SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE.
The U.S. health care system is about to change under the Affordable Care Act... aka Obamacare. Some think for the better. That may be true... for some. This is a story about Dick Wagner, lead guitar player for bands such as Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, and Kiss. His story could well have turned out differently from this year forward. This was written less than a week ago.
SEARCH BLOG: PALIN and OBAMA.
You remember that Alaskan nut, Sarah Palin. She said all sorts of ridiculous things about President Obama. Scott Starnes points out that maybe, just maybe, she was not the nut we should have rebuked.
Read more here.
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE.
The Obama administration has given individual states until December 14 to decide whether or not to participate in "Health Care Exchanges." The State of Michigan has chosen today.
SEARCH BLOG: RELIGION and GENDER and HEALTH CARE.
Neither are a "special interest" group favored by the Obama administration.
Consequently, while Obamabuddies are readily exempt from Obamacare, white males and Christians find themselves on the outside looking in. That is probably justified in Obamathink because white males and Christians are oppressors.
From Fox News:
Hobby Lobby Stores has appealed a federal judge’s decision denying the craft supply chain’s request to not provide employees with insurance that covers morning-after and week-after birth control pills, as mandated by the ObamaCare law.
The Christian-owned company asked for relief in the face of fines they say could reach $1 million a day for not providing the coverage.
The appeal was filed Tuesday in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal judge in Oklahoma on Monday denied the owners’ request for a temporary injunction against the provisions of the Obama administration's health law.
Here is a link to some of the organizations and companies exempted from Obamacare. The question is: why should there need to be an exemption ... or hundreds of exemptions ... if the law were reasonable and just? The answer: the law is unreasonable and unjust.The chain's appeal states in part that Chief Executive Officer David Green his family in less than six weeks “must either violate their faith by covering abortion-causing drugs or be exposed to severe penalties -- including fines of up to $1.3 million per day, annual penalties of about $26 million and exposure to private suits.” [more.]
... WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.“Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation,” writes Paul Conner of the Daily Caller. “By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.”Because of the backlash over the waivers, HHS announced last summer that it would stop accepting applications for one-year waivers and would simply grant or deny waivers all the way through the end of 2013, according to The Hill.
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE.
The New York Times was a standard bearer for the Obama campaign declaring that Republicans were waging a "war on women."
Striking new evidence has emerged of a widespread gap in the cost of health insurance, as women pay much more than men of the same age for individual insurance policies providing identical coverage, according to new data from insurance companies and online brokers. [more.]Imaging how surprising this must be to senior men who are shopping for health insurance... or life insurance. Here is a schedule of premiums for men and women who wish to buy Medigap insurance.
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE.
This was sent to me via email by Shannon Skousgaard.
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE
Received the following via an email from my insurance company [USAA]. Now, doesn't this make you feel better?
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SEARCH BLOG: ECONOMY.
You buy an airplane ticket and arrive at the airport. Ooops, you get hit with add-on fees that can add 10% or more to the cost of your flight... costs the price of your ticket didn't cover. You go to a hotel and stay for the night. Ooops, when you check out, you find you have been charged "spa fees" for their gym and pool... even though you didn't use them.
Well, get ready for more. From The Seattle Times:
Why stop there?Joanne Silberner stood at the podium, about to referee a CityClub panel on health-care costs.As a former health-policy correspondent for National Public Radio, Silberner knows a lot.But, she told the panelists and the audience, she was baffled when she got two bills after a recent visit to a dermatologist.One bill, for $109, was for the doctor, who saw her in his office at the Roosevelt Clinic. Then, to her dismay, she got another bill — $228 — for using the space.The care she got seemed identical to an earlier visit with a dermatologist at another clinic — except for the two-bill whammy. [image]
SEARCH BLOG: OBAMA and HEALTH CARE.
