Someone Needed

I need someone to read the latest Time Magazine article on healthcare sickcare - Bitter Pill.

It's too long for me....plus I've been vaccinated (successfully!) against that strain of Big Media garbage.

Reader Neil recommended I read it, but I'm too busy and just barely interested.

Just let me know if it's worth my time.

In search of a summary I came across a critique which concluded that the article proved "...that what is wrong with our health care system is not Medicare, it's the private sector."

Obviously I have even less time for something like THAT.

Thanks.

Obamacare - Teleprompter, Translated!

Read John Stossel's translation.

Socialized Medicine - Fait Accompli

The idea that Obamacare would represent the *advent* of socialized medicine is ridiculous.

Not only do we already suffer from rationing and thoroughly distorted medical economics from government interference....the very nature of politically-sanctioned and tax-advantaged HMOs has successfully vaccinated our entire healthcare sickcare system from commonsense and fiscal sanity.

My first wife, who can't really micromanage or surveil her large and far-flung staff, always says that when she has a hunch that an employee is incompetent in one department....that in the end she always discovers that they were doing a hundred other tasks poorly. In other words, if you think someone is bad they are usually a whole lot worse!

The same goes for the healthcare imbroglio. Like most people (except apologetic swine flu enthusiast doctors!) I have a clue that the system is corrupt in terms of Big Pharma's influence, out-of-control tort extortion, and the inherent problem of *third party payers*.

But last night I read a post on Mish's website - Conversation With A Surgeon... - and I couldn't help but thinking about my wife's insight into her poor performers.

Click that link - it's a terrific albeit depressing post.

Obamacare Spoof

I thought I was watching a Viagra commercial there.

But the worst is these 'old coots' on Medicare ripping Obamacare while the two are essentially one and the same!

Big Science Is Racist!

Consider this headline:



Combined with:



If A correlates with B...

And B correlates with C...

THEN these scientists collectively asserted that minorities have lower intelligence!

I'm against all these ridiculous studies. Next they will correlate poverty with *low personal assets* or something.

And this isn't science at all. It's merely propaganda for self-perpetuating bureacracies and race-baiting politicians.

Did y'all know that we have a federal *office of minority health*? And that it's funded to the tune of $50 million every year?

Here's a funny straight from its website:

MONDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- The health-care portion of President Barack Obama's 2011 budget proposal includes $1.4 billion to overhaul the nation's food-safety program, $1.6 billion to expand child-care programs, and $1.7 billion to fight waste, fraud and abuse, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, said Monday.

Y'all catch that?

They are going to SPEND $1.7 billion to fight *waste, fraud, and abuse*!!!

Like Pulling Teeth

Tomorrow morning, I am having one of my wisdom teeth extracted. Never endured this before....just going with a *local* because it's $163 cheaper and so that I can drive myself home.

My son asked me why they were pulling the tooth.

Answering honestly I said because *experts* tell me it needs to come out....and because the people that do it need money.

[Four years ago, some oral surgeon down in Charlotte, NC told me that I NEEDED all four pulled. I asked him to explain; he tried but was completely unintelligible; I called him on it; he grew furious I guess because I just didn't blindly accept his recommendation; I essentially called him an idiot to his face and walked out triumphantly. Since then, I've seen two other oral surgeons; both of them only recommended a single tooth extraction. I may not know a lick about dentistry, but for me, quacks and Morons are easily diagnosed.]

Woe Is MY Knee

So two weeks ago, during my annual jabroni golf trip to Florida, I suffered a freakish injury, as they seemingly all are.

It was pouring, we had just eaten breakfast and were about to set off for the clubhouse to wait out the rain.

I ran to my car and wiped out trying to hop over a couple puddles. Like a Moron, I was wearing flip-flops which apparently didn't have as much *wet* traction as I thought.

So my right leg hyperextended forward, and then backward, and I went down screaming like a b*tch into the precise puddles I was trying to avoid!

