Tue: QOP, Is It Hard to Be Humane When It Saves Money?

This is From Al Jazeea, and I Don't Know How Reliable They Are on These Matters

On Sunday, Israel announced that a 55-metre-long (180ft), 10-metre-deep (32ft) tunnel was found under the hospital.

The statement said that the tunnel was found “in the area of the hospital underneath a shed alongside a vehicle containing numerous weapons including RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], explosives, and Kalashnikov rifles”.

The Israeli military also released a video that was recorded using two separate cameras on November 17. Spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters the entrance was uncovered when a military bulldozer knocked down the outside wall of the hospital, revealing a metallic spiral staircase that descended 10m (32ft) and led to a blast door, which is typically a metallic door with strong closures and hinges, designed to resist explosions. Such doors are usually found on facilities such as bomb shelters.

But military analyst Zoran Kusovac quoted a civil engineer from Gaza who suggested that the video is actually clips of two different tunnels spliced together.

The first section of the video shows the vertical shaft that goes down. It shows features such as load-bearing concrete columns. They seem to be built with regular civil engineering techniques, which would have required large and loud machines such as concrete mixers.

Such a construction could not have been done in secret, the way Hamas tunnels are usually built. The purpose of this construction remains unknown.

The second part of the clip shows the horizontal tunnel. This displays features characteristic of Hamas tunnels — pre-fabricated pieces connected together section by section.

A control centre has not been found so far. Israeli troops have not yet tried to open the blast door at the end of the tunnel that they claim was under al-Shifa, fearing it could be booby-trapped, said Hagari.

Kusovac said that many different types of traps can be placed to prevent tunnel interceptions. Typically, they are improvised explosive devices (IEDs) connected with detonators that can be triggered by tripwire or even light or pressure. They detect the presence of a person entering the tunnel, setting off the explosive. “IEDs are basically like toys the big boys make. The more creative you are, the more successful you are,” said Kusovac.

If armies suspect the presence of such traps, typical regulations are to call explosion experts who arrive and assess the situation. Kusovac said that this usually takes a few hours, not over a day. This time delay brings the veracity of the Israeli military’s claims into question. “You say smoking gun, you get to it and then you don’t show the smoking gun,” he said.

CNN, among other news outlets, visited the exposed tunnel shaft and confirmed the presence of a tunnel, but could not establish whether or not the tunnel led to a command centre.

What Israel’s video of ‘Hamas tunnel’ under al-Shifa tells us

Holt Gave Them a Jolt

Geoffrey Holt was unassuming as the caretaker of a mobile home park in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, where he lived a simple, but curious life.

Residents would see Holt around town in threadbare clothes — riding his lawn mower, headed to the convenience store, parked along the main road reading a newspaper or watching cars pass.

He did odd jobs for others, but rarely left town. Despite having taught driver’s ed to high schoolers, Holt had given up driving a car. He opted for a bicycle instead and finally the mower. His mobile home in the park was mostly empty of furniture -- no TV and no computer, either. The legs of the bed went through the floor.

But Holt died earlier this year with a secret: He was a multimillionaire. And what’s more, he gave it all away to this community of 4,200 people.

His will had brief instructions: $3.8 million to the town of Hinsdale to benefit the community in the areas of education, health, recreation and culture.

“I don’t think anyone had any idea that he was that successful,” said Steve Diorio, chairperson of the town selectboard who’d occasionally wave at Holt from his car. “I know he didn’t have a whole lot of family, but nonetheless, to leave it to the town where he lived in ... It’s a tremendous gift.”

Note to Georgia QOP:  Is It Really So Hard to Do the Humane Thing When It Actually Saves Money?

After a decade of stubborn, partisan resistance, Georgia Republicans are finally ready to consider providing health coverage for their 300,000 or so uninsured state residents with Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. State House members held a hearing last Thursday to hear testimony on the issue.