Suppose you are one of those people who believes in having insurance coverage on your appliances or cars. You buy a policy that says you can have any service provider do the work and it will be covered. Then your covered product breaks down and you try to arrange a repair and find out that while the service is "covered," you cannot actually get service because the service provider will not be paid enough to actually get them to do the work.
Friday October 26, 2012
Aha! Pay doctors more for Medicaid
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE and RELIGION
A Mandate to Disobey
Thomas Joseph White and R. R. Reno
The Affordable Care Act mandates that employers offer and individuals buy insurance that provides free contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization. It seems we have passed from a society that allows legal access to these drugs and services to one that insists that they must be free, subsidized by everyone’s insurance premiums. Catholics and others are no longer being asked to tolerate what we believe to be wrong; now we must participate. [read the full article]I'm not a Catholic and have, at times, been at odds with the practices of that church. But I understand the conundrum of being faced with mandates that are diametrically opposed to one's faith and principles and having... apparently... no good option to fight it.
Seems simple. Close all Catholic schools, universities, hospitals, and charities for one month and direct all students and patients to go to public counterparts. The strain on the public system will be overwhelming. Then Catholic officials can go public with the reason: the ACA requires Catholic organizations to violate their faith and principles. The organizations will re-open when declared exempt from those ACA requirements.
A tough and costly sacrifice for the faith. But an effective one I'll wager.If the Catholic Church is really concerned about the tenets of its faith being compromised by the ACA, then a real sacrifice in defense of that faith is appropriate. Were the Catholic Church to merely announce that it was taking these actions, there would emergency meetings in Congress and throughout the United States trying to figure out how to deal with profound public crisis.
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE
You know that $9 per month "free" contraception benefit from Obamacare? Well, it seems it comes at a significantly greater cost to everyone's health care.
From Forbes:
The Federal Government's War On Medical Innovation
By Paul Hsieh
The federal government is waging a stealth two-pronged war on medical innovation. And it will cost not just American jobs, but American lives.
The first prong is through new taxes. Recently, the Cook Medical company announced that it was canceling plans to open new factories because of the impending ObamaCare tax on medical device manufacturers scheduled to take effect in 2013. The 2.3% tax on total sales (not profits) will cost Cook $20 million dollars a year. As a result, the company will not be opening five plants that would have employed up to 300 people each.
Cook is not the only medical device company affected by the tax. Stryker (which makes artificial joints) will cut 5% of its workforce. Medtronic has announced the tax will cut into its investments in future products. Jonathan Rennert, chairman of Zoll Medical (which makes advanced cardiac defibrillators) has stated that the tax will mean “less innovation, fewer jobs, and fewer lives saved.”
The second prong of the war on innovation is through regulations. The Wall Street Journal recently reported how a single FDA scientist, Dr. Robert Smith, blocked approval of digital mammography machines for several years last decade. Breast cancer specialists like Dr. Etta Pisano stated that Smith had imposed “obstacles to approval that were unreasonable.” This was especially frustrating for Pisano, who had co-authored a 42,760-patient study in the 2005 New England Journal of Medicine that demonstrated the reliability of digital mammography and showed that it was “‘significantly better’ than film in finding cancer in women under 50 and those before or during menopause.”
However, Smith’s lawyer claims that Dr. Smith was merely following proper FDA procedure. Smith contends that too many other FDA regulators have an improper “cozy relationship” with medical device manufacturers, whereas Smith was merely being “an honest and rigorous regulator.”
It would be bad enough if Smith had been a rogue, overzealous regulator. But it’s even worse if Smith is correct, because that means Smith represents how the system is supposed to work.
As the Wall Street Journal notes, “There is no way of knowing whether any women had cancers advance because of the delays of digital technology.” But a friend (and breast cancer survivor) whom I will call “Cynthia” told me:
I just realized that if this particular bureaucrat had continued in his position, I probably wouldn’t be here… [P]erhaps I should send him a “thank you for moving on” card.
(Cynthia had an invasive breast cancer that was detected at a still-treatable stage with a digital mammogram. It might not have been detected until a year later if she had been obliged to have a conventional film mammogram.)