Of course I iced it up and hobbled my way through two more rounds of golf. Heck, another guy on our trip also had a severely messed up leg and groin; and still another was there playing despite being the final stages of a long battle with cancer!

Two weeks later, the swelling is still there and some days it's quite painful.

I've been through this before so I know the drill. You need to see your primary to get a referral to an orthopedist. He'll do an x-ray, tug at your knee, erroneously declare the ACL *intact* and prescribe *physical therapy* to strengthen your knee. MRIs are, or they used to be, expensive. So they've been told to hold them back, I guess.

The entire process sends me into a fit of rage - from the bureaucratic BS to the *strengthen my leg* prescription. My legs are extraordinarily strong; even when I'm out of shape all it takes is a glance at the size of my calves or a touch to see that my thighs are as hard as concrete. Sometimes I think these doctors are so bleepin' clueless!

Six years ago, when I tore the second half of my ACL (right before my wedding!), I saw an orthopedist in Brooklyn who insisted that my ACL was *not torn*, that it was *intact*. He did that same little *pull* of the lower leg that they all do - surely a quack test in league with the useless Adson's. I had to beg him to get an MRI - another ordeal in and of itself.

When the results came back, he pored through half of the films muttering, "not torn", "looks okay", "normal", before ultimately realizing that, as I was telling him all along, that my ACL was *100% torn*. On another note, I can't believe I permitted that joker to do my surgery. Probably the only reason I didn't change doctors was because he was a *minority*. Even though he in all likelihood got into college and then med school with inferior credentials, I didn't want to seek out another doctor because it might appear that I was bigoted. I placed my own moral integrity above the integrity of the operation. And now, that same knee might need to be redone. No good deed...

So anyway, after hanging up on one orthopedic office that was going to make me wait a couple of weeks to *see a PA*(!), I found another that could squeeze me in. Ironically, I found the same doctor who just handled my daughter's broken wrist.

I saw him yesterday, wasting half of my day in the process. Predictably he declared my ACL *intact* and sent me down to get an X-ray which also, most predictably told him nothing except that the *hardware* from my past reconstruction was *ok*.

He started his spiel about physical therapy to *strengthen*....when I interrupted him, declared my leg strong enough, gave him my history of misdiagnoses, etc.

Right away he said he'd allow me to skip right to the MRI. And he laughingly told me the story of his own son's knee injury. Despite being an orthopedist, he declared his son's knee *not torn* when it turned out to be, like mine six years ago, completely gone. [I have another great anecdote of a doctor misdiagnosing his own son....but won't go there out on account of familial courtesy!]

I just had to respect this most rare display of doctoral honesty and humility.

But why should basic self-consciousness be so uncommon? A God-complex, anyone?



My pain comes and goes so the doc said that could indicate that I've just torn cartilage - which would only necessitate arthroscopic surgery.

I sincerely hope that is the case because I dread another full-blown reconstruction. My rehab last time was a real ordeal - much more so than what others experience. All of that sedentary time was a killer for my bad back, and my psyche. I also have two kids now to manage.

I know, this is hardly a real tragedy. Nonetheless it has the potential to really hijack my precious time and energy.

Ironically, I was very nervous about hurting my knees on that 7 hour climb of Mount Madison the week before. So it figures that I'd end up injured after eating an omelot, on a golf trip.

See also - Woe Is Knee.

Morons Arguing With Morons

I just heard on the radio an ad urging people to fight Obama's healthcare proposals because it would *publicly fund abortion*.

Say what?

The government already pays for it and has been for years!

Over a third of Planned Parenthood' operating budget already comes from federal and state GOVERNMENT grants. In 2006 that sum was a staggering $335 million dollars. Planned Parenthood, like all gov't programs, was in fact OVERSUBSIDIZED. How else to explain their $115 million in reported profits (2006?). See link here.

So the abortion argument against Obamacare is as intellectually weak as...

...As all those 'old coots' complaining that Obamacare would "ration healthcare".

Because they're already recipients of a rationed, single-payer entitlement called Medicare!



