Health insurance premiums skyrocket as industry scrambles for answers.

Health insurance premiums skyrocket as industry scrambles for answers.

06/01/15
1434 pm

Blue Cross announced recently that it lost 141 million dollars last year under the Obamacare Health Care exchanges.

The deficit in this category of insurance, under the Silver plan, was grossly underestimated as to cost and total claims by this population. 

BCBS serves nearly 2/3 of the 231, 000 total people in TN seeking insurance through the exchanges.

BCBS because of this population’s over usage and a disproportionate share seeking care at inappropriate portals of entry have requested a 36 percent increase in premiums. Of course this will have to be decided upon by the state insurance regulatory body.

“We don’t have prior claim status information” is being used as an excuse for the premium increases.

“It’s a fairly new program.” Insurance officials keep spewing as a reason to further the conversation toward future increases and unanswered questions about overutilization, fraud and abuse.

I would venture to say that if you used the TennCare program as your template for prior claim data you may obtain a wealth of information on how this pool of patients will utilize their insurance options and their spending and use habits, to influence your bottom line.

The main problems lies in the main areas below with subsets stemming from these as generators of continued high costs and a resultant higher premium. 

For the most part, from my observations, we are putting our dollars in the wrong places and not promoting proper access to care.

Let’s attempt to bridle this non frugal population that relies largely on LIP, Low Income Pools to fund or  compensate inside a broken system. One can see that if you restrain and properly train this population in a complementary setting with adequate providers hospitals across the land will see a difference in their bottom line. 

For so long hospitals, mainly ERs have promoted seeking care at their place, relying heavily on those LIPs or DSH, Disproportionate Share Hospital money to pick up the slack. 

Now that federal money is being threatened to be taken away hospitals are now clamoring for a way to survive. 

I think if we took a minute to look at our system based on the suggestions in the section below, a great impact could be made in our fight for healthcare dollars inside a dwindling reimbursement scenario.

We are currently seeing about 45,000 ER visits at an average cost of about $1300.00 for an ER visit. With 1.2 million uninsured in TN you can easily see the impact on our hospitals.

In one study at a hospital in Texas they showed that 6,000 patients to their ER had 10 or more visits. The breakdown for this population cost the hospital on average about $134,000.00 per person per year. If we dared look, I am convinced you would see similar numbers in every state in the US.

There is an irresponsible and overwhelming pattern of use among this population that must be broken. 

Just as those who pay high premiums and even greater deductible and out of pocket expenses we must exercise frugality and promote accountability at all levels. On a large scale, this is not being done.

My assessment of where our healthcare dollars are being wasted that is resulting in these higher premiums.

There is a lack of education as to when and where resources are to be consumed appropriately.

There is a serious shortage of middle level providers in our state and across the US.

We also have a significant portion of providers that see reimbursement too low to continue seeing these patients, thus bouncing them to inappropriate care areas.

There are too many providers protecting their tales and over utilizing the resources available, a serious question arises here about tort reform.

There is very little oversight controlling and directing care and suggesting or providing the proper setting for that care defined.

Overusers and repeat offenders are posting record numbers visiting our ERs, our most costly entry point. Many are seeking drugs to fuel their habits. It is estimated that 4 to 8 percent of Medicaid/TennCare patients represent 21 to 28 percent of all ER visits.

Current federal law states our most expensive easiest access portal to healthcare, the ER, can be used regardless of your ability to pay and we must see you if you show up for any reason.

Over prescribing and fueling drug addiction is leading patients to enter the ER for their drug needs. Currently in conjunction with Joint Commission, a private entity, has joined with Big Pharma to prescribe via a completely subjective pain scale that  encourages over prescribing and threatens fines if not followed. 

We must issue Providers higher reimbursement and incentives to see Medicaid and exchange patients. In one study, 45 percent of Medicaid patients didn’t know who there Primary Care giver was.

In the same vein, primary providers need to reprimanded for referring everyone seen as underinsured or uninsured to go to the ER for care. Especially during office hours.

There needs to be after hour care clinics equipped with dental services to absorb a large portion of this population that uses the ER for primary or dental concerns after hours as well as for primary care issues.

Make the underinsured aware that if they seek care outside of a specified  more costly portal of entry they will be asked to put some skin in the game, or foot a proportionate share of the cost at the door. We used to be able to do this and it was very effective.

Encourage after hour care seekers to pay a co pay at the door of an unauthorized care area. 

And,

Repeat offender, overutilizers and abusers must be limited in their visits. Place limits on use aside from emergencies and reward those that use restraint.

It’s a start, certainly not a complete plan but one that will definitely set a precedent for future utilization of resources.  

I will contacting my reps soon. How about you.

I don’t know about you, I’m frankly tired of talking about these problems. It’s time we act.

Also, I will be releasing a book soon that elaborates more on these subjects and will even point you in a direction to make a difference.

It is in the We the People Books series called “Creating a Health Care Revolution.”

You can follow the book and the series to follow on Face Book called “We the People Books” like and follow if you desire.

Sources of info! Please visit these sights regularly. 
 
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/may/31/insurers-proposehefty-rate-increases/307112/

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/industries/health-care/2015/05/15/health-insurance-rate-filing-requests-vary-insurer/27363437/

Insure TN is Obamacare, period!

Insure Tn is  Obamacare, period!

2/3/15
0802 am

Dress it up anyway you want!

Call it whatever you want!

Lie and deceive your constituency all you want.

Insure TN is Obamacare.

Congressman Scott Dejarlais, TN 4th District had this to say about Insure TN recently. He is a Doctor in the state of Tennessee and I would call him an expert on the subject.

“Governor Haslam’s Insure Tennessee proposal accepts federal funds in exchange for adopting Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.”

” And while both the governor’s office and the Tennessean editorial board would like to claim Insure Tennessee is not Obamacare, that is simply not true.”

“Think about it: without Obamacare there would be no funding source for Insure Tennessee.” “The two programs are inextricably intertwined.”

“The governor’s proposal relies on the federal government to provide funding through the Affordable Care Act for 100 percent of the program until 2020, when Tennessee will be required to pay for 10 percent.”

“To complicate matters further, our debt is not the only threat to the future of this funding. ”

“My conservative colleagues in Congress are desperately working to abolish the Affordable Care Act – the very program the governor is relying on to subsidize INSURE TENNESSEE.”

“This sets up a situation where if Obamacare is repealed it will essentially be putting our state’s finances in jeopardy.”

“The governor is quick to say INSURE TENNESSEE is merely a pilot program and after two years HHS has assured his administration Tennessee will be able to end the program if we find it is not right for our state.”

“First, HHS is not an agency we should put much faith in as was seen in their complete mishandling of Obamacare’s rollout.”

“Second, it is extremely difficult to name a single government program that once established was eventually repealed.”

“The general rule is that once government establishes a program, it is usually here to stay.” he concluded in a recent interview. (Source below)

Haslam, Kevin Brooks and others have repeatedly said Insure TN is not Obamacare!  

This is a lie!

