Daniel Harju: Threat To Public Safety: A Position Paper On Eliminating Inmate Rehabilitation Programs
Threat To Public Safety: A Position Paper On Eliminating Inmate Rehabilitation Programs
Los Angeles, November 7, 2009
As California finds itself nearly bankrupt, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to drastically cut inmate rehabilitative programs. This budget crisis has led state officials to disregard common sense and long-term strategy as guiding principles for prison policy-making.
Already few and far between, rehabilitative programs are improve inmates’ chances of making orderly returns to society. Eliminating them is not just counter-intuitive, but also potentially disastrous to public safety. To cut overall prison spending by $1.2 billion, the state will reduce by $250 million its spending on inmate drug rehabilitation, academic and vocational programs. The CDRC will lay off 1,443 rehabilitative program employees and naively hopes that community volunteers will help fill those empty spots.
The decision to nearly eliminate important inmate programs is not only bad judgment driven by fiscal desperation, it is also potentially disastrous considering the current explosive mix of overcrowding, racial tensions and prison gang politics. It should be added that inmates would have even less access to programs that offer rehabilitation through learning and fewer available daytime activities, except all things gang related. Across the state, more and increasingly violent prison riots are to be expected. Prison gang activity is likely to increase as gangs fill the daytime void left by disappearing inmate programs.
Prisons are not isolated from outside society and what happens in prison affect people outside. It is therefore important to realize how removing rehabilitative program will reverberate throughout California and impact public safety.
California’s prison time-suits-all approach to sentencing is unsustainable because the state simply cannot afford to pay $49,000 annually per inmate. That is five times the amount spent annually on a student in public schools. Instead of locking up every petty thief, drug abuser and other nonviolent offender, the state could of course spend that money more wisely. Even with the planned $1.2 billion cut in corrections budget, the state will spend about $10 billion of taxpayer money on prisons in the next fiscal year.
The decision to nearly eliminate important inmate programs is not only bad judgment driven by fiscal desperation, it is also potentially disastrous considering the current explosive mix of overcrowding, racial tensions and prison gang politics. It should be added that inmates would have even less access to programs that offer rehabilitation through learning and fewer available daytime activities, except all things gang related. Across the state, more and increasingly violent prison riots are to be expected. Prison gang activity is likely to increase as gangs fill the daytime void left by disappearing inmate programs.
Prisons are not isolated from outside society and what happens in prison affect people outside. It is therefore important to realize how removing rehabilitative program will reverberate throughout California and impact public safety.
Who flips the prison bill?
California has a long history of getting tough-on-crime. The state’s sentencing and parole laws are among the toughest in the nation and have often been initiated by voters in ballot initiatives such as the Three-Strikes-Law. As voting constituents wants leaders who promise to be tough-on-crime, all but a few state politicians reinforce California's unsustainable practice of mass-incarceration. But the current budget crisis offers a potentially educational opportunity for Californians to look at how much their unforgiving criminal justice system really cost and realize that they are the ones paying for it.
California has a long history of getting tough-on-crime. The state’s sentencing and parole laws are among the toughest in the nation and have often been initiated by voters in ballot initiatives such as the Three-Strikes-Law. As voting constituents wants leaders who promise to be tough-on-crime, all but a few state politicians reinforce California's unsustainable practice of mass-incarceration. But the current budget crisis offers a potentially educational opportunity for Californians to look at how much their unforgiving criminal justice system really cost and realize that they are the ones paying for it.
California’s prison time-suits-all approach to sentencing is unsustainable because the state simply cannot afford to pay $49,000 annually per inmate. That is five times the amount spent annually on a student in public schools. Instead of locking up every petty thief, drug abuser and other nonviolent offender, the state could of course spend that money more wisely. Even with the planned $1.2 billion cut in corrections budget, the state will spend about $10 billion of taxpayer money on prisons in the next fiscal year.
But in the end, solving the prison crisis is less a matter of money than it is a matter of priorities. Without any real direction, the state will continue to spend billions of dollars in ways that eventually only make us less safe and the prisons system more dysfunctional. Most people think the state should spend its money on things that are proven to work. In this case, these are the drug rehabilitation, vocational training and academic programs. Prison and community-based rehabilitative programs are the most effective way to ensure that released nonviolent inmates stay out of prison and thus the best way to increase public safety in the long term.
A revolving door
At the center of California’s problematic prison system is the inmate recidivism rate, which is the highest in the nation. This revolving prison door literally sends 70 percent of released inmates right back to prison. Recognizing what aspects of the system are responsible for the high recidivism rates, tells us how the state can solve the prison crisis.
