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You know my Aunt Betty ... the one who always has vinegar with her waffles in the morning?

{laughter}

{laughter}

{laughter}

{laughter; dissolve to:}

There's more to the Information Web than just e-mail, as we have seen. It's changed the way nearly every federal agency handles its affairs. And, it's forced changes in our legal system, changes that are still causing ripples nationwide.

When the National Health Act was passed in 1993, it had been debated for over twenty years in various forms. The legislation passed in 1994, and the effects are still being felt. While not nationalized insurance as such, it provides support for home care and intracommunity support in brand new ways.

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{she's in front of the HealthCare office building}

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{this one is a good example of the involved bureaucrat}

Home visits from nurses vary from twice a day to once a month, and doctor's visits are roughly the same. Many people don't even need a full-fledged nurse--an assistant can do as well. Physical therapy is often set up in groups--once a day, a neighborhood or building get-together for exercise and circulatory assistance. Other physical therapy is done on the cable channel.

We've got thirty-five thousand people signed up now--at this point an average of twenty percent of the funding is coming from their pockets, and will continue to do so for several more years--but again, most people prefer it. Try asking your grandmother whether she'd rather pay a twenty percent the cost and be able to stay at home, and you'll likely get an answer of yes.

RuthAnn Wylie:

Why is the system funded the way it is?

Thomas MacIntyre:

There has to be funding to develop social services in a preventative vein. Medicare, Medicaid, and the like tend to be crisis-management solutions. At present, the fund is being used to train nurse's assistants, augment doctor's pay so that the salaries are reasonably competitive with normal pay, purchase vehicles for transportation of the elderly, and maintain the medical records for instant access.

RuthAnn Wylie:

{Richard, RuthAnn needs some work on her interview skills. This guy answers well in spite of her questions, instead of because of them}

Thomas MacIntyre:

Having the Window available for record review is one of the ways this system works, and without it we would be having bureaucratic headaches. With the Window, the elderly individual or couple can keep tabs on medicine, treatment, and scheduling, and the medical technician is able to have the most up-to-date information available--who did what when, and why.

We try to maintain continuity of care, since these people develop personal relationships with their caretakers.

But you can't depend on individual notes or personal memory for systems like this. You have to be able to have records that are accessible to those people who need to know.

RuthAnn Wylie:

And there's no problem with privacy? Don't the insurance companies want that information? Wouldn't that cause some revoking of coverage?

Thomas MacIntyre:

The records that the insurance companies have are the same ones they've always had. Several protections against privacy invasions are set up, and while you and your viewers may not believe it, there are dozens of checks to prevent unauthorized access to medical records in the HomeCare program.

We've got the Computer Consortium folks to assist with the primary programming, and they've got hackers who spend all their time trying to get into the system. That's their job. When they find a way in, they get a bonus, and the hole in the Window gets patched. That's the final check.

So far, it's worked well. We'd find out if the insurance companies were misusing information, since people would be being denied coverage without appropriate public reasons, and that's plain illegal. So far it's worked, and we intend to be sure it continues.

You see, it's in the government's and the people's interests to keep these systems free of intrusion. If the insurance companies don't cover a need, then eventually society will--in the form of drastic health care or long-term maintainance care. That costs the government money. And costs the taxpayer money. It comes from somewhere, and that's the taxpayer's pocketbook. Patient privacy, therefore, is in the government's--the taxpayer's--interests.

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{in front of office building again}

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Thousands of local and regional organizations similar to the HealthCare program have sprung up nationwide, some state- or federally-run, others privately directed, still others a mix of both, but all using the Information Highway to coordinate efforts and reach people who want to be reached. The Highway, with the Direct Grants and the Educonomy, has broadened the strength of our society by strengthening individuals.

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Sure, I got a grant. $1200. Three weeks work for me, and that was hard work, too. You ever been in one of those moon suits? Hot, man, whoah. Hot as hell, they don't put good AC in those state-owned jobs. And this was in July. Sheeesh, July in a hothouse, but was I gonna take it off and dig out recyclables without one? You crazy if you think that.

Now, I wasn't sure they was going to give me any money at all. I mean, the money the recycled stuff put back in the Big Till didn't come close to putting back the twelve hundred they paid me. Not to mention the cost of the suit, the cost of the checkwriting, and all. But in the long run, they probley got it back. I mean, now I really recycle. Big time. Six kinds of plastic, aluminum, tin, paper, you name it, and I recycle it. I even compost for the window garden in my apartment. The stuff that goes to the dump from me is maybe a pail or two a week, and that's for three kids and me.

What's that worth? I don't know. But I'm sure it saves the government from having to figure some way to deal with all my trash, having to pay to have my trash buried, or carried to some far-off place, or burned so we can all breathe it. Or pay somebody like me to dig it out and separate it while sweating in a moon suit.

So what'd that $1200 do for me? It kept me off the dole for that time, and let me learn a thing or two.

I read that lotsa folk think that's pissing money down a hole, but not to me. It's investing in people instead of banks. It's made me a little different, and that's worth those pennies. I just wish all those rich ----ers who are bitching and moaning spent a few weeks doing some of the work that they call misspent. They'd learn a little about what money's really worth.

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They gave me a shiny new computer, they call it a Star. My social worker signed me up. Well, I sure didn't know what to do with it. But my kids, see, they'd seen 'em in school lots a times, even played games on 'em, and the 'structions for folk like me who can't read good made it pretty easy.