In an interview Q and A with the Cleveland Daily Banner recently State Representative 24 District Kevin Brooks talked about Insure Tn, defending claims by the Koch Brothers and AFP that he has betrayed Tennesseans by now supporting Obamacare in our state, a claim he denies.

His statements below sure sound like he is sold on Insure Tn, ie, Obamacare. But a vote occurs today and we will see.

Brooks says “I would not be surprised if this is one of at least two special sessions — one to turn the switch on and another to see if we want to continue or flip the switch off,” Brooks said. “That’s why I can say this is not Obamacare. Yes, there’s care, but it’s an attempt to ensure that Tennesseans have a healthy future and it won’t be costly.”

He went on to deceptively say ““This plan is Tennessee-unique and Tennessee-specific. It is not Obamacare,” Brooks said. “You cannot call it Obamacare; it is a health care plan to help these 200,000 Tennesseans that currently do not have health insurance. It is not going to cost Tennesseans any of their state tax dollars.” 

Brooks went on to say support has been overwhelming for him and is taking the AFP/Koch Brothers  attacks on him as personal, like a David and Goliath epic biblical struggle. 

I can assure you this is strictly political. A personal attack makes no sense. What benefit would it be to the Koch Brothers for this to be personal? He voted he did not want Obamacare in the state a few months ago and now it appears he does want Obamacare in the state. This isn’t personal, it’s political. This is strictly a discussion of your voting record.

I predict Brooks will probably go with Haslam and vote for the measure and the deceptive delays and avoidances will be just that.

What does the 24th District Tn State Representative expect will happen to his constituency when and if it passes and then “we” decide we do not “like” it? 

Those 200,000 plus you insured through Obamacare gets dropped and are returned to their previous uninsured status. This will leave veterans, disabled, elderly and poor people without insurance again. Wanna talk about “injury?” Giving, then taking away is pretty harmful to a group of constituents if you ask me. Then let’s not even discuss what it will cost those constituents in the form of higher taxes or what it could do to our budget.

Why not take our state back and find a workable situation to provide healthcare without a 1.4 billion price tag per year? Why not give them some longevity with their care? How about putting a think tank together and come up with solutions outside of Obamacare and the federal government?

To continue to say this is not Obamacare is irresponsible and puts  hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans at a disadvantage.

Attorney General Herbert Slattery was recently asked to give his opinion of the Haslam/Obama Insure plan. I understand Mr Slattery to be a friend and ex co-worker of Bill Haslam. He had this to say about Insure Tn, although, I doubt he knew he was not helping Haslams argument for Insure Tn. With that said, I doubt you will hear Haslam or Brooks reciting this opinion recently provided by Slattery.

In his opinion, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery says “the state can expand health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act and eventually revoke that coverage if it follows correct procedures.”

“Tennessee may expand its Medicaid program through the Affordable Care Act — also known as OBAMACARE — and discontinue that program in the future.”

He continues on page 5, paragraph 3, Slattery confirmed, although Haslam/Brooks has been denying:  Medicaid expansion as that proposed in Insure TN is, in fact — Obamacare.  

“The authority to create Insure TN is authorized and paid for by the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and is administered under the rules as laid down by the ACA”(Obamacare).

“All states looking to expand their Medicaid coverage in any way using funds made available by the Affordable Care Act must submit a proposal to federal health officials”

“The opinion clearly notes the plan expands coverage through the Affordable Care Act….”the state can expand health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act and eventually revoke that coverage if it follows correct procedures.”

This AG opinion sheds no doubt that this plan expands coverage through the Affordable Care Act, ie, Obamacare.

INSURE TN IS OBAMACARE!!!

Let’s pretend a Doctor who happens to be a Congressman in the 4th District and  true conservative is lying when he says Insure Tn is Obamacare.

Let’s also pretend that AG Slattery who also happens to be a friend and ex coworker of Haslams is also wrong.  We e are left with few options but to look at the plan and see it’s reliance upon Obamacare for it’s existence.

Remember, even Haslam or Brooks doesnt fully know what is in the plan but lets look at what we do know.

 Is this beginning to sound familiar? Let’s vote on it then we read it? Can we channel a little Pelosi anyone?

1) It encourages enrollment of able bodied, childless healthy young people that can sustain health and to focus on preventative health. Basically to consume little healthcare and to pay for those that are sick, just like Obamacare.

2) The Governor cannot unilaterally say Insure Tn can happen, he must have the legislatures approval.

3) “Haslam touts his “verbal agreement” with the Obama administration as a “market-based Tennessee solution”

4) The plan details are not easily accessible.

5) The majority would consume healthcare as a regular Tn Care patient but many could receive federal subsidies to offset employee sponsored healthcare coverage, just like Obamacare.

6) individuals below the poverty line would pay no premium and would pay a nominal co pay for prescription drugs. Sounding familiar?

7) Those above the poverty line would pay nominal co pays. A 20-25 dollar suggestion premium with no teeth or penalty if you don’t pay. Sound like socialism?

8)  Haslam offers a benefit package for those in good health just like managed care organizations have done for years and yes like Obamacare. The real challenge do those at the poverty level have the motivation or means to practice “healthy practices” or do they as witnessed continue to consume non frugally because it’s basically “free healthcare”, like Obamacare?

9) It is subject to the same cost sharing limits as traditional Medicaid, utilizes the same existing Medicaid system to deliver the same services and benefits as Medicaid.

10) The plan would operate under a Medicaid waiver, require an amended state Medicaid plan to implement and would be funded through the Medicaid plan, just like Obama intended from the beginning.

11) Is 100 percent funded through the federal government via the ACA, Obamacare till 2020. What if Obamacare is rescinded, I don’t wanna discuss those ramifications and cost to the state. This is a 100 percent cost to you the TN taxpayer. 

Remember Medicaid expansion in the early 1990s resulted in 300 percent debt above expected costs and enrollment shoving the state into near bankruptcy, a failing credit rating, a near state income tax and consumption of nearly 40 percent of the states total budget? 

The trouble with “free healthcare” under a state plan via Obamacare is exactly that, it’s free!

If you throw out a free state program via the federal government to those who unfortunately have very little, it will be ravenously and uncontrollably consumed. Consumed much like a wild animal being thrown a steak.

Costs will sore, few will restrain. At this point we may very well pull coverage from those who truly need it because we have a plan that does not reward low consumption, but encourages consumption. 

The corporations involved only make money when resources are consumed and believe me this will be encouraged. There is no incentive not to consume or penalty for doing so. The free fall begins!

The recipients of free healthcare see this as an entitlement and under these conditions cost control will not happen nor will over consumption be squelched. Costs will inevitably be beyond state budget restraints.

This formula being devised by Haslam and with the action oriented support of State Representative Kevin Brooks is a recipe for disaster and begs one to ask why would you want Obamacare in TN when just a few months ago you didn’t want it? My guess is follow the money, it may make all this very clear.

Regardless if you believe this blog and it’s culmination of facts, whether you believe Obama, Haslam or Brooks, INSURE TN, ie, OBAMACARE is bad for Tennessee.

