet for a feat of engineering magic that dazzles
as it baffles, nothing beats the DiveCam.

Did you see it? "every one of them high-definition…"

So I ran back in and told my wife that the problem was that we don’t have an HD television! You know what she said? She told me she heard from her friend Mary this week, and Mary wanted her to be sure to tell me that she’s really enjoying watching the Olympics!

I told you about Mary in a recent column — remember? She’s my wife’s friend from high school whom we stayed with in Memphis when we went to that wedding. She had a very nice 42-inch, 1080-resolution flat-panel HDTV set that she had recently bought for $800 from Sam’s Club. I enjoyed watching it while I was there. This was before our $1,200 "economic stimulus" check came from the gummint. This seemed highly fortuitous, until the check actually came, and Mamanem said we had to spend it on a health care bill — a health care bill that we wouldn’t have had to deal with if we had a proper national health plan like other civilized countries (the "why" is complicated, having to do with a brief period during which my youngest wasn’t covered by my insurance that I pay a heap of money for; she’s back on it now). This led me to assert that the gummint could keep its blasted check, and use the money toward a national health plan … the lack of which is now preventing me from properly appreciating the Olympics.

How is coffee affecting me? It’s none of your blasted BUSINESS, that’s how! So BACK OFF, Jack!

1 Reply

Recently, I’ve gotten a number of e-mail releases from a "Dr. Mike Magee," and in the split-second I spend deciding whether to delete an e-mail or save it to look at later, I had saved these, under the vague impression that they were from someone I actually knew, namely the erstwhile USC athletic director.

But noo-o-o-o-o! These messages are from some busybody stranger who’s asking me nosy questions such as:

The Coffee Fix
How is coffee affecting your life?

By Mike Magee, MD
Is coffee part of your daily routine? If it is, you are like millions of Americans, who start their day with a cup – or two or three – of coffee. But even if it’s part of your daily routine, it makes sense to stop and ask a few questions. How much do you know about your morning pick-me-up? Do you ever think about where it comes from or how it’s affecting your body?

First, he hammers on my conscience:

Most small farmers sell their coffee directly to middlemen exporters
who pay them below market price for their harvests and keep a high
percentage for themselves. This forces these farmers into a cycle of
poverty that keeps working conditions poor, wages low, and often
involves child labor. Coffee workers are usually paid the equivalent to
sweatshop wages and they toil under harsh conditions.

With all
of this in mind, we’re left with two major questions about coffee. One,
is it good or bad for your health? And two, what about the health and
well-being of the coffee farmers and workers around the world?

Then, just as I’m turning away, he lures me in with nice thoughts:

On question one, you might be shocked to find out that coffee is full
of antioxidants that dampen inflammation and are believed to be
positive and preventive when it comes to chronic diseases. Studies by
major journals have confirmed that coffee is a major contributor of
antioxidants in the diet of Americans.

But just as I’m thinking this guy might be OK, he hits me with this:

But there’s the caffeine to consider. Once it’s ingested, it’s rapidly
absorbed into the blood stream in 30 to 45 minutes, and takes 4 to 6
hours for most of it to be eliminated. At low to moderate doses it
increases well being, happiness, energy, alertness, and sociability –
but at higher doses it can cause adverse health effects.

Arrrghhh! Who do you think you are, you imperfect stranger? You can’t even spell McGee, and you’re lecturing to me about my coffee?!?!? Back off! Where’s the pot? I need just one fresh cup to calm me down and clarify my mind…

‘Now away the walking blood bank!’

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Back on this post, David shared this blood-donation experience:

Props to you for donating blood Brad! When I was abord Navy ships
and we would do battle training, one of the things that would be called
away during battle exercises would be:

"Now away the walking blood bank!"

This meant that all able-bodied
seamen not otherwise directly
engaged in combat operations were to muster at sickbay to donate blood
so that it was on hand and ready for use as casualties were taken. I
always thought this was a pretty cool thing.

Blood is a life-saver, combat or not.

David

And so it was that when I was searching for something in the AP archives and ran across the above photo, I had to share it. Here’s the caption:

Some of the 750 crewmen of the aircraft carrier Boxer fill beds and line up in the wardroom of the ship to give blood for the wounded in Korea in San Francisco on Jan. 26, 1951. The 27,000-ton Essex class carrier has seen considerable action in the Korean War and is presently being overhauled in the navy yard in San Francisco. (AP Photo/FX)

We should all take a moment and write a note to thank Al Gore for inventing the Internet. It’s way cool. You can find almost anything on it.

For instance, below we have Elvis signing up to donate in Germany in 1959…

Ap590116010

5 minutes, 28 seconds! Can I bleed or WHAT?