The legislators heard from officials in Arkansas, an early adopter of Medicaid expansion under then-Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat. The officials testified about the significant drop in uninsured rates after expansion and the fact that while 56 rural hospitals in the surrounding states have been forced to close in recent years, only one has closed in Arkansas. “This sounds incredibly good and sensible,” Rep. Lee Hawkins, chair of a House Health Committee, told the Arkansas officials. That’s what advocates for expansion have been arguing around the country and in Georgia for a decade now.

Georgia is among the last 10 Medicaid expansion holdout states, and ranks third from the bottom in percentage of its population that’s uninsured, with just Texas and Oklahoma doing worse. The only nondisabled adults who are eligible for Medicaid in the state are pregnant women and the relatively few people enrolled in the state’s new work-requirements program.

It’s also suffered nine rural hospital closures since 2010, as well as the closure of a major metropolitan hospital. The Atlanta Medical Center, which shut down a year ago, served a population that was roughly 70% Black and more than 15% uninsured. In states without Medicaid expansion, these hospitals provide a disproportionate level of uncompensated care and take the financial hit. Numerous studies have shown that Medicaid expansion has had a positive financial impact for hospitals, particularly smaller rural providers.

The hearing is a not so subtle recognition that Gov. Brian Kemp’s big alternative plan to Medicaid expansion—a work requirement—is failing. In the first three months, it enrolled just 1,343 people out of the 370,000 who are supposedly eligible. The program imposes requirements that force low-income Americans to work, volunteer, study, or train to become eligible for coverage, as well as paying premiums.

According to one analyst, Leah Chan at the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, the program will cost the state five times more per person than simple Medicaid expansion because of the high administrative costs—and that’s if the estimated 100,000 people enroll in the first year of the program. "With this program, there's the added layer of not just enrollment, but monthly reporting where you have to provide some verification of your 80 hours of employment, higher education, volunteering, etc.," Chan said. "Even for people who are eligible, that act of doing that monthly reporting could keep them from being covered."

That requires a lot of staff time—and money—to verify every month. That’s how far a Republican governor will go to punish poor people. Maybe his legislature will finally decide to end the suffering.

To Most People Water is a Necessity.  But Now, There is Luxury Water.

Monsoon rains have finally passed and floods blocking the lone dirt road have retreated enough for a small truck to climb these Himalayan foothills to a gurgling spring. It spews water so fresh that people here call it nectar.

Workers inside a small plant ferry sleek glass bottles along a conveyer. The bottles, filled with a whoosh of this natural mineral water, are labeled, packed into cases and placed inside a truck for a long ride.

Ganesh Iyer, who heads the operation, watches like a nervous dad, later pulling out his phone, as any proud parent might, to show the underground cavern the waters have formed in this pristine kingdom, the world’s last Shangri-La.

This is no ordinary water. It will travel hundreds of miles to some of India’s luxury hotels, restaurants and richest families, who pay about $6 per bottle, roughly a day’s wage for an Indian laborer. Millions of people worldwide don’t have clean water to drink, even though the United Nations deemed water a basic human right more than a decade ago.

Yet, even as extreme heat dries up more aquifers and wells and leaves more people thirsty, luxury water has become fashionable among the world’s privileged, who uncap and taste it like fine wine.

This “fine water" is drawn from volcanic rock in Hawaii, from icebergs that have fallen from melting glaciers in Norway, or from droplets of morning mist in Tasmania.

Connoisseurs, some who study to become water sommeliers, insist this trend isn’t about snobbishness. They appreciate the purest of the pure.

“Water is not just water,” says Michael Mascha, a founder of the Fine Water Society, a consortium of small bottlers and distributors worldwide. He likens consumers of high-end water to foodies who’d drive miles to find heirloom tomatoes or a rare salt. Some drink fine water instead of alcohol.

“Having the right stemware, drinking at the right temperature, pairing it with food, celebrating with water – all those kinds of things are important.”

Precious water: As more of the world thirsts, luxury water becoming fashionable among the elite