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discount cellular shades weblog I am taking a break and scanning the news. Ooff, I can be a news junkie sometimes. wink.Booo! Ugh bad government from heck!
Thank you Associated Press, John Solomon, and http://www.sfgate.com.
Government memorandum warned early Medicare drug card info scant, confusing
JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
Friday, October 15, 2004
(10-15) 04:56 PDT WASHINGTON
A day before the first presidential debate, the government's health policy watchdog raised concerns that early mailings to seniors about the new Medicare prescription discount cards championed by President Bush were confusing or inadequate.
"We found that these beneficiaries received very little mail from drug card sponsors that would enable them to make an informed choice among cards," the Health and Human Services Department inspector general wrote in the Sept. 29 internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The inspector general, the department's independent watchdog, is now conducting a more formal investigation to determine whether there are widespread problems after detecting concerns in an informal survey of 59 seniors, many whom were relatives of agency employees.
HHS spokesman William A. Pierce said the department is giving little credence to the initial survey because it was so small and unscientific, and officials will wait for the results of the broader review.
"If I had presented this in college statistics class, I would have been flunked," Pierce said of the initial survey cited in the memo. "The results, whatever they say, are invalid results because this was a non-random, tiny sample."
The temporary drug discount cards -- a frequent topic on the campaign trail and during the three presidential debates -- are the first wave of a two-phase plan to provide 41 million Medicare recipients with prescription insurance coverage by 2006.
The plan is touted by Bush repeatedly as a domestic policy success as he makes his case for a second term in the White House. His Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry, has argued that the president hasn't done enough to help the elderly with the rising costs of health care.
Both the government and insurers approved by the government for the discount program were permitted this spring to mail to seniors information about the cards designed to give a discount on prescription prices until the Medicare coverage benefit kicks in two years from now.
"Contrary to expectations, during the initial startup of the Drug Card program, we found that the 59 selected beneficiaries received little or no mail about the Drug Card Program from sponsors to assist them in making a choice among drug cards," Assistant Inspector General George Grob wrote in the memo to a top Medicare official.
"Most of the beneficiaries reported they did not receive adequate information about the drug card program through the mail and further the information they received was not easily understood," Grob reported.
Grob also raised concerns that many of the sample 59 seniors had received mail from other prescription drug programs that offered "competing services" and "which might cause beneficiaries to question whether to enroll in the Drug Card program at all."
A week after the report, Grob wrote a follow-up memo saying his office wasn't releasing the information publicly because the initial review was designed as a "very quick and early assessment" and that the results couldn't be used to draw conclusions about the rollout of the prescription discount cards.
Mark McClellan, Bush's Medicare chief, wrote a pointed response to the memo last week, arguing it was improper for the independent, nonpartisan inspector general to write about a survey that was "too small to generalize or draw any conclusions."
"What concerns me even more is what I have learned about the nature of who the IG's office recruited to be in the sample -- family and friends of OIG office staff," the Medicare chief wrote. "This is a non-representative sample and not a valid way to conduct a reliable and statistically valid analysis."
HHS officials said the timing of Grob's memo also raised concerns. The review was conducted in May and June and department officials were verbally briefed in July but the memo wasn't issued until Sept. 29, the day before Bush and Kerry debated the first time.
McClellan and other HHS officials said the initial survey did not capture the impact of an advertising program and direct mail effort by the government this summer that resulted in a 10,000-a-day enrollment spurt for the cards and which gave seniors a toll-free number to learn more.
"The report also makes no mention of what beneficiaries find when they call this number -- a simple, three-step process to sign up for the best card for them," the Medicare chief wrote.
Inspector general's officials said the real benefit of the initial study was to dispel early expectations that seniors were going to be inundated with material about the new program and also to identify "lessons learned" that could be used during the second phase of the Medicare prescription drug plan, documents show.
Thank you http://www.sfgate.com/ and Rachel for this good news article.
Yeah SAN FRANCISCO! Is this good government or what?
Domestic violence phone program grows
Rachel Gordon
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
City officials announced the expansion Tuesday of a program to provide victims of domestic violence with free cell phones, which they can use for everything from calling police in emergencies and making medical appointments to setting up job interviews and finding new housing.
Verizon Wireless donated 350 phones and 3,000 free minutes of airtime for each user enrolled in the program, which is being administered by the city's Department on the Status of Women.
