Truth in advertising
There's a problem with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (there are several, but I'm concerned about one specific issue at the moment) and that's in its name.
There's very little affordable about this law, or healthcare in general. The idea that anyone, pre-existing condition or not, can get coverage (immediately) ignores the basic economic equation that enables insurers to turn a profit. Rather than rant about this, let me pose a simple question to those who favor the current approach under this unaffordable law:
How do we pay to provide coverage to everyone with a pre-existing condition?
The idea of expanding the risk pool so that everyone shares a small part of the cost makes sense until you learn that only 50,000 people have thus far enrolled in a plan through the healthcare exchanges. That's roughly one-tenth of what was needed at this point. Even when they get the website working properly, sign-ups are lagging well behind projections. Fewer people in the system means everyone pays more.
With budget deficits projected to remain above the half-trillion dollar mark well into the 2020s, we cannot afford to just fold the costs of caring for everyone into the present budgetary model.
Doctors are choosing to opt out of insurance plans and setting up direct primary care systems. Add a wraparound catastrophic policy and you're ACA compliant, fulfilling the mandate. It is probably less expensive than an exchange plan unless you qualify for a large subsidy and you may well get better care. When doctors are demonstrating that processing insurance billing is anywhere from 20% to 40% of their overhead, that is a very good incentive for them to just opt out.
The basic concept that every person in the U.S. should be provided with healthcare is sound. Obamacare is an imperfect solution to implementing that concept, but it is a step in the right direction.
Let's get back to that problem with the labeling of the PPACA. It lacks language to ensure that care is affordable. Look at California's Prop 103. Automobile insurance is mandated in California but Prop 103 ensures that premium increases are regulated by the Department of Insurance (CDI). Since states regulate insurance plans on an individual and small group basis, the PPACA couldn't set up the same set of protections.
We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can fix the PPACA.
* * *
I'm not going to comment any further (for the moment) on the horrific nature of what has transpired in the Philippines because I'm just frustrated with the misleading commentary on how the intensity of tropical cyclones is linked to climate change. There is no proof of this connection and rather than stress out over it, I'm just not going to comment any further on the storm and aftermath.
With one exception. Let me laud the efforts of those who are working to bring assistance to those who are suffering and urge anyone and everyone to donate to the relief efforts.
* * *
When will we learn from our mistakes? We continue to adhere to the doctrine that certain financial institutions are simply too big to fail. We gutted Glass-Steagall and Gramm-Leach-Bliley was a major disaster. Dodd-Frank is good in theory but isn't being properly enforced.
The question posed by Senator Warren to SEC Chair Elise Walter and OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) Chief Officer Thomas Curry was very telling. Paraphrased, she asked "when was the last time you took a big bank to trial" and it's a great question. These banks flout the laws and then reach settlements. Maybe they are multi-billion dollar settlements, but they made way more than enough money to cover the cost of these settlements.
If you can break the law and pay only a financial penalty that represents only a portion of the profits from your illegal actions, where is your incentive to comply with those laws?
I have an idea. Let those banks that consider themselves "too big to fail" to pony up and purchase insurance over and above what the FDIC provides, so that if there is a problem, the government can step in. The taxpayers have bailed out the banks enough times now. Let them buy the coverage if they want to be too big to fail.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Colorado College should not be using the word "queer" as a choice for job applicants to indicate their gender on applications. Their attempts to defend this policy are pathetic.
Richard Cohen needs to retire or be retired from the column he writes for the Washington Post. Unless of course they choose to continue publishing racist drivel. Then they should promote him.
I suppose the workers at WalMart should be grateful they are opening at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, rather than 6 a.m. like they're doing over at KMart.
Is there some insidious reason for Yahoo to keep telling me I have new mail in my Yahoo mailbox, even when I don't? The red "1" indicator has been on for days now, even though I've got no new email in the box.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen don't look enough alike to be fraternal twins, but Joss Whedon will make it work.
