Posts Tagged ‘news’

• Healthcare – here we go again

  Date: 2010.03.01 | Category: ahh the news, rants | Response: 0

  A battle over who to blame for rising health-care costs is escalating, as groups seek to pin the problem on each other and say none of the health-care legislation under consideration does enough to solve it.U.S. spending on health care reached $2.5 trillion in 2009, according to federal estimates. It is expected to jump to $4.5 trillion in 10 years. Insurers contend that they must pass on ever-higher bills from hospitals and doctors. Hospitals say they are struggling with more uninsured patients, demands by doctors for top salaries, and underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid.

  Nearly every mainstream analysis calls for medical costs to continue to climb over the next decade, outpacing the growth in the overall economy and certainly increasing faster than the average paycheck. Those higher costs will translate into higher premiums, which will mean fewer individuals and businesses will be able to afford insurance coverage. More of everyone’s dollar will go to health care, and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid will struggle to find the money to operate.

  The health care that we are currently providing in Medicare and Medicaid doesn’t cover the actual providers costs. The cost of all health care is set to rise over the next 10-15 years. The 2nd and 3rd largest portions of the federal budget are Medicare and Medicaid.

  Why haven’t we done anything about this emerging threat? Simply put, its a political landmine. Over the last few weeks both sides have argued in all channels and have said that they can’t agree with each other. Isn’t the job of the legislative branch to protect the best interests of the American people? Shouldn’t they put their political interests aside and do the right thing – cut spending where they can and improve service where it is failing?

  The time line as I saw it went like this
  1. The President put a mandate to congress to come up with a plan
  2. Congress hemmed and hawed and didn’t come up with anything concrete (many points were made and argued but no progress was made)
  3. Republicans complained that the President didn’t provide leadership on the issue
  4. The President, in absence of a clear plan, provided his own take on the situation
  5. The Republicans complained that they didn’t like it
  6. A health care summit was chaired by the President to move the process forward but the issue remains unresolved
  7. The Democrats do not want to commit to a plan for fear of political suicide – if it fails, they are out of jobs and the other side wins

  Basically, if the plan or lack of plan fails the Republicans “absolve” themselves of blame. If they procrastinate long enough they can pin all of the blame on the other party.

  Who suffers? Every single tax payer in America suffers.

  Its a huge issue – most economists will agree that when ceilings and controls are put into place less of the service will become available and quality will decline (do a search on NYC rent controls).

  There is a lot of “fat” in the system and some people are making money – people are allowed to make money in a Capitalist society. I’m against inefficiency and waste.

  I want everyone to be able to afford basic health care.
  I want providers to provide that health care without doing so at a loss.

  If we can’t do that – maybe we should cut it out – all of it. Social security should go too. People depend on that stuff – it is their livelyhood – people will die without it or we can go broke trying to provide it.

  There are hard choice to me made by Senators and Congressmen – now is the time to make them – before its too late.

• Video clip of the day

  Date: 2009.08.19 | Category: ahh the news, videos | Response: 1

  I heard a quote from the clip below and laughed out loud. When I came home I was delighted to find the video… and see that there was more too it. I love fruitcakes because they make our nation extremely amusing. Watch and enjoy.

• Fireside chats

  Date: 2008.11.15 | Category: ahh the news, videos | Response: 0

  President Elect Obama released his first “fireside” chat that can be viewed below in its entirety.

  
  

  It sounds like Jessica and I were correct in the belief that we would see a shift from the military industrial complex to civic works and green energy. I think these are both going to be needed changes but with any change we must strive for balance. The military has worn out much of our equipment over the past 7 years and some needs to be replaced. We still fly tankers that are as old as my parents and we still use fighters that are older than I am. Simply put, we can only upgrade them so many times before they need replaced. Balance is the key – lets hope we get some.

• Scapegoat

  Date: 2008.11.07 | Category: ahh the news, links! | Response: 0

  

  I don’t like Sarah Palin and I probably never will. I don’t think she’s qualified to manage a McDonalds. Many republicans have changed their opinion of the former VP candidate. In fact – she might be the scapegoat of the campaign. She polarized my opinion as I know Hillary might have if she was going to be the candidate. Watch the video and read the story at ABC news – interesting stuff.

• What are we going to do now?

  Date: 2008.11.07 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 1

  

  Obama won the election much to the chagrin of republicans across the nation. In his acceptance speech he spoke of the challenges that we are facing and that the solutions could take years or even an entire term before we see change. Legislation takes time – we’ve got to understand that he is only a man – hopefully he will be a great leader and fulfill his promises. Obama had his first press conference and was backed by some of the best economic minds in our country.

  Jessica and I have talked about potential paths to creating jobs and stimulating the economy. For the past 8 years much of the growth has been in the military industrial complex. We’ve spent billions on improving our military while fighting a war. Much of the money has gone to contractors that provide a variety of services to military members stationed overseas – they fed me while I was in Iraq and I’m glad we were paying them instead of sending more military members overseas to cook.