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Looking back, that’s probably not the best headline for persuading you to give blood. But at least it got your attention, right?

I went to donate at the Red Cross last night, it having been at least 112 days since the last time I gave double-red cells (called the "Alyx" process) back in February. I was prepared to do that again — it’s a really cool process (quite literally, in that they take out your blood, remove the red cells and pump it back in mixed with saline that is a tad cooler than the blood, and the coolness spreads from your arm across your body; but maybe that’s more than you want to know). And, don’t ask me to explain this, but they actually use a smaller needle somehow.

But they had moved the bar on me. See, you have to have a certain amount of iron to do the double-red thing, more than just to give a pint of whole blood. I had been taking iron pills so as to avoid past humiliation, but they used a new test. On the old test, I had to have a "40." On the new one, you need a "14," and I only scored a 13.2. But that was plenty for whole blood, so they took me for that.

Here’s where the bragging comes in. I always try to accelerate the process of giving whole blood by clenching my fist more often than necessary. There was this guy who had started at least 10 minutes, maybe 15, before I did. Once they got started on me, about 2 or 3 minutes later, one of the technicians looked at my receiving bag and said "Whoa! He’s already ahead of him" — indicating the guy next to me. This encourages me to go into my "kick" for the home stretch, and I finished off my pint at five minutes, 28 seconds. The other guy was still going.

This was great, because in the past I’ve taken as much as half an hour for whole blood (Alyx takes longer, but then you have to wait twice as long before giving again), and even as many times as I’ve done this, I’ve never completely lost my dread of it (as I wrote in a column once, for me, giving blood was my Room 101). So I like to get it over with quickly. The secret of my success? Eat and drink (especially water) SO much the day of the donation that you feel like you’re about to pop — the higher blood volume makes a difference. That, and the fist-pumping.

Here’s hoping this doesn’t gross you out, because my point in writing about this is to say YOU should give, too. There’s a great need here in the Midlands, as always. If you can give (not everyone is qualified), and you won’t, then you’re a wuss. So there.

Joel pauses between cocktails to say hey

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Last night, while my wife was monopolizing the TV watching "So You Think You Can Dance" (that’s OK; I can watch that "Sopranos" DVD tonight), I sent a heads-up to my former pupil who has since gone over to the Dark Side, Joel Wood. Basically, as I told him, I didn’t want to be talking about him behind his back:

Hey, Joel, how are you?

I thought I’d better tell you, as an old friend, that I mentioned you on my blog, in the context of sort kinda disagreeing with your perspective on things:
http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2008/05/hey-wait-a-minu.html

You see, I’ve become one of those single-payer radicals. It’s funny because I’m not radical about anything else. This is the one thing I agree with Dennis Kucinich about; I promise. Here are a couple of columns in which I set out my thoughts on the issue several months ago:
http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/11/health-care-ref.html
http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/12/can-anyone-any.html

Anyway, I thought I should give you the chance to demolish my arguments, which you probably can do, on account of being a professional in this particular policy area and all…

I didn’t want to be talking about you and your industry behind your back.

And besides, I wanted an excuse to say "Hey."

So, hey.

— Brad

About an hour later, Joel wrote back, which was nice, because it was good to hear from him. But that’s not the good part; that’s not the schlag, the whipped cream atop the dessert — the lagniappe, if you will (as Johnny Malone used to say — you remember, Joel). The good part is that this now-senior lobbyist for the insurance industry wrote back, at 10:45 p.m. on a Thursday night, on his Blackberry from a cocktail party. If you put this stuff in a movie, they wouldn’t believe it.

Anyway, he promises to send a more substantial rebuttal to my ramblings later. In the meantime, this is all he said:

Total kick, and a delight.

But as I’m still in cocktails at a soiree with my benefits guys at the Homestead (every horrible image you imagine!), I can only glean so much from my peckings on the BlackBerry. First blush is that you have some insightful readers who make my case. But certainly when I get back to town, or to a regular computer screen, I shall respond as a good Republican insurance lobbyist should, probably with some invective about Michael Moore and commie journalists getting their due through diminished circulation. But, in the meantime, I am stupified that this stuff gets read by people I care about, and thoroughly thrilled that you would give it the time of day. And very happy to hear from you …. You would be proud to know my editors and colleagues, to whom I forward this, are no less redistributionist than you. …. Miss you!

Thanks Brad.
j

Consider that a preview.

Blasts from past come unexpected in this business

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Needless to say, I get a lot of unsolicited, pure junk mail in my line of work. Most of it goes into the round file with hardly a glance. But I guess I was moving slow or even more easily distracted than usual today (and folks, if I weren’t easily distracted, I wouldn’t be doing a blog), but I happened to notice something today that made me say, wait a minute… and actually open one of the pieces of junk.

