Will Eisner, one of the most influential figures in modern comics, died today from heart surgery complications. Neil Gaiman has a lovely tribute to Eisner on his blog. The past few weeks have seen the departure of many luminaries in the arts and humanities. Susan Sontag. Jerry Orbach. Artie Shaw. I was especially saddened by Jerry Orbach’s death. I frequently watch Law & Order and he was probably my favorite character. The guy just looked like New York, if that makes sense.
I’ve mentioned BitTorrent frequently on the blog. If you’ve been scratching your head and asking yourself “What the hell is BitTorrent?”, read this Wired article. It does a really good job of explaining what it does, how it works, and why it’s such a revolutionary technology. According to the article, one-third of all Internet traffic is BitTorrent data. Incredible.

My brother left early this morning. Early as in 5 a.m. So I woke up to an empty and rather quiet 19th Floor. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I always go through a bit of mental readjustment when a guest leaves after an extended stay. My usual routines go out the window when I have guests, which means I need to catch up on e-mail, podcasts, writing, etc. I also need to clean up the assorted holiday cards and knickknacks that have accumulated on my desk over the past few weeks. And I need to go out and buy a ream of printer paper because my brother used up most of mine printing articles for an academic conference in Phoenix. Yes, he’s in sunny, warm Phoenix right now, damn him. And then he’s going to drive to Las Vegas for a couple days of fun. I instructed him to scope out the best strippers for me in advance of my own trip.

I could post something trivial about my personal highlights for 2004, but that doesn’t seem right when the rising death toll from the tsunami still dominates the news. I’m going to give some more money to Doctors without Borders. Here’s a list of charities that are providing relief to the stricken areas.
I hope the New Year is bright for all of you. Thanks for sticking with me through 2004.

If I was asked to name one issue in 2005 that could affect millions of people with disabilities, it is the future of Medicaid. Medicaid, for you laypersons, is a joint federal-state entitlement program that funds health care for millions of low-income and disabled Americans. As a percentage of state spending, Medicaid is beginning to eclipse the other major budget component: education. The Bush Administration is widely anticipated to take on the ballooning costs of Medicaid in 2005. There’s been some talk about making Medicaid into a block grant program. This creates problems for states if Medicaid enrollments unexpectedly rise.
What the Bush Administration is really trying to do is address the massive deficit. Medicaid needs reform, absolutely. But there are other factors that need to be considered. Many states pay exorbitantly high reimbursement rates for prescription drugs. And don’t even get me started on payments to nursing homes. In FY 2003, $45 billion in Medicaid dollars were spent on nursing home care versus $4 billion in community-based services. If states could summon the political will to take on the nursing home lobby, it could result in huge savings for their Medicaid budgets. The role of perpetual institutional bias in our public health care programs needs to be acknowledged if we are really serious about controlling costs.
By the way, Medicare, a 100% federally funded program, doesn’t cover long-term care. In about ten years, that issue is going to reach a boiling point when all the boomers start clamoring for in-home care and state Medicaid funds won’t even come close to meeting the demand.

The devastation left in the wake of yesterday’s tsunami is staggering. Twenty-two thousand people dead and still counting. Someone (a tourist, from the looks of it) took some amazing pictures of the wave crashing into the island of Phuket, off the coast of Thailand. The NYT points out that some deaths might have been avoided if countries ringing the Indian Ocean had established an early-warning system like the one that exists in the Pacific. Most of these nations probably don’t have a lot of spare cash for that sort of thing, but let’s hope the world community chips so that the next time something like this happens, people in the affected areas will have a better chance of survival.