  Civic projects will probably be one of the highlights of the Obama administration. Roads and bridges are in dire need of renovation and repair (save for the bridge to nowhere). I think we’re going to see new schools, hospitals, and libraries constructed across the nation. The fall of the housing market has crushed the construction industry and our nation could use the work. We’re going to pay for the work – and in reality – it’s not that bad. The masses aren’t standing in soup lines and food and other commodities aren’t being rationed like they were during the world wars. Change is going to be tough for America. We have the grit to make the change but we’ve all got to give. I give my service to my country and I pay taxes. If I had to pay more in taxes to fix the problems at hand I would. I wouldn’t want to but these things are necessary evils. In order to make money we’ve got to spend some money.

• Palin was a dumb pick? No foolin!

  Date: 2008.10.15 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 0

  The last line is all you need to read if you’re skimming.

  Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain on Tuesday for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.

  Dowd proclaimed that, in his heart of hearts, McCain knew he put the country at risk with his VP choice and that he would “have to live” with that fact for the rest of his career.

  “They didn’t let John McCain pick the person he wanted to pick as VP,” Dowd declared during the Time Warner Summit panel. “When Sarah Palin got picked instead of Joe Lieberman, which I fundamentally believed would have given John McCain the best opportunity in this race… as soon as he picked Palin, that whole ready versus not ready argument was not credible.”

  Saying that Palin was a “net negative” on the ticket, he went on: “[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with… He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that.”

  The other panelists were surprised, a bit, by Dowd’s bluntness. Not least because McCain’s well-known campaign motto is “country first.”

  “No, I don’t agree,” said Mark McKinnon, a former McCain aide, after chiding Dowd for claiming particular insight into McCain’s soul.

  “Well,” responded Dowd, “that’s even more disturbing than my thought” — the implication being that it would be truly frightening if McCain didn’t know how bad Palin truly was.

  Time columnist Joe Klein summed up what seemed to be the panel’s Palin consensus.

  “It was a gimmick,” he said of the pick. “It was one of the most disastrous decisions I have seen in a presidential campaign since I’ve begun covering them.”

  Later in the session, Hilary Rosen, the Huffington Post’s Washington editor at large, noted that the Palin pick had been successful in energizing the Republican base — and McCain himself. But Dowd wasn’t biting.

  “To me it is like Halloween,” he said. “You get energized by eating all that candy at night but then you feel sick the next day.”

• The bailout

  Date: 2008.09.25 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 3

  It’s been all over the news and I’ve been watching the developments over the last few days but I still have my reservations with the plan. Over the past 80 years we have created a number of social programs to help fellow Americans that were unable to reach acceptable living standards. The degree of these programs varies based upon the scope and many are short term programs with specific eligibility requirements.

  To my knowledge, we have never created a social program for failed businesses. Government incentives and grants have been given to businesses that work in specific fields. They needed short term support because the initial cost of operation were far too prohibitive. The businesses in the bailout plan need long term support because they had a failed business plan.

  I want to know whether it would be more expensive to pay for the social programs for the individuals that would be affected if these businesses should fail or if it would be cheaper to bailout the businesses.

  I don’t know if anyone else has actually looked at this issue from this viewpoint. If it would cost more to bailout the businesses we should let them fail. If it would cost more for social programs we should do the minimum to keep businesses in the financial sector alive. Additionally, the legislation should include provisions for fully recouping our investment. This investment would be one in our neighbors next door and across town – we’ve just got to make sure that we make the right decision.

  If the bailout is passed in congress and subsequently signed we should quickly create further legislation that would prevent this from happening again. All business is a risk – the taxpayer shouldn’t pay the price when one of them fails – no matter how big or old they might be.

• What was that?

  Date: 2008.09.24 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 0

  If this information in this video is correct I’m probably not the only one that is confused. According to her report, an active duty army unit is going to be assigned to northern command and will be specifically stationed within the US Borders. They will respond to domestic threats as required. Don’t we have a national guard that is designed specifically for that purpose? Don’t they fall under the command of their respective governors for such a purpose? Are we stretching the guard units so much that we’ve got to draw a unit from active duty units? Some think this could be a precursor to martial law – that’s going a bit far but it is an interesting thought.

• Economists on the bailout plan

  Date: 2008.09.23 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 0

  A group of over 100 leading economists sent a letter to congress outlining their reservations with the proposed bailout plan. Their concerns mirror my own – I need more answers before anything is done. The full text is below

  As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:

  1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries “systemic risk.” The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.

  2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.

  3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America’s dynamic and innovative private-capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.

  For these reasons, we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.

• Bill Maher makes the best point ever

  Date: 2008.09.22 | Category: ahh the news, videos | Response: 0

  He’s got a good point – well worth the 3:41