The junk in question is this slick magazine with a snazzy cover called Edge. or Leader’s Edge (look at the cover and tell me which one it is). It’s a big one, as you can see compared to The Economist above. To the extent that it has registered on my consciousness at all in the past, I’ve just thought it was some generic thing aimed at business execs, a category in which I fit only technically (on account of having the title of V.P.). But today, I noticed there was, shall we say, a theme running through the headlines of the articles teased on the cover:

"Committing Insurance Without a License"
"Employer plans: best cure for ill health insurance market"
"Attacking group benefits — why destroy what works?"

The last one grabbed me, as it seemed to be about health insurance, and seemed to suggest that we Edge_006
currently have a system that works. Those of you who know me know that I strongly disagree.

So I opened the mag, and eventually found the masthead, and sure enough, this is a publication of "The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers." It’s full of institutional advertising from such luminaries as UnitedHealthcare.

But that’s not the good part, the part that prompted me to write this. The good part is that in the few seconds I spent flipping through this thing, I ran across the name of an old friend, Joel Wood.

I first met Joel when I was a reporter operating out of a bureau in rural West Tennessee back in the 70s. He was a student who wrote for one of the local weeklies. Later, when I was the news editor of The Jackson Sun, he was one of my best reporters. But after the 1982 election, he left the paper to become press secretary to Don Sundquist, who had been elected to Congress over a candidate whose campaign press secretary was another former writer at the paper (whom I later hired back, as it happened). Sundquist later became governor of Tennessee. But before that happened, Joel became a lobbyist for the insurance industry. In one of those startling coincidences that make Washington seem like such a small town, I ran into him years later when I was showing one of my kids around the Capitol.

Anyway, I last ran into Joel three years ago at a Jackson Sun reunion. True to form, he kept doing deals via cell phone while the reunion was going on, as seen in the picture I shot below.

Now that I’ve read his mag, and read in his latest column (the one about destroying "what works," which isn’t on line yet; here’s a previous one) that "I’ve been blessed with terrific health benefits in my 15 years at the council," which he says is a good thing given his lifestyle, which he says consists of "attending political cocktail parties professionally in the selfless service of our member firms," all I can say is…

Joel, it’s not too late. Come home! All is forgiven. And don’t bring the phone this time…
Woodjoel

Guys at the Bada-Bing must LOVE S.C. lawmakers

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As part of my never-ending quest to be fair-minded and see the silver lining, I’ve managed to think of one group of citizens who will benefit from, and have reason to appreciate, the otherwise contemptible, ridiculous failure of the S.C. House to override Mark Sanford’s veto of the cigarette tax increase. They’re not citizens of S.C. (and come to think of it, Furio’s not even a citizen of this country), but let’s not get picky.

In case you haven’t done the math on this, the S.C. tax on cigarettes is 7 cents (yes, 7 cents) a pack. In New York City, it’s $4.25 a pack. Imagine the profit on a truckload of cartons, even if you don’t steal the truck. As if I-95 needed MORE traffic…

The Wall Street Journal recently explained the profitability to O.C. of the New York taxes. Of course, being the WSJ — the only publication in the world that actually believes Mark Sanford is a contender for John McCain’s running mate (and even then it’s just the ideologues on the editorial board) — was arguing that the N.Y. tax was a bad thing.

While the problem first surfaced during the Great
Depression, tax hikes in the early 1960s created a major profit
opportunity for smugglers and kicked the epidemic into high gear. By
1967, a quarter of the cigarettes consumed in the Empire State were
bootlegged. New York City’s finance administrator labeled cigarette
smuggling the "principal stoking facility of the engine of organized
crime."

Crime rapidly spread beyond New York’s borders, as
trucks carrying cigarettes across the country were hijacked and
businesses selling them robbed to supply New York’s black market. In
1972, the chairman of a New York commission told Congress that
retailers and other workers were "confronted almost daily with the risk
and dangers of personal violence which are now inherent in their
industry."

But from a South Carolina perspective, what that math says is that we could stop that traffic from coming out of our state — but only if we were willing to raise the tax by several times the lousy 50 cents we were talking about. But being South Carolina, and having our Legislature and our governor, we couldn’t even manage that, which is of course beneath pitiful.

I should add that the WSJ piece also dealt with the connection between cigarette smuggling and terrorism. But thanks to South Carolina, ordinary decent American criminals are in a position to keep competing with the foreign bad guys.