INSURE TN IS OBAMACARE!!!

The opposite is being echoed by Haslam and Brooks!

Sources of info: 

I want to thank Forbes, the Cleveland Daily Banner, The Tennessean, all web solutions, Congressman Dejarlais, Rocky Top Politics and all others for their excellent coverage of this subject and the most excellent resource for my talking points. Please support these media outlets and visit their sites frequently. 

http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/01/31/insure-tennessee-funds-linked-obamacare/22596057/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/12/18/insure-tn-will-assure-more-obamacare-in-tennessee/

AG Slattery opinion “it is Obamacare”
http://www.allwebsolutions.net/politics/ag-state-can-expand-medicaid-through-insure-tennessee/

http://rockytoppolitics.com/

Insure TN: To vote for Obamacare or not?

Insure TN: To vote for Obamacare or not?

2/1/15
0848 am

Will our legislators and elected officials vote for Obamacare or not?

Medicaid expansion, Obamacaid, Haslamacaid, or Insure TN. Regardless of the name, it still requires a vote and it will receive the majority of it’s funding via the Affordable Care Act, ie, Obamacare.

Tn Governor Bill Haslam is touring the State attempting to draw support for his version of Obamacare where all able bodied subjects sign up for “free” healthcare and the Tn taxpayer gets to pay for it via Federal funds, higher taxes or skyrocketing premiums.

It has been said that Haslam has back doored a deal with the Obama administration to expand Medicaid, Obamacare into Tennessee. This is the most disturbing part of this story. It even appears that the GOP has even stepped and said ” if republicans want to vote for Obamacare, we, the GOP elite will have your back when the people strike back against you for inching us further into socialism.” Where are we when the “opposing” party is acting like this?

Does anyone recall what happened when Medicaid was expanded in 1990 and in 1994? We nearly bankrupted the state. By 2000 Medicaid was consuming about 36 percent of the states budget prompting the state legislature to propose a state income tax to cover costs. Of course this measure didn’t pass and we ended up dis-enrolling 170,000 to make ends meet.

The current Medicaid system has very few checks and balances. The poor basically have free reign of the healthcare system and are not shy about consuming frequently and without restraint they boast about abusing it. Costs will soar because there are very few restraints or limits on its use. Just ask any caregiver what a “regular” is. 

Wanna make a difference? Put limits on Medicaid on the consumption end! Problem solved. Patients are abusing it like a crackhead on the pipe. It’s the if it’s  free I’m gonna use it mentality. We will never be able to control costs for hundreds of thousands of new enrollees. Our healthcare system is not built for restraint. Patients seek it and caregivers give it in hopes enough bad debt write offs will balance the budget.

Critics and the left say “If we don’t accept the terms of Obamacare someone else will get the money or we will have to pay for it out of our own pocket!” Guess what? We will not lose any money nor will anyone else get it. And we are already absorbing the poors costs and taking real good care of the indigent population regardless of their ability to pay. This measure will only encourage the poor populace in TN to knock other people down getting to that “free” healthcare. Costs soar and we are left with the bill. To think this will help anyone is absurd.

With expansion of Obamacaid to an estimated 200,000 poor Tennesseans, where will the work force go? It is estimated that 60-70, 000 will simply drop out of the workforce because they don’t have to work as hard, as long as Uncle Sam is providing their bread and butter.

Not too long ago Haslam and his band of loyal lap dogs fought to not have federalized Obamacare expansion in our state sayin no way, not in our state. This was a great stance that symbolized victory and solidarity against Obamacare.

Today, Haslam brokers a  deal with Obama to do exactly what Obama intended. Haslam has become the messenger and deliverer of Obamacare to Tennesseans.

The Koch brothers and AFP, Americans For Progress are spending alot of money on radio ads to attack local legislators for trying to hide the fact that Insure Tn is just another Medicaid/Obamacare expansion. This was going virtually unnoticed till attention was drawn to the deception by our elected officials.

Incidentally, State Representative Kevin Brooks 24th District, has drawn the ire of the billionaire brothers and their political organization and they have him firmly in their sites.

Brooks, according to the ads has been parading around the state house drumming up support for Haslams Obamacare plan. An allegation Brooks has not owned stating he hasn’t even declared a position one way or another on the issue. But some argue that his action is his statement. He will be voting soon and we will be watching.

Recently Brooks and a host of others stood against Obamacare making the constituency proud. But those in the know knew something was brewing. Often, politicians will allow the Trojan horse to slip through the gate, appear conservative then when they think no one is looking baaaam they try to slip Obamacare or a leftist issue through the gate and fool the peasants. Not this time it appears. The People have their eyes wide open.

One thing for sure is the Koch Brothers and AFP saw the soldiers dismounting from the trojan horse and spoiled their plan calling them out in radio ads all over the state, especially in Bradley County Tn. Like them or not they are spot on with this issue.
 
With Haslam dressing Obamacare up like a Thanksgiving turkey it will be interesting to see how those healthcare fighting marauders will vote in the near future.

Will they do the flip flop or appear hypocritical just to appease King Haslam.

Will Insure Tn, ie, Obamacaid be the Achilles heel that divides the men from the liberals? 

Regardless of the outcome it will send a strong message to voters and will separate the true conservatives from the RINO.

Do we vote the way King Haslam wants us too or do we vote against Obamacare?

Rest assured if they vote to expand Obamacare in TN, conservative types all across TN will be lined up down the street ready to vote them out of office.

Its Haslam, Obama or the people?

The line in the sand is drawn. 

February 3rd, 2014 we will see where they stand.

Sources of info:

http://www.clevelandbanner.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Legislators+cautious+on+Haslam+proposals%20&id=26246533

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/23/anti-medicaid-expansion-lawmaker-criticizes-radio-/

http://www.politico.com/playbook/0114/playbook12615.html

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/politics/state/story/2015/jan/23/radio-ads-target-health-care-plan/284144/

Insure Tn costs 
http://www.tennessean.com/story/insession/2015/01/28/5-takeaways-insure-tennessee-presentation/22478059/

2016 Tn Care budget

Click to access HCFAbudgetFY16.pdf

AG opinion
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/27/ag-opinion-says-state-can-proceed-with-insure-tennessee/22398717/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/12/18/insure-tn-will-assure-more-obamacare-in-tennessee/

Fox Reporter Shepard Smith says “You should have no concerns about Ebola at all, none, I promise”

Fox Reporter Shepard Smith says “You should have no concerns about Ebola at all, none, I promise”

10/22/14
2033 pm

This is the height of irresponsible reporting. I used to enjoy watching Shepard Smith on Fox News. I would watch his refreshing take on the news with much enthusiasm.

Now? Not so much.

He came across as that strict parent scolding his children, like Baghdad Bob protecting Hussein, Joseph Goebels shielding Hitler from bad press or a teacher scolding that parent who dares ask questions. He has lost me and my only advice would be stick to reporting. We don’t need a mainstream media grandpaw.

The people of this great country can do their own thinking. We dont need you to further propagate the media deception machine. It is functioning very inefficiently on its own.