Now there's a chart that no doubt makes Margaret Sanger smile in her grave.

See also - Aborting Morons And Thugs.

America No More

Some of my cop-loving readers (Taylor?) will enjoy this one:

Ensuring Catastrophe

Recently Massachusetts has made the news due to the fact that it has the most expensive healthcare in the nation - an astounding $13,788 to insure a family of four. See my prior post here.

I just got off the phone with my brother who recently moved overseas. On the way out, he changed his legal US address from Virginia, to our parents' house in Central Massachusetts.

In doing so, his catastrophic healthcare insurance premium skyrocketed over 100%.

It went from $90 to a whopping $210 per month!

Life Extension - A Big Medicine Ruse For Extended Revenue

Here, read what John Maudlin wrote recently:

Some Thoughts on the Health Care Problem
Now, some positive news. This week I visited the Cleveland Clinic and went through their Executive Health Program (more on that below). I got to visit for several hours with my doctor, Michael Roizen, of YOU: The Owner's Manual fame (not to mention all his subsequent books). They have now sold over 20 million copies, and I highly recommend them.

I have long been a student of medical trends, and long-time readers know that I think the next really big boom will be in the biotech world. I asked Mike what three things he thought would have the biggest impact in the next five years in medicine. What he said gave me hope, because he thinks there may be some advances in medicine that could help solve some of the basic health issues we all face, and at the same time give us some relief from the high and rising costs of medical care. I was aware of most of the research, but did not know that we were as close as it appears we actually are.

Briefly, he feels there are three developments in late-stage trials that could have major impacts. The first is the development of sirtuin, which so far seems to be delaying the effects of diabetes but also seems to work for a host of diseases that are inflammatory in nature (including many heart-related issues). It essentially delays the symptoms for 30-40 years. While the current trials are for very specific diseases, he thinks sirtuin will have a wide applicability and that it could be huge, as inflammation is the cause of a number of diseases. This could prolong useful life and forestall a number of debilitating conditions.

Second, there is a late-stage-three trial due out soon that promises to increase muscle mass. I have been reading about such developments, but was not aware that something might be available within a few years. This promises to help people stay active a lot longer than currently possible, which will be a good thing if we are going to live longer.

And finally, there is a study and trial which shows that DHA may delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease, which eats up a significant portion of US medical budgets.
I recently spent time with a research doctor at the University of California Irvine who believes that muscular dystrophy and other brain/nerve-related diseases may be conquered within five years.

We may just get lucky. Instead of high and rising medical expenses that we cannot pay for without bankrupting the country, we may be able to reduce our medical bill by staying healthier and living longer.

First, the *next big boom* will be biotech?

Hah! They've been saying that since Jurassic Park got everyone geeked up about DNA and whatnot some 16 years ago.

Investment professionals like John Mauldlin are perma-bulls by default. They can't help themselves from waxing euphoric about *the next thing*. But I thought the next thing was globalization? B2B e-commerce? Or was it nanotechnology?

Now what misanthrope could be AGAINST life-extending medicine?

Well I am.

It's a joke - putting 60-70 year olds on medication that will add 10 years to their lives, perhaps. So they live to 95 instead of 85. But at what cost? At what benefit.

If we have a health issue in this country it's certainly not early death; it'd be late living and the absence of life. People used to die, what's now considered young for millennia, but at least they procreated. Today, voluntary sterility is in vogue.

And, if today's policy-makers want to vitalize an obese nation, they can stop subsidizing a culture of government and wage slavery desk jobs.

To me, there's nothing more unhealthy than sitting a desk all day, so dejected and bored that a greasy lunch is the highlight of one's day!

Seriously, at a desk, your stomach muscles decay at an accelerated pace.



In the very same article, well before his *thoughts* on healthcare posted above, Maudlin also said this:

Yes, there are some savings on the margin; but the only way you really cut costs is to ration health care, especially health care in the last year of life, which is about 30% of health-care expenses.

Yeah, John, that's consistent. Acknowledge that *life extension* is already a 30%(!) problem and then cheerlead for more of it!