How they voted on cigarette tax

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Trying to catch up with messages and such, I have no time to comment right now on the inexcusable, unconscionable, reprehensible vote to uphold Gov. Mark Sanford’s indefensible veto of the cigarette tax (beyond reminding you of what I’ve said over and over — how the money is spent is secondary, far secondary, to cutting teen smoking by raising the price, and there was NO excuse not to do that). But until I DO have time, here’s how those no-account cusses (and the rest of them) voted:

{BC-SC-XGR-Cigarette Tax-Roll Call,0405}
{Cigarette Tax-Roll Call}
{By The Associated Press}=
The 54-57 roll call by which the South Carolina House voted to sustain a veto on a 50 cent-a-pack cigarette tax increase. A two-thirds vote was required to override the veto.
On this vote, a "yes" vote was a vote to override the veto and "no" vote was a vote to sustain the veto.
Voting "yes" were 40 Democrats and 14 Republicans.
Voting "no" were 4 Democrats and 53 Republicans.
Not voting were 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans.

{Democrats Voting Yes}
Alexander, Florence; Allen, Greenville; Anderson, Georgetown; Anthony, Union; Bales, Eastover; Bowers, Brunson; Branham, Lake City; Brantley, Ridgeland; Breeland, Charleston; G. Brown, Bishopville; R. Brown, Hollywood; Clyburn, Aiken; Cobb-Hunter, Orangeburg; Funderburk, Camden; Govan, Orangeburg; Hart, Columbia; Harvin, Summerton; Hodges, Green Pond; Howard, Columbia; Jefferson, Pineville; Jennings, Bennettsville; Kennedy, Greeleyville; Knight, St. George; Mack, North Charleston; McLeod, Little Mountain; Miller, Pawleys Island; Mitchell, Spartanburg; J.H. Neal, Hopkins; J.M. Neal, Kershaw; Ott, St. Matthews; Parks, Greenwood; Rutherford, Columbia; Scott, Columbia; Sellers, Denmark; F.N. Smith, Greenville; J.E. Smith, Columbia; Stavrinakis, Charleston; Vick, Chesterfield; Weeks, Sumter; Williams, Darlington;

{Republicans Voting Yes}
Ballentine, Irmo; Cotty, Columbia; Crawford, Florence; Dantzler, Goose Creek; Gullick, Lake Wylie; Hiott, Pickens; Huggins, Columbia; Mahaffey, Lyman; Owens, Pickens; Pinson, Greenwood; Rice, Easley; Scarborough, Charleston; Skelton, Six Mile; Whitmire, Walhalla;

{Democrats Voting No}
Battle, Nichols; Kirsh, Clover; Moss, Gaffney; Neilson, Darlington;

{Republicans Voting No}
Bannister, Greenville; Barfield, Conway; Bedingfield, Mauldin; Bingham, West Columbia; Bowen, Anderson; Brady, Columbia; Cato, Travelers Rest; Chalk, Hilton Head Island; Clemmons, Myrtle Beach; Cooper, Piedmont; Daning, Goose Creek; Delleney, Chester; Duncan, Clinton; Edge, North Myrtle Beach; Erickson, Beaufort; Frye, Batesburg-Leesville; Gambrell, Honea Path; Hagood, Mt. Pleasant; Haley, Lexington; Hamilton, Taylors; Hardwick, Surfside Beach; Harrell, Charleston; Harrison, Columbia; Haskins, Greenville; Herbkersman, Bluffton; Kelly, Woodruff; Leach, Greer; Littlejohn, Spartanburg; Loftis, Greenville; Lowe, Florence; Lucas, Hartsville; Merrill, Daniel Island; Mulvaney, Indian Land; Perry, Aiken; E.H. Pitts, Lexington; M.A. Pitts, Laurens; Sandifer, Seneca; Shoopman, Greer; Simrill, Rock Hill; D.C. Smith, North Augusta; G.M. Smith, Sumter; G.R. Smith, Simpsonville; J.R. Smith, Langley; Stewart, Aiken; Talley, Spartanburg; Taylor, Laurens; Thompson, Anderson; Toole, West Columbia; Umphlett, Moncks Corner; Walker, Landrum; White, Anderson; Witherspoon, Conway; Young, Summerville;

{Those Not Voting}
Democrats: Agnew, Abbeville; Coleman, Winnsboro; Hayes, Hamer; Hosey, Barnwell; Moody-Lawrence, Rock Hill; Phillips, Gaffney; Whipper, North Charleston;
Republicans: Davenport, Boiling Springs; Hutson, Summerville; Limehouse, Charleston; W.D. Smith, Spartanburg; Spires, Pelion; Viers, Myrtle Beach;

You might think I should praise those who voted to override, but I won’t — anyone, regardless of political philosophy, should do what they did. To vote to sustain the veto was beneath contempt.