The good people on the front lines are very concerned about the definite Ebola outbreak going on in the USA as well as many countries throughout the world.

We don’t need to further assist in the manipulation of people’s minds using mass media as the vehicle.

In case you missed the diatribe by Shepherd Smith of Fox News fame please watch the you tube video below. (Link provided)
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5992510

I’m sure you are now one spasm from losing your lunch and are wondering what or who in the world gave him the moral authority to make a judgement call from a news booth at Fox Headquarters. Shepherd, you really need to get out more and when you do I’m sure you will don your protective gear. Meanwhile, nurses and healthcare workers are dying using poor equipment inside an outdated system with the mouth piece Frieden at the CDC heading up the circus.

Shepard, you are part of the problem. If the MSM were doing their job the Internet bloggers and the like would be getting no attention at all and millions would not be relying on the not so main stream media to get their news. We the people view the MSM as the shield for an insanely irresponsible and dictatorial president and his administrative agenda. 

Your rant seems to again put an exclamation point on why millions are scurrying to the Internet for news they will not get when the turn on the TV.

Stop with your pandering and treating your audience like children. You are terribly misinformed and your passive attitude and naïveté shows millions your ignorance while the world goes to hell in a hand basket. Because of reporters like you Americas knowledge base is dwindling and your lazy reporting could cause much harm to Americans by encouraging many in the wake of this scourge to not worry, at all, in other words sleep.

During Smiths rant he said a few things that equate to an alcoholic refusing he has a drinking problem. 

In 3 minutes he spewed basically all
of his knowledge on Ebola and it’s reach into America leaving the info starved ravishing for food.

“You should have no concerns about Ebola at all. None. I promise,” stated Smith. 

He continues, “Do not listen to the hysterical voices on the radio and the television or read the fear-provoking words online. The people who say and write hysterical things are being very irresponsible.”

“We do not have an outbreak of Ebola in the United States. Nowhere.”

“We do have two healthcare workers who contracted the disease from a dying man. They are isolated.”

“There is no information to suggest that the virus has spread to anyone in the general population in America. Not one person in the general population in the United States.”

And then the Fox Gulag made it political “With midterm elections coming, the party in charge needs to appear to be effectively leading. The party out of power needs to show that there is a lack of leadership,” Smith smugly quipped.

If it were all this simple, Mr Smith as he continues to spew his propaganda.

“I report to you with certainty this afternoon that being afraid at all is the wrong thing to do.” 

“He called media-stoked Ebola panic “counterproductive”, saying that it “lacks basis in fact or reason.”

He acknowledged that Ebola is a serious problem in West Africa, as well as for the victims and their families in Texas, but he pleaded with media outlets to stop fear-mongering about Ebola in the U.S.”

“Someday there may be a real panic. Someday, something may start spreading that they can’t control. And then, do you know what we’re gonna have to do? We’re gonna have to relax and listen to leaders. We’re not gonna panic when we’re supposed to and we’re certainly not gonna panic now. We have to stop it.”

Really Shepard? No worries? Your more than likely only doing what you are told. We the People realize there is a bigger agenda pushing your pressed speech. That doesn’t make it less harmful, but we can gain empathy for your situation as you purvey you masterful diatribe.

No concerns at all about EBOLA? 
We are in the midst of possibly the worst outbreak in Ebolas near 40 year history. Since March 2014 Ebola is on the move. It has gone from Monrovia and surrounding area to the world in less than 6 months. It is no longer in Africa alone where it stayed for many years. We have incompetents running the show and our hospitals are not prepared to take care of the onslaught.

We have a CDC Director saying Ebola is not airborne and all other evidence suggests otherwise. Its spread with a sneeze, on a bus or plane, as far as im concerned that pretty darn airborne to me. This is one way the flu is spread.

We still have open flights to the USA and the CDCs Director Frieden says shutting down flights would make the spread worse.

We have a Doctor in charge of the CDC who does not know his own policies to deal with Ebola and it’s spread. In fact, we have no Surgeon General and not a single competent person in charge to lead the charge against this outbreak. We are living in a world where the only screening we are doing is pointing a thermometer at someones head. A properly placed Tylenol could yield that screening process ineffective. 13 percent of those with Ebola do not run a fever above the accepted range. That number also changes daily. We are still allowing 150 flights a day into the US from Africa, unchecked.

We have a CDC director whose only response to the outbreak is to blame the nurse for “breeching protocol” instead of assuring she has adequate equipment.

Our elected leaders are asleep at the wheel and patients will continue to enter our healthcare facilities and we continue to be unprotected. Allow us little people to sound the alarm on our much ignored plight. From you vantage point, I’m sure it’s rosy, from ours it’s pretty frightening.

We have caregivers facing death daily and you from your perch are ordering Americans not to worry. And your only response is at least weve not had an outbreak outside the hospital. Hello Shepard! The alarm is sounding for those in the hospital and their families. Nurse and other healthcare workers are not expendable, nor their lives any less important.

The World Health Organization states that 10,000 a week will be affected and possibly 500,000 by years end. That’s pretty good reason to worry. I don’t plan to worry after thousands die. Now is the time to be aggressive, mounting the type response to halt it’s progression.

This Ebola strand has jumped across the waters that divide us and has killed more in the last 6 months than it has in nearly 40 years. Some even say it was the result of a failed clinical trial and the introduction of an unplanned 5th cohort. No worries? Please.

You smugly say and I paraphrase for emphasis, yeah sure only two nurses have contracted Ebola. Unless you have been there please don’t lessen the job we do. One death is to many, one exposure and or contraction of Ebola is too many.

Mr Smith, we are not protected. God forbid you come to the hospital with your bowel oozing blood and your insides melting who do you think will be there to care for you. Only 2 nurses?

Without awareness and information these nurses who are facing death to wipe your butt will not get the equipment they need. If we all took your advice toward this disease we would be exposed to disease with no knowledge and heightened awareness.

We see everyone telling us we have adequate gear and the CDC scientists and Doctors enter the rooms in full protective respiratory and contact gear. Miles away from the CDCs best equipment and where our best is to wear ineffective gear with our butts hanging out and our skin exposed.

Where is the mixed message?  Why are you not concerned? Let’s put you on the front line with the equipment we have and I’ll show you a talking head that will be a no show.

We have the CDC allowing quarantined Nurses to travel across the country because “she didn’t have a fever!” she called them and they gave her permission exposing 900 people on hers and other flights made before the airline stopped the flight.

I could go on and on but what’s the worry?

Shepherd Smith two last words for you, shut up!  

Dang brother! You stink of cover up! Dont be a part of the problem! Join the solution. Wanna help some people? Help draw attention to the inadequacies of an unhealthy situation inside the hospitals you slight. We have enough people distorting the media for their personal gain. Don’t be that one who listens to the radical agenda with it’s own talking points.

