Teabaggers Stage Racist Protest Complete With Torches and Pitchforks

Sorry, wrong again.

Carrying pitchforks and torches a group of labor unions and health care groups marched down Church Street in Hartford Tuesday night to let the state’s largest business lobby know that they want health care reform.

This protest in CT was in support of the single payer type plans being pushed by the liberals as the be all and end all to health care reform. Like everything else that liberals latched onto as a crusade, facts don't matter and listening to reasoned arguments from a differing point of view are to be ignored in favor of incessantly repeating whatever the phrase of the day is. Most liberals have not a clue how a mythical single payer, government backed health insurance option is supposed to magically transform health care in this country into some sort of utopian paradise for all Americans.

No, it is merely enough to have a cause and to continue to throw yourself on the spike sticks of common sense and rational thinking until those spears become so cluttered with the rotting corpses that they no longer serve as an effective defense.

You know like they did with global warming. The problem is the closer the people in the back of the mob get to the front and it now becomes their turn to hurl themselves upon the pointy end of the spear the cause becomes less attractive.

The insurance companies are being made out to be the boogey man in this recent round of misplaced rage by the progressives, which makes me wonder how Obama is going to create or save jobs when he continues to allow attacks on so many sectors of the economy designed to eliminate jobs.

Lately Wellpoint, which is actually a merger of the Anthem and Wellpoint insurance companies, and administers the Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan in 15 states has come under fire for a proposed rate increase in CA.

Here is something to mull over on that. What if Wellpoint just decides that, you know what, this ain't worth the headache, so we are closing up shop in CA and moving on? Somebody else can take over the Blue Cross brand.

Folks, our current system of health insurance administration has some flaws, mostly brought about because of the changing demographics and new lifestyles that have evolved over the years. There are things that need to be addressed, but scraping the entire business model in favor of some other system that has been already proven can not adequately address the issues raised by consumers, providers and the agency providing the coverage, think Medicare here, which is running in the red and is finding fewer and fewer doctors willing to take their patients because of the lower reimbursement rates, is not the answer.

Let's simply address what need to be fixed, to bring the health insurance industry more in line with the way America is today rather then how it was 40 years ago and then move on.

Inevitably, it is not the insurance companies that changed, a whole slew of federal and state regulations saw to that, but rather the American lifestyle did.

Depends On Your Definition of Open

What the hell is up with Charlie Rangel? He looks like he has been raiding Max Baucus' liquor cabinet.

Here the Democrat leadership tries to respond to the letter they received from CSPAN asking them to open up the process in regards to the health care legislation, like Barry O promised on the campaign trail.

The "most open and transparent congress evah" tries to explain how holding closed door sessions, inserting million, even billion dollar earmarks into the healthcare bill, and just hiding from the public in general was actually some sort of Orwellian example of openness.

For the Democrats this is known as business as usual under the new normal. Here is Rep Tom Price (R-GA) showing the hypocrisy during the cram down stimulus legislation debate, when once again Republicans were left standing out in the hall while the Dems made their deals in private and then hoisted an $800 billion dollar, earmark laden bill on the American taxpayers.

File this under "Fail".

Congress Voted To Fire Me Last Night

I didn't get much sleep last night. Yes, part of it was staying up to watch the debate and the vote on the Pelosi Health Care bill which I would flip back and forth to while trying to watch various football games, but the real insomnia was caused by the result of their vote.

Their vote in essence caused me, and just about everybody else who works for a health insurance company, onto the unemployment rolls. It doesn't matter whether you are a claims adjuster, work a call center, sell the policies or some other job and you work for a private health insurance company or you are one of the evil heads of the corporation, your shelf life for having a job if the Pelosicare bill becomes fact is about five years.

The reason I have not wrote much on the healthcare debate is because I needed to tread very lightly so that I was complying with company rules regarding conflicts of interests and rules regarding release of information. I could bore you with all kinds of internal memos, complete with spreadsheets and Word documents to try and persuade you, but the time for that is gone. Most of the information was provided to Congress and still the Democrats voted to turn your healthcare over to the government; they have voted now and either way I will be out of a job, so I feel there is no harm.

A couple of things I can tell you that are hard facts are this. If you currently have a private insurance policy, starting in 2011 your premiums will double if you are lucky, and in most cases triple. It is unavoidable. It is the cost associated with the legislation which the insurance companies have no choice in but passing on. You will start paying these higher rates even though their government option will not be available to you for another three years.