At the center of California’s problematic prison system is the inmate recidivism rate, which is the highest in the nation. This revolving prison door literally sends 70 percent of released inmates right back to prison. Recognizing what aspects of the system are responsible for the high recidivism rates, tells us how the state can solve the prison crisis.
California’s strict parole laws place all released felons, regardless of the nature of his or her offense, under tight post-release supervision. It usually only takes a simple misstep for a parolee to be sent back to prison for parole violations. As a result, California’s prison system is so overcrowded that inmates are often stacked in rows of three level bunk beds that line gymnasiums activity rooms and old classrooms. Currently at about 170,000, California’s inmate population is housed in 33 facilities with a capacity to hold 88,000. Since October 2006, California has moved close to 10,500 inmates to private for-profit prisons in other states.
Whereas strict parole laws return a large majority on released inmates to prison, the lack of access to inmate rehabilitation programs on the inside leaves most inmates insufficiently prepared to meet challenges in the outside world. Equally scarce and underfunded are community programs that help transition inmates back into the communities once they are released.
Despite evidence that rehabilitative programs are very effective in rehabilitating inmates and lowering recidivism rates, those already underfunded programs are being slashed. By cutting program staff and funding by nearly half, the state is leaving only $350 million for its inmate programs. Ironically, the CDCR recently released a report on the effectiveness of drug rehabilitation programs, which only highlights the absurdity of its decision to eliminate such programs.
Unaffordable
California cannot build itself out of the prison-overcrowding crisis. The state cannot afford to spend more and more of taxpayer money on a dysfunctional prison system that deteriorates public safety. Keeping things the way they are amounts to spending an increasingly bigger portion of the state's budget on new prison facilities that rack up even higher operating costs.
California cannot build itself out of the prison-overcrowding crisis. The state cannot afford to spend more and more of taxpayer money on a dysfunctional prison system that deteriorates public safety. Keeping things the way they are amounts to spending an increasingly bigger portion of the state's budget on new prison facilities that rack up even higher operating costs.
A new approach is needed that pulls California’s head out of the sand and puts rehabilitation at the center of California’s criminal justice system. This crisis will not solve itself but requires a rethinking of policies so corrections budget allocations align with what is in the best interest of the people. Without reforms, the overcrowding crisis will worsen and the corrections budget will continue to divulge more and more of taxpayer money meant for education, healthcare, roads and other essential projects.
Daniel Harju
USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Daniel Harju
USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
To cut or not to cut, that is the question
With circumcision rates declining, men and women are organizing to ban circumcisions
The two day-old naked infant boy was strapped down and spread eagle on a restraining board in a Marin General Hospital surgery room. He screamed and struggled as the doctor inserted a Plastibell without anesthesia, a surgical device used to forcefully separate the boy's foreskin from his penis gland so that the targeted tissue can be cut off.
"There is no medical reason for doing this," the doctor muttered to the group of 20 nursing school students from College of Marin standing around him.
As Marilyn Milos, a nursing school student and mother of four, witnessed this routine circumcision two months before her 1979 graduation, she knew she would dedicate her life to fighting the practice.
Six years later, Milos' outspokenness got her fired from her nursing job at that same hospital. Three mothers complained about her description of circumcision. Milos is now a San Angelo anti-circumcision activist and founder of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC). After 26 years of activism, she is known as the movement's matriarch. She is heading one of the first and biggest anti-circumcision movements in the world.
The issue of routine infant circumcision of males is the subject of increasing debate. The United States currently has the highest rate of male circumcision among developed countries. A growing and diverse anti-circumcision movement of "intactivists" is attacking the practice for many reasons, including medical, legal, ethical, cultural and religious. Many intactivists are involved in the National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM), an international foreskin restoration support movement for circumcised men engaging in a self-administered practice to restore what they lost.
Whereas proponents of circumcision argue that the practice has numerous lifelong health benefits related to hygiene and infection risks, intactivists argue that the benefits are insignificant and do not legitimize such an invasive surgery that amputates healthy tissue.
Male circumcision, a partial or full removal of the foreskin covering the penis gland, is performed by a doctor during the first one or two weeks of an infant boy's life, often with no anesthesia. Jewish and Muslims circumcisions, which comprise a small number of U.S. cases, are traditionally performed on infant boys as part of a religious ritual.
Circumcision for secular reasons, which is uncommon in most of Europe, Central and South America and Asia, appeared in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. A small number of medical doctors argued that it was essential for good hygiene and was an effective cure against masturbation, which, at the time of widespread sexual repression, was considered sinful and harmful.