Residents also advised to refrain from jumping off cliffs…

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Just got this release, and I’ve gotta wonder: Who has to be advised not to do this? Anyway, I pass it on on account of some of y’all really being into animals and all…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 23, 2008

Residents advised to refrain from adopting wild animals

COLUMBIA – For the second time in a month, citizens are advised to
beware of wild animals of any age and refrain from "adopting" them
because of the risk from rabies, the S.C. Department of Health and
Environmental Control said today.
"A pair of young foxes was found in the woods of North Carolina and
taken to York County where they were cared for by several people," said
Sue Ferguson of DHEC’s Bureau of Environmental Health. "At present, 23
people have been evaluated after they were exposed to rabies by one of
the foxes, which tested positive for the disease at DHEC’s Bureau of
Labs.
"As of Friday morning, several people in North Carolina are being
evaluated, and at least four people in South Carolina are under the care
of a physician and receiving preventive inoculations," Ferguson said.
"Those numbers might change as the investigation continues in order to
determine whether there are others who need to be evaluated for possible
exposure."
It is important to remember that the disease can be transmitted without
a bite.
According to Ferguson, the disease is spread through an infected
animal’s saliva. Many of the exposures occurred when handling and
feeding the fox, as well as letting it lick their faces, as caretakers
came into contact with the fox’s saliva.
"We cannot stress enough the importance of resisting the urge to adopt
wildlife," Ferguson said. "Despite the prevalent folklore, there is no
way to tell from looking at an animal whether or not it has rabies, and
baby animals can carry the disease without showing symptoms as well.
"Therefore, anyone bitten, scratched or otherwise exposed to the saliva
of a rabid animal must undergo immediate measures to stop the virus from
reaching the brain because once the rabies virus reaches the brain the
disease is fatal to humans and animals.
"Hundreds of animals are tested in our state each year and rabies has
been found in all South Carolina counties," Ferguson said. "About 400
South Carolinians must undergo preventive treatment for rabies every
year costing the state thousands of dollars. Most exposures come from
being bitten or scratched by a rabid or suspected rabid animal.
"Wild animals carry the disease most often and can roam many miles
daily, but domestic pets can contract rabies as well, so we remind
residents that the best protection for people and their pets is to make
sure pets are regularly vaccinated against the disease, as is required
under state law," she said. "Make every effort to stay away from wild
animals, but if you think you have been exposed to the rabies virus
through a bite, scratch or the saliva of a possibly infected animal,
immediately wash the affected area with plenty of soap and water, then
be sure to get medical attention and report the incident to DHEC."
This is the second large-scale exposure to rabies in the state this
month resulting from a wild animal adoption. This is the third confirmed
rabid animal in York County in 2008. In 2007, 16 rabid animals were
confirmed in the county and there were 162 confirmed cases of rabies in
animals in South Carolina. So far this year, there have been 50
confirmed cases in animals in the state.
For more information about rabies, see DHEC’s Web page at:
http://www.scdhec.gov/rabies or contact DHEC’s York County
Environmental Health office at (803) 909-7379. The national Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s Web page about rabies can be found
at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies.
-###-

Hurrah for Columbia’s (eventual) smoking ban, but delay is inexcusable

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Too late! Columbia City Council already approved the delay.

Now, to take a step back — it’s wonderful that the decision has finally been made — and look, it was by 5-2, not the expected 4-3…

But it’s bad that the current unconscionable state of affairs will continue for three more months. There’s just no excuse for that.

One of my colleagues disagreed with me on that point this morning, saying that it’s reasonable to wait and implement it at the same time as Richland County. But that’s ridiculous. One would only do so out of an abstract sense of administrative tidiness. There is no advantage to be gained by waiting for the county that is not outweighed by the wrongness of exposing city workers to carcinogens for three more months, after you’ve already decided that it’s right to protect them.

There is NO safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. And since any exposure greater than zero is unsafe, three months of unnecessary exposure is unconscionable.

For that matter, since Richland is expected to have a final vote on the subject by June 17, why can’t that ban go into effect July 1? It took what — three days after the referendum (a far less tidy and less predictable instrument than a council vote) for stores to start selling beer on Sunday in Columbia. If you know you have the votes, and you’re working toward it, how much gearing up is necessary to say smoking is now banned in the county? Why can’t it be in effect immediately? I’ll be told time is necessary for notification, but you know, you don’t have to penalize anyone who wasn’t notified yet (like there’s any bar or restaurant owner who won’t know about it the day of the vote, which seems highly unlikely). Enforcement will never be perfect, any more than enforcement of the law against murder is perfect (I mean direct, overt, immediate and obvious murder, as distinguished from the slow kind of forcing people to breathe smoke day after day). Most of the effectiveness of such an ordinance will result from the voluntary cooperation of law-abiding people. There is no reason not to let that begin immediately.

