How government health insurance compares with private

We don’t even need to wait for Obamacare to see how ineffective government health care insurance is. Let’s look at the plans we already know, using National Center for Health Statistics as reported in JAMA Jan. 11, 2012, p. 141. The chart shows that road blocks and law suits are needed at every turn to stop this Obamacare madness. The British National Health service is the 3rd largest employer in the world—but they don’t have good health care.

Patient visits to physicians’ offices (2009) and hospital outpatient departments covered by insurance.

Private insurance 54% and 37%

Medicare 25% and 19%

Medicaid and CHIP (children) 12% and 26%

When has a government program in any area been able to exceed what the private sector can offer? Those now using private health insurance will need to be reduced to the government insurance level so that the liberals’ concept of “fair” can be imposed on everyone.

Two types of government health plans were not included in this chart: That for federal employees, which is better than any of us could afford (I think it’s cafeteria style with choices from about 7 or 8 private Cadillac plans, and BIA’s plan for American Indians, which is cradle to the grave health care with no cost to the patient, and the worst in the nation.

Glenn Beck TV

Yes, we're subscribers. When he is good, he's very good, and when he is terrible, he's just awful. Tonight he was awful. Terrible. Alcoholics can't take pain meds, and I think he did--suffering from back problems that took him off the program last week. I sympathize, but maybe the archives would have been better tonight. Eating popcorn while talking about beheadings--doesn't work for me.

I also don't like his whining about CNN and Fox--his former employers. I watched a few of his shows when he was on CNN, and he was just learning how to be on camera instead of being a radio clown, how to speak to a camera, how to interview guests. He was not good--CNN gave him a chance, and when he got better, he switched to Fox. At Fox he developed a huge following, he wrote books, did live theater, and promoted huge events like 9/12 which started a nation wide movement and many book clubs, and he did a huge event in Israel. Now is not the time to cut down former employers. It's unseemly for anyone. He's branching out, doing something different, perhaps it's the media of the future, but he needs to be more grateful to those who helped his career.

Obama is the anti-jobs President, but trying to kiss up to unions

Today, Wall Street Journal, “The Anti-Jobs President”

“Keystone XL has been planned for years and only became a political issue after the well-to-do environmental lobby decided to make it a station of the green cross. TransCanada filed its application in 2008, and State determined in 2010 and then again last year that the project would have "no significant impacts" on the environment, following exhaustive studies. The Environmental Protection Agency chose to intervene anyway, and the political left began to issue ultimatums and demonstrate in front of the White House, so President Obama decided to defer a final decision until after the election.

The missed economic opportunity was spelled out Tuesday by Mr. Obama's own Jobs Council, which released a report that endorsed an "all-in approach" on energy, including the "profound new opportunities in shale gas and unconventional oil." The 27 members handpicked by the President recommended that he support "policies that facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of pipeline, transmission and distribution projects," and they warned that failing to do so "would stall the engine that could become a prime driver of U.S. jobs and growth in the decades ahead." “

And the Washington Post, “Pipeline. . . hard to accept” after first chiding the GOP, then reported the foolishness of the administration choosing politics over the American economy:

“Environmentalists have fought Keystone XL furiously. In November, the State Department tried to put off the politically dangerous issue until after this year’s election, saying that the project, which had undergone several years of vetting, required further study. But Republicans in Congress unwisely upped the political gamesmanship by mandating that State make a decision by Feb. 21. Following Wednesday’s rejection, TransCanada promised to reapply — so the administration has again punted the final decision until after the election.

We almost hope this was a political call because, on the substance, there should be no question. Without the pipeline, Canada would still export its bitumen — with long-term trends in the global market, it’s far too valuable to keep in the ground — but it would go to China. And, as a State Department report found, U.S. refineries would still import low-quality crude — just from the Middle East. Stopping the pipeline, then, wouldn’t do anything to reduce global warming, but it would almost certainly require more oil to be transported across oceans in tankers.”