I'm not sure if I agree with the conclusions of a new study on heart health but that's only because it would mean I *should* have bariatric surgery and I've never really wanted to go in that direction. But if my cardiologist says that's the way to go, I would follow his advice. I've never felt more comfortable trusting a doctor than I do with this particular doc.
There's a high school cheerleading squad in Hawaii that's been suspended while there is an investigation that some of them may have engaged in cyber-bullying. That's newsworthy. But why would UPI use a photo of professional cheerleaders at a pro football game with that story?
There's something wrong with the enforcement of NCAA rules when a runner who wasn't enrolled in college decided to take part in a "fun run" and they take a year of eligibility from him for engaging in training that would give him a competitive advantage.
* * *
November 12th In History:
1028 – Future Byzantine empress Zoe takes the throne as empress consort to Romanus Argyrus.
1330 – Battle of Posada, Wallachian Voievode Basarab I defeats the Hungarian army in an ambush.
1439 – Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.
1555 – The English Parliament re-establishes Catholicism.
1602 – Sebastian Viscaino lands at and names San Diego, California.
1793 – Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor of Paris, is guillotined.
1892 – William "Pudge" Heffelfinger becomes the first professional American football player on record, participating in his first paid game for the Allegheny Athletic Association.
1893 – The treaty of the Durand Line is signed between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan; the Durand Line has gained international recognition as an international border between the two nations.
1905 – Norway holds a referendum in favor of monarchy over republic.
1912 – The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
1918 – Austria becomes a republic.
1920 – Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sign the Treaty of Rapallo.
1927 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
1928 – SS Vestris sinks approximately 200 miles (320 km) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing at least 110 passengers, mostly women and children who die after the vessel is abandoned.
1933 – Hugh Gray takes the first known photos alleged to be of the Loch Ness Monster.
1936 – In California, the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
1940 – World War II: The Battle of Gabon ends as Free French Forces take Libreville, Gabon, and all of French Equatorial Africa from Vichy France forces.
1940 – World War II: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrives in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis Powers.
1941 – World War II: temperatures around Moscow drop to -12° C as the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
1941 – World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina is destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol.
1942 – World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasts for three days and ends with an American victory.
1944 – World War II: The Royal Air Force launches 29 Avro Lancaster bombers and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz, with 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs off Tromsø, Norway.
1948 – In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.
1956 – Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations.
1956 – In the midst of the Suez Crisis, Palestinian refugees are shot dead in the village of Rafah by Israeli soldiers following the invasion of the Gaza Strip.
1958 – A team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completes the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.
1968 – Equatorial Guinea joins the United Nations.
1969 – Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre – Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
1970 – The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous "exploding whale" incident.
1970 – The 1970 Bhola cyclone makes landfall on the coast of East Pakistan becoming the deadliest tropical cyclone in history.
1971 – Vietnam War: as part of Vietnamization, US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
1975 – The Comoros joins the United Nations.
1978 – Pope John Paul II takes possession of his Cathedral Church, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as the Bishop of Rome.
1979 – Iran hostage crisis: in response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran.
1980 – The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn and takes the first images of its rings.
1981 – Space Shuttle program: mission STS-2, utilizing the Space Shuttle Columbia, marks the first time a manned spacecraft is launched into space twice.
1982 – In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov becomes the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding Leonid I. Brezhnev.
1990 – Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.
1990 – Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.
1991 – Dili Massacre: Indonesian forces open fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.
1993 – The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 1, is held in Denver, Colorado.
1996 – A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, killing 349. The deadliest mid-air collision to date.
1997 – Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
1999 – The Düzce earthquake strikes Turkey with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale.
2001 – In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 en route to the Dominican Republic, crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground.
Famous Folk Born on November 12th:
Thaddeus William Harris
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Alexander Borodin
Auguste Rodin
Sun Yat-Sen
Harry Blackmun
Daisy Bates
Jo Stafford
Grace Kelly
Jalal Talabani
Charles Manson
Ina Balin
Brian Hyland
Wallace Shawn
Booker T. Jones
Al Michaels (still think the best thing he ever did was play-by-play of carpool at the private school his daughter attended, from his perch on the school's roof. Hysterical).