Dave the chatter for another agenda. America us needing an assist and you aren’t doing it.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5992510

Shepard has done it before

http://pamelageller.com/2009/06/sam-shepard-really-must-go.html/

PS, this post was revised 10/23/14

Lamar Alexander voted for Obamacare, but said he didn’t

Lamar Alexander voted for Obamacare, but said he didn’t

07/11/14
0637 am

Lamar Alexander voted for Obamacare!

No amount of trickery can deny this fact. The man is not being forthright in his dealings with the citizens of TN and the United States.

A recent TV ad touted by the Alexander campaign shows Alexander banging it out with Obama on Obamacare in 2010. This is where the opposition ended.

He even stated he was right for this decision to oppose Obamacare. But sadly the ad failed to mention his continued funding of and support for  the Presidents failed and highly unpopular policy on healthcare since that time.

Hiding these issues does not settle well with voters as eventually the truth surfaced and many turned their heads on a politician that speaks out of both sides of his mouth. It’s double talk and severely underestimates the citizens of TN and their ability to see through the lies and deception.

This deception seems to be the establishments plan for Alexander. He has recently also denied he voted for the Amnesty bill yet voted with the Gang of Eight to move it forward for a vote.

“The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) responded (recently) to the television ad released by the re-election campaign of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), which says he stood up to President Obama on Obamacare. Alexander’s TV ad includes a clip of an exchange he had with the President at the White House health care summit on February 25, 2010. 

“However, it conveniently leaves out any mention of Alexander’s vote to fund the implementation of Obamacare on March 20, 2013. It also leaves out his support for the Wyden-Bennett health care bill, which included an unconstitutional individual mandate to force Americans to buy government-approved health insurance.”

“Lamar Alexander is doing everything he can to hide his liberal record on health care,”said SCF Executive Director Matt Hoskins. “He wants voters to think he’s fighting to stop Obamacare, but he supported the individual mandate and he voted for a bill that funded Obamacare earlier this year.”

The SCF reports that on “On August 2, 2007, Lamar Alexander cosponsored the Wyden-Bennett health care legislation, which included an individual mandate to force Americans to buy government-approved health insurance plans.”

“On March 20, 2013, Lamar Alexander voted in favor of the FY2013 continuing resolution, which included funding for the implementation of Obamacare!”

The SCF report further states “The U.S. Senate will vote on the FY2014 continuing resolution in September. Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) needs 60 votes to fund the implementation of Obamacare, but there are only 54 Democrats in the Senate. If Republicans like Lamar Alexander oppose it, they can stop it.”

“Lamar Alexander can’t have it both ways. If he votes to fund Obamacare, he’s for Obamacare.” added Hoskins. “He needs to stop misleading his constituents and pledge to oppose all funding for Obamacare.”

In summary, 

1) Lamar Alexander put on a dog and pony show for the cameras and showed a little opposition to Obamacare in 2010.

2) He voted to fund Obamacare in 2013.

3) He voted for the individual mandate.

4) He voted for the Wyden-Bennett health care bill, that forced you to buy healthcare insurance and the individual mandate.

5) He will more than likely vote to continue funding for Obamacare in September 2014.

5) Yes, he voted for Obamacare!!!

Hopefully, Liberal Lamar Alexander will be retired after this next primary  and true conservative leadership will have been established.

Id give my vote to Joe Carr, if I were you.

Source of info:

Please visit this site below frequently. There are many other stories inside their site that you may be interested in. Share the link below and visit frequently.

http://www.senateconservatives.com/site/post/2248/lamar-alexander-tries-to-hide-health-care-record

Joe Carr picks up huge Tea Party Patriots Fund endorsement in TN US Senate race

Joe Carr picks up huge Tea Party Patriots Fund endorsement in TN US Senate race

07/11/2014
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Tennessee US Senate candidate Joe Carr has picked up another very hearty conservative Tea Party endorsement yesterday.

The Tea Party and conservative support continues to pour in across the state in his bid for the US Senate Seat currently held by liberal Lamar Alexander.

Jenny Beth Martin and the Tea Party Parriots Citizen Fund have put their support behind Joe Carr.

It is obvious he is a viable candidate to knock off a Democratic and establishment GOP favorite.

Lamar Alexanders support continues to dwindle in TN as Tennesseans begin to wake up and see the long time “career politician” is leading the state in a direction that is the opposite of it’s citizenry’s needs and wants. 

Voting 63 percent of the time with Barrack Hussein Obama and in favor of Amnesty and Obamacare is not in line with what Tennesseans believe is in the best interest of the state.

Tea Party Patriots Citizen Funds Jenny Beth Martin spoke highly of Joe Carr when questioned in an interview with Brietbart.com,  “Joe Carr embodies the values of personal freedom, economic freedom and a debt-free future,” TPPCF Chairman Jenny Beth Martin said in a statement. 

“In contrast to his incumbent opponent, Joe is willing to take the fight to both liberal Democrats and establishment Republicans in defense of liberty.”

Martin highlighted Carr’s anti-amnesty record on illegal immigration, citing the issue as a critical one for the Tea Party in the 2014 elections.

“While Joe Carr has been a genuine leader – not just a reliable vote – in the fight against illegal immigration, Lamar Alexander voted with Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and John McCain for the Gang of Eight amnesty bill,” Martin said. 

“Joe wants to preserve American sovereignty; Lamar Alexander’s policies are producing a human wave of criminality and disease on the Rio Grande.”

Martin also pointed out that Alexander sought to work with Harry Reid on Obamacare, voting for cloture to bring the bill to the Senate floor.

“Lamar Alexander is wrong on Obamacare and wrong on amnesty,” Martin added. “Fortunately, conservatives in Tennessee have a choice, and we urge them to give Joe Carr their vote and their support. We’re proud to endorse him.”

“I am very proud that the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund has joined with us in our fight against a broken Washington establishment led by Lamar Alexander, who put the interests of 11 million illegal immigrants ahead of our working families,” said Carr in a statement. 

In parting, if you don’t get out and vote, the establishment wins and you lose! Encourage friends and family to get behind the vest choice to lead this state and this country.

I want to thank Breitbart.com for their most excellent reporting on this subject. Please go to the link below for many other interesting stories that affect you. Please support them heavily.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/10/Tea-Party-Patriots-Fund-Endorses-Joe-Carr-in-Tennessee-Primary

Obamacare Healthcare Exchange seizing bank accounts to pay premiums, fines

Obamacare Healthcare Exchange seizing bank accounts to pay premiums, fines

12/17/2013
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Breaking News:  

Recent trending of this story is breaking the airways right now with great magnitude. Vast masses of people are becoming aware and many are showing outrage as once again a runaway government is attacking it’s people and this time where it hurts the most, their purse or in this case banking accounts.

Reportedly the Obamacare Healthcare Exchange is erroneously  debiting bank accounts in Washington State and across the nation, levying fines, suspending drivers licenses and placing liens on homes till their Obamacare debt is paid.

Initial reports are confirming that many are having their monthly premiums debited from their checking accounts not once but multiple times a month and having fines deducted from their accounts  placing financial hardships on many Americans. 

