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Social Security despite its dislike by the wealthy class, finally became law. It now appears Obamacare has passed it’s last and final trial by fire and will soon take it’s place next to Social Security as a basic American right…. it is so funny that it was invented by Romney, isn’t it? I wonder how soon until he starts taking credit for the idea.
There are 8 working days left in the House of Representatives… Although 47 bills repealing Obamacare have already passed the house, none have been put on the floor ever since the October 1st government shutd0wn…
The only bill exiting the House, was the one to delay it for only a year on the pretense of fixing the computer errors. It turned into a giant misfire for the Republicans….
The head of the Republican leadership, is beginning to see it is impossible now to derail Obamacare…. It is one thing to get rid of a potential bugaboo which no one has any idea of what it does… It is a totally different thing to take away 2 million American’s insurance plans, and leave them stranded with no insurance. Acts like that play poorly during election time, and an election is only 11 months away.
The House ends the year in 8 working days. When they return after New Year’s, all those insurance plans for which they shut down the government to prevent…. will be in effect…
So the fight is done,…over,….. finished,….. caput. The Republicans will still keep close tabs on Obamacare, looking for any stories that discredit it, then trumpeting those ad nauseum… But their aim in doing so is not to remove Obamacare. At this point, they are solely looking to fan any flame possible in order to drive their voters to the polls next November….
As for Obamacare, it appears the fix is in.
This is in spot 6 tomorrow on the Senate Side. This is the famous bill were the Board did not approve the Governor’s recommendation, and he replaced them, getting the vote he needed.
This bill is solely to allow an Alabama firm to come into Delaware and perform health care and be the exception that never gets licensed, never gets inspected, and never gets a citation. If this wasn’t America, and the building wasn’t in Middletown just under the flight path of Summit Airport, with the tiniest bit of imagination, this could be a concentration camp and we’d never know. A place to take kidnapped school board officials, kidnapped in the dead of night, feed them truth serum then throw their bodies into the Appoquinimink marsh.
it is extremely bizarre, really. The company is legit in Alabama, they own rehabilitation homes down there, but if this were new with no track record, I would almost think it were to become the top secret detention center. Now I’m joking for those who can’t tell the difference, but that joke is brought on by these lines in the bill. … HB 89.
In definitions….
(4) “Health care facility” shall include hospital, nursing home, freestanding birthing center, freestanding surgical center and freestanding emergency center, whether or not licensed or required to be licensed by the State, whether operated for profit or nonprofit and whether privately owned or operated or owned or operated by a unit of State or local government. The term also includes continual care communities and any other nontraditional, long-term care facilities identified by the Department of Health and Social Services or the Delaware Health Care Commission. …………. The term also shall not include any freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital.
What? WHat! WHAT?
If this bill passes a freestanding inpatient hospital is not a medical facility…
If it is not a hospital, then what is it…. (here is the fun part…)
c. “Freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital” shall mean a facility that satisfies, or is expected by the person who will construct, develop or establish the facility to satisfy, the requirements of 42 C.F.R. § 412.23(b); provided that, if such facility is not paid under the prospective payment system specified in 42 C.F.R. § 412.1(a)(3) within 24 months after accepting its first patient, then it shall not be considered a freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital under this section. No freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital is subject to the Certificate of Review process, and thus no such hospital shall have any license or authority to operate denied, revoked or restricted on the grounds that a Certificate of Public Review has not been obtained.
This bill allows the Alabama firm to build a facility with no inspections, and if found they are killing patients to feed to other patients, their authority to operate still cannot be denied, revoked or restricted….
Is this wise?
Delaware is being held hostage. The firm is stating that they won’t come unless they can get no inspections and no state agency can shut them down. Quentin Johnson and Jack Markell want the business so much, they are catering to this one companies demands.
Meanwhile all other IRF’s get inspected, injected, detected, neglected, and all kinds of stuff that they gotta do….