Yeah, this is the same Moron who said this:

My bet is that the taxpayer is going to make a real profit on this deal.

....about the federal government's nationalization of AIG!

Taxpayers have dumped over $180 BILLION into AIG thus far - well past the initial, mere, $85 billion.

Thanks so much for cheerleading that *bailout*, John.

Definitely check out my prior post - John Maudlin - Fear Peddling Elitist

Citizens Should Be INSPECTING The State!!!

It seems like all I do is get my vehicles inspected.

Every time I turn around one of them is due for either an inspection or an emissions test. Here in the eco-pagan CommiWealth of Massachusetts cars must have their emissions tested every two years.

Just the other day I brought my car in for an oil change and the mechanic hollered out that my sticker expired last month. I seriously would have driven around for months if he (or a cop) hadn't notified me.

It's a complete joke that every car in the State has to be inspected so often. Furthermore, the grease monkey (offensive?) also informed me that Massachusetts was going to start requiring the emissions test EVERY SINGLE YEAR from now on. Great.

He told me they were doing it so, "They can get more Federal money..."

Whatver.

This reminds me of Mitt Romney's universal health coverage mandate. Allegedly, the reason for that initiative was to get the uninsured rate down in order to acquire, also, more Federal (Medicare) monies.

To say that our *systems* have set up convoluted incentives would be an understatement.

Even worse than the incentives are the *solutions*. See the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Every Town Is Bankrupt

East Hampton Reels as Billionaire Town Floats Debt

The Long Island sanctuary for the rich, where lobster salad sells for $85 a pound, has been hit by a double whammy: a tripling in workers' health costs since 2003, which officials failed to anticipate, and a 43 percent drop in revenue from mortgage taxes related to real estate sales in the first half of the year from 2007. Town officials for the first time plan to reduce the deficit by borrowing, after winning state approval for a $15 million bond sale.

East Hampton is self-insured to cover health care for its 448 employees and retirees. Costs associated with the plan increased to $9.2 million this year from $2.9 million in 2003, according to the official statement for bond anticipation notes sold in June, one-year securities that helped finance capital projects and improvements.

The town intends in the next several weeks to borrow $4 million dollars or more with a revenue anticipation note, as it awaits receipt of mortgage taxes already collected by Suffolk County, said board member Pat Mansir.

"It still hasn't been determined exactly how much we might need," Mansir said.

As of July 22, the town's general fund contained only $900, she said. The town received enough revenue in fees during the next four days to meet its more than $1 million bi-weekly payroll, she said.

East Hampton also plans to sell a $10 million, one-year bond anticipation note in August, and then convert the note into a $10 million, 10-year bond issue that may cover some capital spending requirements along with deficit reduction, said board member Peter Hammerle in an interview.

The board will probably use the remaining $5 million of its borrowing authority by issuing a second 10-year bond issue next year to cover a deficit officials expect in 2009, he said.

"We still don't know how much our medical bills will total," Hammerle said.

'Bite the Bullet'

A $10 million issue over 10 years would require a 4 percent increase of East Hampton's property-tax rate, said Town Supervisor William McGintee, a Democrat.

"Once you go down that road you're raising taxes just to pay interest," he said. "I would rather see us bite the bullet now."



So how do healthcare costs triple in five years?

Sure premiums are rising, but not quite nearly that much.

The answer is probably in "retirees". East Hampton probably not only added to its *benefit payroll* because of retiring workers, these 'old coots' benefits probably cost a whole lot more.

The fact is, almost every town in America is paying the indefinite healthcare benefits of its retired municipal workers. It's a liability that they can scarcely afford no matter how much money they set aside for it. Cities and towns have been hit with the "triple whammy" of rapidly rising healthcare costs, longer life expectancy, AND shrinking confiscatory revenue. Innumerable towns will be forced to declare municipal bankruptcy just so they can *renegotiate* benefits with their retired cops, firemen, librarians, and janitors.