Take for instance the Bruner family on the news video below from Washington State. They enrolled and were hoping to pay their Obamacare premium in a few weeks when Josh Bruners next payroll check hit the bank but the deduction came 2 weeks early placing their bank account nearly 800 dollars in the negative forcing this family to postpone Christmas and seek alternatives to assist with feeding their family.

Will Sheehan via the Healthcare.gov facebook page (see link below)
reported that when they went to the Obamacare website to sign up he decided that the nearly 600 dollar premium and the 14,000 dollar deductible was more than he could pay and he opted out. This individual reported that he was then notified that he would be billed greater than 4,000 dollars in fines and this amount will be deducted directly from their bank account of which he had just previously entered all his data complete with his PIN and all. He also reported that he was told his license could be suspended and a lien placed on his home. If true and factual, this is a very frightening situation we are having placed upon us as American citizens. And creates an oppressive environment on potentially every American.
http://www.infowars.com/obamacare-fines-to-be-seized-from-bank-accounts 

Critics will say and it is substantiated that Obamacare does not seek payment by seizing or debiting your bank account but you also believed the lie when he told you “if you like your Doctor you can keep him” or “if you like your plan you can keep it!” Obama does not have a very good track record of telling the truth.

The Obamacare bill that was passed does state that when you enter into a healthcare door you will have to provide your banking info at the time of entry and your bank account can be searched to see if funds are available so that you can possibly consume your needed healthcare within your budget. This can be inferred that your bank account can be accessed by your government and funds and fines appropriated against your will and to make sure you have been making your payments. Afterall, we have heard horror stories for years of the IRS emptying out personal bank accounts and seizing your assets by any means possible just to settle a tax debt and this is a tax. Why would it surprise anyone to hear that the enforcement arm of our mandated Heathcare System, the IRS, would come after you for your forced premiums and fine you accordingly? Start reading at pages 58 to 77 from the link below directly from the healthcare bill that was passed. Nearly 20 pages dedicated to this subject.

Click to access patient-protection-affordable-care-act.pdf

We should have seen this coming when the government put the IRS in charge of enforcement of Obamacare and the supreme court stated that indeed this was a tax and hired nearly 20,000 new IRS agents for the dubious task. 
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/07/ObamaCare-Irs-Agents

The Obamacare fiasco continues to shock America and believe it or not you haven’t seen nothing yet! Just wait till your premiums skyrocket when your employer mandate expires, scheduled for January 14th, 2014!

Please read some of the links below! Gonna blow you away!

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#

http://m.townhall.com/tipsheet/carolplattliebau/2013/12/15/wa-obamacare-exchange-erroneously-debits-patient-bank-accounts-n1763400#

Obama gives CIA clearance to access your bank accounts!
http://beforeitsnews.com/obama/2013/03/obama-gives-cia-full-access-to-your-bank-account-2448692.html

http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2013/12/14/obamacare-exchange-washington-debting-bank-accounts/

If Obama doesn’t get your money hackers will!
http://investmentwatchblog.com/john-mcafee-predicts-hackers-will-empty-obamacare-enrollees-bank-accounts/

http://m.naturalnews.com/news/042326_Obamacare_fines_bank_accounts_asset_seizure.html

Obamacare can check your bank account! It’s in the bill!
http://libertyandpride.com/obamacare-gives-the-government-access-to-your-bank-account/

Obamacare website dysfunction is least of our worries, the entire system is missing

Obamacare website dysfunction is least of our worries, the entire system is missing

12/04/13

Today ex-President Bill Clinton said that when the healthcare website is fixed in the next few months, few will even be talking about Obamacare.

The ease of this coming out of his mouth is remarkable, for I am sure it was nearsighted and biased based on his support for the president, his plan and his party.

Short term and long term future projections of problems are glaring. Let’s look at a few issues facing the facilitation and implementation of Obamacare.

On January 14, unless something drastically happens the employer mandate will go away. 80 million more Americans will lose their healthcare plans with their employer. Your employer can do away with the shared subsidy that has burdened them for years, essentially putting millions back into the company and shifting the burden to the employee, who is forced to purchase a plan from a government exchange at a higher rate. This simple maneuver by big business and supported by the Chamber of Commerce speaks volumes of their self interest in catering to this plan. It fully explains the deafening silence from big business. Small business, so what, they are an after thought in this process and portray themselves as the red headed step child that has been thrown from the supportive teet.

The newly revealed aggregation rule is going to stifle small business and further place a financial burden on those struggling to survive in today’s economy. For instance, if a small business backs down to 45 employees to dodge the forced purchase of healthcare and hires part-time employees but aggregates or accumulated to an equal of 5 FTEs or full time equivalents they meet the 50 employee threshold and will be forced to purchase insurance for all. 

Young adults are running from Obamacare in droves. Mostly this age group coming out from under the 26 year old protection plan of their parents will soon be out on their own facing huge premiums and less care with extremely high deductibles. So much that many will only pay deductible expenses for their healthcare, essentially seeing no benefit from their plan, assuming they choose to participate.

20 percent of young folks say they are likely to sign up for Obamacare. Which means 80 percent are not going to sign up which spells failure. The young are graduating from school with a burdensome student loan debt, starting a family, buying a home and are in relatively good health. They are not going to be inclined to pay premiums that are 200 to 300 percent more expensive than it was a year ago. 

Less numbers means higher premiums! Fewer people in the share pool will only raise premiums and limit choice. Obamacare reporetdly needs 100 million people enrolled and paying high premiums for the plan to work, to start paying for itself. The risk of less is costly and will drive higher premiums with progressively less and less healthcare choice. If young people dont assume the burden and purchase the insurance, it only makes sense that those enrolled shoulder the burden regardless of their age or ability to pay. This is the death spiral we speak of.

The risk pool is thin. Insuring pre-existing conditions and covering all disease types leaves many layers of risk meaning needs will out live the money pool. Many with disabilities and debilitating pre existing conditions will run to Obamacare because they see it as a bargain, which will drain the system inside a thin risk pool. This measure will drive higher cost and result in higher sharing of that cost on you.

States are not even ready for the onslaught. Tennessee for example, elected not to participate in the federal exchange and opted to allow the government to control the state. Two things stand in the way of this happening. Tennessee is not ready to handle the government enforcing Obamacare and TN has no known plan in place to implement the needed demands of Obamacare. We do not even have a website or a process in place to handle the claims. To complement this statement,  we have to date refused to expand Tenncare, an essential component that could contribute to the success of Obamacare, but remains costly.

When you do sign up there is really nothing more contained within than that. You have signed up. Period! There should really be no discussion beyond this point. But I will digress.

Hospitals are not prepared for implementation of Obamacare. No plans are in place to facilitate the movement of patients through a system designed on Obamacare. No plans whatsoever. Hospitals and providers squawk about the plans but no government sponsored “magic” pill has been delivered. Healthcare providers are moving along the same course and acting as if we are in the same system as before. Nothing had changed that is visible. No education to the public, staff or providers within that system being relied upon to enact and enforce this dreadful system. And this system was accepted in 2010.

Accounting software, enforcement guidelines, payment structure, reimbursement, legal challenges, nothing is in place. The healthcare system is not prepared and things are not in place to get it done.

