PNNL scientists develop new anti-virus technology

The folks at PNNL in Richland have developed a new style of anti-virus techniques based upon searching and swarming ants.

Chu to the rescue

Energy Sec Chu saves PBMR Pebble Bed Project

Energy and Hastings

Dear Rep. Hastings: If drilling for oil is the solution for our energy problems why is the United Arab Emirates looking to build nuclear power plants?

The Bush EPA Legacy

Coal companies pollute with impunity because Bush's EPA refused to prosecute clear violations. Him and his supporters should be jailed.

What is LFTR?

Kirk Sorenson gives a excellent presentation that is packed with good facts about the promise of thorium-based nuclear reactors. It's a technology that has been successfully demonstrated then ignored because of bureaucratic in-fighting.

Nuclear Power Talk at WSU

Roger Reynolds presents a talk on the fuel cycle, current reactor designs, and the next generation of designs. Open to the public. Friday at 12:10 at the West building of WSU Tri-Cities, 2710 Universty Drive, Richland.

Why the public option matters

Krugman makes the point that in order for health care reform to work there has to be an individual mandate, everyone must be covered. If there isn't a public option we will all be forced into the hands of private insurers that generally burn 30% of the money in overhead and profit-taking.

A prescription for hospitals

An article in the Boston Globe lays out a way for hospitals to run like a Toyota manufacturing plant. Patients, staff, and doctors at Cincinatti Children's Hospital love it.

Good flow keeps costs down and customers happy.

In hospitals, nobody expects - or even wants - “fast” care, but everyone in the building benefits when the flow of patients from one part of the system to another is smooth. Backups in one part of the hospital can cause backups in others, leaving, for example, patients sitting for hours in the waiting room or highly trained surgical teams cooling their heels with no patient. A smoothly flowing hospital saves time and money, but it also reduces stress on the staff and the risk of mistakes.

Unfortunately, the typical US hospital is a model of bad flow: The average emergency room wait, for example, is four hours. The problem is actually quite simple, Litvak says. Nearly every department is run separately, making today’s hospital a nest of competing kingdoms rather than a smooth-running, cooperative organization. Hospitals often have limited power over doctors, who can schedule patient appointments without regard to the hospital’s needs. Effectively, one of the most important industries in America is in the hands of people who, for all their talents, have little expertise at running a business.

As a result, Litvak says, American hospitals only think they’re overcrowded because they have a chronic problem managing their flow. Patients simply pile up at certain times. In 2006, for instance, US hospitals were typically only 65 percent full, far less crowded than the 84 percent occupancy in Britain and the 90 percent occupancy of Canadian hospitals. But when US hospitals get much more than 65 percent full, the whole system starts to become stressed. Then, to boost their capacity, hospitals expand, at an average cost of $1 million per new bed.

Mixing Solar with Coal to Cut Costs

We can improve the efficiency of coal plants (more power for less emissions) by adding a solar booster to the preheaters. Currently coal plants must siphon off part of their steam to preheat the water for the boilers thereby reducing their overall efficiency.

And now we bring you...

Steel 'Velcro'. It's able to support enormous loads when pulled in the plane of the sheets but can be easily separated without special tools. I wonder where this could start showing up.

The Cost of Health-Care Reform

The cost of health-care reform is roughly equivalent to the cost we incurred when we got the inheritance tax cuts. Ezra Klein:

The difference between doing this right and doing this wrong is, in other words, about $30 billion a year, or $300 billion over 10 years. To put that in perspective, many of the legislators who are balking at the cost of health-care reform voted for the Kyl-Lincoln bill to reform the estate tax at a cost of $75 billion a year, or $750 billion over 10 years. You can make health-care reform work at a price tag that legislators are, in theory, willing to bear, at least when the tag is attached to tax cuts.

Bad History Curriculum

Conscientous educators may need to find a way to replace textbooks produced by national companies. When Texas sets the standards the result is sub-par history textbooks with a distorted view of recent events.

Recession turns the corner

According to the Washington state economist the leading indicators have turned around. The surprising part is that the overseas economies are blazing the trail to recovery ahead of the US rather than the other way around. It will be interesting to see what Paul Krugman has to say about this.

And guess what? He agrees. I'm sure glad the adults were in charge on this one.