Neil Young
Buck Dharma
Hassan Rouhani
Barbara Fairchild
Jack Reed
Ron Burkle
Rhonda Shear
Les McKeown
Megan Mullally
Nadia Comaneci
Sammy Sosa
Elektra (the wrestler)
Tonya Harding
Cote de Pablo
Ryan Gosling
Anne Hathaway
Movie quotes today come from the underrated and excellent "Gardens of Stone", a movie with an all-star cast featuring James Caan, James Earl Jones, Anjelica Huston, D.B. Sweeney, Dean Stockwell, Mary Stuart Masterson, Lonette McKee, Laurence Fishburne and Sam Bottoms:
"Goody" Nelson: You ever take biology in school, soldier?
Jackie Willow: Yes, Sergeant-Major.
"Goody" Nelson: How do worms copulate?
Jackie Willow: They don't, Sergeant-Major; they use asexual reproduction.
"Goody" Nelson: Mmmm-hmmmm! Interesting concept! Tell me, Willow - any idea who first came up with that notion: reproducing without sex?
Jackie Willow: Your wife, Sergeant-Major?
#2
Jackie Willow: [over the phone]
[shouts]
Jackie Willow: Hey, Sarge! I need another favor.
Clell Hazard: [shouts] Oh, great. Let's see... you got my money, you got my car. I guess now you need my dick to seal the deal!
#3
"Goody" Nelson: Clell, Old Boy, you mean you haven't told the lady? Why Madam, we are the Old Guard. We are the Nation's Toy Soldiers. We march with rifles that cannot shoot. We fix bayonets that cannot stick. We are the Kabuki theater of the profession of arms. Jesters in the court of Mars, God of War, do-da, do-da.
#4
Clell Hazard: The peace loving people of Vietnam, My Ass. A more bellicose race of people I have never known
There's very little affordable about this law, or healthcare in general. The idea that anyone, pre-existing condition or not, can get coverage (immediately) ignores the basic economic equation that enables insurers to turn a profit. Rather than rant about this, let me pose a simple question to those who favor the current approach under this unaffordable law:
How do we pay to provide coverage to everyone with a pre-existing condition?
The idea of expanding the risk pool so that everyone shares a small part of the cost makes sense until you learn that only 50,000 people have thus far enrolled in a plan through the healthcare exchanges. That's roughly one-tenth of what was needed at this point. Even when they get the website working properly, sign-ups are lagging well behind projections. Fewer people in the system means everyone pays more.
With budget deficits projected to remain above the half-trillion dollar mark well into the 2020s, we cannot afford to just fold the costs of caring for everyone into the present budgetary model.
Doctors are choosing to opt out of insurance plans and setting up direct primary care systems. Add a wraparound catastrophic policy and you're ACA compliant, fulfilling the mandate. It is probably less expensive than an exchange plan unless you qualify for a large subsidy and you may well get better care. When doctors are demonstrating that processing insurance billing is anywhere from 20% to 40% of their overhead, that is a very good incentive for them to just opt out.
The basic concept that every person in the U.S. should be provided with healthcare is sound. Obamacare is an imperfect solution to implementing that concept, but it is a step in the right direction.
Let's get back to that problem with the labeling of the PPACA. It lacks language to ensure that care is affordable. Look at California's Prop 103. Automobile insurance is mandated in California but Prop 103 ensures that premium increases are regulated by the Department of Insurance (CDI). Since states regulate insurance plans on an individual and small group basis, the PPACA couldn't set up the same set of protections.
We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can fix the PPACA.
* * *
I'm not going to comment any further (for the moment) on the horrific nature of what has transpired in the Philippines because I'm just frustrated with the misleading commentary on how the intensity of tropical cyclones is linked to climate change. There is no proof of this connection and rather than stress out over it, I'm just not going to comment any further on the storm and aftermath.