There is no overseeing authority communicating between the local level, state level or federal level. So far, it’s just been said do it but no one is doing anything, or more accurately no one knows what to do.

The idea of redistributing the wealth on a large scale is not enticing to those having to pay for it. The old saying is that under socialism, you eventually run out of other people’s money. You take from the old, give to the young, wealthy to the poor, those who have to those have not. Many Americans are simply sending a message that we will not continue to pay for someone else or will not participate. Not signing up is a strong message that something is awry.

Small business will take a beating! The concept that large corporations will be protected while small business gets the shaft. This goes in the same vein as redistribution of wealth. This coupled with increasing minimum wage will shut down jobs and businesses all over the nation. Can we see what is happening here folks? The president is implementing the Cloward-Piven strategy that he was mentored to implement. Overwhelm the system till she collapses, then rebuild it, with total dependence on the government.

Just wait till the population that does participate begins to see the problems inside the system and realizes the many promises unkept. A backlash and further dis-enrollment surely to follow.

Out of network caregivers are going to inconvenience and baffle many that are wanting to keep their doctor. Many within the area are and will be seeing a Dr perhaps in Nashville or Memphis. Can you imagine going to see your Dr in Nashville, crossing Monteagle Mountain and hitting the traffic to find your out of network provider for a cold or to refill a prescription.

We do not have a subsidy verification system in place. No computer system that links with our government on any level. There is no communication or grids that can be followed, just a phone call remains as the only way to communicate and if you have ever tried to get a procedure approved or a bill payed by phone you know what a headache that is.

Insurance companies are now going to be given subsidies based on an honor system with insurance companies where insurance companies take taxpayer money to provide healthcare and then settle the difference on the backside. Can you imagine with this fluid reimbursement structure the wide variability in reimbursement causing a great fluctuality in payment and fee schedules? 

Patients are showing up at hospitals with the self conceived concept that they will be turned away or asked to go to another hospital for their care because perhaps this particular hospital didn’t cover their care or they were not covered by Obamacare. As we speak some hospitals are starting to turn patients away based on the demands of Obamacare.

The upwards of 20 or more new taxes made to pay for or fund are not palatable to many folks moving forward. Less money in your pocket is never acceptable.

Doctors are not gonna bother with the insurance obstacles, going to cash for service. Completely bypassing the system. It’s already happening.

The end product is Americans are without more of their hard earned dollars and the government is taking it! 

It does not get more simple than this!  

We are being raped of our healthcare and we are being forced to like it or suffer.
 
We think that fixing the website will fix Obamacare, think again!

This is only a distraction. 

It is not the real issue. The “guts” the “nuts and bolts” are missing. The plan has been spoken but nothing else. 

It has been revealed today that Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of HHS, only met with president Obama one time before the launch of the ACA, ie, Obamacare website. This is somehow not surprising. The whole system is lacking detail. No plan is in place whatsoever!

Obamacare is crumbling, it’s in a death spiral and you are on the receiving end of it.

Contact your elected officials. Your vote and voice is the only one that can change things.

Up to 80 million may lose healthcare coverage beginning January 14th, 2014

Up to 80 million may lose healthcare coverage beginning January 14th, 2014

Up to 80 million or roughly 55 percent of all Americans may lose their current healthcare coverage beginning January 14th, 2014.

You have heard this following statement dozens of times from president Obama, “If you like your plan you can keep it!”  As this lie was being spewed  reports are now surfacing, based on cost projections from 2009 that the president was aware of this deception even as he spoke of it and lied to millions who looked to him for reliable information.

There are approximately 157 million working insured in this country of that 16 million are receiving an individual insurance plan and are seeing some plan premiums increase by up to 150 percent and as little as 50 percent. The majority currently covered under an employer mandate which relies on corporations to share the cost burden while spreading the healthcare risk across a large base will see their healthcare plans cancelled in the coming weeks.

The Affordable Healthcare Act, or Obamacare was slated and understood from the beginning to be “free” healthcare or reduced priced healthcare and a great plan with many benefits, enough to take care of all your needs. The plan as we were told does not exist it rolls out and the many costly intricacies within are being revealed.

Instead of the picture perfect plan being painted in the beginning we now see it as it really is. The burden of cost is being shifted to the young people in recent months who are expected to be “healthy” and not a large consumer of a healthcare product to bare the greatest portion of this cost for the rest of us. This has been a huge surprise to this block of consumers, many of which voted for Obama looking for positive hope and change.

What Obama and his cronies didn’t expect or perhaps they did, that is debatable, is they didn’t expect the health registry  website to not work, young people to not buy this insurance opting to pay penalties instead of coverage, americans demanding answers and the insurance companies pulling out the way they are doing.

The private insurers pulling out in droves is  leaving the healthcare system and our economy in jeopardy and at an extreme risk of collapse or at the very least vulnerable and chaotic.

As many as 76 percent of small businesses, 55 percent of large businesses and 63 percent of all businesses are expected to cancel coverage come January 14th! 

This will leave many with the option to either buy mandated coverage from the government that is substandard, expensive and unwanted with many products that are not wanted or needed, keep and re-register with your current adjusted plan and pay inflated premiums or opt out all together and pay a fine at the end of the year saving 10s of thousands in premiums that are placing huge burdens on middle income families, quite frankly most families.

The NY Times this week, eluded to Obamacare as no more than a redistribution of wealth, a huge step toward Socialism. The shift of costs across the spectrum of households, insurance companies backing away from coverage, inflated premiums and expensive, expansive and sub par government coverage is driving all these factors and indeed spreading the wealth or cost burden across the spectrum affecting 10s of millions of Americans in their pocketbooks, tightening their family budgets. This is causing many to panic as they see their incomes diminish and net worth and expendable income whither away at a time when most will not survive with many more insults to their incomes.

Some are beginning to question if all this confusion is purposeful! Is all this burden and added debt a well thought out plan. If you believe the Cloward-Piven strategy, of which Obama is a student and was indoctrinated from an early age with, then you will fully understand that by overwhelming and bombarding the system, it will collapse leaving most totally dependent on the government for every need. This socialism perfected folks and it is no secret this may be the presidents intent and if so he is actively and cleverly making this a reality.

The debate is still out there and it’s seeing day light as the presidents obvious attempts to socialize our country is underway and being revealed.

There are many things that need to change. Private insurance costs are way too high, there is great fraud, waste and duplication inside our current system, that is a given and should be fixed. This does not call for another plan, it just needs to be changed with less a focus on profit for large insurance companies.

Americans losing their individual and work related insurance plans are being blamed on the basis that your current  insurance plans do not meet Obamacare guidelines. I’m not so sure this is the only reason but the private insurance plans could make easy tweaks to your plans to make them compliant to Obamacare guidelines. They could do this, but currently their is no incentive to do so. What I believe is really going on is the large insurance companies are now considering the costs and are figuring out that Obamacare and the decisions the president is making is cutting into their bottom lines, greed and wealth are now driving healthcare decisions and that’s where you the consumer are being left out in the cold.