What next — postpone again to wait for Lexington County, or for Cayce and West Columbia. The town of Lexington is now thinking about discussing a ban. Must Columbia wait for them, too? It would make just as much sense to wait for them — especially for Lexington County — as for Richland. That is, unless you argue that waiting for Richland makes sense because Columbia is located within that county — but if that’s your argument, Columbia’s ban is superfluous, unless incorporated areas were to be exempted.

This delay is ridiculous, and it is wrong.

DON’T POSTPONE SMOKING BAN!

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Employees of restaurants and bars in Columbia have breathed other people’s poisons far too long.

Thanks to the evil and stupidity that dwells in the hearts of too many state lawmakers, restaurant workers have already become two years more likely to die of lung cancer, emphysema or heart disease.

There is NO excuse for exposing them for three more months.

Don’t even propose it, Mayor Bob. Don’t.

Paying respects to Kennedy

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Going through my e-mail, I was struck by the notes of condolence and respect from our two senators after the awful news that Ted Kennedy received today.

What a shame it is that, what with the partisan craziness of recent years, it takes something like this for a man to be spoken of in human terms by Republicans, to the extent that we’d notice. Mind you, perhaps Sens. DeMint and Graham have said similar things in the past and I missed it. After all, Kennedy has the reputation of being highly respected by his colleagues across the board, whatever may be said about him out by partisans out on the hustings. And Sen. Graham, for instance, has had good things to say about working with Hillary Clinton, while leaving no room for anyone to think he approves of her politics overall.

But still, a good word for Ted Kennedy from a Southern Republican is still a thing worth taking note of.

A year or so ago I wrote a column about how, every once in a while, politicians will break down the usual barriers to treat each other as human beings. It’s something I try to watch for, because I find it so gratifying. It gives me a little hope for our politics, and for the human race. So while these releases are no big deal, and will be dismissed by cynics as wholly inadequate, I take some little comfort from them.

Anyway, here’s the release I got from Jim DeMint:

DeMint Statement on Senator Ted Kennedy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint made the following statement:
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Senator Kennedy and his family right now. I have tremendous respect for Senator Kennedy as do all of his colleagues. I wish him a full and speedy recovery.”
###

As insubstantial as that message is, it occurs to me that politically, he did not have to do it. Seriously, what would be the political cost to Jim DeMint of saying nothing? Not much, I’d wager. So at some point the decision was made, "Let’s say something." Maybe it’s not much, but I will grasp at straws looking for UnPartisan hope.

Speaking of cynicism — I mentioned the DeMint release to a colleague right after it came in, and he said You won’t see one from Graham, not in this election year. But at that very moment (12 minutes behind the DeMint one), this was coming in:

Statement by Lindsey Graham on Senator Kennedy
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made the following statement on the news concerning Senator Ted Kennedy.
“All of us who serve in the Senate respect Senator Kennedy and were shocked to hear his diagnosis. We all hope for a speedy recovery. Senator Kennedy is a tough guy and my money is on Ted when it comes to recovering. He’s a worthy adversary and at times, someone you can do business with. He’s a man of his word. I’m very much hoping for a speedy recovery and praying for him and his family.”
####

Sure, he got the "adversary" part in, but it was gracious nonetheless.

These aren’t much. They are, in fact, what anyone should do under the circumstances. But I still find these simple, brief expressions of human decency a welcome relief from the usual.

Finally, may God grant peace and hope to Sen. Kennedy and his family. We’ve been through this in my family, and I know that prayers help — whatever the creed, whatever the party.

God Bless E.W. Cromartie

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Say what you will about the guy — and we’ve had a few things to say about him on the editorial pages of The State — but he just saved a lot of lives by switching his vote on Columbia’s smoking ban. By this change, he now forms a majority for a total ban, which is the only rational and moral approach:

Councilman to switch vote on smoking ban
City Councilman E. W. Cromartie said this morning he is now supporting a total smoking ban for Columbia, all but ensuring the a ban that includes bars will pass when council votes next week.
Cromartie, the most senior member of council whose district includes the bars and restaurants of the Vista, announced his decision during a public hearing today on the smoking ordinance.
“As the capitol city, we are leaders. We have to lead,” Cromartie said.
Opponents of the ordinance like Tony Snell, who owns Club Fusion in the Vista, are not giving up.
Cromartie has agreed to meet with Snell next week.
Snell meanwhile is mounting a campaign to have Mayor Bob Coble recuse himself from the vote, since his law firm Nexsen Pruett represents tobacco companies
“If the mayor recuses himself, it becomes a split vote and it is defeated,” Snell said.
Discussion of a banning smoking in bars reignited recently after Cromartie said he might reconsider his vote. A ban in public places, including restaurants, was passed in 2006. Bars, defined as businesses that make 85 percent of their revenue from alcohol sales, were excluded at that time.
Cromartie and council members Daniel Rickenmann, Kirkman Finlay and Sam Davis voted for a compromise plan to exclude bars.
Coble, Anne Sinclair and Tameika Isaac Devine voted against the compromise.