Number two, watch your business headlines over the next month or so and look for the stories which have Humana or Cigna or Wellpoint announcing layoffs. It will start with 10% cuts probably and just be a continual drip, drip, drip every quarter. The company I work for laid off 1500 between January and March of this year and no doubt right here at Christmas time we announce another round equal to that next week.

Scare tactics, you say? The cuts would have happened anyway, you think? Think again. I will spend tomorrow all day in meetings starting to lay out the blueprint for how we will handle the shutdown of operations.

There will be a select few in this country who will be able to afford private insurance but for the vast majority of Americans this will not be an option for you anymore. There is specific language in the bill which prevents the creation of any new health insurance companies, which sort of flies in the face of their argument about increasing competition. Current companies cannot increase rates without government approval. You know those rate increases I talked about earlier? Well, Congress made sure that would not be possible meaning that the private insurance company cannot keep you as a customer even if they want. No such restriction applies to the government plan. They will be able to raise rates and cut benefits at will.

Yes, the Democrats, while proud of saying they have made insurance available for everyone, neglect to tell you that it won't be the insurance you enjoy today.

So America, enjoy your new health plan if it becomes a reality in a Democrat utopia and remember any government that is big enough to give you everything is also big enough to take it away.

My advice to anyone who works for a private insurance company is to dig out the resume, update it and try like hell to land one of the government jobs; no doubt an SEIU union membership goes along with it.

And cry for your children.

Botox Babe Pelosi Unveils American Unemployment Act

Well just a little while ago Nancy Pelosi introduced her so called healthcare reform bill, which she is euphemistically calling "The Affordable Health Care Act". I caught part of her speech where she was introducing this monstrosity and I knew we were in trouble when she thanked Charlie "What Taxes" Rangel, and Henry "Nostrils" Waxman for their hard work on this. She also took a swipe at insurance companies, keeping it classy like her fellow mentally challenged traveler Alan Grayson.

Next up was Steny Hoyer who wanted to thank John "Winter Soldier" Dingell for being the sponsor.

All this means is that the progressives in Hollywwood, Kosland, er congress managed to push their pie in the sky, unicorn watching, abomination onto a suspecting public. The bill runs somewhere around 1,990 pages and Mr Hoyer bragged about all the transparency involved in the crafting of this bill, even going so far at one time to say the information has been available for 3 months. Really??? This is the second attempt by the House of Representatives so which version is he talking about being available for 3 months?

I'll let others comb over this version but we already know that this bill is designed to do two things and neither of them have to do with healthcare.

The first priority seems to be to cause a collapse of the health insurance industry. Any who doubt only need to wait for the video clips to become available of the ceremony today and watch Nancy's remarks.

The second priority is to get as many Americans as possible into the government plan as possible. The Democrats always work from the point of view that the more people who are dependent on the government for their lively hood the more voters they have.

This bill is going to be bad for businesses, and as the WSJ has already deduced, will force some companies to reduce payroll in order to avoid being penalized.

The House legislation would require companies with a payroll of $500,000 or more to offer health coverage to employees, or pay a penalty of at least 2% of payroll. Some earlier House versions set the threshold at $250,000. The penalty gradually rises, and firms with payroll greater than $750,000 would pay a penalty of 8% of payroll. Senate versions of the bill have weaker penalties.

So what do you think a small business owner is going to do? If possible they will cut payroll to be under $500,000 or get into the bracket with a smaller penalty. And who will be there to help all those newly unemployed folks get insurance? Why Uncle Sam of course.

Soon any sort of incentive to work will be gone.

I am sure there are more such penalties in this bill, hell registering to vote as a Republican will probably be grounds to levy a fine on you.

Also included in this bill is an expansion of Medicaid which will impose some serious burdens on the states. It also gives the federal lawmakers a chance to pass along the expenses to the states thereby making the governors the bad guys. I would think a lot of governors would be steaming mad at congress wrecking their budgets with their mandates. We will see if they speak up.

Elections have consequences. Can we live with the consequences of our actions?

UPDATE: For those that want to read the bill here is a link courtesy of Rep Jack Kingston (R-GA). Warning it is 1,990 pages.