What I don’t agree with and I have personally challenged the Constitutionality of Obamacare  as it relates to the individual mandate and the commerce clause is that the government and their mandated tax is not the answer to our current healthcare woes.

The events unfolding this morning till January 14th, 2014 give me great angst and uncertainty for the vast majority of Americans and makes me doubt we as a nation, a band of families, united in our pursuit of happiness and a quality of life unlike most of the world will survive this impingement on our budgets and our national form of healthcare.

Hopefully Americans will wake up to
this reality, and they are, and starting to realize these purposeful cancellations of your health plans are purposeful,  intentional, and very well planned and will demand change at mid term elections in 2014 and make the needed changes to create the needed changes.

A parting shot at this healthcare debacle and I’ll close this debate. Personally, I have about 35 years of healthcare experience, have seen many changes, witnessed loads of duplication and perhaps fraud, worked at many levels inside the provider beast and I have never been asked what could be done to fix the problems with healthcare nor do I knowingly know of anyone that has ever been asked to solve our healthcare issues or at least ask my opinion of how it may be made better. This scenario really perplexes me and if any of my readers read this that could influence the healthcare debate may learn from this omission.

Sources of info:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/26/evidence-shows-obama-administration-predicted-tens-millions-would-lose-plans/

http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/millions-americans-are-losing-their-health-plans-because-obamacare_764602.html

‘Dont dare call the health law redistribution’

‘Dont dare call the health law redistribution’

New York Times
By John Harwood
11/23/13

BCN NOTE: This apple didn’t fall far from the tree! My lil cousin John Harwood tells it like it is. He, like me has recognized this as a redistribution of wealth for a while now. Obama is predicting everyone can win and we all get to pay for it. Not! We have been sold a package that has many questions. This law, this tax is redistributing wealth from rich to poor, men to women, poor to less than poor. Pay attention folks! We are being forced to sign up for things we do not want! 

This redistribution of wealth is and will affect you on a daily basis. You are feeling the pinch, you are paying for the change you desired. Please read the article below by the New York Times and John Harwood!

“A commitment to economic justice necessarily implies a commitment to the redistribution of economic resources, so that the poor and the dispossessed are more fully included in the economic system,” Ms. Blank, a noted poverty researcher, wrote in 1992. With advisers wary of airing those views in a nomination fight, Mr. Obama passed over Ms. Blank, then a top Commerce Department official and now the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin. Instead he chose Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist.

“Redistribution is a loaded word that conjures up all sorts of unfairness in people’s minds,” said William M. Daley, who was Mr. Obama’s chief of staff at the time. Republicans wield it “as a hammer” against Democrats, he said, adding, “It’s a word that, in the political world, you just don’t use.”

These days the word is particularly toxic at the White House, where it has been hidden away to make the Affordable Care Act more palatable to the public and less a target for Republicans, who have long accused Democrats of seeking “socialized medicine.” But the redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of the law and lies at the heart of the insurance market disruptions driving political attacks this fall.

“Americans want a fair and fixed insurance market,” said Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who advised Mr. Obama’s team as it designed the law. “You cannot have that without some redistribution away from a small number of people.”

Mr. Obama’s advisers set out to pass the law in 2009 fully aware that fears among middle-class voters sank President Bill Clinton’s health initiative 16 years earlier. So they designed the legislation to minimize the number of people likely to be hurt.

Instead of a sweeping change to a government-run “single-payer” system favored by Democratic liberals, members of the administration sought to preserve the existing system of employer-provided health insurance while covering the uninsured through the expansion of Medicaid and changes to the individual insurance market.

They also added benefits available to any family, such as the ability of children up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ health plans.

But throughout the process, they knew that some level of redistributing wealth — creating losers as well as winners — was inescapable.

They were nonetheless acutely aware of how explosive the word could be. When Mr. Obama ran for president in 2008, Republicans tried to wound him by accusing him of waging “class warfare” to achieve wealth redistribution. That fall, the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, derided Mr. Obama as the “redistributor in chief” as he seized on Mr. Obama’s comments to an Ohio man later known as “Joe the Plumber” that he wanted to “spread the wealth around.”

Mr. Obama survived that episode and other instances when Republicans deployed old recordings of him using the word “redistribution” as evidence that he was a closet socialist. But Mr. Obama had learned a lesson.

After he took office, he cast his goal of rolling back President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for higher earners not as economic redistribution, but as the restoration of top-end rates from the Clinton years.

The Affordable Care Act was a similar semantic sidestep. The law targeted high earners, too, by raising their Medicare taxes enough to reduce their after-tax incomes by nearly 2 percent, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. That revenue helped finance coverage for those currently without insurance, who tend to have lower incomes and who in many cases will receive government subsidies to make their premiums cheaper.

And yet for those nervous about potential changes, the president promised stability. “If you like your current insurance, you will keep your current insurance,” Mr. Obama said the day he signed the legislation in March 2010, a promise he made repeatedly as the Oct. 1 opening day of the online health insurance marketplaces approached.

Hiding in plain sight behind that pledge — visible to health policy experts but not the general public — was the redistribution required to extend health coverage to those who had been either locked out or priced out of the market.

Now some of that redistribution has come clearly into view.

The law, for example, banned rate discrimination against women, which insurance companies called “gender rating” to account for their higher health costs. But that raised the relative burden borne by men. The law also limited how much more insurers can charge older Americans, who use more health care over all. But that raised the relative burden on younger people.

And the law required insurers to offer coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions, which eased costs for less healthy people but raised prices for others who had been charged lower rates because of their good health.

“The A.C.A. is very much about redistribution, whether or not its advocates acknowledge that this is the case,” wrote Reihan Salam on the website of the conservative National Review.

Having obscured much of that vulnerability before, Mr. Obama has responded to recent political heat by apologizing — and expanding the scope of his discredited “you can keep it” promise.

Mr. Gruber of M.I.T. called redistribution a convenient tool for Republican opponents who would fight the law anyway.

In the end, America’s political culture may have made it unrealistic to expect a smooth public reception for the law, no matter how cleverly the White House modulated Mr. Obama’s language or shaped his policy to minimize the number of losers.

“The reality is, any big thing you take on, any big change, is hard to accomplish,” said David Axelrod, the president’s longtime strategist. In America, he said, “we’ve created a sense that everyone can expect to win — nobody has to sacrifice.”

At the same time, Mr. Axelrod argued that widening income inequality has, to some Americans at least, changed the meaning of redistribution. “The whole redistribution argument has shifted in the country because there’s a sense that a lot of redistribution has been to the top and not the bottom,” Mr. Axelrod said.

Still, the word is hardly a favorite of the president these days. The last time Mr. Obama used it in public, according to Federal News Service transcripts, was 18 months ago during his re-election campaign in Elyria, Ohio.

“Understand this is not a redistribution argument,” the president told his audience then. “This is not about taking from rich people to give to poor people. This is about us together making investments in our country so everybody’s got a fair shot.”

Other articles by John Harwood!
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/john_harwood/index.html