Hoooow Long?

Bicentenial invocation delivered by Richard Pryor from the pulpit of "the Church of Understanding and Unity" posturing "bicentenniality" as 200 years of "white folks kicken' ass". "How Long....? How long will this bull.... go on?

Holy Cow, Mommy! Really!

Holy Cow, Mommy!

Dispatches - Undercover Mosque (1 of 6).Thanks to the Look At This and This Too Will Pass blogs for the link.

At the local ER: Your Health Insurance ID Sir?

Taxi Driver: Are You Talking To Me?

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The latest in Surgical Technology: Would Your Health Insurance Cover This?

Men In Black: Your Proposal Is Acceptable

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Tech Tags: video,Health and Wellness,Health Insurance,Economy,Video Feeds,Healthcare,Articles,News,Grouper,ScreenBites,Health,Economics,
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Toothless Reform

"Massachusetts Health Insurance Reform....... 'a page out of the Newt Gingrich playbook for health care reform(AFL-CIO)' or the Wile E. Coyote 'Acme Rocket' plan, or just 'Toothless Reform' ?"

It's all so hard to figure, isn't it? According to an official statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney from a recent press release regarding Massachusetts healthcare reform legistlation, the ' legislation leaves middle-income families dangling without a safety net, jeopardizes families who currently have employer sponsored health care, and gives employers a free ride '........ 'a page out of the Newt Gingrich playbook for health care reform'.

Well, we just wonder exactly what is contained in the final signed version. While everyone pontificates over the broader ideological strokes, it's usually the fine print that kills the cat.

For instance, the final veto version denies dental coverage ($75M) to adult Medicaid recipients because, 'it provides a service not offered by most Massachusetts employers', Governor Romney aptly (What?) points out. That gets right to the vanilla core of real healthcare reform issues, doesn't it? Call it 'Toothless Reform' , if you will.

Newt, you're off the hook, 'cause maybe, this reform legistlation is a page out of the Wile E. Coyote 'Acme Rocket' playbook for healthcare reform? One thing for sure, if you want real reform, follow the money trail. Where it leads is where the real balance of power and core reform issues reside.

Adapted from the globalEyeNews.health insurance release: Toothless Reform

Tech Tags: Dead Pool ,The Ideology of Insanity,
The 90 Foot Rule,Health and Wellness, Economy, Current Affairs

From "$Niche Pool" to the "Dead Pool" - aKa - "The Great Gravy Train Robbery"

From $Niche Pool to the "Dead Pool" - aKa - The Great Gravy Train Robbery

"The facts are these: the health insurance Cash Cow Has Expired; the vast $niche pool is fast becoming the "Dead Pool"; the American healthcare consumers' pockets are empty, no longer able or willing to sustain the runaway-inflated healthcare costs and health insurance premiums that have resulted from years of network-wide Gravy Train riding..."

While millions go without health insurance (an everyday occurrence exploding into almost every income sector) and a major healthcare breakdown looms, the point that eludes most is that the crisis exists soley because network medical providers, across the board, have out-priced the market. In a mad effort to get an always bigger piece of the vast consumer $niche pool (pie), network costs have exploded beyond containment, beyond anyone's ability to pay. Universal (National) healthcare is just another name for a federal government bailout of the industry for the shortfall.

For those who promulgate that overuse has lead to runaway costs, I'd say try living in the real life world of an overworked, overtaxed, overburdened, over child-cared, life-compressed middle income household of 3 or more for a few hours (Former Secretary of State, George P. Shultz).

"Without reform, the U.S. health care system will hit the proverbial brick wall in the not-too-distant future. Health care costs and insurance premiums are rapidly increasing, making both insured and uninsured consumers worse off. After not wanting to touch health care reform with a 10-foot pole in the immediate post-Clinton era, policymakers are again confronting the fact that change is desperately needed. The direction of that change, however, is anything but settled. Does the solution lie in private markets, greater government involvement, or some combination of the two?" This New England Journal of Medicine extract from the Cato Institute publication, Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It, aptly describes prevalent healthcare moods and trends in America. Indecision, apprehension, unclearness; bemused can be applied. In this Cato Institute publication co-authored by Michael F. Cannon, Cato's director of health policy studies, and Michael D. Tanner, Cato's director of health and welfare studies you will find why some experts believe open-market reform is a "blueprint for re-invigorating America's troubled health care sector."

The facts are these: the health insurance Cash Cow has expired; the vast $niche pool is fast becoming the "Dead Pool"; the American healthcare consumers' pockets are empty, no longer able or willing to sustain the runaway-inflated healthcare costs and health insurance premiums that have resulted from years of network-wide Gravy Train riding; and both, healthcare consumers and providers, don't know where to turn for the next dollar. The trends are ominous.

The healthcare industry at the top of the food chain, at the least, is unnerved and the American healthcare consumer is reeling. As with every hyper-inflationary market, the bubble will burst eventually (more than likely). The sad, disgraceful truth is, solemn oaths have been broken, trusts abused and the vital well-being of the American people has been feloniously compromised. The fix? The system may well have passed the point of no return; open-market reform, a moot point. Whether the case or not, a head on confrontaion with the issues at hand will require high doses of "inspired leadership" from Washington. Too much to hope for?