“Blah, blah, blah Obamacare”. say Republicans. I say “Get over it.” This day the House is going to vote on Michelle Bachman’s House Bill Number One, to completely abolish Obamacare…..
Of course it is ridiculous. And if the entire Republican contingent votes to undo it, the entire Republican contingent as I have said all along and most of America agrees, is ridiculous…. The best thing Republicans can do for their party is censure Michelle Bachman by having this bill go down to inglorious defeat…. Because this will bludgeon them in 2014.
My title said “Cherries”… So here is the cherry… an account from someone upon getting insurance for the first time… and reflecting upon how it feels…
Obamacare is good. People want it. We need it badly. We have it. No one is going to take anything away from the American People that they want without losing the fight….
Partisan Politics Above The Nation’s Good... That banner hangs in the RNC’s Washington DC Lobby…. and is the first thing one sees upon stepping in….
Peruse at your own pleasure. Just looking over the CDC’s mortality figures and came across with a surprising fact that would cause the abolishing of Obamacare on day one, to be a drastic mistake… … …
Results—The age-adjusted death rate decreased from 747.0 deaths per 100,000 population in 2010 to
740.6 deaths per 100,000 population in 2011. From 2010 to 2011, age-adjusted death rates decreased
significantly for 5 of the 15 leading causes of death: Diseases of heart, Malignant neoplasms,
Cerebrovascular diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis.
Gee, getting checked out earlier by having the insurance companies pay for it, saves people from dying….
7 out of 100, 000 lives living who would have been dead without Obamacare, for Delaware means Obamacare saved 63 people, some probably even Republicans! That ratio applied to the US’s population, means 21,980 people are alive today because of the early screening provided by Obamacare….. For those who don’t know, it was our current President Obama’s crowning achievement…..
I would be shocked if any of them voted for Mitt Romney….
One Signature…… 21,980 people saved in one year….. no one can ever say Republicans got your back like that…..
The reason Mitt Romney is going to roll back Obama care is because Bain Capital’s holdings in HCA, have jumped.
HCA’s robust profit growth, has given Bain Capital 3 1/2 times the rate on their original investment.
The rub is exactly how, HCA became successful after it and Bain Capital “hooked up”.
The secret of HCA’s growth and development was simple. It figured out how to get more revenue from private insurance companies, patients and Medicare by billing much more aggressively for its services than ever before; it found ways to reduce emergency room overcrowding and expenses; and it experimented with new ways to reduce the cost of its medical staff, a move that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over concerns about patient care.
Ironically, doctors who are pulling plugs on ADA due to anticipated lower revenues, are supporting Romney who is actually responsible for already applying downward pressure to practicing physicians simply to make himself more money.
In a practice bordering on fraud, in 2008, HCA simply changed all its billing codes by elevating them to a higher care level. If a patient came in with indigestion, it was diagnosed as a heart condition, requiring oxygen, IV, and heart monitor… Instead of receivinhg a $65 Medicare reimbursement, they received a $313 Medicare reimbursement. .Overnight, the patients who HCA said must now require more care, often intensive, surged. And Medicare paid for their unneeded services at a much higher rate. Prior to Bain, they just got sent home as an outpatient.
Prior to the Bain Capital buyout, HCA lagged behind its competitors in higher care internments. Suddenly it became number one.
This slight change in determining how much money Medicare was going to pay, increased profits by 100 million during the first quarter of 2009…..
One private insurer questioned the new billing, forcing HCA to returns some of the money it had received. Medicare did not and the fraud continued.
Under Bain Capital, HCA’s emergency rooms, also refused and turned away patients it felt would not pay. They said they would take patients money first, then process them for treatment. 80,000 chose to seek other alternative care. It is illegal to turn people away for medical care. That was no problem for Bain Capital.
HCA then employed Bain Capital tactics towards staffing. Staffing was cut considerably not based on need, but for financial reasons. HCA and its staff have had difficulty agreeing how much staff is needed in triage and medical emergencies.