In the U.S. at the turn of the 19th century, there was a wide shift towards a medicalization of the human body and an institutionalization of health care. Childbirth, which before had been handled at home by midwives who did not perform circumcision, was being performed in hospitals where doctors both advocated and performed circumcision. There are no exact or reliable national statistics on circumcision rates, leaving both proponents and opponents guessing what the future trend will be.
The most reliable statistics show a decline in U.S circumcision rates from 84 percent of infants in 1985 to 56 percent in 2003, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Circumcision proponents downplay the significance of the declining rate. They point out that the statistics, based only on hospital discharge surveys from less than 5 percent of U.S hospitals, exclude religious and subsequent circumcisions.
Circumcision proponents largely base their arguments on scientific research. They quote studies showing that circumcision lowers the risk of urinary tract infections. According to the American Pediatrics Association these infections affects about 1 percent of uncircumcised infants boys. Circumcision prevents bacteria from accumulating under the foreskin, which can cause local skin infections. It also lowers the risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases that can be contracted through small abrasions that occurs in the foreskin during intercourse.
Proponents also argue that it is easier for circumcised men to keep themselves clean. Many young men boys are unable to retract the foreskin, a condition called phimosis that usually corrects itself but which in about one percent of uncircumcised men requires circumcision at at an older age.
The intactivist movement avoids the use of the term "uncircumcised" because it owns up to circumcision as the norm, something it wishes to change. Instead, it uses terms like "intact" or "natural" to emphasize that which is the biological norm.
"Circumcision is always fear-based," Milos said. "Every excuse has been consistent with the dreaded disease of the time."
According to Milos, the foreskin is normal tissue that not only has a protective purpose but also a sexual one. "(The foreskin) has 10,000 to 20,000 nerve endings that allows a man to know where he is in relation to the orgasmic threshold," said Milos and points out that sensitivity is not relegated to the penis glands.
The effects of circumcision on sensitivity and sexual functioning is a disputed issue that is currently being looked at in the Penile Sensitivity Touch Test Study, a San Fransisco study awaiting publication later this year. When the foreskin, which covers and moistens the mucosal cells of the penis gland, is removed, the glands become an external organ and the skin hardens in a process called keratinization. Many men involved in NORM have reported an almost complete loss of sensitivity in the penis gland prior to foreskin restoration and subsequently, a regaining of sensitivity and an increase in sexual satifaction.
Complications such as excessive bleeding, infections and even death, are rare and occur in between 0.2 and 0.6 percent of hospital circumcisions, according to an American Pediatrics Association 1999 statement on circumcision. The APA states that although there are potential medical benefits of infant male circumcision, these are not sufficient to recommend the practice. Milos and other intactivists call the APA statement a compromised document and point out that no medical association in the world recommends routine circumcision.
Intactivists argue that the motive for the practice is financial. The procedure takes anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes and can cost between $100 to $750.
"There's a lot of money to be made from it," said Matthew Hess, a San Diego intactivist and President of MGMBill.org, a private non-profit organization lobbying to ban circumcision. "Many parents are victims as well because they are not being given enough information," said Hess.
The MGMBill proposal would ban all forms of male circumcision, including for religious practice, until the male is 18 years old and can decide for himself. The proposal was sent out for the third time on Feb. 6, 2006, during MGMBill's annual bill submission, to about 2,700 state and federal legislators in 15 states around the nation.
"Overall we're not getting a lot of response," said Hess, who attributes the legislators cold shoulders and their unwillingness to sponsor the bill to the controversial nature of the issue. "It might cost them a lot of votes, especially from Muslim and Jewish communities."
A nationwide lobbying effort by the International Coalition for Genital Integrity, has sucessfully removed male circumcision from Medicaid coverage in 16 U.S. states including California.
"The only thing doctors learn about the foreskin in medical school is a two sentence phrase: the foreskin is that which is in front of the glands and that which we cut off in circumcision," said Wayne Griffiths, 72, the co-founder and director of the National Organization of Restoring Men.
Griffiths, who was circumcised at birth, has fully restored his foreskin with a three-quarter inch of overhang, through a process called tissue expansion that took him a year and a half to complete.
There are many different devices used to restore foreskin by tissue expansion, ranging from a simple taping to the use of coaxing devices such as the bestselling TLC Tugger, which is sold online for $46. The TLC Tugger, which includes two silicone cones that keeps the penis shaft skin rolled over the gland and attaches to a knee strap or a weight that pulls the skin over the gland, can be worn under regular clothing.