Shit, why did I have to go start reading the bill. I found this part. Basically what it says is unless you are insurance company doing business when this bill becomes effective you will not be able to start a private health insurance company. I was tipped off by seeing something earlier in the bill mentioning the grandfathering of health insurance companies and I wondered why they would have to be grandfathered in.

This is contained in Sec 202 entitled PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE.

COVERAGE.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.

So any new health insurance plan after the effective date may only be enrolled into whatever this exchange is, which is government administered.

1503 Pages Summed Up in 15 Seconds

This segment is for real. The guy in the background is reading the Baucus bill that came out of the Senate committee. He is the current Guinness World record holder for speed reading and the last 30 seconds are what you need to pay attention to.

His analysis is real simple. This bill will gut the current system of healthcare we have in this country and replace it with an entirely new one.

Don't They Know The Government Hates Competition?

"They're just defrauding the patients, defrauding the government."

Why does that sort of rationalization always come out of the mouth of the non tax paying people?

This is not a new phenomenon anyway. People have been defrauding Medicare and Medicaid probably since their inception. Anything the government is involved in is always a prime target since the thieves count on all the layers of bureaucratic red tape to provide them the time and the cover to carry out such schemes.

Of course the liberals in congress want to reassure you that if the government takes over total control of the healthcare system such things won't happen. And you are just going to have to trust me when I say that unicorns are alive and well and living in Area 51.

"This is just like Carte Blanche," said Rodgers, holding his Medicare card. "Matter of fact, better than Carte Blanche. Carte Blanche has limitations on it."

Medicare and Medicaid are not the only ones that are targeted in health insurance fraud schemes. Most estimates put the amount of fraud at about $60 billion a year. The private insurance companies pursue fraud whenever it is suspected, and they have a much better incentive to pursue it then our government does, because afterall it is the bottom line that counts.

A Case Study Of Why Nationalized Health Care Will Not Work

The country with the worst health care evah, is starting to refuse to continue treating illegal aliens.

Wait. What did I just write? You mean people from other countries are coming to America and getting medical treatment, in the case of this story, long term sustained treatment, all at no cost to them, just to the taxpayers?

This is a long convoluted story and one with a mostly local angle to it, but it is emblematic of the healthcare debate currently raging in this country. In a nutshell, Grady hospital is an Atlanta hospital which handles a lot of indigent and uninsured patients. In spite of the hospital being riddled with years of graft and piss poor management they had always been able to count on receiving funds from the surrounding counties, city and state to continue operating. Now that tough economic times are here, and in Grady's case the mask had slipped before the current recession, they are having to answer for their shoddy accounting and since they are not coming up with good answers those funds are being cut off. Well as a result they are having to curtail services, like in the case of this story, dialysis services.

While reading the story, rife with the usual bungling that has become synonymous with Grady Hospital, there were a couple of lines that jumped out at me.

Like this.

The hospital had said the dialysis unit would close Sunday and the hospital hoped to send about 90 patients — some of whom are illegal immigrants — out of state, back to their home countries or to local clinics. As many as 10 patients have already moved out of state. For many, Grady had been their last resort for dialysis care.

And this.

The restraining order also compels the hospital to stop the hospital’s controversial plan to pay the relocation costs of some patients to move to another state or back to their home country.

The judge’s action came as a relief to Ignacio Godinez Lopez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, who is a laid-off home remodeler.

This little bit seems to fly in the face of those who wish to paint a portrait of America being a country which has sick and injured people lined up like cord wood on the sidewalks outside hospitals.

Grady officials have repeatedly assured patients and the public that no patient would be left without care. They said they found states that provide Medicaid assistance for illegal immigrants for outpatient dialysis treatment. Georgia does not.

But officials of three of those states — North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia — told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday that they do not offer Medicaid assistance for illegal immigrants for outpatient dialysis treatment.

They only provide Medicaid assistance for illegal immigrants for emergency services provided through an emergency room. None of the three states has a special program for illegals needing ongoing outpatient dialysis.

Grady announced back in July that they were closing their dialysis center and at that time a coalition was formed to oppose it. Grady assured folks they had a plan. Grady's plan appears to have some holes in it, but the advocacy group lobbying to force a bankrupt Grady to continue to offer this service is wrong also. Instead of beating up on the mis-management at Grady they need to come up with a viable alternative. They continue to argue from the point of view that the taxpayers must remain on the hook.