The Facebook-Politico connection

I don’t know how many of you are on Facebook, but I am, and I’m part of a “closed” political discussion group, not unlike an e-mail list or listserv. Right now because of the debates, the insults are flying fast and furious between Ron Paul supporters and traditional conservatives. Frankly, I don’t like the new Politico-Facebook partnership. In fact, I’m horrified. I wouldn’t like it anymore than the small print notice at the bottom of print magazine subscriptions that says they sell their mailing lists, but the Politico website is an Obama water carrier. It’s good for a conservative to read it, but it’s better to know what a real $100 bill looks like rather than study the counterfeit bill. Just because they say actual human employees won’t be reading this stuff, doesn’t mean that won’t happen—or that rogue employees** working undercover won’t pass it along either out of commitment to the party apparatchiks or for profit. Here’s the gist of it from All things D

“A partnership between Facebook and Politico announced today is one of the more far-reaching efforts. It will consist of sentiment analysis reports and voting-age user surveys, accompanied by stories by Politico reporters.

Most notably, the Facebook-Politico data set will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments. While that may alarm some people, Facebook and Politico say the entire process is automated and no Facebook employees read the posts.

Rather, every post and comment — both public and private — by a U.S. user that mentions a presidential candidate’s name will be fed through a sentiment analysis tool that spits out anonymized measures of the general U.S. Facebook population.

This is similar to the way Google offers reports on search trends based on its users’ aggregate search activities.”

The solution, of course, is to get off Facebook or only discuss your latest operation, the grandchildren or what’s for dinner (and many do that).

-------

**I was a librarian at Ohio State, which had the grand daddy of all computerized library systems—other major libraries built on our experience/shoulders, then quickly passed us up as commercial efforts (like those on the internet) became available. But back in the “old days” we always had student employees who knew more than their bosses (like me) who could send deans overdue notices for nonsense. Even 15 years later, when we were still using bundles of microfiche to check overdue books and were supposed to look only for a specific ID number, it wasn’t too tough to look at the alphabetic list (also included) and see which high flying, overpaid professor had 200 books checked out to his office using the library as his personal collection.

The Recession ended--where are the jobs?

"More than 90 percent of U.S. metropolitan areas have failed to recoup the jobs lost during the recession that ended in 2009, a report found, underscoring the slow pace of recovery by urban economies.

Only 26 of 363 U.S. metropolitan areas have seen employment rebound to pre-recession peaks, according to the report, prepared by forecaster IHS Global Insight and released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors today. Nearly 80 areas aren’t expected to see such a recovery for more than five years."

Bloomberg

Public Pension ‘Air Time’ Is an Absurdly Generous Perk

Before I retired in 2000 I purchased some time I had worked at the University of Illinois in the 1960s. I have no idea if I bought "air time."

Please read this and see if you understand--I certainly don't!!

Public Pension ‘Air Time’ Is an Absurdly Generous Perk — The American Magazine

Stop SOPA and PIPA

The legislation now moving in Congress has all the nuance of taking target practice with a shotgun; sure, you may hit the target, but everything in the general vicinity is left in shreds too. If these bills pass, there will be major collateral damage to Internet innovation, online free expression, the inner workings of Internet security, and user privacy.

The bills in question are the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. They are backed by extensive lobbying muscle and have bipartisan support. In short, this is legislation that could actually pass. ABC News, Dec. 8, 2011

Think of all the mischief the "commerce clause" has caused. And it was never intended. We have enough laws on the books to stop piracy. Some entertainment giants originally supported this--maybe still do--but perhaps they want us to get off the internet and watch some of that excellent reality TV.

In Ohio, contact Sherrod Brown (D) and Robert Portman (R). Check the internet for your Representative, Mine is Steve Stivers.

Steve Jobs--why technology can't help education

Interview with Wired Magazine 1996

I used to think that technology could help education. I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they’re inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy.

I have a 17-year-old daughter who went to a private school for a few years before high school. This private school is the best school I’ve seen in my life. It was judged one of the 100 best schools in America. It was phenomenal. The tuition was $5,500 a year, which is a lot of money for most parents. But the teachers were paid less than public school teachers – so it’s not about money at the teacher level. I asked the state treasurer that year what California pays on average to send kids to school, and I believe it was $4,400. While there are not many parents who could come up with $5,500 a year, there are many who could come up with $1,000 a year.

