Posts Tagged ‘Da Magnificent Seven’

Hospital pricing, a long overdue change

Posted: November 16, 2019 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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Hospital pricing, from MSNBC

Going to a hospital is stressful. People generally go that are sick and want to get better. But even if you do, getting the bill in the mail a few days later can often send a shock to your system. After Rebecca died, I did get the final bill (that my insurance gratefully paid for), and the total was almost $100,000. Paying that out of pocket would have been pretty tough.

A little while back, I was visiting friends and one of them told me she had finally paid off the hospital fees associated with her little girl. It was shocking to me, since I’m blessed to have insurance and because her girl was two years old. But her insurance didn’t do a great job of detailing out-of-pocket expenses, so she and her husband got a bill that they just couldn’t pay in one chunk.

Thus, I was really happy to hear the news that President Trump pushed for price transparency rules that require hospitals to post prices. Initiatives like this have been moving forward before with varying degrees of success. Not surprisingly, hospitals and insurance companies are pushing back, but that’s no surprise. Every time an organization can hide their cost model it doesn’t benefit the consumer. Banks were like this years ago, and I’d argue social media sites are in this category now.

The more we learn about how hospitals charge people, the more people will shop around for routine procedures and force larger hospitals to embrace change. The only place this works now is in elective surgery. You can in fact shop around for LASIK eye surgery, and that has kept the surgery within grasp of most Americans, even ones without health insurance. As that same level of transparency gets applied to other areas of health care, we’re going to get better pricing, and stop saddling people with huge hospital debt.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Another Method of Turning Your Money into Theirs

Posted: November 12, 2019 by julietteochieng in Uncategorized
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See the source imageby baldilocks

Last week we heard that Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Obama Administration’s first Attorney General Eric Holder were thinking about jumping into the 2020 presidential race on the Democratic Party side.

This week it’s Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick who’s thinking about giving it a shot. A member of the Boston Globe’s editorial staff seems less than enthusiastic about the prospect.

I’m old enough to remember when Patrick said he wasn’t running. It was way, way back in the sepia-toned days of November 2018. Let me tell you, youngsters, those were interesting times. Men were men and women were women and Hollywood was churning out classics like “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” which was tops at the box office. (…)

Ah, the good old days. So much has changed! The culture of cruelty that surrounded our elections, which Patrick decried when he decided not to run, is mercifully behind us now — ah, hang on, getting something in my earpiece again . . . uh oh. Oh no.

Of course, the writer can’t resist taking a shot at President Trump.

You want to know who has bad options? Republicans. They’re choosing among a semicoherent, obviously corrupt Twitter addict who will soon be impeached, a couple of vanity candidates, and Bill Weld.

At any rate, something that we all should keep in mind as we watch the presidential candidates from both parties come and go is that these candidacies, however long or short they may be, are, basically methods of getting money. They are like temporary side gigs for crooked politicians, if you’ll pardon the redundancy.

If they were bloggers, they’d be more honest and ask you to hit their tip-jar.

Remember Robert “Beto” O’Rourke? Of course, you do and he is a perfect example of this practice.

During the weeks before the end of his presidential candidacy, O’Rourke was running around the country iterating and reiterating via Social Media about his plans for mandatory “buy backs” of all the AR-15s from every owner in the country. And every time he talked about it, he became more and more incoherent and illogical, while causing gun owners seethe and stock up on more ammunition.

It seemed crazy, did it not? Well, it wasn’t at all.

Beto was polling at 0% or near that for most of his campaign and he knew that his quest would have to end. But before that end he needing to rake in as much money as possible. To that purpose, bullhorning his overt gun-grabbing plans was meant to entice as many dollars as possible from those who would kill to see the country entirely disarmed – pun intended. I bet it worked.

Most presidential candidacies are created simply to vacuum in the bucks for a set time and launder it. That’s why most of these new candidates are joining the 2020 circus.

Everyone needs a piggy bank, you know.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Lessons from Watergate

Posted: November 12, 2019 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths
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By Christopher Harper

As a young reporter, I covered part of the Watergate story, including the offices of Howard Baker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee that investigated President Nixon and his administration.