According to Griffiths and Jim Bigelow, a psychologist and author of "The Joy of Uncircumcising," the quintessential guide to foreskin restoration, what works best is a moderately applied tugging force. Griffiths suggests a 7 to 10 ounces weight be applied for four to eight hours per day, 5 days a week.
"You have to be consistent with the regimen," says Griffiths, who emphasizes patience.
NORM, which started in 1989, has grown into 10 groups in the US along with groups in seven other countries. The organization holds monthly meetings where men, introduced only on a first-name basis, can ask questions and share their own experiences. Griffiths estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 men have requested information from NORM and are restoring themselves. He now gets about 10 requests per day and spends about 15 hours per week of his spare time corresponding with men interested in restoration.
NOCIRC, a pioneering umbrella organization, has grown to include more than 110 local chapters throughout the United States and centers in 17 different countries. The intactivists movement is largely Internet-based and focuses on education.
"There needs to be more prominent doctors speaking out against circumcision," said Richard Russell, 63, a Moreno Valley English teacher and retired Air Force attorney turned intactivist.
Russell, a circumcised Georgia-born who describes himself as an unlikely candidate for activism, is working to launch a local Los Angeles NOCIRC chapter and is planning to set up a booth at local baby shows. Like most intactivists, Russell is hopeful that circumcision will have disappeared in his own lifetime.
"Circumcision is a cure in search of a disease," said Russell, who is enjoying life as a restored man. "Sex is much better than it ever was before."
Originally published in the Daily Sundial on 4/25/06
Original URL
The two day-old naked infant boy was strapped down and spread eagle on a restraining board in a Marin General Hospital surgery room. He screamed and struggled as the doctor inserted a Plastibell without anesthesia, a surgical device used to forcefully separate the boy's foreskin from his penis gland so that the targeted tissue can be cut off.
"There is no medical reason for doing this," the doctor muttered to the group of 20 nursing school students from College of Marin standing around him.
As Marilyn Milos, a nursing school student and mother of four, witnessed this routine circumcision two months before her 1979 graduation, she knew she would dedicate her life to fighting the practice.
Six years later, Milos' outspokenness got her fired from her nursing job at that same hospital. Three mothers complained about her description of circumcision. Milos is now a San Angelo anti-circumcision activist and founder of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC). After 26 years of activism, she is known as the movement's matriarch. She is heading one of the first and biggest anti-circumcision movements in the world.
The issue of routine infant circumcision of males is the subject of increasing debate. The United States currently has the highest rate of male circumcision among developed countries. A growing and diverse anti-circumcision movement of "intactivists" is attacking the practice for many reasons, including medical, legal, ethical, cultural and religious. Many intactivists are involved in the National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM), an international foreskin restoration support movement for circumcised men engaging in a self-administered practice to restore what they lost.
Whereas proponents of circumcision argue that the practice has numerous lifelong health benefits related to hygiene and infection risks, intactivists argue that the benefits are insignificant and do not legitimize such an invasive surgery that amputates healthy tissue.
Male circumcision, a partial or full removal of the foreskin covering the penis gland, is performed by a doctor during the first one or two weeks of an infant boy's life, often with no anesthesia. Jewish and Muslims circumcisions, which comprise a small number of U.S. cases, are traditionally performed on infant boys as part of a religious ritual.
Circumcision for secular reasons, which is uncommon in most of Europe, Central and South America and Asia, appeared in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. A small number of medical doctors argued that it was essential for good hygiene and was an effective cure against masturbation, which, at the time of widespread sexual repression, was considered sinful and harmful.
In the U.S. at the turn of the 19th century, there was a wide shift towards a medicalization of the human body and an institutionalization of health care. Childbirth, which before had been handled at home by midwives who did not perform circumcision, was being performed in hospitals where doctors both advocated and performed circumcision. There are no exact or reliable national statistics on circumcision rates, leaving both proponents and opponents guessing what the future trend will be.
The most reliable statistics show a decline in U.S circumcision rates from 84 percent of infants in 1985 to 56 percent in 2003, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Circumcision proponents downplay the significance of the declining rate. They point out that the statistics, based only on hospital discharge surveys from less than 5 percent of U.S hospitals, exclude religious and subsequent circumcisions.
Circumcision proponents largely base their arguments on scientific research. They quote studies showing that circumcision lowers the risk of urinary tract infections. According to the American Pediatrics Association these infections affects about 1 percent of uncircumcised infants boys. Circumcision prevents bacteria from accumulating under the foreskin, which can cause local skin infections. It also lowers the risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases that can be contracted through small abrasions that occurs in the foreskin during intercourse.