If we gave vouchers to parents for $4,400 a year, schools would be starting right and left. People would get out of college and say, ’Let’s start a school.’ You could have a track at Stanford within the MBA program on how to be the businessperson of a school. And that MBA would get together with somebody else, and they’d start schools. And you’d have these young, idealistic people starting schools, working for pennies.

They’d do it because they’d be able to set the curriculum… God, how exciting that could be! But you can’t do it today. You’d be crazy to work in a school today. You don’t get to do what you want. You don’t get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialisation. Who would ever want to do that?

These are the solutions to our problems in education. Unfortunately, technology isn’t it. You’re not going to solve the problems by putting all knowledge onto CD-ROMs. We can put a website in every school – none of this is bad. It’s bad only if it lulls us into thinking we’re doing something to solve the problem with education.

Lincoln did not have a website at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology. It’s not as simple as you think when you’re in your 20s – that technology’s going to change the world. In some ways it will, in some ways it won’t.

Where are the Occupiers to protest this businessman?

According to today's Lantern (student newspaper OSU), Laurence and Isabel Barnett have donated six million to the College of Arts and Sciences to establish a new arts center and to support renovations. Good for them. He's been in the business end of the arts and made a fortune. Why aren't the Occupy Crowd of Columbus protesting his wealth? Why are all the liberals in academe who were so squishy a few months ago in their support of capitalism, now bowing and scraping--Shanda, dean of arts and humanities, Gee president of the university, and Murray, OSU spokesperson. This also isn't the first gift the Barnetts have given OSU.

"Born in Orville, Ohio, Larry Barnett attended The Ohio State University as a business major in the 1930s and found that his talent as a violinist would fund college expenses. His band played at many Columbus venues, but work and school took their toll; he became ill and left school one quarter short of graduation. Following his recovery, Barnett took a job in the talent department of Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). When Music Corporation of America (MCA) bought CBS's talent division, Barnett went with MCA. In 1963, he became board chairman and president of General Artists Corporation, and when it was acquired by Chris-Craft Industries, Barnett we appointed vice president of Chris-Craft as well as vice chairman and director of United Television, Inc. When he retired in 1988, Barnett contacted Ohio State about his unfinished business here, and after completing an independent studies project with Professor Donald Sexton in the College of Business, he received his bachelor's degree. In 1996 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ohio State."

Adam Corolla on Glenn Beck

Adam Corolla who came to my attention when his rant against OWS was played on Glenn Beck's radio show was interviewed on Glenn's TV show tonight. Corolla says when he was a kid his mom was on welfare, and when he asked her why she didn't get a job she told him she would lose her benefits. He decided then he didn't want that. But he was a poor student and an average-to-good athlete, so he did manual labor and didn't go to college. I'm not sure how he got into comedy and talking, but when he lost his radio job, he started a podcast and website, and says now he's proud to employ people and pay taxes. He and Glenn have that in common. Seven years ago Glenn employed three people, and now he employs 120. His recent back problems (3 minutes before show time last Monday) must cause him concern knowing he's the support of 120 families.

Corolla has a new book, Rich man Poor man, released today digitally. So if you have a Kindle, you can buy it. (I don't.)

In Rich Man Poor Man, comedian and bestselling author Adam Carolla exposes the phenomena that are embraced by the really rich and the really poor–but never the middle class–like having an outdoor shower, wearing your pajamas all day, or always having your dog with you. Combining Adam’s inimitable comedic voice and four-color illustrations by his friend Michael Narren, Rich Man Poor Man is a hilariously accurate look at what the people born with silver spoons in their mouths have in common with the people whose only utensils are plastic sporks stolen from a Shakey’s.

Saying good-bye

To help save the economy, the Government will announce next
month that the Immigration Department will start deporting
seniors (instead of illegals) in order to lower Social Security
and Medicare costs.

Older people are easier to catch and will not remember how
to get back home. I started to cry when I thought of you.
Then it dawned on me ... oh, darn,... I'll see you on the bus!