Tea Party Time

So there's going to be another TEA party rally Saturday 9/12 from 1-4 at John Dam Plaza in Richland. Who's up for a little counter-demonstrating? It's going to be a regional thing with TEA nuts coming from Walla Walla and Moses Lake.

Banned in Utah

This video raised a stink in Farmington, Utah, when it was shown in school. Way to support your overwhelmingly elected President, folks. And I suppose that service to the community is a bad idea if a black Democratic president recommends it.

The Affordable Health Choices Act and the 4th CD.

America’s Affordable Health Choices Act would provide significant benefits in the 4th Congressional District of Washington: up to 15,200 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 8,600 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 1,500 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $114 million in uncompensated care each year; and 118,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance. Congressman Doc Hastings [supposedly] represents the district.

• Help for small businesses. Under the legislation, small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $40,000 qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 15,200 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.

• Help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole. Each year, 8,600 seniors in the district hit the donut hole and are forced to pay their full drug costs, despite having Part D drug coverage. The legislation would provide them with immediate relief, cutting brand name drug costs in the donut hole by 50%, and ultimately eliminate the donut hole.

• Health care and financial security. There were 1,500 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill provides health insurance for almost every American and caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no citizen will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.

• Relieving the burden of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers. In 2008, health care providers in the district provided $114 million worth of uncompensated care, care that was provided to individuals who lacked insurance coverage and were unable to pay their bills. Under the legislation, these costs of uncompensated care would be virtually eliminated.

• Coverage of the uninsured. There are 140,000 uninsured individuals in the district, 19% of the district. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide, 97% of all Americans will have insurance coverage when the bill takes effect. If this benchmark is reached in the district, 118,000 people who currently do not have health insurance will receive coverage.

• No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for: half through making the Medicare and Medicaid program more efficient and half through a surtax on the income of the wealthiest individuals. This surtax would affect only 1,820 households in the district. The surtax would not affect 99.4% of taxpayers in the district.

Is ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy?

Michael Lynch argues in the NY Times that Peak Oil may be one of those ever-receding mirages. But even if that is true, oil is not an infinite energy source. Nor is it carbon-neutral. Yet a comparatively low price for oil may buy us more time to move to more sustainable energies but at the price of continuing CO2 buildup.

Dr. Dean Ornish: A Pox on Both Your Houses

In this article Dr. Dean Ornish makes a good stab at finding the middle ground that the health reform opposition has, so far, been able to offer up. Basically it is a healthy dose of preventative medicine expenditure.

Planned Parenthood and the Pasco Planning Commission

There's at least one member of the Pasco Planning Commission seeking election to the city council. Todd Samuel knows that a successful no-vote to the Planned Parenthood clinic could be the kind of thing to win him that seat with the Pasco voters.

Unfortunately, the only grounds the commission has for a no-vote are not legal. To proceed would be to invite a losing and potentially costly lawsuit.

Don't you just hate that?

McMorris Rodgers and the Right Way

Representative Cathy McMorris-Rodgers writes in a Tri-City Herald article that health care reform must be done the right way. Her desire is that consumers have more options and that government-run health plans not dominate the insurance market.

She was willing to stipulate that that government options -- Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and the Veterans Health Administration -- make up about half of the medical coverage in the United States, with the other half falling to the private sector.

Several people were on hand to dispute her view at the meeting.

I think Cathy has missed the real point and is just trying to find some way to justify her good-political-soldier opposition to the public option. The lack of competition isn't the problem. Currently insurance companies are competing by trying cherry-pick the pool of clients. They are protecting the interests of their shareholders by only covering people who can pay high premiums and make few claims. There is no profit to be made by accepting low income and high risk customers. There is nothing the government can do to make it any easier for insurance company to get into this business.

In the end she has no alternative to offer folks who would have to opt for public coverage other than to just continue watching the insurance industry ignore their needs.

By having a public plan we can eliminate medically-induced bankruptcy. We can provide insurance for people who insurance don't want.

By not having a public plan we can either continue to let people go uninsured (this is not a moral option). Or we can force insurance companies to cover less-profitable customers by regulation. Cathy can either be immoral or suffer unpleasant regulation.

What's a good Republican to do?

For a good play-by-play of the meeting see Michelle Dupler's excellent liveblog of the meeting.