Wind Chills tonight in Madison ,
WI
The Obamacare Train Wreck
Excerpt: “No, there won’t be a doctor shortage,” wrote Zeke
Emanuel and Scott Gottlieb in The
New York Times the other day. ObamaCare will weather that challenge
just fine. How? Nurses and other paramedic personnel can substitute for physicians
and new technology is making remote monitoring of patients easier than ever
before. All that is true. But those changes are likely to happen slowly; and
even if they happened quickly, I’m afraid that it won’t be enough. Here’s why.
Two features of ObamaCare will substantially increase the demand, while
(surprisingly) nothing in the law increases supply.
Excerpt: In light of the ongoing ObamaCare debacle, it can
be interesting to see how a state-run national health system free for all, like
Britain ’s
National Health Service (NHS) – Obama’s favourite model – has failed to
deliver. The UK is one of
the few countries in the world – mostly concentrated in Europe
– to have completely free universal health. It sounds cuddly and comfy, but,
like in all utopias and fairy tales, reality is a different matter. ... By
cancer survival rate comparisons, the NHS is one of the worst health systems in
the Western world, even overtaken by former European communist countries.
Amazing: Landrieu Completely Throws Obama Under the Bus in
First TV Ad. By Daniel Doherty
Excerpt: I’m confused. Last week
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said if she could vote for Obamacare
again, she would. Now for some reason she’s completely distancing
herself from it?
If you are to believe this
ad, President Obama lied to her constituents. Not her.
7 million Obamacare
customers?
Excerpt: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius once described 7 million new Obamacare customers in the first year as
what “success looks like.” The White House is now trying to affix another label
to the estimate: meaningless. It might be too late
WaPo Fact Checker: Harry Reid’s explanation for why not all of his staff is going on ‘Obamacare’
Excerpt: As for Pinocchios, we find ourselves wavering
between two and three, though we do not give 1/2 Pinocchios. This was a
difficult judgment to make. But it tips ever so slightly toward Three.
Uh oh: Only 5-15% of
enrollees have paid their first month of premiums in some ObamaCare plans
Excerpt: A good way to tell whether a media outlet is
serious about ObamaCare reporting is to see if they cover this bombshell as
a corollary to the new enrollment
data. If 365,000 have “signed up” but only one-tenth of them, say,
have paid their first month of premiums to activate their new coverage, how
many people are really “enrolled” in ObamaCare plans right now? Last week an
insurer in Indiana
told CNN that one of their plans had received payment from only 20 percent of
people who signed up so far. According to Charles Ornstein’s sources, that
insurer was doing relatively well.
Video Report: CBS
News’ Norah O’Donnell Drops Obamacare Bombshell – Customers Have to Spend More
of Their Own Money Before Insurance Kicks in Under Obamacare: Lowest Deductible
on Healthcare.gov Exceeds $5,000
Hill staffers warned
not to rely on info from ObamaCare exchange
Excerpt: Capitol Hill staffers who signed up for ObamaCare
through the Washington , D.C.
Each Obamacare
Enrollee Costs Taxpayers $14,000
Excerpt: ATR calculated that the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services spent $4.5 billion to promote Obamacare and $677 million to
build healthcare.gov. Health and Human Services says 364,682 people have
selected plans under Obamacare.
The Rest of the News
House, Senate
negotiators reach budget deal
The one good thing about the Ryan-Murray budget deal is that
it may deny Obama the thing he needs most right now, another government
shutdown the media will blame on Republicans. -Bob
Marine Corps ranked
worst service branch to join
Obama’s Cash for
Universal Preschool Clunker Plan. By Michelle Malkin
Excerpt: It’s elementary: When Democrats find themselves in
political trouble, they reach for your wallets. After squandering billions on
an ineffectual stimulus, failed green energy boondoggles and the disastrous
Unaffordable Care Act, the Obama White House wants to dump $75 billion more
into “free” preschool for all. That’ll solve everything.
Worth Reading
Excerpt: My career since 2001 has largely been about
advancing evidence-based education, which is the endeavor of collecting and
using the best possible evidence to support policy and practice in education.
Since the president’s state of the union address, I’ve been writing that the
evidence is decidedly mixed on the impact of the type of preschool investments
the president has called for and that we now see in the legislation introduced
in Congress. It may seem in the pieces I’ve written that I’m wearing only my evidence-based
education hat. But in fact if you’re an advocate of strengthening early
childhood programs, as I am, you also need to pay careful attention to the evidence
– all of it. Poor children deserve effective programs, not just programs that
are well-intentioned.