Grandma's American history book--Monday Memories

One of the books in my collection belonged to my mother's mother--and I think it is her Ashton high school American history textbook, "The leading facts of American history" by D. H. Montgomery, (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1891) On the title page: "America is another word for Opportunity." -- Emerson. The reason I'm not positive it was high school is because she did attend college in Mt. Morris, Illinois and it is written more like an expanded outline. There are a number of interesting tables, charts, graphs and appendices. The Table of States and Territories provides meaning of the name, date of admission, first settlement, sq. miles, population in 1790 and in 1890. Interestingly, Ohio admitted in 1803, is the first state listed as settled by Americans, with the first settlement in Marietta. The second state settled by Americans was Iowa. The 3rd and 4th were Minnesota and Oregon.

Image and complete book

Healthy sex discussion?

This afternoon Hallmark has a Valerie Bertanelli movie, "Personally Yours," where an Alaskan divorced mother of three children realizes she still loves her husband. The children nominate him for bachelor or something, and he gets a ton of e-mail including some from her.

But what I walked in on (a 2000 movie now 12 years old) was her discussion with her very young teen daughter about sex. "I'm just old fashioned enough," says mom, "to think love comes before sex." Wow. Now isn't that helpful advice. What teen-ager from a broken family doesn't know about LOVE! Even a reviewer at the Christian Cinema site got warm and fuzzy over that one.

"The film does contain good relationships between the siblings; a positive message about being fortunate if you realize what you have; and a thoughtful discussion about sex as mom and daughter discuss the subject, with the girl realizing love should come first."

I wonder, can you trust these reviews?

Keystone Pipeline--while Obama fiddles

The Obama administration has delayed its decision on the pipeline until after the election. According to Bloomberg, this means that the pipeline will not be completed until at least 2015. Had the pipeline been given the green light this November, thousands of valuable construction jobs would have been immediately created and in 2013 the pipeline would have come on stream. But instead this administration prefers to export jobs and US dollars overseas, squandering $70,000,000 per day.

When Hawaii became a territory

Or something. My grandmother used to clip crochet and quilt patterns from newspapers and magazines. One yellowed 2 1/4" x 2 1/4" newspaper clipping from The Inter Ocean for a "Pretty Edging" fell out of a child's book today. On the back is a dispatch from Honolulu about the "territorial bill is finally passed with the amendments."

Within a few hours of its passing on April 14 protests broke out. There was a deportation plan and a no liquor sold in saloons provision. To deport all contract laborers who have come here within the last year would mean sending back to Japan 30,000 people and would leave the sugar plantations helpless, for the whites will not do the work. All agree it would ruin the main industry of the islands.

Nothing ever changes when it comes to immigrant labor, does it? But I don't have a year for this, so I looked through a number of sites, most sort of nasty condemnations of "American Imperialism" and finally settled on a small section from Hawaii State History Guide.

Hawaii was a native kingdom throughout most of the 19th century, when the expansion of the vital sugar industry (pineapple came after 1898) meant increasing U.S. business and political involvement. In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani was deposed and a year later the Republic of Hawaii was established with Sanford B. Dole as president. Then, following its annexation in 1898, Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1900.

In 1900 the islands were made a territory, with Dole as governor. In this period, Hawaii's pineapple industry expanded as pineapples were first grown for canning purposes. In 1937 statehood for Hawaii was proposed and refused by the U.S. Congress the territory's mixed population and distance from the U.S. mainland were among the obstacles.

I still don't know what deporting Japanese contract labor had to do with it. It could have been they feared the Japanese immigrants would then go to the mainland for better wages. But, on the other hand (or other side) the edging was supposed to be nice for children's underwear or aprons.

The Inter Ocean was a Chicago newspaper printed weekly that was very popular, and my great-grandfather, David George, of Ashton, Illinois, subscribed. Grandma Mary, the youngest of his 4 children, had many clippings from this paper in her childhood scrap books.

A painful twang at least to my ears

So many singers have this sound: someone is sitting on his chest to place a clothes pin on his nose.
It seems to be both secular and religious genre. Latest one I heard was on Catholic radio, but that painful twang can be heard just about universally, with either acoustic or electric guitar, whether singing to God or the girlfriend.