Proponents also argue that it is easier for circumcised men to keep themselves clean. Many young men boys are unable to retract the foreskin, a condition called phimosis that usually corrects itself but which in about one percent of uncircumcised men requires circumcision at at an older age.
The intactivist movement avoids the use of the term "uncircumcised" because it owns up to circumcision as the norm, something it wishes to change. Instead, it uses terms like "intact" or "natural" to emphasize that which is the biological norm.
"Circumcision is always fear-based," Milos said. "Every excuse has been consistent with the dreaded disease of the time."
According to Milos, the foreskin is normal tissue that not only has a protective purpose but also a sexual one. "(The foreskin) has 10,000 to 20,000 nerve endings that allows a man to know where he is in relation to the orgasmic threshold," said Milos and points out that sensitivity is not relegated to the penis glands.
The effects of circumcision on sensitivity and sexual functioning is a disputed issue that is currently being looked at in the Penile Sensitivity Touch Test Study, a San Fransisco study awaiting publication later this year. When the foreskin, which covers and moistens the mucosal cells of the penis gland, is removed, the glands become an external organ and the skin hardens in a process called keratinization. Many men involved in NORM have reported an almost complete loss of sensitivity in the penis gland prior to foreskin restoration and subsequently, a regaining of sensitivity and an increase in sexual satifaction.
Complications such as excessive bleeding, infections and even death, are rare and occur in between 0.2 and 0.6 percent of hospital circumcisions, according to an American Pediatrics Association 1999 statement on circumcision. The APA states that although there are potential medical benefits of infant male circumcision, these are not sufficient to recommend the practice. Milos and other intactivists call the APA statement a compromised document and point out that no medical association in the world recommends routine circumcision.
Intactivists argue that the motive for the practice is financial. The procedure takes anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes and can cost between $100 to $750.
"There's a lot of money to be made from it," said Matthew Hess, a San Diego intactivist and President of MGMBill.org, a private non-profit organization lobbying to ban circumcision. "Many parents are victims as well because they are not being given enough information," said Hess.
The MGMBill proposal would ban all forms of male circumcision, including for religious practice, until the male is 18 years old and can decide for himself. The proposal was sent out for the third time on Feb. 6, 2006, during MGMBill's annual bill submission, to about 2,700 state and federal legislators in 15 states around the nation.
"Overall we're not getting a lot of response," said Hess, who attributes the legislators cold shoulders and their unwillingness to sponsor the bill to the controversial nature of the issue. "It might cost them a lot of votes, especially from Muslim and Jewish communities."
A nationwide lobbying effort by the International Coalition for Genital Integrity, has sucessfully removed male circumcision from Medicaid coverage in 16 U.S. states including California.
"The only thing doctors learn about the foreskin in medical school is a two sentence phrase: the foreskin is that which is in front of the glands and that which we cut off in circumcision," said Wayne Griffiths, 72, the co-founder and director of the National Organization of Restoring Men.
Griffiths, who was circumcised at birth, has fully restored his foreskin with a three-quarter inch of overhang, through a process called tissue expansion that took him a year and a half to complete.
There are many different devices used to restore foreskin by tissue expansion, ranging from a simple taping to the use of coaxing devices such as the bestselling TLC Tugger, which is sold online for $46. The TLC Tugger, which includes two silicone cones that keeps the penis shaft skin rolled over the gland and attaches to a knee strap or a weight that pulls the skin over the gland, can be worn under regular clothing.
According to Griffiths and Jim Bigelow, a psychologist and author of "The Joy of Uncircumcising," the quintessential guide to foreskin restoration, what works best is a moderately applied tugging force. Griffiths suggests a 7 to 10 ounces weight be applied for four to eight hours per day, 5 days a week.
"You have to be consistent with the regimen," says Griffiths, who emphasizes patience.
NORM, which started in 1989, has grown into 10 groups in the US along with groups in seven other countries. The organization holds monthly meetings where men, introduced only on a first-name basis, can ask questions and share their own experiences. Griffiths estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 men have requested information from NORM and are restoring themselves. He now gets about 10 requests per day and spends about 15 hours per week of his spare time corresponding with men interested in restoration.
NOCIRC, a pioneering umbrella organization, has grown to include more than 110 local chapters throughout the United States and centers in 17 different countries. The intactivists movement is largely Internet-based and focuses on education.
"There needs to be more prominent doctors speaking out against circumcision," said Richard Russell, 63, a Moreno Valley English teacher and retired Air Force attorney turned intactivist.
Russell, a circumcised Georgia-born who describes himself as an unlikely candidate for activism, is working to launch a local Los Angeles NOCIRC chapter and is planning to set up a booth at local baby shows. Like most intactivists, Russell is hopeful that circumcision will have disappeared in his own lifetime.
