How stupid does he think we are?

The Prez, Obama. 

He announces he is going to make a speech outlining his plan to create jobs.

Then he schedules this promised-to-be-riveting-save-the-nation speech for the same day and time as the Republican debate.

Predictably, the Republicans pitch a hissy fit.

Giving Obama the perfect opportunity to stand forth and pontificate about how "the American people are fed up with this kind of partisan politics."

Isn't is partisan to schedule his speech to conflict with a major Republican event?

It makes the American people have to choose between the Prez's big speech, the windy debate or some reality TV debacle, where, admittedly, the degradation and mud-slinging might pale in comparison to the other two options.

Still, I can spot manipulation like this, Mr. President. I am not fooled by your staging of this rebuke nor your slamming of the calculated and expected Republican response to your transparent button-pushing.

You sink to a new low, Mr. President. I am not disgusted by the Republican hissy fit. I am disgusted that you employ cheap, transparent manipulation followed by your psuedo-fatherly rebuke of the response you orchestrated. You think the American people are so dumb they missed it. Maybe some do, but a lot get it quite clearly.

You push buttons to stir up conflict and dissent, then lay it all before the media in order to garner sympathy and support.

Cheap trick. Cheap. Cheap. Cheap.

Grow up, dude. Be the man. Respect your colleagues enough to ensure you don't step on their toes if you want their respect, and the respect of those who occupy a stature somewhat above the lowest common denominator.

The president needs to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but he doesn't have to be the lowest common denominator.

Real Health Care Reform, and it isn't Obamacare

It's allergy season, and over-the-counter medications aren't relieving me of my itching and sneezing. I need a prescription, in addition to the Zyrtec and Benadryl I already take. My prescription is for Veramyst, a nasal spray that is not available over-the-counter or in a generic form. Cost: $120 for a one month supply. This is too pricey.

I don't have health insurance. I can't afford it.

Enter Obamacare? I don't think so.

Have you read the recent decision by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals? I'm not referring to the decision itself, but take a look at why the government wants to mandate all individuals purchase health insurance. . . cost shifting which causes higher costs.

Congress’s findings identify a multi-step process that starts with consumption of health care: (1) some uninsured persons consume health care; (2)some fail to pay the full costs; (3) in turn the unpaid costs of that health care—$43 billion in 2008—are shifted to and spread among medical providers; (4) thereafter medical providers, by imposing higher charges, spread and shift the unpaid costs to private insurance companies; (5) then private insurance companies raise premiums for health policies and shift and spread the unpaid costs to already-insured persons; and (6) consequently already-insured persons suffer higher  premiums.§ 18091(a)(2). Also, some uninsured persons continue not to buy coverage because of higher premiums.

Bingo.  But exactly when did cost shifting start?

With Medicare.

The Medicaid/Medicare program doesn't pay the doctor's or lab's or hospital's full price for covered patients. So, when it was instituted, doctors who took Medicare/Medicaid (MM) shifted the costs to non-MM patients to make up for the loss in treating MM patients.

The insurance companies don't pay full price, either. They negotiate the amount they will pay for their insured, which is far less than the going rate for the same service on the open market. The medical providers accept the discounted rate as payment in full.

For example: I must have a certain blood test done annually before the doctor with write a prescription to treat the chronic condition.

I pay for my office visit, which is between $70 - $100. I pay for the blood draw and lab work - $200.

If I were insured, I'd make a co-pay for the office visit of $10 - $20 or so. The Insurance company would pay about another $10 to $20 for the insured patient's visit to the doctor's office.

So, by accepting insurance, the Dr.'s office is paid $40 max for a service they charge over $70 for. They don't take responsibility for their choice to accept less than the full amount due, they cost-shift the other half of the fee to non-insured people like me.

The insurance company has contracted with the lab to pay $30 for the blood draw and lab work, the patient pays nothing. The lab only makes 15% of it's usual fee for my blood draw and lab work, and must, therefore cost-shift the other 85% to non-insured people like me. But wait, I finally found a local health care provider who has contracted with a local lab to let their uninsured patients have blood draw and lab for $14 (for my test).  So why must I pay $200 for the same service just because I'm uninsured?

Does this make sense?

I could pay for my own health care without too much trouble if I was allowed to pay the same amount for my health care as any health insurance company gets to pay.

This isn't about deadbeats and poor people skipping out on their medical bills, it's about big business i.e. insurance and big Pharma getting rich on the backs of working folk by shifting the losses from their poor business decisions to the uninsured public.

Cost shifting makes the cost of health care too high across the board. The solution to the high cost of health care isn't to force the uninsured to buy insurance, that only serves to treat the symptom and protect the insurance industry.