The food pantry

We were talking about the "Souper Bowl" where we collect cans of soup for the food pantry to coincide with the Super Bowl. She said she buys the cheapest off brands because she can get more and so it goes further. But does it? Look at the first and second ingredients. Look at the fillers and thickeners. Not all "unbrands" or house brands are poor quality, but many are. Try them first. If you wouldn't feed it to your family, perhaps other families don't need it either. Someone in poor health or looking for work or mentally ill needs the best nutrition, not the poorest.

Looking at the Republican candidates

Choosing a candidate.
Your mileage will vary. The economy won't be my first consideration--our debt is so bad, the country may never be able to recover no matter who is president. Obama has secured his place in history. In my lifetime I've been in 4 of the 5 quintiles, higher is a better living standard, but not always the best for friendships and family. We're at the bottom again (pensioners), and life is good.
1) Respect for Life; if the candidate isn't pro-life, won't protect a human life with the strength and power of the office, he doesn't get my consideration--scratch Ron Paul.

2) Restoration of the values and morals that led my ancestors to flee their country, roots and family and come here even before it was a recognized country early in the 18th century--again scratch Ron Paul--libertarians have many wonderful ideas they share with conservatives, but not enough for me. I don't care how he salutes the flag or if he wears a flag pin, but he needs to respect the Christian faith and how it established the freedoms we enjoy and the protections it affords other faiths.

3) A person of character I can point to with pride--scratch Newt Gingrich, who is a fabulous lecturer and debator, but seems vague about recent history (especially his own) although he claims to be a historian and wants to make his most recent mistress the first lady.

4) So that leaves (although I haven't had the news on today) Romney, Santorum and Huntsman. I will do more research on those left standing on my list.

And no, I'm not afraid of Mormons (and Gingrich's ads know many conservative Christians are because he used to be a Baptist), but I am afraid of 9/11 truthers and Paul supporters certainly fall into that hole--along with many wild eyed leftists like Rosie and Van Jones. I'm also afraid of those who don't appreciate that in many cases, our government has done a wonderful job--it's just that when the job is over, those "civil servants" never think enough is enough. We voters are the ones who turned over so much power to the Executive branch. Republicans included. And if a man's wife can't trust him, neither can I. I don't care how many annulments the Pope gives Gingrich, he was baptized a Lutheran and I think that is nonsense.

Is Ron Paul a tool of the left?

From Breitbart TV, Trevor Loudon.

"Ron Paul’s libertarian suspicion of big government defense spending, has been deliberately fostered and encouraged by the most anti libertarian elements in the land – the US hard left.

Ron Paul, and many libertarians think they can work with the left to achieve libertarian ends.

The hard bitten Leninists and disciplined Marxists of the left know they can use naive libertarians to achieve their ends – particularly to gut America’s defenses to the benefit of their foreign masters.

In short, the US left is using Ron Paul and other libertarians, to do what their armies and intelligence services have long dreamed of – destroying America’s military superiority, and with it, US national sovereignty.

By promoting the left’s defense policies, Ron Paul, a man of patriotism beyond question, could be unknowingly betraying his own country to its enemies."

Will it be Romney?

James Taranto (Wall St. Journal) writes, Gingrich has helped to define Romney as the defender of free enterprise:

[Gingrich] presence in the race has been helpful to likely nominee Romney. The former speaker's wretched and unprincipled attacks on the front-runner's business record--which "made no sense," as Gingrich himself acknowledged before he made them (hat tip: Rich Lowry)--previewed the inevitable Obama attacks coming this fall, with both inoculative and preparatory benefits for Romney.

To judge by Romney's victory speech last night, the latter effect has been impressive.

President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial. In the last few days, we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him. This is such a mistake for our Party and for our nation. This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We must offer an alternative vision. I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success. In these difficult times, we cannot abandon the core values that define us as unique--We are One Nation, Under God.

Make no mistake, in this campaign, I will offer the American ideals of economic freedom a clear and unapologetic defense. Our campaign is about more than replacing a President; it is about saving the soul of America. This election is a choice between two very different destinies.