— Adam Beam

So God bless him for that. If he never does another good thing as councilman, he’ll deserve credit for this one…

Now we just need Richland and Lexington counties and other governments in our politically fragmented community to go along. But this is a start.

How they voted on the cigarette tax

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Here’s the Senate vote to pass H.3567, which increases cigarette taxes by 50 cents per pack, with half the revenue going to expand Medicaid coverage, and half to give tax credits to low-income workers to help them purchase medical insurance.

Passage of the bill (H.3567):
Ayes 33; Nays 11; Abstain 1

AYES
Alexander       Anderson             Ceips
Cleary             Cromer                Drummond
Elliott             Fair                      Ford
Gregory          Hayes                   Hutto
Jackson          Knotts                Land *
Leatherman    Leventis             Lourie
Malloy             Martin                Matthews
McGill             O’Dell                   Patterson *
Pinckney          Rankin                Reese
Scott                Setzler                Sheheen *
Short                Thoma                Williams
Total–33

NAYS
Campsen          Courson             Grooms
Hawkins          Massey                McConnell
Peeler             Ritchie                Ryberg
Vaughn             Verdin
Total–11

ABSTAIN
Bryant
Total–1

*These Senators were not present in the Chamber at the time the vote was taken and the votes were recorded by leave of the Senate, with unanimous consent.

Cindi, whom we can thank for looking up the above while I was in yet another candidate interview, says other votes that might interest you would include:
1. Amendment P-1, to raise the cigarette tax by $1; tabled 31-13
2. Amendment P-4a, remove the provision that automatically increases
the tax each year by the rate of medical inflation. The Senate refused
to table that amendment 24-18, and then passed it on a voice vote.
Senators who voted "aye" voted to eliminate the inflation index.
These votes can be found in the Senate Journals of May 7 (P-1) and May 8 (P-4a). Go to http://www.scstatehouse.net/html-pages/sjournal.htm to find the Journals, and then search for the amendments.)

The ‘Fighter with the Hard Left Hook’

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Sure, maybe Hillary can do shots with the guys in PA, but she’d better thank her stars she’s not up against this guy in the primary.

Charlie Pope, former reporter at The State (and my former teammate on the Cosmic Ha-Has softball team), is now covering Washington for a paper in the Pacific Northwest. He brought my attention to this candidate from his neck of the woods, Steve Novick.

Sure, Obama overcame some hard times as a kid to go to Harvard Law (where they obviously don’t teach bowling), but Steve graduated Harvard at the age of 21 after being a high school dropout. He also, aside from being born without a left hand (he calls himself the "Fighter with the Hard Left Hook"), is only 4’9" tall.

But he’s a scrapper. And he’s with me on Health Care Reform. You gotta like the guy.

And if you want more Steve, here’s another one of his ads:

More good news: Cigarette tax hike takes leap forward

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First the smoking ban thing, now this…

A little bird just called to tell me that the Senate Finance Committee just voted, 14-11, to increase the state cigarette tax by 50 per pack, taking us to 57 cents (yes, currently it is only 7 cents, the lowest in the nation).

The vote followed three hours of debate, but the only person who actually seemed to be against the increase itself was Greg Ryberg. So what did they argue about all that time? Well, they argued about what lawmakers tend to really care about — how to spend the money. Of the $158 million the increase will raise per year, $5 million will go to smoking cessation efforts, the rest to Medicaid (which means getting a federal match). The spending decision was on a vote of 12-11.

Two important things to add:

This is indexed to inflation (which the old tax wasn’t), so as cigarettes go up in price, so will the tax.
The tax will also apply to those little "cigars," which are really just brown cigarettes. So no more loophole there.

If this gets full Senate approval, it will have to be reconciled with the 35-cent hike the House passed last year. The House plan was to spend the money on eliminating the sales tax on groceries, but that idea is now moot, since that happened last year anyway, without the cigarette tax increase.