It needs to be said that these local governments had no business promising lifetime benefits to their employees in the first place. They had no business promising something they couldn't guarantee.

On a larger level, the States are all pushing for a bigger role for Medicare. They are trying to offload their healthcare liabilities to the Federal government.

In fact, the parallels between Medicare and Fannie Mae are striking.

Just as the blind Medicare expenditures have helped push healthcare costs to the stratosphere - Fannie Mae's movement into holding and (implicitly) guaranteeing mortgages also forced traditional mortgage lenders to lower their standards to compete - sending home prices to the moon.

Medicare helped bankrupt the municipalities and then they turn around and push for a larger State hand in medicine...so they don't have to make any tough budgetary decisions themselves. Then the States knock on Washington's door...

Likewise, after Fannie Mae drove rates and credit concerns to the floor, taking the mortgage banks down a sewer, now Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and cohorts are offloading their bad mortgages onto the Feds via Fannie Mae and FHA. More accurately, they are offloading their junk onto taxpayers and future generations.

Big Government has grossly distorted the markets for both housing and healthcare. Sure, other options exist for consumers, but both Medicare and Fannie Mae have defined and inflated both cost structures and set standards industrywide. I am not positive, but I believe the term describing this type of *imperfect competition* is monopsony (surely some nerd will try to correct me).

East Hampton's fiscal woes are the perfect launch pad. From this one bankrupt municipality we can easily extrapolate to almost every other town in America.

If you knew anything about East Hampton you'd know that there has been new construction (read: new tax revenue) left and right for the past several years. None of these homes are under a $1 million either, with many multiples of that. Furthermore, on the East End there are scarcely delinquent taxpayers nor has there really been anything other than a recent, slight downtick in the NYC economy. So if a town flush with cash flow can't cover its bills what does this forebode for Camden, NJ or Pontiac, Michigan? For the State of California? This is my Greg Mankiw induction argument once again.

Politicians the world over simply spend every nickel that comes in and then go into hock for quarters and sawbucks.

East Hampton may be running short today, but it was just yesterday they were spending millions moving and restoring barns to *maintain the towns character* and, of course, to house municipal employees in the lavish manner they *deserve*. They've also got a confiscatory 2% transfer tax on all real estate transaction in the Hamptons called the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund. Surprisingly, there's not much written on the web on that slush fund. Two-percent is big money when you are talking about the multi-million dollar mansions and estates out East. It is just another example of a minority (those already domiciled in the Hamptons) voting themselves the assets of a majority (anyone who would in the future buy a house out there). I guess if you want to be part of the *scene* you have to ante up!



There's a running joke or catch-phrase in the doom-and-gloom housing bubble blogosphere that, "We're all subprime now." Like all provocative humor, its foundation is the naked truth. This line from the article above...

The town intends in the next several weeks to borrow $4 million dollars or more with a revenue anticipation note, as it awaits receipt of mortgage taxes already collected by Suffolk County, said board member Pat Mansir.

...certainly buffets that jest. Read up on RAL Loans on Wikipedia. These products for the *working poor*, are exploitive, allegedly racist, and got HR Block and Jackson Hewitt in all sorts of trouble.

The companies defended themselves by arguing that refund anticipation loans are legitimate and for *emergencies*.

If we aren't "all subprime", the differences at least seem very blurry these days.

By the way, if East Hampton is spending $9.2 million this year to cover the healthcare of its 443 employees and retiree...

...then it is spending a whopping average of $20,536 per person!!!

Massachusetts And Healthcare - Another Profile in Fascism And Stupidity

As of 2007, Massachusetts residents are now compelled by law to have health insurance. If one chooses not to be insured, the state will fine them I believe around $300. Likewise, if a business employs 11 employees or more it must offer a health plan or suffer a fine as well.

Sure if you want to drive a car, you ought to have insurance in case you injure another party, but what could possibly be the motivation for forced health insurance?

If I get sick, how exactly does that affect anyone else? Contagious diseases are few and far between these days.

