Archive for the ‘Health care’ Category

From Reuters:

The United States would immediately have its top-notch credit rating slashed to “selective default” if it misses a debt payment on Aug. 4, Standard & Poor’s managing director John Chambers told Reuters.

Chambers, who is also the chairman of S&P’s sovereign ratings committee, told Reuters on Tuesday that U.S. Treasury bills maturing on Aug. 4 would be rated ‘D’ if the government fails to honor them. Unaffected Treasuries would be downgraded as well, but not as sharply, he said.

“If the U.S. government misses a payment, it goes to D,” Chambers said.

From Ronald Reagan, 1983:

“The full consequence of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the …

Continue reading The utter madness of not raising the debt ceiling »

According to BP, it is now siphoning off as many as 5,000 barrels of oil a day from the leaking pipe on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. That’s great news, since the company has been telling us that the leak itself was putting out 5,000 barrels a day. Problem solved, right BP?

Right?

Wrong.

The company has now been forced to acknowledge that outside scientists were right, that the leak is dumping a lot more than 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf. How much more? The company won’t say, but thanks to pressure by Congress and the administration, you can see for yourself. The company has agreed to post a live video feed from the site, which can be seen here. It isnt’ pretty. (The site can be a little balky, probably because of heavy traffic.)

Meanwhile, fresh from arguing that the Civil Rights Act was an unconstitutional imposition on business, Rand Paul is now chastising President Obama for being too hard on BP. From the AP:

“What I don’t like from the president’s administration …

Continue reading BP finally admits Gulf spill is a lot larger than it had claimed »

from Science Codex:

Santa should share Rudolf’s snack of carrots and celery sticks rather than brandy and mince pies and swap his reindeer for a bike or walk, says a public health expert in the Christmas issue published on bmj.com (British Medical Journal) today.

Dr Nathan Grills, from Monash University in Australia, says the current image of Santa promotes obesity, drink-driving, speeding and a general unhealthy lifestyle. He argues that “Santa only needs to affect health by 0.1% to damage millions of lives” and that it would be better if his popularity was used to promote healthy living.

Grills carried out a review of literature and web-based material to assess Santa’s potential negative impact on public health – there were no peer reviewed publications on this issue.

The investigation revealed very high Santa awareness amongst children. Indeed among American school kids Santa Claus was the only fictional character more highly recognised than Ronald McDonald, says the …

Continue reading Sometimes Scrooge has a medical degree and an Aussie accent »

Senate Democrats are pushing for quick action on the health-insurance reform measure, and a new Washington Post/ABC poll suggests why:

As the Senate struggles to meet a self-imposed, year-end deadline to complete work on legislation to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the public generally fearful that a revamped system would bring higher costs while worsening the quality of their care.

A bare majority of Americans still believe government action is needed to control runaway health-care costs and expand coverage to the roughly 46 million people without insurance. But after a year of exhortation by President Obama and Democratic leaders and a high-octane national debate, there is minimal public enthusiasm for the kind of comprehensive changes in health care now under consideration. There are also signs the political fight has hurt the president’s general standing with the public…

But Obama and the Democrats have had decidedly …

Continue reading A heightened sense of urgency over health-reform debate »

That 60th Senate vote is proving elusive for an increasingly anxious Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats.

From The New York Times:

“WASHINGTON — In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form.

The bill’s supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the Democratic Party.

But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and abandon any new government insurance plan or lose his vote….

A Senate Democratic aide, perplexed by Mr. Lieberman’s stance, said, “It was a total flip-flop, and leaves us in a predicament as to what to do.”

And hence the magic of that extra-constitutional 60-vote requirement. As the chart below documents, the number of cloture motions …

Continue reading Lieberman says he won’t be the 60th vote »

It has been, to borrow a phrase, a long hard slog, and there is more slogging to come. But Senate Democrats seem to have hit on a plan that will unite them and perhaps provide the 60 votes they need to move health-care legislation through their chamber and eventually to President Obama’s desk.