You know, between this and the S.C. Supreme Court’s decision yesterday that it’s actually OK for local governments to respond to their citizens and pass smoking bans, it’s almost as though South Carolina leadership has suddenly made a consensus decision to behave in a rational manner toward tobacco. Two branches of gummint, that is — we have yet to hear from our governor. But let’s just pretend that first the full Senate, then the governor, will act like a sensible people about the health of South Carolinians, too. I’m not going to have my day ruined by thinking otherwise (even if Sen. Ryberg is a reliable indicator of the governor’s thinking, more often than not).

And no, this is not an elaborate April Fool’s Day gag. This good stuff is really happening.

Great news on smoking bans (I think)!

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The S.C. Supreme Court says Greenville’s smoking ban is OK after all — as in, NOT pre-empted by the usual legislative attempts to prevent local governments from governing as local folks see fit:

By MEG KINNARD – Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Cities and towns have the power to ban indoor smoking in public places, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday in a decision that anti-smoking advocates predicted will spawn more rules against where people may light up in South Carolina.
The ruling upheld a ban against indoor, public smoking that the city of Greenville imposed last year. Dozens of bars and restaurants had sued, claiming their business would suffer. A judge then quashed the ban, ruling that local governments had to let the state lead the way when it comes to smoking bans.
In the justices’ unanimous decision Monday, the high court said local governments can impose more stringent regulations…

So, does this mean that Columbia can finally pull the trigger on its prospective ban on smoking in restaurants (but, unfortunately, not bars). It would appear so, since the ban supposedly waited only on a court ruling. A number of other communities had gone ahead with bans of their own. Here’s a list.

The jury’s still out on a statewide ban. But as long as the Legislature doesn’t move to make SURE locals can’t do it (and don’t put it past them for a second; they HATE the governments closest to the people), at least the will of local communities can now be acted upon, and relied upon to stick.

South Carolina just got a little smarter

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This morning I had the honor of meeting Martin Morad, who plans "to develop the world’s first pacemaker made from living tissue," and to do it right here in South Carolina. He’s the latest extraordinary individual that the endowed chairs program has brought here. (That’s him with Larry Wilson and Harris Pastides above. I think those are Ray Greenberg’s arms folded at left; I don’t know the lady in the background.)

There are a lot of things I could say about this guy, and I hope to come back here and say them later (right now, I’m stealing time from other things that need doing today in order to write this — as usual). For now, read the story that was on today’s front page.

I’ll just mention one thing that may seem small to you, but which marks a huge step in my mind…

If there is one thing that holds South Carolina back economically, politically, socially and in every other way more than anything else, it’s fragmentation. Our government is completely dysfunctional thanks to the fragmentation of authority and accountability in the executive branch. On the local level, you see fractals reflecting the same pattern — Columbia as an economic entity can’t get its act together because it’s split into about a dozen municipalities, two counties, seven school districts, various special purpose districts, etc. Even when you distill it down to the tiny political entity that is technically Columbia, political power is fragmented across a seven-member council with no one, elected individual in a position to be responsible for the big picture.

In the realm of higher education, fragmentation has taken us into some amazingly stupid realms in our recent history. First, there is the fact that each of our colleges and semi-colleges is a political entity unto itself, answerable to no one but each institution’s respective board of trustees, each member of which is elected by the 170 members of the General Assembly. This has led to such things as the battle over supercomputers in the late 80s, right after I came back to SC to work at this newspaper — if USC was going to get a supercomputer, then the political "logic" of this state was what Clemson had to have one, too.

We have the charade of a coordinating body — the Commission on Higher Education — which is, by legislative decree, toothless. (Coincidentally, the new head of the CHE is coming to meet the editorial board this afternoon, which puts this even more immediately in mind.) But there is nothing like, say, a board of regents with real power to assign missions, coordinate and focus resources and avoid duplication.

In the last few years, we have been fortunate in that the three presidents of our research institutions — Andrew Sorensen, Ray Greenberg and James Barker — have formed an alliance to work together on a variety of fronts to accomplish some of the things that a unified, rational system of public higher education was accomplished. One of the greatest factors encouraging this relationship to flourish — giving it an undeniable economic impetus — is the endowed chairs program.

Anyway, here’s the thing about Dr. Morad that is in its way as remarkable for South Carolina as, say, developing a living pacemaker: He is the first faculty member in the history of the state to be simultaneously hired by all three research universities at once. (Why? Because it took all three institutions to come up with the talent he needs to make his project happen — which suggests that maybe we should start referring to the three, and governing them, as one institution; put them together, and you’ve got something impressive.) Therefore he embodies the combination of our resources to achieve great things that our petty divisions have kept us from accomplishing in the past. He is the New South Carolinian, the Adam in our new-tech Garden of Eden.

I’ll stop with the metaphors now. Suffice it to say, his arrival in this, his new home, is a big deal for South Carolina.

bradwarthen.com

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