Adapted from the globalEyeNews.health insurance article release: From "$Niche Pool" to the "Dead Pool" - aKa - "The Great Gravy Train Robbery"

Tech Tags: Dead Pool ,The Ideology of Insanity, The 90 Foot Rule,Health and Wellness, Economy, Current Affairs

The ' 90 foot Rule': Mass Delusion and Abolishing the Laws of Arithmetic

The ' 90 foot Rule ': Mass Delusion and Abolishing the Laws of Arithmetic

[1] 'The elected leaders of Massachusetts have come up with a novel solution for the vexing problem of paying for health care: abolish the laws of arithmetic...'

Alot can be made of ideology, universal health insurance coverage, common sense and political grandstanding. Notwithstanding, perhaps, heading up the list of common sense and the immutable laws of the universe is the absolute perfection of baseball's 90 feet. Athough the origins of baseball have been steeped in controversy for over 100 years, one thing is perfectly clear, baseball's flawless application of the laws of arithmetic has been the linchpin of the great American way of life throughout.

Whoever it was that magically derived baseball's 90 foot basepath rule can be considered genius and should be. Considering the constant haps of razor-close plays at first base throughout the course of a game, it would seem that even the slightest deviation from the magical distance, less or more, would have rendered the game impotent and historically irrelevant, as with most legistlation that has managed to pass through federal and state houses over this same period.

Our suggestion, require the '90 foot rule', by law, to be adhered to in the political arena, with capitol offense fervor, when any attempt is made to address an issue concerning the well-being of the American way of life.

[1] Cato Institute; Bill of Health by Arnold Kling

Tech Tags: The 90 Foot Rule,Health and Wellness,Economy,Current Affairs

On Entertaining the "Ideology of Insanity"

"forging new revenue payloads (taxes) to prop up an already overfunded, price-bloated, bankrupt and failing healthcare system that will continue to hold American healthcare consumers and health insurance providers hostage is the "ideology of insanity". globalEyeNews.health insurance

The healthcare ideology wars continue in Washington. New HSA (Health Savings Account) legistlation S.2549, the Health Savings Account Affordability Act, would allow individuals to use their account funds to purchase high-deductible health insurance. This would expand current law which allows HSA account funds to pay for out-of-pocket expenses, but excludes their use for the purchase of insurance. According to U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the improvement "would allow small business owners across the nation to provide tax-free contributions that could be then used by their employees to purchase health insurance that is affordable, flexible, and portable. Many workers would pay nothing but they would own everything.”

DeMint also speaks out against Bill S.637, the Small Employers Health Benefits Program Act, a proposal sponsored by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) in which small businesses could pool together as part of a government-run health care program to offer health coverage to their employees. The program is estimated to cost $73 billion over the next 10 years and would be financed by American taxpayers through subsidies in the form of tax credits for employers. According to DeMint, "once the government takes over the management of health care for millions of Americans, liberals in Congress will begin rationing care with one-size-fits-all mandates that limit choices."

While millions go without health insurance (an everyday occurrence exploding into almost every income sector) and a major healthcare breakdown looms, the point that eludes most is that the crisis exists soley because network healthcare providers, across the board, have out-priced the market, beyond anyone's ability to pay. Ideology, though intriguing to intellectual appetite, is not the real issue when it comes to configuring a whole new health insurance model. Economics is. The "price" of healthcare in America is spiraling out of control, beyond containment. Any new model must address this primal issue by providing economic mechanisms that drive healthcare network prices downward. Some call it open-market reform; others, consumer-driven.

No matter what ideological tag you wish to assign, commom sense dictates that forging new revenue payloads (taxes) to prop up an already overfunded, price-bloated, bankrupt and failing healthcare system that will continue to hold American healthcare consumers and health insurance providers hostage is the "ideology of insanity".

Illumination by globalEyeNews.health insurance

Tech Tags: radical Empire,The Ideology of Insanity,Cash Cow Expires,Economy,Health Insurance,Healthcare

Rehire Mom: #1 American Hero

What better way to celebrate Mother's Day than to rehire mom. Apparently, this six-figure position was deemed too irrelevant for modern day "corporate culture". Actually, now she is being paid less with, in many cases, an extra 40+ hour workload to go along with her 92 hour work week.


Six Figure salary for Stay-At-Home Mom

How much would a mother be paid if she did all that she did in the world of real paychecks? Being a mom may command a six figure salary in the open market.

Salary.com has released its annual market valuation of a mother's work and determined that a stay-at-home mother might be paid as much as $134,121 for her contributions as a housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, janitor and CEO, among other functions.

The stay-at-home mothers surveyed said they logged a total of 92 hours a week performing those jobs.


Mom Salary Wizard: What is Mom's Work Worth?

Being a mom could be a 6-figure job


Thanks to Amit Agarwal/Digital Inspiration for the illumiation.

Tech Tags: Mom, Mother's Day