A closer look at the Benghazi
Excerpt: The Obama State Department has finally released a second round
of photos revealing the harrowing devastation wrought by a terrorist attack on
the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. The new
photographs depict rampant damage to the consulate.
They show charred walls, smoldering fires, Arabic graffiti defacing exterior
walls, and scattered debris throughout. The extent of the damage would lead any
reasonably serious person to conclude that this was a cold, calculated attack,
carefully coordinated to mark the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.
Unfortunately for the American people, the Obama-Clinton-Rice cabal that led to the Benghazi cover-up was far more interested in
political-damage control than serious damage assessment. (The Administration
wants the sands of time to cover up the Benghazi
mess, but fortunately there are people who will not let this go. As they keep
digging with determination, bit by bit evidence is revealed of what really
happened. Which was all known to those in charge when they were spouting lies
by the minute. Will they someday have to face up to what they did? Let's hope
so. --Del )
Excerpt: No, my real complaint is with how vulgarity has gone
viral. We constantly hear that there is no common culture anymore. But that’s
not really true. Rather, newspapers notwithstanding, almost everyone thinks the
common culture is someone else’s problem.
Obama
Approval Plunge Pulls Down Democrats, Quinnipiac University
Excerpt: President
Barack Obama's job approval among American voters drops to a new low, a
negative 38 - 57 percent, as the outlook for Democrats running for Congress and
the U.S. Senate fades also, according to a national poll released today. He even
gets a negative 41 - 49 percent among voters 18 to 29 years old and a
lackluster 50 - 43 percent approval among Hispanic voters.
Excerpt: The United States
and Britain suspended
non-lethal aid to northern Syria after Islamist fighters seized
Western-backed rebel weapons warehouses, highlighting fears that supplies could
end up in the wrong hands. (This administration has been o bad, there's no
longer joy even in saying "I told you so." ~Bob)
Active Volcanoes, Not
CO2, Are Melting West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Excerpt: Researchers have discovered a chain of smoldering
active volcanoes under the West Antarctic ice sheet — which happens to be the
ice sheet that climate hysterics say is proof of man-caused global warming.
(Oops, another bit of actual science that doesn't really support the AGW
theory. Sorry about that. --Del )
Do Bans on Plastic
Grocery Bags Save Cities Money?
Excerpt: A November 2010 Los Angeles County , Calif. Los Angeles County
How Solid Is The Case
For Raising The Minimum Wage? By Scott Winship
Excerpt: My point is not that a minimum-wage hike would have
no impact on inequality—it’s that we have little basis for saying what that
impact would be. Dube notes that earlier this year just one-third of economists
in an expert panel agreed that raising the federal minimum wage to $9 would
make it tougher for less-skilled workers to find jobs. He neglects to share
that one-third disagreed with that claim and the remaining
third were unsure, had no opinion, or chose not to respond. This is what
research ambiguity looks like.
Reid says Senate will
not extend farm law
Excerpt: Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Senate will not
extend current farm law if Congress can't agree on a new farm bill before
adjourning next week. House leaders have reserved space on their agenda this
week for extending the current law until the end of January. Lawmakers fear
that milk prices might rise sharply if dairy subsidies expire Jan. 1.
Attorney General
Kamala D. Harris Announces Arrest of Revenge Porn Website Operator
Excerpt: Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced
the arrest of the alleged owner and operator of a revenge porn website who
facilitated the posting of more than 10,000 sexually explicit photos and
extorted victims for as much as $350 each to remove the illicit content.
Excerpt: John Podesta is a revolving-door corporate
lobbyist. He's also a former Bill Clinton fixer and opposition research
consultant for the Democrats. So it’s fitting President Obama has officially
brought Podesta onto the White House staff.
Excerpt: If the gotterdammerung Obamacare program ultimately
dies on the vine I don't believe it will be because their enrollment software
was faulty; I believe the American people are revolting because, for the first
time, they can see the "down and dirty" true costs of paying your
medical premium...as well as the premium of one of Obama's "free
riders". The tripling and quadrupling of your medical premiums is direct
payment for Obama's bribery of 30 million tit-suckers last November, a bill run
up to buy Barack Obama an election.
Hillary Clinton
shields Obama from Benghazi
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/16/hillary-clinton-shields-obama-from-benghazi-scandal/#ixzz29TwDzPGi
Excerpt: “What I want to avoid is some kind of political
gotcha or blame game,” Clinton told
CNN. “I know that we’re very close to an election … [and] we are at our best as
Americans when we pull together,” she claimed in Peru , where she was attending
conference on women’s issues. “Clinton appeared
to be trying to inoculate President Obama from criticism as he prepared for
Tuesday’s [campaign] debate,” The New York Times wrote after the comments.