"Circumcision is a cure in search of a disease," said Russell, who is enjoying life as a restored man. "Sex is much better than it ever was before."
Originally published in the Daily Sundial on 4/25/06
Original URL
Why are students still offered Blue Cross health insurance?
When 4-year-old Selah Shaeffer developed a cancerous tumor and needed extensive medical treatment, her health insurance coverage was cancelled and her mother and father ended up with a medical bill exceeding $60,000 and the prospect of losing their home. The mistreatment of the Shaeffer family, described in a Sept. 17 article of the Los Angeles Times, is only one of more than 70 cases in which Blue Cross of California, the state's largest health insurance provider, illegally cancelled health insurance policies when policyholders depended on them the most.
In October, Blue Cross of California discreetly settled more than 70 lawsuits by patients whose insurance policies were illegally cancelled. The settlements were for undisclosed amounts that allowed the Shaeffer family and other victims to pay for the treatments. The plaintiffs claimed that they were dropped from their policies because Blue Cross claimed to have found discrepancies in the applications. The insurance giant, which denies any wrongdoing, was also recently fined $200,000 by the California Department of Managed Health Care for illegally canceling one particular patient's coverage and was later sued again, in a separate lawsuit, by several hospitals for failing to pay for the care of patients.
CSUN provides a lot of business to Blue Cross of California. Through its partnership with insurance broker Acordia Somerton, an insurance agent specializing in insurance for college students, CSUN endorses Blue Cross as the main provider of student health insurance. The college administration needs to review its practice of doing business with this dubious corporation, which so blatantly disregards human life in favor of profit. Students should be presented a choice of an alternative insurance from a provider that is more ethical or, at least, does not systematically and illegally cancel insurance policies.
Such a policy is arguably hard to find. Most major health insurance providers in California have been sued in cases similar to those affecting Blue Cross and most operate on a for-profit basis, which means they actively avoid responsibility to pay up. To some extent, the problem is not simply with Blue Cross or any other for-profit health care provider, but with the overall lack of social responsibility among corporations within this capitalist society.
According to state law, fraud provides a legal basis for canceling coverage. All insurance companies review a policyholder's application once a claim has been made. However, a practice that was business as usual for Blue Cross of California was ruled to be repeated violations of state laws in the court decisions.
The Blue Cross scandal especially pertains to CSUN's international students, who are required to purchase a health insurance and handed the Acordia Somerton brochure during orientation. A majority of international students at CSUN buy their policy through Acordia Somerton, which offers only Blue Cross policies.
Although international students are not required to purchase their health insurance from Blue Cross, they need to show proof of insurance that meets specific minimum requirements. Consequently, out of convenience, the relatively low cost of the policy and the lack of presented choices, most international students choose to give their business to Blue Cross.
Amid mounting public criticism, Blue Cross has declared their intentions to reform their practices, but critics have dismissed those claims as being simply for show. The secret court settlements appear to be a way for the company to escape accountability and sweep the matter under the rug by paying off the plaintiffs with undisclosed settlements. The secret settlements benefit Blue Cross because the matter has received little public attention and there is little pressure on the company to reform its practices.
In an attempt to remake its tarnished image, Blue Cross of California hired Sitrick and Company, a successful PR firm specializing in crisis management for corporate wrongdoers including Halliburton and Exxon Mobile. Sitrick and Company focuses on the "difficult task of keeping clients out of the press," according to the company Web site. In the case of Blue Cross, this focus means restricting media attention surrounding the lawsuits and avoiding the risk that the court rulings set legal precedent, which would require industry-wide reforms.
CSUN should send a clear message to Blue Cross to change its wrongful practices. Students should respond by canceling their health insurance policies and taking their business elsewhere. As policyholders and customers, students inevitably support Blue Cross and its unethical practices.
Students and the college should seriously reconsider their support for a company that cares more about profit than it does for its responsibilities as a healthcare insurance provider. In the end, if a CSUN student turns to Blue Cross expecting them to take care of a $200,000 medical bill acquired during a time of crisis spent in a hospital bed, he or she might experience the additional pain when they realize that their policy was also cancelled because of corporate greed.
Originally published in the Daily Sundial on 11/08/06
Original URL
In October, Blue Cross of California discreetly settled more than 70 lawsuits by patients whose insurance policies were illegally cancelled. The settlements were for undisclosed amounts that allowed the Shaeffer family and other victims to pay for the treatments. The plaintiffs claimed that they were dropped from their policies because Blue Cross claimed to have found discrepancies in the applications. The insurance giant, which denies any wrongdoing, was also recently fined $200,000 by the California Department of Managed Health Care for illegally canceling one particular patient's coverage and was later sued again, in a separate lawsuit, by several hospitals for failing to pay for the care of patients.