Why is this issue such a hot button topic? Grady is also a trauma hospital and they are trying to remain operational. By being forced to continue services for which they are not getting reimbursed for and have no alternative money stream the entire hospital is in danger of closing. Grady has never been a particularly good trauma center either, in my opinion, but it is where all our gunshot and vehicle accident victims are taken for treatment, but I can tell you the survivability rate at Grady is far less then a field hospital in Iraq.

Now those that are in favor of nationalized health care will use this as an example of why we need a government run program. Let's think about this a minute. The illegals use this hospital because they can't go anywhere else. With government subsidizing such action the roles of those for whom the taxpayer will have to support would explode. Think about it. If you knew of any other business offering something for free, what are the odds that that business would suddenly be swamped. Just ask Kentucky Fried Chicken what happens. Remember the Oprah effect?

A lot of Grady's problems are self inflicted in that they never worried about expenses since they always had a ready source of revenue from the taxpayers. Imagine if every health care facility in the country acted the same way. The government covers expenses by raising taxes. They believe they have an inexhaustible supply, but like we see here, while the federal government can operate in such a fashion, local and state governments do have such a luxury.

No, I am not advocating throwing these folks out on the street. What I am saying is that the in case of the illegals they need to be returned home. For those that are receiving treatment, and are citizens, every effort needs to be made to get them on the appropriate existing insurance, probably Medicaid, and get them to an appropriate clinic for treatment. We have scores of dialysis clinics in the Atlanta area so that should not be a problem. Use the existing system. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Forcing the hospital to continue supplying services which are draining it's limited resources and therefore threatening to cause the entire hospital to go out of business doesn't make much sense. This however seems to be the liberals plan in regards to healthcare, kill the patient to cure a cold.

Grady's financial problems did not begin because of the recession, they just got exposed because of it. Once the taxpayers started demanding receipts for their tax dollars, the shortfalls could no longer be hidden or absorbed. If action had been taken years ago when problems at this hospital had been brought to light, stories like this would not exist. If the American people give the federal government what amounts to a credit card with an unlimited limit on it this is what will happen nationwide. The federal government will continue to raise taxes, or invent some little cute catchphrase, to fund it or if that is not possible simply cut off services.

18 Weeks From Diagnosis To Treatment

Imagine if these health care targets, as the British call them, standards in our language, were in place right now in America.

Mr Burnham said that core targets - such as the 4-hour waiting time target in A&E and the 18-week target from GP referral to treatment - would remain in place as “minimum standards”, but others which had served their purpose and now “alienated people” would be up for review. He said that targets surrounding inpatient waiting times - which include a 13-week target from decision to operate to hospital admission - might be expected to be removed.

Those are some of the standards they have in England for their national health system, a system that liberals want to impose on Americans.I think all of us have stories of a loved one who is diagnosed with a serious condition that may require surgery, but I doubt many of us can recall having to wait 13 weeks before surgery. A 4 hour emergency room visit is a reality a lot of times.

When The Going Gets Tough....

The President in Training Pants can be counted on to hit the campaign trail.

That is just what Barry O is doing today to peddle his all powerful, omnipotent, national health care plan. All on our dime of course. I wonder if somebody is keeping a running tally of all these trips he is making to either raise campaign funds or to go peddle whichever government takeover plan is the flavor of the day.

President Barack Obama, facing challenges to his ambitious health care overhaul from Congress, is visiting supporters outside the capital and turning to them to muster up momentum for one of his top legislative priorities.Obama on Thursday readied to fly to Green Bay, Wis., to talk directly with voters about his proposals to spend $1.5 trillion over the next decade to cover uninsured Americans.

The part of the story that really scares me is the part where he is taking the White House propaganda corp with him to hear "stories from average Americans" on health care issues.

Yeah, average Americans carefully screened and prepped with to ask the correct quetion or to give the "compelling story that is so emblematic of the problems in our health care system."

Administration officials said the president's speech in Green Bay would contain no new policies, but would instead put Obama - and the traveling White House press corps - in position to hear directly from people who are affected in the existing system. Those stories, Obama's political aides said, would be key to selling the final product.

Our press corps sold their souls to the devil long ago, so bloggers keep your eyes out on who gets to ask questions or which stories we hear and then just like in the past get to work to find out the real story, just like when they wanted to shove SCHIP down our throats. Something they were able to finally do by backroom deals and late night passage.