Even though this particular regulator is gone, how many more Dr. Smiths still work at the FDA, delaying other vitally-needed medical innovations for American patients? [read more]Mr. Obama, how's that for a war on health care?
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SEARCH BLOG: POLITICS
As posted earlier, Paul Ryan has been named to run for Vice President with Mitt Romney. Let's get some of the red herrings out of the way:
Paul Ryan is too inexperienced in foreign affairs. Paul Ryan will not be setting foreign policy. Ryan is bringing expertise in the area of budgets and economics... something completely lacking for the past 3-1/2 years from the Democrats. Ryan's expertise can save the military from potentially disastrous cuts that will happen under the Obama administration. Paul Ryan wants to gut Medicare to balance the budget. False. Ryan has proposed alternatives that will address future funding issues for Medicare now that the Affordable [Health] Care Act will take out a half-trillion dollars from Medicare... a direct result of a Democratic Party Congress and President.Paul Ryan will wage "war on women" just as will Mitt Romney. That's just too stupid to comprehend. The so-called "war on women" is the failure of the Obama administration to make any meaningful headway to improve the economy for the past 3-1/2 years. Women don't need $9 per month for birth control. They need jobs based on a strong economy... something that has completely eluded the socialists presently in power.SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE
Plaintiffs,v.
SEARCH BLOG: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Obamacare... "fixes" everything "wrong" with our health care system.
From the liberal The New York Times:
Hospitals Are Worried About Cut in Fund for the Uninsured By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: July 26, 2012
President Obama’s health care law is putting new strains on some of the nation’s most hard-pressed hospitals, by cutting aid they use to pay for emergency care for illegal immigrants, which they have long been required to provide.
The federal government has been spending $20 billion annually to reimburse these hospitals — most in poor urban and rural areas — for treating more than their share of the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. The health care law will eventually cut that money in half, based on the premise that fewer people will lack insurance after the law takes effect.
But the estimated 11 million people now living illegally in the United States are not covered by the health care law. Its sponsors, seeking to sidestep the contentious debate over immigration, excluded them from the law’s benefits. [full article]Why that is just astounding! Who would have thought that the mandate to provide hospital care to the uninsured combined with the un-funding of that mandate and the relaxation of any attempt to stop illegal entry into the country would have a negative impact on our hospitals? That was simply unforeseeable.
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE
A great article from the National Review that sums up the foibles of Obamacare.
Here’s a quick checklist of the ten worst things in the law — in addition to the individual and Medicaid mandates [image]:
1. Employer mandate. Most companies will have to provide and pay for expensive government-determined health insurance for their employees or face federal fines.
2. Anti-conscience mandate. Religious organizations will be required to provide free sterilization, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees, even if it violates their religious beliefs.
3. New and higher taxes.The law contains at least 20 new taxes totaling $500 billion that will hit medical innovators, health insurance, and even the sale of your home.
4. The Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB will still stand, with its rationing power over Medicare.
5. State exchanges. States will be compelled to set up vast new bureaucracies to check into our finances and families so they can hand out generous taxpayer subsidies for health insurance to families earning up to $90,000 a year.
6. Medicare payment cuts. $575 billion in payment reductions to Medicare providers and Medicare Advantage plans will cause more and more physicians to stop seeing Medicare patients, exacerbating access problems.
7. Higher health-care costs. The Kaiser Family Foundation says the average price of a family policy has risen by $2,200 during the Obama administration. The president promised premiums would be $2,500 lower by this year. Hospitals, doctors, businesses, and consumers all expect their taxes and health costs to rise under Obamacare.
8. Government control over doctor decisions.Value-based payments, quality reporting requirements, and government comparative-effectiveness boards will dictate how doctors practice medicine. Nearly half of all physicians are seriously considering leaving practice, leading to a severe doctor shortage.