CSUN provides a lot of business to Blue Cross of California. Through its partnership with insurance broker Acordia Somerton, an insurance agent specializing in insurance for college students, CSUN endorses Blue Cross as the main provider of student health insurance. The college administration needs to review its practice of doing business with this dubious corporation, which so blatantly disregards human life in favor of profit. Students should be presented a choice of an alternative insurance from a provider that is more ethical or, at least, does not systematically and illegally cancel insurance policies.
Such a policy is arguably hard to find. Most major health insurance providers in California have been sued in cases similar to those affecting Blue Cross and most operate on a for-profit basis, which means they actively avoid responsibility to pay up. To some extent, the problem is not simply with Blue Cross or any other for-profit health care provider, but with the overall lack of social responsibility among corporations within this capitalist society.
According to state law, fraud provides a legal basis for canceling coverage. All insurance companies review a policyholder's application once a claim has been made. However, a practice that was business as usual for Blue Cross of California was ruled to be repeated violations of state laws in the court decisions.
The Blue Cross scandal especially pertains to CSUN's international students, who are required to purchase a health insurance and handed the Acordia Somerton brochure during orientation. A majority of international students at CSUN buy their policy through Acordia Somerton, which offers only Blue Cross policies.
Although international students are not required to purchase their health insurance from Blue Cross, they need to show proof of insurance that meets specific minimum requirements. Consequently, out of convenience, the relatively low cost of the policy and the lack of presented choices, most international students choose to give their business to Blue Cross.
Amid mounting public criticism, Blue Cross has declared their intentions to reform their practices, but critics have dismissed those claims as being simply for show. The secret court settlements appear to be a way for the company to escape accountability and sweep the matter under the rug by paying off the plaintiffs with undisclosed settlements. The secret settlements benefit Blue Cross because the matter has received little public attention and there is little pressure on the company to reform its practices.
In an attempt to remake its tarnished image, Blue Cross of California hired Sitrick and Company, a successful PR firm specializing in crisis management for corporate wrongdoers including Halliburton and Exxon Mobile. Sitrick and Company focuses on the "difficult task of keeping clients out of the press," according to the company Web site. In the case of Blue Cross, this focus means restricting media attention surrounding the lawsuits and avoiding the risk that the court rulings set legal precedent, which would require industry-wide reforms.
CSUN should send a clear message to Blue Cross to change its wrongful practices. Students should respond by canceling their health insurance policies and taking their business elsewhere. As policyholders and customers, students inevitably support Blue Cross and its unethical practices.
Students and the college should seriously reconsider their support for a company that cares more about profit than it does for its responsibilities as a healthcare insurance provider. In the end, if a CSUN student turns to Blue Cross expecting them to take care of a $200,000 medical bill acquired during a time of crisis spent in a hospital bed, he or she might experience the additional pain when they realize that their policy was also cancelled because of corporate greed.
Originally published in the Daily Sundial on 11/08/06
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René Magritte's 'treacherous images' at LACMA
In a dreamy gallery environment turned upside down, carpeted with a blue sky dotted by puffy clouds and decked with freeway intersections on the ceiling, Belgian surrealist René Magritte's work is playfully featured in a current exhibit that looks at the pop-culture icon's impact on American and European post-war artists.
As visitors enter the exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, they are greeted by security guards wearing black bowler hats and proceed to walk through a tall ghostly silhouette cutout in the doorway leading into the gallery. The show's interior, a playful mix of Magritte-like dreamscape and post-modern art installation, was designed by Los Angeles-based artist John Baldessari, who also has two works featured in the show.
"Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images" includes 68 works by Magritte and an equal number of works by 31 contemporary artists, cleverly juxtaposed against Magritte to illuminate lines of influence.
The exhibit is not intended to be a Magritte retrospective, which there have been numerous examples of, but instead a fresh look at Magritte's work in conjunction with contemporary artists who were inspired by him, according to Stephanie Barron, senior curator at LACMA. Barron created the show together with Michel Draguet, director of the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Belgium, in cooperation with the Magritte Foundation.
The unique exhibit, which does not travel, takes a first look at the artist's influence on a diverse group of contemporary artists from pop artists Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha to avant-garde artist Jeff Koons and neo-Dadaist Jasper Johns.
"I tried to think as Magritte might," said Baldessari, a conceptual artist who teaches at UCLA and was chosen to design the exhibit because of his combined playfulness and seriousness. "I think this is something (Magritte) would have done, or agreed with."
