Now we know why they’ve stopped calling this health care reform, and started calling it insurance reform. The current bills advancing in Congress look more like rearranging the deck chairs on the insurance Titanic than actually ending our long health care nightmare.

Some laudable elements are in various versions of the bills, especially expanding Medicaid, cutting the private insurance-padding waste of Medicare Advantage, and limiting the ability of the insurance giants to ban and dump people who have been or who ever will be sick.

But, overall, the leading bills and the President’s proposal are, like the dog that didn’t bark, more notable for what is missing.

Here are 13 problems with the current health care bills (partial list):

1. No cost controls on insurance companies. The coming sharp increases in premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, etc. will quickly outpace any projected protections from caps on out-of-pocket costs.

2. Insurance companies will continue to be able to use marketing techniques to cherry-pick healthier, less costly enrollees.

3. No restrictions on insurance denials of care that insurers don’t want to pay for. In case you missed it, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee uncovered data on the California Department of Managed Care website recently that found six of the biggest California insurers rejected, on annual average, more than one-fifth of all claims every year since 2002.

4. No challenge to insurance company monopolies, especially in the top 94 metropolitan areas, where one or two companies dominate, severely limiting choice and competition.

5. A massive government bailout for the insurance industry through the combination of the individual mandate requiring everyone not covered to buy insurance, public subsidies which go for buying insurance, no regulation on what insurers can charge, and no restrictions on their ability to decide what claims to pay.

6. No controls on drug prices. The White House deal with Big Pharma, which won bipartisan approval in the Senate Finance Committee, opposes the use of government leverage to negotiate real cost controls on inflated drug prices.

7. No single standard of care. Our multi-tiered system remains with access to care still determined by ability to pay.

8. Tax on comprehensive insurance plans. That will encourage employers to reduce benefits, shift more costs to employees, promote proliferation of bare-bones, high-deductible plans, and lead to more self-rationing of care and medical bankruptcies.

9. Not universal. Some people will remain uncovered, including those exempted, and undocumented workers, denying them treatment, exposing everyone to communicable diseases and inflating health care costs.

10. No definition of covered benefits.

11. No protection for our public safety net. Public hospitals and clinics will continue to be under-funded and a dumping ground for those the private system doesn’t want. Public monies going to hospitals serving low-income communities will be shifted to subsidies for private insurance.

12. Long delay in implementation. Many reforms don’t go into effect until 2013.

13. Nothing changes in basic structure of the system; health care remains a privilege, not a right.

Read the entire article at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/29-0

Friday, September 25, 2009

New Rule: If America Can’t Get it Together, We Lose the Bald Eagle

New Rule: If America can’t get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can’t get up. As long as we’re pathetic, we might as well act like it’s cute. I don’t care about the president’s birth certificate, I do want to know what happened to "Yes we can." Can we get out of Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Fix health care? No. Close Gitmo? No. Cap-and-trade carbon emissions? No. The Obamas have been in Washington for ten months and it seems like the only thing they’ve gotten is a dog.

Well, I hate to be a nudge, but why has America become a nation that can’t make anything bad end, like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction, the drug war, useless weapons programs – oh, and there’s still 60,000 troops in Germany – and can’t make anything good start, like health care reform, immigration reform, rebuilding infrastructure. Even when we address something, the plan can never start until years down the road. Congress’s climate change bill mandates a 17% cut in greenhouse gas emissions… by 2020! Fellas, slow down, where’s the fire? Oh yeah, it’s where I live, engulfing the entire western part of the United States!

We might pass new mileage standards, but even if we do, they wouldn’t start until 2016. In that year, our cars of the future will glide along at a breathtaking 35 miles-per-gallon. My goodness, is that even humanly possible? Cars that get 35 miles-per-gallon in just six years? Get your head out of the clouds, you socialist dreamer! "What do we want!? A small improvement! When do we want it!? 2016!"

When it’s something for us personally, like a laxative, it has to start working now. My TV remote has a button on it now called "On Demand". You get your ass on my TV screen right now, Jon Cryer, and make me laugh. Now! But when it’s something for the survival of the species as a whole, we phase that in slowly.

Folks, we don’t need more efficient cars. We need something to replace cars. That’s what’s wrong with these piddly, too-little-too-late half-measures that pass for "reform" these days. They’re not reform, they’re just putting off actually solving anything to a later day, when we might by some miracle have, a) leaders with balls, and b) a general populace who can think again. Barack Obama has said, "If we were starting from scratch, then a single-payer system would probably make sense." So let’s start from scratch.

Even if they pass the shitty Max Baucus health care bill, it doesn’t kick in for 4 years, during which time 175,000 people will die because they’re not covered, and about three million will go bankrupt from hospital bills. We have a pretty good idea of the Republican plan for the next three years: Don’t let Obama do anything. What kills me is that that’s the Democrats’ plan, too.
We weren’t always like this. Inert. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law and 11 months later seniors were receiving benefits. During World War II, virtually overnight FDR had auto companies making tanks and planes only. In one eight year period, America went from JFK’s ridiculous dream of landing a man on the moon, to actually landing a man on the moon.