With one exception. Let me laud the efforts of those who are working to bring assistance to those who are suffering and urge anyone and everyone to donate to the relief efforts.
* * *
When will we learn from our mistakes? We continue to adhere to the doctrine that certain financial institutions are simply too big to fail. We gutted Glass-Steagall and Gramm-Leach-Bliley was a major disaster. Dodd-Frank is good in theory but isn't being properly enforced.
The question posed by Senator Warren to SEC Chair Elise Walter and OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) Chief Officer Thomas Curry was very telling. Paraphrased, she asked "when was the last time you took a big bank to trial" and it's a great question. These banks flout the laws and then reach settlements. Maybe they are multi-billion dollar settlements, but they made way more than enough money to cover the cost of these settlements.
If you can break the law and pay only a financial penalty that represents only a portion of the profits from your illegal actions, where is your incentive to comply with those laws?
I have an idea. Let those banks that consider themselves "too big to fail" to pony up and purchase insurance over and above what the FDIC provides, so that if there is a problem, the government can step in. The taxpayers have bailed out the banks enough times now. Let them buy the coverage if they want to be too big to fail.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Colorado College should not be using the word "queer" as a choice for job applicants to indicate their gender on applications. Their attempts to defend this policy are pathetic.
Richard Cohen needs to retire or be retired from the column he writes for the Washington Post. Unless of course they choose to continue publishing racist drivel. Then they should promote him.
I suppose the workers at WalMart should be grateful they are opening at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, rather than 6 a.m. like they're doing over at KMart.
Is there some insidious reason for Yahoo to keep telling me I have new mail in my Yahoo mailbox, even when I don't? The red "1" indicator has been on for days now, even though I've got no new email in the box.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen don't look enough alike to be fraternal twins, but Joss Whedon will make it work.
I'm not sure if I agree with the conclusions of a new study on heart health but that's only because it would mean I *should* have bariatric surgery and I've never really wanted to go in that direction. But if my cardiologist says that's the way to go, I would follow his advice. I've never felt more comfortable trusting a doctor than I do with this particular doc.
There's a high school cheerleading squad in Hawaii that's been suspended while there is an investigation that some of them may have engaged in cyber-bullying. That's newsworthy. But why would UPI use a photo of professional cheerleaders at a pro football game with that story?
There's something wrong with the enforcement of NCAA rules when a runner who wasn't enrolled in college decided to take part in a "fun run" and they take a year of eligibility from him for engaging in training that would give him a competitive advantage.
* * *
November 12th In History:
1028 – Future Byzantine empress Zoe takes the throne as empress consort to Romanus Argyrus.
1330 – Battle of Posada, Wallachian Voievode Basarab I defeats the Hungarian army in an ambush.
1439 – Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.
1555 – The English Parliament re-establishes Catholicism.
1602 – Sebastian Viscaino lands at and names San Diego, California.
1793 – Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor of Paris, is guillotined.
1892 – William "Pudge" Heffelfinger becomes the first professional American football player on record, participating in his first paid game for the Allegheny Athletic Association.
1893 – The treaty of the Durand Line is signed between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan; the Durand Line has gained international recognition as an international border between the two nations.
1905 – Norway holds a referendum in favor of monarchy over republic.
1912 – The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
1918 – Austria becomes a republic.
1920 – Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sign the Treaty of Rapallo.
1927 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
1928 – SS Vestris sinks approximately 200 miles (320 km) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing at least 110 passengers, mostly women and children who die after the vessel is abandoned.
1933 – Hugh Gray takes the first known photos alleged to be of the Loch Ness Monster.
1936 – In California, the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
1940 – World War II: The Battle of Gabon ends as Free French Forces take Libreville, Gabon, and all of French Equatorial Africa from Vichy France forces.
1940 – World War II: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrives in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis Powers.
1941 – World War II: temperatures around Moscow drop to -12° C as the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
1941 – World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina is destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol.