Nurses interviewed by the New York Times, said they were concerned that the system sometimes had led to inadequate staffing in important areas like critical care. As profits grew, so did the strains between doctors and nurses and management, with doctors and nurses clearly upset that patients were being left to rot due to HCA intentional shorting schedules. Again, it began… with Bain Capital.
Since Bain Capital took over, the prevalence of bedsores in patients bedridden for long periods of time —has clearly been a struggle for HCA. HCA hospitals have fended off lawsuits; and impartial regulators have upbraided HCA for deficient care to patients.
So sure, their profits are going through the roof, but at the expense of the patient’s care….. Insurance and Medicare are being overcharged for what is getting delivered… Sure, profits are higher.
Because of HCA’s rate of return, it’s success has inspired 35 buyouts of hospitals or chains of facilities in the last two and a half years by private equity…
Furthermore, HCA’s tactics are now under scrutiny by the Justice Department. Last week, HCA disclosed that the United States attorney’s office in Miami has requested information about cardiac procedures at 10 of its hospitals in Florida and elsewhere. The Justice Department has requested reviews that HCA conducted that indicate some of the heart procedures at some of its hospitals might not have been necessary and resulted in unjustified reimbursements from Medicare and other insurers.
Is this really the direction we want to go in health care? For profit? It may be too late! Already large numbers of non profit hospitals are being bought up and converted to those socking it to the patients for profit.
This is crony hospitalization at it’s best. Bill Frist the former Senator, as well as his dad, were founders of HCA. It merged with Columbia Healthcare and for a while was run by Rick Scott, now governor of Florida, during whose time, the largest ever award of Medicare Fraud was levied against HCA, and Rick was subsequently removed from his position.
The details behind HCA are very troubling. And this is the first sign of all things to come.
But the biggest take away is that this is Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s ideal of how things should be. Look at the profit they point to. They are successful businessmen.
But people hurt when they make money. Money isn’t everything.
Voters need to send that message this November LOUD AND CLEAR.
Courtesy of Facebook.
The Greek track star was booted off the Olympic Team. No, it was not because of the Euro… It was because of her slur against Africans. People need to keep their mouths shut. I was glad the Olympic Committee was adhering to high standards.
Later, another report came across the wire. This one actually had translated what she had said…… It was something like …”with so many Africans here, the West Nile Mosquitoes will be able to dine on local food.”
I read it again, because that didn’t sound horrible.
“with so many Africans here, the West Nile Mosquitoes will be able to dine on local food.”
I HAVE to be missing something…. I read it real slow.
With….. so…..many….. Africans….. here, .. the….. West….. Nile…. Mosquitoes…. will…. be….. able…. to…..dine…. on …..local…. food..
Didn’t see it that time… I tried reading it real fast.
Withsomany Africans here, theWestNileMosquitoes willbeabletodineon localfood.
No it is not in delivery…. Is there something racist about West Nile Mosquitoes?
Google Search of West Nile Mosquitoes lists these locations…. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Atlanta, Rockville, and Illinois. Someone just died of it in Arizona. These mosquitoes are all over America, and it appears they bite white people as well as nonwhites too. Oh, crap. They just found one in Tom’s River!!!!! Now even I’m worried. I saw one on my arm earlier today….
Is the joke in regards to the Nile River? It is, after all in Africa. But is that pejorative? After all, most of us associate the Nile with Ancient Egypt, where mankind began civilization. The Nile almost has a regal nature to it. Do we preach defamation when someone says “Mississippi”? or “Missouri”? or “Ohio”? They are rivers too… How about… “Amazon”? Ooooh. There is pejorative turn of a word. That makes me think of tall scantily clad Lucy Lawless. … If there was a mosquito disease originating in Jefferson County outside of New Orleans, and we said, the same thing when the Saints come up to Philadelphia to play… ” With so many Saints fans here in Philadelphia, all our Jefferson County mosquitoes will have local cuisine.” ( I would have added) “I hope they didn’t lose their tolerance for cayenne.”