Excerpt: If President Barack Obama has been looking at
your taxes, the D.C.-based watchdog group Cause of Action wants to know about
it. The group filed a suit Tuesday morning against the
Internal Revenue Service over refusing to release the names of businesses
and individuals whose returns interest the president. “We’re concerned with the
transparency of the president’s administration.
Again: Turkish
Students Arrested for Nazi Salutes at Auschwitz
Excerpt: Two Turkish tourists could face up to two years in
prison for giving Nazi salutes outside the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
extermination camp in Poland .
Group buries America
How gun control is
losing, badly (in charts)
Excerpt: The advocates of stoning in Afghanistan can
and do claim that they are simply implementing Islamic law. The caliph Umar,
one of Muhammad's closest companions, maintained that the punishment of stoning
for adultery (this story doesn't specify the method of punishment, but the
outcome of the punishment is the same in any case) was originally in the
Qur'an:
Illegal Alien Using
Fake Social Security Number Sues Over Job Rejections
Excerpt: The California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation is being sued by a Stockton
man for its multiple rejections of his employment application. The CDCR
rejected the applications on the grounds that the applicant, Victor Guerrero
34, admitted that he used a fake social security number. Mr Guerrero believes
that his former illegal status and the use of a fake social security number is
not grounds for the CDCR to deny his employment.
Excerpt: The Ahrar al Sham Islamic Movement, one of six
units of the newly formed Islamic Front, conducted a joint raid with al Qaeda's
two official branches in Syria
against Hezbollah and pro-Assad militias. Ahrar al Sham also was involved in
the recent takeover of a large cache of weapons and munitions owned by the Free
Syrian Army.
Tweet from Prof. Carol M. Swain @carolmswain
I'm just saying we are in trouble folks. Everything is topsy
turvy and the old rules and norms no longer apply. Welcome to Obama's America . (Black
prof. ~Bob)
Global warming
skeptic buries Sierra Club director under avalanche of facts
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/11/global-warming-skeptic-buries-sierra-club-director-under-avalanche-of-facts-video/#ixzz2nCqX6CA7
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/11/global-warming-skeptic-buries-sierra-club-director-under-avalanche-of-facts-video/#ixzz2nCqX6CA7
Excerpt: Marc Morano, a global warming skeptic and the
editor of ClimateDepot.com, fought the climate sob stories peddled by Sierra
Club Director Michael Brune with cold, hard facts on CNN Tuesday night. “‘Global
weirding’ is nothing more than a pseudoscience expression,” he said on Don
Lemon’s “11th Hour,” pushing back against Lemon’s contention that the “extreme”
cold weather wracking much of the country is a symptom of climate change.
Interview: David
Horowitz on the Glasnov Gang: The Black Book of the American Left: First volume
of ten volumes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QL9WUvnJ_Cs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QL9WUvnJ_Cs
Excerpt: "Stalin killed more communists than all the
capitalists put together."
AP photo director pens scathing op-ed on 'Obama's Orwellian
image control'. By Hadas Gold
Excerpt: The crusade against the White House's practice of barring
press photographers from certain events continues: On Wednesday, The New York
Times published a scathing op-ed by Santiago Lyon, the Associated Press's
Vice President and Director of Photography, titled "Obama's Orwellian
Image Control."
Was the sign-language
interpreter at the Mandela memorial faking it?
Excerpt: A
s world leaders paid tribute to Mandela at the memorial
service on Tuesday, the international deaf community expressed outrage that the
sign-language interpreter to the side of the podium was signing nonsense. The
male interpreter appeared to be provided by the ANC party. A female
interpreter, provided by the broadcast station, could be seen in a box in the
corner of the screen. Her interpreting was fine. You can see the difference
between them in this clip:
Posts
before unions there was no middle class. The unions have been broken, middle class is disappearing, and so is the health insurance unions had negotiated with companies. Thus the reason per your doctor saying 60% of middle class has no health insurance. Once again how much money does that doctor make inspite of govt. intervention?????
ReplyDeleteThe above displays an ignorance of history. There was a thriving middle class in America, shop keepers, traders, sea captains, murchents, lawyers, printers like Franklin, and so on from the founding.
ReplyDeleteYes, doctors do well, and earn it. I just retired from managing a surgeons' association. The surgeons made lots more money than me, but they had 14 years of education before they started their careers: 4 years of college, 4 years of med school, 5 years of residency and a year's fellowship, plus huge educational debts.
Currently fellowships in the specialty are going unfilled because of declining pay and increased government pressure and law suits, though demand for it is expected to double in ten years. So we will have waiting times like the UK, Canada and other single payer systems. ~Bob Hall