The cell phone program is not new, but it has been beefed up this year with more phones and more free airtime, said Rosario Navarrette of the Commission on the Status of Women. The phones will be distributed to people through agencies in the city that work with domestic violence victims.
The program relies, in part, on the use of old cell phones that the company refurbishes. The city's Department on the Environment has set up collection stations for old cell phones. They are: the Department of the Status of Women's office, 25 Van Ness Ave., Suite 130; the city's EcoCenter, 11 Grove St.; the Municipal Railway office at 949 Presidio Ave.; and the Department of Public Health, 101 Grove St.
Phones also can be dropped off at all Verizon, Sprint PCS, AT&T and Cingular retail stores in San Francisco, as well as select T-Mobile facilities.
Many thanks to Karola and sfgate for this interesting article:
Fremont: Pearl's Cafe a gem with prices to match
Karola Saekel, Chronicle Staff Writer http://www.sfgate.com
Friday, October 15, 2004
One of Fremont's finest restaurants, Pearl's Cafe does a balancing act between country cute and 21st century California sensibilities.
The plain-Jane exterior fades from consciousness the moment one enters the little bungalow that sits between a tax preparer's digs and a beauty emporium. What was probably once a living room is now a dining room, pleasantly furnished in light wood reminiscent of an Austrian wine tavern. Adjacent is another dining room, a cozy area that adjoins the large, slightly ramshackle kitchen. A small garden in the rear has a few more tables shaded by umbrellas.
Chef Christine Fahey, who is part of the group that has owned the 15-year- old restaurant for the past couple of years, aims pretty high, both in preparation and price. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., whose previous kitchens include Viognier in San Mateo and the Wente Vineyards Restaurant in Livermore, she favors organic, local produce and changes the menu every six weeks to match the season.
On our last visit a couple of weeks ago, pumpkin ruled, both as part of the decor and on the menu, as in a fragrant thick pumpkin/apple soup that could be ordered separately ($5) or be included with a lunch or dinner entree.
The alternative is a house salad ($6, ordered separately), which suffered from leathery lettuces and an odd addition of strawberries on one visit, but was exemplary on a more recent one when the organic greens were crisp, though the whole-leaf treatment for soft lettuces makes for messy eating. The add-ons of cheese, grapes, marinated sweet red onions and candied walnuts achieve the proper balance for a great autumn salad.
The high number of elements is typical of this kitchen, sometimes -- as in this salad -- to good effect, sometimes threatening the palate with overload.
Pan-seared wild salmon ($24.50) with white corn pudding and wilted spinach was a fine dish that didn't really need avocado and tomato coulis as well.
A first course of prosciutto-wrapped prawns served on greens with a peppered goat cheese vinaigrette ($13.50) seemed less than fresh and did not benefit from the addition of melons, which were not fully ripe, anyway.
There are no such problems with the paella in a spicy tomato broth with saffron basmati rice ($27 dinner; $15 lunch). The seafood and sausage are excellent and plentiful. And unlike with many restaurants in a similar price bracket, the portion is ample.
After an appealing appetizer of roasted figs with blue cheese, bacon and a port reduction ($9.75) and one of my favorite main dishes, moist ricotta-and- fruit-stuffed oven-roasted chicken breast with fried polenta and asparagus ($24), I was tempted to skip dessert. I'm glad I didn't. At the suggestion of one of our attentive servers I ordered a Scharffen Berger chocolate brownie (all desserts $6.50) with a generous scoop of ice cream. It was devilishly good, and humongous.
I also liked the homey raspberry-apple crisp with a dollop of cream after a lunch of pumpkin ravioli ($13.95) that were deliciously light, though swimming in an Olympic pool of melted butter.
The staff at Pearl's displays a winning mixture of unpretentious friendliness and expertise. These servers know their menu, and they know the impressive, mostly California, wine list.
Starting with 17 wines by the glass ($6-$13.75), it is extensive, medium to high in markup, but user-friendly, with such identifiers as "light and fruity" in addition to traditional designations.
And whoever puts this list together has a sense of humor, identifying some wines like the Bonny Doon 2000 Le Cigar Volant ($42) as a Killer Blend, or the Niebaum-Coppola 2000 Cabernet Franc ($75) and the Noceto '99 Sangiovese Riserva Amador ($34) as Disgruntled Varietals.
Disgruntled customers should be far and few between at Pearl's.
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