The exhibition was named after Magritte's most famous work, which is also the centerpiece in the show. In the famous 1929 painting of a pipe accompanied by "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," a phrase in French meaning "This is not a pipe," Magritte showed the inherent fallacy of assigning names to objects. Combining random words with images was a common theme in Magritte's work. He created conscious contradictions to question the pre-assumption that words which are used to name things actually correspond with the object itself.
"I can never decide what is more important, a word or an image," said Baldessari, who said that designing the show was a challenge, because he wanted to emphasize the work of the Magritte without taking center stage himself.
"Artists have some of the greatest insights into art," said Michael Govan, director and CEO of LACMA.
Magritte, who died in 1968, was one of the most memorable members of the surrealist movement during and beyond the Interwar period and his easily recognizable style has permeated such pop culture domains as music, advertising, cartoons and film.
The surrealist qualities in Magritte's work derive from his warping of scale, time and space. While painting in a convincing style, Magritte lends imagery from the unconscious, an apparent influence of psychoanalysis, and from his own bourgeois society. Magritte was known as a businessman who always wore a three-piece suit and approached painting like a business operation.
"Magritte was a total bourgeois on the outside," Draguet said. "(But) he was a total anarchist on the inside."
The show, which opened Nov. 19, will be up through March 4, 2007 and is specially ticketed. Weekday tickets are $17 for adults and $14 for students and seniors. On weekends, tickets are $20 for adults and $17 for seniors and students. Admission is free for children 17 and under. For an extra $4-7, visitors can take a headset audio tour narrated by Pierce Brosnan, featuring interviews with some of the artists.
Originally published in the Daily Sundial on 11/22/06
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As visitors enter the exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, they are greeted by security guards wearing black bowler hats and proceed to walk through a tall ghostly silhouette cutout in the doorway leading into the gallery. The show's interior, a playful mix of Magritte-like dreamscape and post-modern art installation, was designed by Los Angeles-based artist John Baldessari, who also has two works featured in the show.
"Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images" includes 68 works by Magritte and an equal number of works by 31 contemporary artists, cleverly juxtaposed against Magritte to illuminate lines of influence.
The exhibit is not intended to be a Magritte retrospective, which there have been numerous examples of, but instead a fresh look at Magritte's work in conjunction with contemporary artists who were inspired by him, according to Stephanie Barron, senior curator at LACMA. Barron created the show together with Michel Draguet, director of the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Belgium, in cooperation with the Magritte Foundation.
The unique exhibit, which does not travel, takes a first look at the artist's influence on a diverse group of contemporary artists from pop artists Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha to avant-garde artist Jeff Koons and neo-Dadaist Jasper Johns.
"I tried to think as Magritte might," said Baldessari, a conceptual artist who teaches at UCLA and was chosen to design the exhibit because of his combined playfulness and seriousness. "I think this is something (Magritte) would have done, or agreed with."
The exhibition was named after Magritte's most famous work, which is also the centerpiece in the show. In the famous 1929 painting of a pipe accompanied by "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," a phrase in French meaning "This is not a pipe," Magritte showed the inherent fallacy of assigning names to objects. Combining random words with images was a common theme in Magritte's work. He created conscious contradictions to question the pre-assumption that words which are used to name things actually correspond with the object itself.
"I can never decide what is more important, a word or an image," said Baldessari, who said that designing the show was a challenge, because he wanted to emphasize the work of the Magritte without taking center stage himself.
"Artists have some of the greatest insights into art," said Michael Govan, director and CEO of LACMA.
Magritte, who died in 1968, was one of the most memorable members of the surrealist movement during and beyond the Interwar period and his easily recognizable style has permeated such pop culture domains as music, advertising, cartoons and film.
The surrealist qualities in Magritte's work derive from his warping of scale, time and space. While painting in a convincing style, Magritte lends imagery from the unconscious, an apparent influence of psychoanalysis, and from his own bourgeois society. Magritte was known as a businessman who always wore a three-piece suit and approached painting like a business operation.
"Magritte was a total bourgeois on the outside," Draguet said. "(But) he was a total anarchist on the inside."
The show, which opened Nov. 19, will be up through March 4, 2007 and is specially ticketed. Weekday tickets are $17 for adults and $14 for students and seniors. On weekends, tickets are $20 for adults and $17 for seniors and students. Admission is free for children 17 and under. For an extra $4-7, visitors can take a headset audio tour narrated by Pierce Brosnan, featuring interviews with some of the artists.
Originally published in the Daily Sundial on 11/22/06
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