What I remember most of all was the bipartisan nature and transparency of the hearings in the Senate and the later those in the House—a stark difference to what’s happening now.

On February 7, 1973, the U.S. Senate voted 77-to-0 to approve a resolution to establish the select committee to investigate Watergate, with Democrat Sam Ervin named chairman the next day.

The hearings held by the Senate committee were broadcast from May 17 to August 7, 1973. The three major networks of the time agreed to take turns covering the hearings live. An estimated 85 percent of Americans with television sets tuned in to at least one portion of the hearings.

Baker and Ervin, both Southern lawyers, shared the spotlight, with little pretense of partisan politics. Baker became well known for his question of Nixon aides: What did he (Nixon) know, and when did he know it?

As established under the Constitution, the House needed to consider the issues for impeachment. Here, too, the representatives put aside most partisan antics.

On February 6, 1974, the House voted 410-4 to authorize the Judiciary Committee to launch an impeachment inquiry against the president. During the debate over this measure, Chairman Peter Rodino, a Democrat said, “Whatever the result, whatever we learn or conclude, let us now proceed with such care and decency and thoroughness and honor that the vast majority of the American people, and their children after them, will say: This was the right course. There was no other way.” House Republican leader John Rhodes said that Rodino’s vow was “good with me.”

Nevertheless, the House committee was not as transparent as the Senate investigation.

The House Judiciary Committee opened its formal impeachment hearings against the President on May 9, 1974. The first twenty minutes were televised on the major U.S. networks, after which the committee switched to closed sessions for the next two months. Altogether, there were only seven days of public hearings.

When the committee finally voted on articles of impeachment, the tallies included bipartisan support, with roughly one-third of the Republicans and all of the Democrats supporting the three articles that were passed.

Furthermore, a group of prominent GOP legislators convinced Nixon he should resign.

At almost every step of Watergate, Democrats and GOP may have disagreed. Ultimately, however, they sought the truth in a bipartisan and relatively transparent way.

That’s an important lesson the Democrats should consider.

The Wall and its lessons

Posted: November 12, 2019 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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By Christopher Harper

From the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Cold War shaped most baby boomers.

Like me, almost every boomer spent some time under classroom desks in a rather idiotic drill during and after the Cuban missile crisis. Somehow being under a desk would save us!

The Vietnam War also was a reaction to the Cold War—an attempt to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. Obviously, it didn’t work.

I had the opportunity to spend time behind the Iron Curtain both before and after the fall of Communism.

What struck me most about Soviet domination before 1989 was how difficult the lives of people in Eastern Europe were under Communism.

It was difficult to find food, proper medicine, and hope.

I recall twisting my ankle in Poland. I struggled into the hospital and noticed how the shelves were empty, and the equipment was aging. The doctor told me the ankle wasn’t broken, and he didn’t have much to help me with the pain. Fortunately, a nurse found an elastic bandage to help me hobble around for the next few days.

In Bulgaria, the hotel offered lobster on the menu. One of my colleagues decided to order some. The waitress didn’t speak much English, so she came out with a shellfish that was encrusted in ice because it was caught years ago. The message, however, was clear. Perhaps my friend should order something else.

For years, my wife and I had wanted to visit what was then called Czechoslovakia. Because I was a journalist, I was unable to get a visa even though I only wanted to be a tourist. The government did not allow American journalists to visit for any reason. Fortunately, we were able to visit the Czech Republic after the end of the Soviet empire.

Although Eastern Europe has had its share of difficulties after the end of communism, the streets are brighter, the hopes are higher, and the freedoms are greater.

The lesson that every American should take away from the fall of the wall is how much better life is in Eastern Europe. All you have to do is look at the economies of Poland, Hungary, and other countries that lived behind the wall and under the boot of Soviet oppression.

Moreover, it’s critical to realize that socialist doctrines, such as government control of essential industries, never worked in the Soviet Union and its empire and won’t help the United States in the years ahead.

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