Devil's Advocate - Well, if one doesn't have health insurance, when they do get sick and show up at the hospital, then the government will have to foot the bill. So in that sense, the uninsured cost taxpayers money.

Well, obviously we need to get rid of mandated care then. DA you should go back and read my free hot dog analogy. Since it's short I will reprint it below:

If some restaurant decided to give away free hot dogs, there'd be a long line around the corner to get them. Then invariably, some politician will point and clamor, "Look how many people NEED hot dogs!"

I say you allow hospitals to turn away anyone who can't pay. Let gunshot victims from the hood bleed out on the sidewalk if they're uninsured. No doubt one of his buddies has some bling currency to pay for urgent care.

The idea that the government is capable of administering a universal, for-the-wretched-and-poor, healthcare system remains a fancy. It's their very mandates, tax-breaks, and existing subsidies that have pushed healthcare costs to such stratospheric levels . So now, after they have made it prohibitively expensive, they are going to wax indignant and compel everyone to buy it one way or another!?!?!?



Massachusetts employers (there are 12 left!) actually have to issue a new tax form to their workers - a 1099-HC. The Commonwealth has decided to use tax returns to enforce the healthcare mandate. My wife accidently threw it out with the junk mail and we had to scramble to find another copy. From reading some websites, she was by no means the only one to make this oversight.

While filing, I noticed a religious exemption to the healthcare mandate. Residents can check a box if their faith rejects modern medical treatment; I assume it's for the Scientologists(?).

Then right below, the tax form asks if you are claiming a religious exemption BUT have sought medical treatment in the past year. Don't try to lie! In other words, they are going to investigate any religious hypocrisy - which apparently the State of Massachusetts also feels is well within its charter.

Well, if that is the case, why pick on one religion?

I say, if some emptyhead buys a Prius but has oil heat and/or more than 3,000 square feet, and/or keeps their thermostat above 73 degrees....

...then the state ought to revoke the $2,000 hybrid vehicle income tax deduction.

After all, the government isn't supposed to be establishing or favoring any particular religion, correct? I say round up and flay all the hypocrites!



Make no mistake, this healthcare mandate is not the rotten fruit of economic illiteracy - as making MORE PEOPLE buy something that is too costly only aggravates unaffordability.

It's not about nanny-statism or a treatment crisis - as 90% of Mass residents already have some form of health coverage.

This mandate is but another Trojan horse, another salient by statists against the rights of private individuals. If you pay attention, the subterfuge is apparent in the words of program officials:

"We need to be fair and lenient in terms of enforcement both on employers and individuals in the first year in order to not incur some kind of a backlash," said Richard C. Lord, president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts and a member of the Connector board. "We need to.....give everybody a chance to adjust to the new realities."

They've already admitted the fine for uninsurance will rise every year. Was there ever a doubt? Next up will be more regulation ("standard setting") on the minimal care and insurance levels. In the meantime, jobs and people will continue to flee the state - an old reality that jurassic politicians have yet to adjust to.

My neighbors here in Massachusetts are old and Moronic; unfortunately I also get the government they deserve.

Elevating Jason Lewis

As I dashed off to mail my tax return, I just heard a great analysis on the radio:

If some restaurant decided to give away free hot dogs, there'd be a long line around the corner to get them. Then invariably, some politician will point and clamor, "Look how many people NEED hot dogs!"

That little hypothetical illuminates at least a couple of the major ailments of our healthcare system.

I am pretty sure the raspy voice who uttered it was Jason Lewis. I first heard him when I moved to Charlotte where he was THE local radio talking-head. I guess if he's now subbing for Rush Limbaugh then he's sort of a rising star in his realm. He's pretty decent on economics and historical analogy - but man, he is one angry dude.

Although I guess that there are as many serene radio talkshow hosts are there are serene basketball coaches.

(Adult Language Warning)



Alright, I just had to work that profane clip in because I found it funny. Serious, more cogent blogging will return now that my taxes are done and I have vowed not to start another book for the time being.