This generation has had eight years to build something at Ground Zero. An office building, a museum, an outlet mall, I don’t care anymore. I’m tempted to say that, symbolically, all America can do lately is keep digging a hole, but Ground Zero doesn’t represent a hole. It is a hole. America: Home of the Freedom Pit. Ironically, it’s spitting distance from Wall Street, where they knock down buildings a different way – through foreclosure.
That’s the ultimate sign of our lethargy: millions thrown out of their homes, tossed out of work, lost their life savings, retirements postponed – and they just take it. 30% interest on credit cards? It’s a good thing the Supreme Court legalized sodomy a few years ago.

Why can’t we get off our back? Is it something in the food? Actually, yes. I found out something interesting researching last week’s editorial on how we should be taxing the unhealthy things Americans put into their bodies, like sodas and junk foods and gerbils. Did you know that we eat the same high-fat, high-carb, sugar-laden shit that’s served in prisons and in religious cults to keep the subjects in a zombie-like state of lethargic compliance? Why haven’t Americans arisen en masse to demand a strong public option? Because "The Bachelor" is on. We’re tired and our brain stems hurt from washing down French fries with McDonald’s orange drink.

The research is in: high-fat diets makes you lazy and stupid. Rats on an American diet weren’t motivated to navigate their maze and once in the maze they made more mistakes. And, instead of exercising on their wheel, they just used it to hang clothes on. Of course we can’t ban assault rifles – we’re the first generation too lazy to make its own coffee. We’re the generation that invented the soft chocolate chip cookie: like a cookie, only not so exhausting to chew. I ask you, if the food we’re eating in America isn’t making us stupid, how come the people in Carl’s Jr. ads never think to put a napkin over their pants?

Bill Maher

The "Thriller" singer’s burial will now take place on September 3 and not August 29, which would have been Jackson’s 51st birthday, because some family members did not want the pop star to be buried on that day, said Londell McMillan, attorney for the singer’s mother, Katherine Jackson.

Jackson Burial Postponed, Judge Approves Exhibition – ABC News

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn’t make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn’t put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing – in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It’s how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O’Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.

Now, the hate mail all seemed to have a running theme: that I may live in a stupid country, but they lived in the greatest country on earth, and that perhaps I should move to another country, like Somalia. Well, the joke’s on them because I happen to have a summer home in Somalia… and no I can’t show you an original copy of my birth certificate because Woody Harrelson spilled bong water on it.

And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we’re presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don’t know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.

I’m the bad guy for saying it’s a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don’t know what’s in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don’t know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.

Not here. Nearly half of Americans don’t know that states have two senators and more than half can’t name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife’s name right on the first try.

Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they’re not stupid. They’re interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."

People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It’s actually less than 1%. And don’t even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream. And last election, a full one-third of voters forgot why they were in the booth, handed out their pants, and asked, "Do you have these in a relaxed-fit?"

And I haven’t even brought up America’s religious beliefs. But here’s one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That’s right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.

And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There’s a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it’s thinking, which is more than you can say for what’s going on outside the beltway.

And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they’re talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn’t work because "there is nothing to check… an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.

Until we admit there are things we don’t know, we can’t even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can’t stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying… It is like saying ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’" To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"

Miami topped the annual poll for the last four years but voters in 25 major metropolitan areas gave New Yorkers the prize for angriest, most aggressive drivers who tailgate, speed, honk their horns, overreact and lose their tempers.

Dallas/Fort Worth came in second as the worst road rage city followed by Detroit, Atlanta and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Miami ranked a distant seventh.

Baltimore, Sacramento and Pittsburgh rounded out the top five cities with the most pleasant drivers.

Portland and Cleveland were voted to have the most courteous, considerate drivers.

I was surprised that Los Angeles wasn’t on the list, with a city that large and all the commuting one would think the drivers would be aggressive. Maybe it’s all that gorgeous weather, makes you in a better mood even when the jerk in front of you  is driving like an idiot.

Source

So here you go folks…simple and it works!

1. R click by task tray to bring up task manager
2. On processes tab find “Explorer.exe”
3. Click End Process
4. Click on applications tab……>File……>New Task
5. Type Explorer.exe

By restarting this executable corrects the settings.

Icons are all back and the area that was previously grayed out in the task manager notification are now working. Still wish I knew why this happened though.

Below is a map that was on an evening newscast discussing the colder than average temperatures and what to expect this summer. Of course I’m in an area of VERY COOL, duh, like I’ve haven’t known that for the last few months this summer was going to suck. How depressing.

For all of you in a warm place this summer, want some company? I promise to be a good guest, quiet, neat, will even help with cooking :-}

Thursday…… decided to look at the iPhone even though it meant switching carriers. If you’ve ever been in an Apple store than you know what they’re like. Very customer friendly, phones, ipods, and computers right there that you can actually get your hands on and have an associate answer your questions. Everything about the iPhone is ease of operation and navigation with absolutely zero pressure to purchase one. I left the store and decided to sleep on it over night.

Friday …  I picked up my new iPhone and am loving it! I already have an iPod and iTunes account so that made it that much easier with this phone. Took seconds to add my contacts from outlook express and a few of my favorite playlists from my iPod.  The apps are amazing, think I’ve only added about 5 or 6 so far, Facebook and Twitter were the first. For those who listen to Pandora radio there’s even an app for this which is nice.

All in all I am a happy camper and loving this new phone. I have had zero problems with coverage, though I did check at the AT&T website coverage viewer before purchasing.

AT&T should thank the bi*^h at the Brighton, Michigan Verizon store. Had it not been for her I most likely would have bought another phone or different BlackBerry and continued with Verizon.  As it is I never want to step foot in that store again!