But it was my kids that got me started on it. I ain't so scared of it now, not like I was then. They sat me down, entered my name and all, just like you're supposed to do.

That sure was a treat. My name showed up right on the screen just like I was somebody important.

Ain't you followin me? Lemme explain so's you can understand. When I was a kid, my mamma was a seamstress.

She'd sew clothes for people all over town ... rich white people mostly. They'd drive up in their shiny new cars and look at our house like it was painted in dogshit. They'd look at us like we was dogshit, too. But they sure liked mamma's work. They'd come back again and again. Well, mamma died bout ten years ago, but she teached me everything she knew. I still got her sewin machine. I used to sew for people too, but since I can't go out, what with the three kids'n all, it was hard findin people who wanted me to sew for 'em.

Well, when my kids showed me how to work the computer, they put me down as bein able to teach people how to sew.

And you wouldn't believe how many people called me up, just to learn how to sew. Seems not many people know how much anymore, especially in a town like this. Anyway, with all those people wantin lessons, and I was able to do it at home, I earned a whole bunch a credits. When so many people got to callin, I started doin work for 'em.

Anyway, I didn't need those eds. What would I be doin learnin something new? I gave em all to my kids. My oldest boy, he was fourteen when this got started, he's real bright. He's the smartest one in our family. He used my eds to learn how to weld. He was able to get a job in a weldin shop, and now he's saved up enough money to go to college. You see, he got a scholarship--I told ya he was bright. He'll be the first kid ever in my family to make it out of this hellhole. An he'll be able to help his little brothers and sisters along.

And I still teach folks to sew. But I also do sewing for people. I got a partner. She does the designs, and I do the sewing. She talks with these rich women, tellin them how to look, what kinda clothes to have. And then we make it for 'em. Costs a lot, but these folk can afford it.

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{This guy is a hoot--distracted, brilliant, animated, and almost fevered in his pleasure with his "baby," the Window. The perfect "forgetful professor."}

One of the Window wonders is that you only have to make information once. That is: no materiel--paper, trucks, boxes, forklifts, dollies, timeclocks, gasoline, there is so much STUFF to the distribution of any thing, any tangible product, any physical item. But with the Window, the item is information. It only needs to be made ... once! And it's then accessible. To everybody. Roughly forever--with no distribution costs to speak of--except the nodes themselves, the upkeep. But that's just fast RAM and communications, really, and it's used for lots of other things besides information searches.

The other wonder is that the system is relatively cheap. The unified system can divide its processing up to where there is least activity. Sort of a huge, dynamic set of intelligent, independent parallel processors.

Which means we can have the Window--because the programming is slick and mean and clean. Because we had good people making good choices because they knew they had a revolution in their hands, that they were about to transform society.

{he blinks, looks blank, listening to his earpiece}

{he turns away, toward the screen in front of him. His gloved hand moves. Definitely an arcane pattern that won't have significance to anybody}

{pull back to reveal turned back of Paul Carlyle}

Peter Bender was a founding member of the inner circle of programmers that devised the Window and Highway intersection. He's still deeply involved in making the Window succeed, even though he's no longer a working member of the Consortium. He says now he even sometimes has time to read, though most of his time is spent fine-tuning the Window programming.

Paul Carlyle, CBC News, Philadelphia. Richard?

{Here is the closing. We'll need to find one more poignant story to capture the imagination, and then dissolve into the following:}

The Information Agenda. We have watched our world change before our eyes over the last three years, and Williams'

Information Agenda has accellerated that change.

The Information Highway is part of our society now, as much as the telephone and the Fax machine. The Window is a miraculous tool that serves everyone who wants to use it.

Useful computers are now in seventy million homes, and almost as many offices. Information tools abound.

But all is not utopia. The economy has reacted to the Damage Taxes with the same speed with which it reacted to the other sudden waves--the Direct Grants, the Damage Tariffs, the five million Stars, the high-tech explosion.

That is, as fast as it could. But that speed has meant many disrupted lives. While unemployment in absolute terms is down, new employment is way up--over 30% of those questioned were working in a different job than they had been in 1993.

Is the Agenda a success? Certainly it has grown since 1993. Certainly it is part of our society.

But whether it is a success or not depends on how the voters of this country respond in November. Responses are mixed at this point, though clearly the advantage is Williams' to lose.

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{caption:}

But I say we are in business. The government is in the business of facilitating the development of the country and the people it represents. Providing communication lines.

Providing consensus tools. Providing information. And making that information useful. If information is public, then it should be truly public, and available, and free.

And accessible to all.

Knowledge can make us free. Providing tools for responsible freedom is precisely what the government's business is. And if I have a mandate, it is to assure that all Americans have access to the tools of education, to the tools of wealth, the to tools of freedom. Without these tools in the hands of every citizen, we will fail. But with these tools, we will thrive, and we will prosper.

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The Information Agenda: three years older, how much wiser? Have we prospered? Has it worked? Can we ever retreat? Do we want to? And what does the future hold for the man who made created this revolution in America? We have seen many answers to these questions in the last ninety minutes, but we must wait until the next election to know how the American voters feel about these Issues at Hand.

{dissolve to logo, fade to ad break, 120 secs}

{return to promo for following week--Totalitarianism in Ghana: How can it be fought?}

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