9. Huge deficits. The CBO has raised its cost estimate for the law to $1.76 trillion over ten years, but that is only the opening bid as more and more people lose their job-based coverage and flood into taxpayer-subsidized insurance. At this rate, the cost will be $2 trillion, not the less than $1 trillion the president promised.
10. 159 new boards, agencies, and programs: The Obama administration will work quickly to set up as many of the law’s new bureaucracies as fast as it can so they can take root before the election.Read the full article.
SEARCH BLOG: HEALTH CARE
Thanks to Lou for this tip. Reminds me of the several years taking my father to the VA hospitals for his treatments... which they eventually screwed up and cost him his life.
SEARCH BLOG: HEATH CARE and VETERANS ADMINISTRATION
Now that Obamacare has demonstrated the right of the federal government to determine how our national health care system should be run, it might be of interest to know how the federal government actually runs one health care system. Then ask yourself if this is the agency you want running your health care system. As the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for; you may get it."
From ABC:
Obamacare 2.0
What If You Buy A Bus Pass And There Are No Buses?ALSO:
The Federal Reserve sees no need to cut interest rates in the light of adverse recent economic data, Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday.
The Fed chairman said ”to date, the incoming data have supported the view that the current stance of policy is likely to foster sustainable economic growth and a gradual ebbing in core inflation”.July 21, 2007 My guess is that if there is an interest rate change, a cut is more likely than an increase. The key variables to be watching at this point are real estate prices and the inventory of unsold homes.
"Should the elevated turbulence persist, it would increase the possibility of further tightening in financial conditions for households and businesses," he said.December 11, 2007 Somehow the Fed misses the obvious."Uncertainties about the economic outlook are unusually high right now," he said. "These uncertainties require flexible and pragmatic policymaking -- nimble is the adjective I used a few weeks ago."
http://www.reuters.com/
December 13, 2007 [from The Christian Science Monitor]
[Image from: CNNMoney.com]
"The odds of a recession are now above 50 percent," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "We are right on the edge of a recession in part because of the Fed's reluctance to reduce interest rates more aggressively." [see my comments of September 11]January 7, 2008 The real problem now is that consumers can't rescue the economy and manufacturing, which is already weakening, will continue to weaken. We've gutted the forces that could avoid a downturn. The question is not whether there will be a recession, but can it be dampened sufficiently so that it is very short.
“The question is not whether we will have a recession, but how deep and prolonged it will be,” said David Rosenberg, the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch. “Even if the Fed’s moves are going to work, it will not show up until the later part of 2008 or 2009.”January 17, 2008 A few days ago, Anna Schwartz, nonagenarian economist, implicated the Federal Reserve as the cause of the present lending crisis [from the Telegraph - UK]:
The high priestess of US monetarism - a revered figure at the Fed - says the central bank is itself the chief cause of the credit bubble, and now seems stunned as the consequences of its own actions engulf the financial system. "The new group at the Fed is not equal to the problem that faces it," she says, daring to utter a thought that fellow critics mostly utter sotto voce.January 22, 2008 The cut has become infected and a limb is in danger. Ben Bernanke is panicking and the Fed has its emergency triage team cutting rates... this time by 3/4%. ...
Individuals and businesses need stability in their financial cost structures so that they can plan effectively and keep their ships afloat. Wildly fluctuating rates... regardless of what the absolute levels are... create problems. Either too much spending or too much fear. It's just not that difficult to comprehend. Why has it been so difficult for the Fed?
Current Activity
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| | "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams"An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight." - Thomas Jefferson
As of Sept. 15, the current solar minimum ranks third all-time in the amount of spotless days with 717 since 2004. There have been 206 spotless days in 2009, which is 14th all-time. But there are still more than 100 days left in the year, and Perry expects that number to climb. Perry, who studies sunspots and solar activity in his spare time, received an undergraduate degree in physics at Kansas State University and a Ph.D in physics and astronomy at The University of Kansas. He also has spent time as a meteorologist.
From Icecap
