News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

There was a good Frontline program on last night with the same title as this post about brain damage in NFL players.

The evidence seems very conclusive that playing football at any level (NFL, college, high school, and even younger) can and will cause brain damage in almost every player. The damage seems to be worse if the player has multiple concussions, but even without a concussion the stresses of the head jerking around with every hit take an accumulated toll.

The NFL, just like the historical tobacco companies and cancer, refuses to accept the data and insists that the verdict is still out and that more research needs to be done. Considering the multi-billion dollars they rake in every year, it’s not surprising that they are desperate to protect their product.

It’s a quandary. The game is fun to watch and fun to play. I don’t see any way to successfully protect the players without fatally modifying the game. At a minimum, the NFL should admit the problem, and players should be made completely aware of the risk they are taking. Then the NFL should compensate and pay for health care for any player found to have suffered typical football-related cerebral damage, even if it shows up 20 years after playing.

Of course improved helmets might help too, and changing the rules e.g. against “leading with your head” (as has been done to some extent) makes sense. In any other industry the company would be forced to protect its workers from occupational hazards. But it’s hard to imagine how to eliminate the problem and preserve football as we know it.

I think a very important and relevant point that isn’t being discussed enough is that the House simply refuses to even bring to a vote a simple “clean” continuing resolution on the budget.

The House sent a few bills to the Senate that included defunding or delaying Obamacare. The Senate stripped out the Obamacare parts, passed the resulting budget bills and sent them back to the House. But the House wouldn’t even vote on the returned bills.

Why? Because if they had voted they likely would have passed. Enough moderate Republicans would have joined with all Democrats and passed one of the budget bills.

But if Boehner allowed it to come to a vote, and especially if it passed, the majority of the Republicans in the House would have been unhappy, and he would probably lose his job as Speaker. The Speaker of the House is chosen by his own party only.

This whole thing would be settled quickly and easily if the House would just let Democracy function and simply vote on a clear budget.

It’s a crazy situation when a minority can prevent the majority from acting.

The Kaiser Foundation recently completed a poll of Americans on the Affordable Care Act. The findings are interesting.

43% of those polled had an unfavorable impression of the law (vs. 39% favorable), but just 35% think opponents of the law should continue their efforts to repeal the law or keep it from being implemented.

But it gets really interesting when they polled people about their knowledge of the new law.

–Only 59% knew that coverage could not be denied based on medical history.
–42% thought that the government would set up panels to make end of life decisions for those on Medicare (the infamous “Death Panels”).
–43% thought that illegal immigrants would be given financial assistance to buy insurance coverage
–52% (over half!) thought that there would be a new government run insurance plan
–Only 65% knew about the new health insurance exchanges.
–42% thought that Medicare benefits would be cut.
–Only 42% knew that the act helps close the Medicare prescription “doughnut hole”.

When you consider the widespread ignorance about what the act does, the polls about favorable/unfavorable opinions become pretty meaningless.