From Politico:

Senate Democrats have reached a “broad agreement” on a health reform bill, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday night — a plan that would replace the public option in the current Senate bill with a new national insurance plan offered by private insurers, and a chance for older Americans to “buy in” to Medicare.

Democrats on Tuesday night took a major step forward on a plan by agreeing to ask congressional scorekeepers to give them cost estimates on a possible compromise that would break the impasse over health reform in the Senate.

In doing so, Senate negotiators moved decisively away from including a government-run health insurance plan that would start on Day One in …

Continue reading Health-insurance reform makes headway in Senate »

Stephen Hawking

It’s a good thing that physicist Stephen Hawking was born in Great Britain, with its nationalized health care system. Because if he lived here in the United States, with its gaping holes in health-care coverage, he’d probably be dead or shuttered away in a human warehouse by now.

Just ask Kenny Whitey. He’d tell you all about it.

If he could.

Whitey is a trucker who was seriously injured on the job. Now his workman’s comp company has gone out of business, leaving him and his family out of luck and out of options. As the Gainesville Times reports:

“Overall, Whitey’s medical bills total around $47,000 per month.

“He just started physical therapy three weeks ago. The doctors said that they saw a 2 percent improvement. When you have a brain injury, 2 percent is a lot of improvement and now we don’t have any way to pay for that,” Pat Whitey said.

“The van company that has been transporting him to his appointments isn’t being paid now, and we can’t expect them to …

Continue reading Ladies and gentlemen, “the best health care system on Earth!” »

Judging from conservative rhetoric, the debate over health-care reform is in truth a fight over the future of American democracy and capitalism. Stopping the health-care bill is being described as an essential step toward restoring America to its rightful owners and rightful course.

“Friends, this is a critical battle for the heart and soul of America, and for freedom itself,” Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina told a rally in Washington over the weekend. “Freedom fighters are outnumbered in Congress, but not in America. If you continue to stand up and speak out, we will save freedom in America.”

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, made a more personal contribution to the hysteria. Health care reform would not merely threaten the foundations of America, she warned, it would lead to government-mandated abandonment of our loved ones and family.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of …

Continue reading Palin, DeMint should take lessons from this guy »

ObamaCare may destroy health care in 49 other states, but not here in Georgia, say GOP state senators Judson Hill and Chip Rogers. They plan to stop it dead at the state border.

If Georgians want to buy health insurance, Hill told Fox News last week, they should be allowed to do so. But we “don’t want to be penalized or have it forced upon us” by government, he said. So Hill, Rogers and a handful of other Senate Republicans have proposed a state constitutional amendment to guarantee that Georgians cannot be compelled to buy health insurance.

Furthermore, they believe that under the states’ rights doctrine, such an amendment would make any federal law to the contrary unenforceable here in Georgia.

Of course, Washington doesn’t have a monopoly on Big Government enthusiasts. Just two years ago, legislation was introduced in the Georgia Senate that was eerily similar to what Obama is now proposing in Washington.

For example, the Obama approach calls for creating a centralized …

Continue reading GOP once embraced what it now condemns »

Joe Wilson, the Republican congressman who very briefly turned President Obama’s speech into a raucous townhall meeting, has apologized for his ““inappropriate and regrettable” outburst. And according to CNN’s instant poll, the speech was a political success.

“”Going into the speech, a bare majority of his audience — 53 percent — favored his proposals. Immediately after the speech, that figure rose to 67 percent,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.”

However, that result comes with two important caveats. One, a similar speech by President Bill Clinton briefly lifted support as well, but over time his reform effort crashed and burned anyway. Two, CNN’s polling universe included only those who watched the speech, and since Republicans weren’t that interested, the audience was heavily weighted toward Democrats. That means the people polled also tended to lean Democratic, a problem CNN acknowledges may exaggerate the real impact of the speech.

In the speech and in the …

Continue reading The morning after the big health-care speech »