Even Bush is sick of the Iraq fiasco...he has been mumbling about pulling out troops and about a "time horizon"...yes, "HORIZON," not a timeline, for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Don't know about you, but I have never heard anyone talk about "time horizons" before. Makes me think of an event horizon around a black hole...which is an ominous comparison.

Remember, though, Bush's shifting to withdrawal is not by any choice of his. The Iraq government has told him in no uncertain terms that we have outlived our welcome and they do not want us there permanently.

On June 18, 49-year-old Esmin Green was admitted to the Kings County Hospital Center psychiatric ward.  After waiting to be seen for 24 hours, she fell to the floor, began to convulse and then passed out.  Two security guards and one doctor walked into the waiting room, looked at her and then walked away.  After one hour, a nurse finally came over, kicked Ms. Green, and then proceeded to get a stretcher.  Shortly afterwards, Ms. Green was pronounced dead.  The entire incident was documented on a security camera, and is now on YouTube, thanks to the Associated Press.

Hospital officials said they fired three of the workers and suspended another three, the New York Times reported on July 7.  However, it is clear that Ms. Greene's death is far from an isolated incident at Kings County Hospital.  The New York Civil Liberties Union, in conjunction with Mental Hygiene Legal Service and the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, filed suit against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (the agency that runs Kings County Hospital) in May 2007.  The plaintiffs claimed that patients at the hospital's psychiatric facilities were subject to conditions of squalor and filth, as well as abuse by hospital employees.  A summary of the case can be found on the NYCLU website.

The evidence displayed in the lawsuit shows that Ms. Green's death is not solely the fault of the hospital employees who watched her die. The conditions in the hospital, particularly the psychiatric ward, and the treatment of the patients are the responsibility of the city agency that runs the hospital.  It was not until over one year into the litigation, and after Ms. Green's death, that the city finally agreed to adopt a series of basic stop-gap measures, including:

* That every patient be checked every 15 minutes.

• That there be no more than 25 patients at any time in the psychiatric emergency ward.
  
• That detailed records on the ward be turned over every week to the advocates involved in the lawsuit.
  
• And that the advocates be active participants in the search for a new deputy executive director and emergency room director for Kings County Hospital's Behavioral Health department.

It is shocking that it took a lawsuit and the very public death of a woman to get New York City to agree to such basic levels of care for mental health patients.  Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, said:

What's happening in Kings County Hospital is an affront to human dignity...In 2008 in New York City, nobody should be subjected to this kind of treatment. It should not take the death of a patient to get the city to make changes that everyone knows are long overdue.

What is even more distressing about Ms. Green's death and the allegations of gross negligence of patients at Kings County Hospital is that many residents in Central Brooklyn do not have access to other hospitals.  This is mainly due to the fact that the predominantly black, low-income areas of Central Brooklyn, particularly the neighborhoods Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Canarsie, Crown Heights, East New York, and Flatbush have seen numerous hospital closures in the last few years.

The Opportunity Agenda has documented these hospital closures on its website Health Care That Works.  Since 1985, Central Brooklyn has seen five local hospitals close their doors.  Because of these closures, people in these minority communities have been forced to rely on Kings County Hospital even more.  Local residents also begged the city to keep local clinics open - their requests can be seen in a video on The Opportunity Agenda's YouTube channel.  At the same time all of these facilities were closing, allegations of mistreatment at Kings County were surfacing.

The fact that people of color have inferior access to health care in New York contributes greatly to the health disparities in the city.  The Opportunity Agenda report Dangerous and Unlawful: Why Our Health Care System Is Failing New Yorkers and How to Fix It documents how areas with high concentrations of African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans are more likely to have shortages of primary care physicians than predominantly white communities are.  The distribution of hospitals and other health care services has a significant discriminatory effect on these communities of color - their health care access is simply inadequate.

Ms. Green's death should do more than signify the need for improvement of existing hospitals like Kings County.  It should also remind us that many people in New York, and across the country, lack basic primary care and access to emergency services.  Changing this reality needs to be a part of health care reform discussions.  If it isn't, we will continue to see needless deaths like Ms. Green's occur.

Let's look at some the events of the last few days, to see what they have in common:

1) Dennis Kucinich introduced a single new article of impeachment against the president, for his and his administration's lying us into a disastrous and illegal war;

2) Karl Rove not only failed to appear before the HJC on Thursday after being subpoenaed, but he skipped the country without notifying Congress(!);

3) Nancy Pelosi, in her signature style (vague, ambiguous, and vague again), made a statement which seemed to leave the door open for impeachment hearings (back on the table?);

4) I, Adam Sullivan, filed well in excess of the number of required petition signatures to gain ballot access for the Democratic primary here in NYC, where I am challenging Jerrold Nadler for his seat representing New York's Eighth Congressional District in the House.