The solution is to stop the damned cost shifting. Make it a crime to charge one class of patients more for their health care than another class of patients. If insurance can pay a flat $30 for a lab test or office visit, so should the uninsured.

Either that, or let's start using cost shifting to make sure poor people can buy a car, or to subsidize food purchases, or better yet, vacations.

Or, let's pass a law mandating that consumers must purchase my products and services, so that I can be sure my business is protected from those cheap bastards who don't buy the products and services I offer to the public.

That makes about as much sense as shifting the high cost of health care from the insured to the uninsured.

Facebook? I Don't Do FB

I recently watched The Social Network, a movie about the creation of Facebook. The founder of Facebook, Whatshisname, was portrayed as an insufferable prick who didn't have three friends to rub together in his Ivy League college, exuding arrogant superiority over the masses, and refusing to admit he did anything wrong by stealing the idea for FB, but forking over sixty five million dollars to the Harvard-polished, silver spoon-equipped twins who came up with the original idea. This payment was pocket change to the world's youngest billionaire.

Okay, I get it. It's a movie. Some facts are dramatized, characters are shaded, events are spun, but the bottom line sent some loud and clear messages. You can profit big from stealing someone else's idea and presenting it as your own, Facebook is a symptom of how narcissistic our society has become, and a friend is now really only an acquaintance six times removed, whom you may never meet in real life. That alone is reason enought to eschew FB in my mind.

I never liked Facebook, or the other variations on social networking, even before I saw this movie. I don't tweet, I don't FB, not on MySpace - which reminds me of a junior high-school girl's notebook.

Who cares if I'm driving to the doctor's office? Or what I had for dinner at Olive Garden? Or what I watched on the boob tube? I just don't think that I'm that all-fired important that passing acquaintances give a hoot that I'm having a bad hair day or gushing over how wonderful and loving my hubby is? In many ways, it seems that dedicated FB fans are desperately trying to prove to themselves how wonderful their life is. If its so great, why are they spending so much time away from it in the virtual world of FB? And why are they so miserable doing it? 

And now, preying on nameless and anxious fears that you might miss posting or reading something pretending to be important, FB offers the mobile wireless umbilical option, so you never have to experience FB withdrawal.

I know people who spend hours a day playing games on FB. Like gamblers who hock everything for one last roll of the dice, they are addicted to the fantasy worlds like Farmville and Mafia Wars. They stay up all night playing games. I actually stayed up all night playing a video game once. . .twenty six years ago. It was fun, but I was never interested enough to do it again.
 
FBers lose touch with reality. They don't produce anything. They expend hours being unproductive, fooling themselves into thinking they are being productive. And now, studies are showing that FBer's suffer anxiety from their FB experience. Why participate in anything that serves only to decrease your productivity while increasing your stress? How insane is that?

They talk about their virtual worlds, as if anyone else even knows what they are talking about, or cares. I don't care if your pig got out on Farmville. I've been told there is a small community in SE Colorado--a farm community for gossakes--that is addicted to FB and they all play Farmville. Farmers and ranchers playing Farmville (eyes rolling).

This whole friends thing is so . . .high school. I'll bet Whatshisname didn't have friends until he became famous for making FB. Wanting to be popular, he created a site dedicated to how many friends you could entice into your circle. In so doing, he brought the whole immature high school/college culture of fraternity and popularity into the adult world as a massive personal distraction and expanding it to pretenses of marketing so as to cater to businesses who prostitute themselves so you will "like" them. Silly me, if I like a business, I patronize it, I don't vote for it.

But what FBers call friends, I call acquaintances. After all, a friend by definition, is someone you can count on to take certain risks on your behalf, secure that you won't betray their trust. Acquaintances on the other hand, are just people you know who pass in and out of your world without contributing anything meaningful to enhancing your life, often leeching off of you in an effort to enhance themselves. Not that there is anything wrong with being an acquaintance, but it's certainly not a friend and shouldn't pretend to be a friend. Mature adults don't collect acquaintances masquerading  as friends, only shallow, superficial people do.

I actually tried a FB practice in real life - I commented during a phone call how I had to take kitty to the vet to get his nuggets removed. My friend didn't care. She continued on the really important subject we were discussing. My feelings weren't hurt. My friends and I  really do focus on more important things than the minutia of our respective lives.And we don't engage in insincere ego-stroking or false interest in nonsense that is so prevelant on FB.

Which brings me back to "I don't do FB." Neither do most of my real friends. We all find it a superficial drain on our valuable time, reeking of immature school social posturing. We all grew up and put away childish things to get on with real life.It really is a lot more fulfilling, and fun than this useless, fake social club world.

So, to all you FB fanatics who care about the minutia in someone else's life, I've got to pick up kitty sans his nuggets. ((Poor baby boy.))

Get a life! Yes, it takes some work, but it's worth it.