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Daily Rounds: Romney's Tax Problem; Rwanda's Health Insurance Miracle; Israel's Pot-Smoking; CPR's Bystander Boost

Romney Calls Obama's Health Care Requirement A Tax (AP via The Boston Globe) — "The majority of the court said it's a tax and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There's no way around that," Romney told CBS News. "You can try and say you wish they had decided a different way but they didn't. They concluded it was a tax." Romney's comments amounted to a shift in position. Earlier in the week, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney viewed the mandate as a penalty, a fee or a fine - not a tax."

(Also note The WSJ's blistering editorial on "Romney's Tax Confusion," which says: "The tragedy is that for the sake of not abandoning his faulty health-care legacy in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney is jeopardizing his chance at becoming President."

In Rwanda, Health Care Coverage That Eludes The U.S. (The New York Times) — "Last week’s Supreme Court decision upholding of the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law moves the United States closer to the goal of health coverage for all. All other developed countries have it. But so do some developing nations — Brazil, Thailand, Chile. These countries are mostly middle income. But one country on the list is among the poorest of the poor: Rwanda. The point is not that Americans should envy Rwanda’s health system — far from it. But Rwanda’s experience illustrates the value of universal health insurance. “Its health gains in the last decade are among the most dramatic the world has seen in the last 50 years,” said Peter Drobac, the director in Rwanda for the Boston-based Partners in Health, which works extensively with the Rwandan health system. It couldn’t have happened without health insurance.

Medical Marijuana Use Sprouting in Israel (NPR) — "Israel has become a world leader in the use of medical marijuana. More than 10,000 patients have received government licenses to consume the drug to treat ailments such as cancer and chronic pain...
Susan Malkah breathes in the cloud of smoke from a plastic inhaler especially formulated for medical marijuana use. She has a number of serious ailments and is confined to a wheelchair. "It's not like we're kids and we're getting high and going out and partying. You take it, you're by yourself usually, you just do it because you want to be in a better place. You don't want to sit and stew in the pain," says Malkah, who has been using cannabis for about two years. "It's natural, it helps, you don't have to fill your body full of chemicals. It's terrific."

With CPR, Two Bystanders Are Better Than One (Reuters) — "When somebody suffers cardiac arrest in a public place, the odds of survival are better when more than one bystander comes to the rescue, according to a Japanese study."

This program aired on July 5, 2012. The audio for this program is not available.

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