From my perspective, this is a strong list of reasons for Mr. Nadler--who chairs the Subcommittee of the Judiciary on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties--to change his position on seeking to initiate impeachment hearings.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Jacob saw his first real fireworks display and loved it at first. We were watching from the 12th floor of a building right on the waterfront, so it was spectacular. Unfortunately, he was coming down with a fever and by the end was pretty unhappy. He is fine again now.

This was a big week, both locally where my friend qualified for the ballot for NYC's Sept. 9th primary election, and nationally where Obama's surge continued even as the Democrats once again showed less spine than we would like them to. More below.

It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

*    This past week there have been a number of news articles on HIV and the racial disparities among those who are infected.  The Washington Post reported that the number of young homosexual men diagnosed with HIV has risen 12%.  The largest increase of 15% was among young African American men (compared to a 9% increase among young white men):

Previous studies have found that gay black men on average have fewer sex partners, are less likely to use drugs and are no more likely to have unprotected intercourse than gay white men. Consequently, their higher rate of infection does not appear to arise from riskier behavior.

Instead, it reflects the higher prevalence of HIV -- as well as syphilis and gonorrhea, which increase a person's susceptibility to HIV -- in the black population.

Despite this negative news of increasing health disparities between whites and African Americans, there was also a positive step in the battle against HIV.  According to the New York Times, the New York City Health Department has announced a three year plan to give an HIV test to everyone living in the Bronx:

While Manhattan has long been the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in New York, with the highest incidence of both AIDS and H.I.V., the virus that causes it, the Bronx, with its poorer population, has far more deaths from the disease. Public health officials attribute this to people not getting tested until it is too late to treat the virus effectively, thus turning a disease that can now be managed with medication into a death sentence.

Though the story does not mention the demographic population of the Bronx, 35.6% of Bronx residents are African American, a much larger percentage than the percentage of African American Manhattanites (who make up only 17.4% of the borough's population).  Expanding HIV testing in the Bronx is an important part of combating the racial disparities among those with HIV and helping end the upward trend of HIV rates among young African Americans.

*    The Kaiser Health Disparities Report has a story on a House bill to reduce allowable lead levels in paint.  The bill, which just unanimously passed the House Financial Services Committee, aims to lower the number of children exposed to lead-based paint (many of whom are poor, minority children who live in older homes):

According to bill sponsor Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and other lawmakers, despite a 1992 law that restricted the use of lead-based paint in houses, hundreds of thousands of children are exposed to excessive levels of lead, which can cause brain damage and other serious health problems.

*    The HealthBeat blog has a posting on how progressives should incorporate cost control into their discussion of health care reform.  Without cost control on the agenda of health care reform, it will be difficult to bring Americans who are most concerned with rising costs of health care on board:

That is why I believe that progressives must begin talking about the high cost of care, and how we need to wring the waste out of the system to make truly effective, high quality care affordable for everyone. Don't let the conservatives dominate the debate about spending. If they do, they'll take the conversation in the wrong direction.

The Opportunity Agenda believes that addressing the issue of cost is crucial to a fruitful, productive discussion on health care reform. For example, 52% of American workers do not enroll in employer insurance plans because they are too costly.  Premiums for family coverage have increased by 59% since 2000.  Decreasing these costs, in addition to addressing the problems of unequal access and unequal quality, is absolutely necessary in order to reform the health care system in the U.S.  To learn more, take a look at The Opportunity Agenda fact sheet, Health Care and Opportunity.

*    For a touch of humor, check out a recent posting on Disease Management Care Blog.  Along with a YouTube video of Canned Heat's "Let's Work Together" there are new lyrics encouraging all to work together to reform health care in the U.S.:

Together we'll stand
Divided we'll fall
we need more data
the... cash flows will stall
let's work together
Come on, come on
let's work together
Now now people....
Because together we will stand
Every doc, all the vendors and Plans!...

Strange week. Saw my first McCain ad this week...and it is clear he is running as a Democrat. Healthcare, alternative energy, environment...all Democratic talking points. We have gone from Democrats feeling like they have to run as Repub-Lite to Republicans trying to hide behind a Democratic facade. You even have a Republican running for Senate in Oregon trying to claim (falsely) that Obama supports him. This is desperation for the Republicans! It sounds like racist attacks have failed them, though I am sure they will try more as time goes on.

Meanwhile yet more polls show Obama ahead in Virginia and Missouri, tied in Florida, AHEAD IN INDIANA (wow!) and within 1-2 points of McCain in North Carolina, Alaska and Georgia. Each and every one of these states was solid Bush in 2004. Now they are either leaning Obama or effectively tied.

The floods in the Midwest have continued and I include some information where I can in the Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin sections. Best of luck to all readers in the hard hit areas.

This week I return to an issue I discussed before: Republican cronies litterally killing our troops with no government oversight. This week Democratic Sentor Bob Casey is demanding an investigation of the electrocutions due to bad wiring that have been plaguing our military bases managed by a Hallibruton subsidiary. More below.