1942 – World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasts for three days and ends with an American victory.
1944 – World War II: The Royal Air Force launches 29 Avro Lancaster bombers and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz, with 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs off Tromsø, Norway.
1948 – In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.
1956 – Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations.
1956 – In the midst of the Suez Crisis, Palestinian refugees are shot dead in the village of Rafah by Israeli soldiers following the invasion of the Gaza Strip.
1958 – A team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completes the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.
1968 – Equatorial Guinea joins the United Nations.
1969 – Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre – Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
1970 – The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous "exploding whale" incident.
1970 – The 1970 Bhola cyclone makes landfall on the coast of East Pakistan becoming the deadliest tropical cyclone in history.
1971 – Vietnam War: as part of Vietnamization, US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
1975 – The Comoros joins the United Nations.
1978 – Pope John Paul II takes possession of his Cathedral Church, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as the Bishop of Rome.
1979 – Iran hostage crisis: in response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran.
1980 – The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn and takes the first images of its rings.
1981 – Space Shuttle program: mission STS-2, utilizing the Space Shuttle Columbia, marks the first time a manned spacecraft is launched into space twice.
1982 – In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov becomes the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding Leonid I. Brezhnev.
1990 – Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.
1990 – Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.
1991 – Dili Massacre: Indonesian forces open fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.
1993 – The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 1, is held in Denver, Colorado.
1996 – A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, killing 349. The deadliest mid-air collision to date.
1997 – Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
1999 – The Düzce earthquake strikes Turkey with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale.
2001 – In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 en route to the Dominican Republic, crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground.
Famous Folk Born on November 12th:
Thaddeus William Harris
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Alexander Borodin
Auguste Rodin
Sun Yat-Sen
Harry Blackmun
Daisy Bates
Jo Stafford
Grace Kelly
Jalal Talabani
Charles Manson
Ina Balin
Brian Hyland
Wallace Shawn
Booker T. Jones
Al Michaels (still think the best thing he ever did was play-by-play of carpool at the private school his daughter attended, from his perch on the school's roof. Hysterical).
Neil Young
Buck Dharma
Hassan Rouhani
Barbara Fairchild
Jack Reed
Ron Burkle
Rhonda Shear
Les McKeown
Megan Mullally
Nadia Comaneci
Sammy Sosa
Elektra (the wrestler)
Tonya Harding
Cote de Pablo
Ryan Gosling
Anne Hathaway
Movie quotes today come from the underrated and excellent "Gardens of Stone", a movie with an all-star cast featuring James Caan, James Earl Jones, Anjelica Huston, D.B. Sweeney, Dean Stockwell, Mary Stuart Masterson, Lonette McKee, Laurence Fishburne and Sam Bottoms:
"Goody" Nelson: You ever take biology in school, soldier?
Jackie Willow: Yes, Sergeant-Major.
"Goody" Nelson: How do worms copulate?
Jackie Willow: They don't, Sergeant-Major; they use asexual reproduction.
"Goody" Nelson: Mmmm-hmmmm! Interesting concept! Tell me, Willow - any idea who first came up with that notion: reproducing without sex?
Jackie Willow: Your wife, Sergeant-Major?
#2
Jackie Willow: [over the phone]
[shouts]
Jackie Willow: Hey, Sarge! I need another favor.
Clell Hazard: [shouts] Oh, great. Let's see... you got my money, you got my car. I guess now you need my dick to seal the deal!
#3
"Goody" Nelson: Clell, Old Boy, you mean you haven't told the lady? Why Madam, we are the Old Guard. We are the Nation's Toy Soldiers. We march with rifles that cannot shoot. We fix bayonets that cannot stick. We are the Kabuki theater of the profession of arms. Jesters in the court of Mars, God of War, do-da, do-da.
#4
Clell Hazard: The peace loving people of Vietnam, My Ass. A more bellicose race of people I have never known
posted by me at 2:58 PM
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