Would I be cast off an Olympic Team?
The Phillies play the Colorado Rockies at home next on September 7,8,9th. Must I pencil myself a note never to say… “Rocky Mountain spotted fever” on those three days? Especially if to do so is….to lead me “to express my heartfelt apologies for the unfortunate and tasteless joke I published on my personal Twitter account. I am very sorry and ashamed for the negative responses I triggered, since I never wanted to offend anyone, or to encroach human rights.”
Or if I go up to New London, Connecticut, I must be very careful not to think of ticks and if I do get bitten by one on the back of my hairline, while there, I must be very careful not to say in the local’s presence… Lyme Disease. Old Lyme is only a couple of towns west of New London. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone, or encroach human rights.
Encroach human rights? How.
How does either statement encroach human rights? Does either statement bring down people from Colorado or Connecticut?
Are you a bad person just because there is a disease that originated in your country? If so, all Africa is doomed. And so is South America. And syphilis came from the New World! So we are all in this together.
Mosquitoes dine on everyone, myself included. They ARE color blind.
Where is the racist remark? “There are so many Africans here?” Should she have said Negroes? or blacks? Do we take offense when we get called Americans while we are abroad? “kick that bitch off the team. We are United Staters; not Americans. Everyone in the Western Hemisphere is a damned American…”
I’m struggling here. Someone help me out. I’m trying to think of a slur made at Americans that would require an apology and a kick off the Olympic Team… and for heavens sakes, I just can’t think of one.
Basically her point is…. Gee, there are a lot of Africans here… Yeah.. duh… it’s the Olympics……
You take that and put it with the fear of West Nile, which in Greece is at a higher preponderance than here in the US.
The Olympics must have the highest standards. Without question. But there is the other standard, the one requiring a burden of proof. It appears all we have to have is a prosecutor and boom, a sentence is levied.
And this is not one occasion. Nancy Grace on Fox is a case. Bloggers comments are another case. Everyone has an opinion. No one stops to look at facts. They judge based on one or two words in the question. “Sure, if someone slurs a race, they should be thrown off the team. I say throw them off the team. We need to make an example so powerful it never happens again!” Hey, everybody! Let’s judge by popular opinion and not the facts.
Everyone has an opinion before anyone knows what she said. The implication is: “oh, it doesn’t matter what she says. If someone complains and thinks it is derogatory, then that is what matters. Whether it is derogatory or not, is inconsequential. After all, how can she not be guilty, if someone complains?”
Uhhhhh. perhaps the person doing the complaining is simply not that smart? If affects 50% of the worlds population you know?
I remember saner times.
Courtesy of Facebook
Woo Hoo… but it is not what you would at first think……..
Facts:
The Average Canadian is Richer than the Average American. And you know that they say about averages, which means the lower levels here in America are way, way, behind……
Net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, while the average American household’s net worth was $319,970.
Primarily, paying private health care costs in America and not in Canada makes up the difference. This past years aging of the baby boomers has increased the medical costs to American society as a whole, and those retirement plans once listed on America’s books as assets, are now quickly being funneled into retirement homes, hospital death panels, and insurance exec’s 7th and 8th homes.
National Healthcare with a single payer system, appears to actually be beneficial for a nation as a whole.
Republicans will say “sure, Canadians may think they are richer, but they are not getting the quality healthcare Americans get. Actually that is true. They appear to be getting better healthcare and getting it with none of the extra expense. A healthy 19-year-old Canadian can expect to have 52 more years of perfect health versus 49.3 more years for Americans. Canadians have a universal healthcare service, which is free at the point of care, whereas Americans’ access to health insurance is usually based on employment, income through Medicaid, or age through Medicare, and not universal.
There is no logical reason not to have single payer health care: one it is cheaper; two it is better; three we will have perfect health and live longer;
Here are the reasons against having a single health care provider: less profit to those who own the stocks.
So, it becomes a balance of perfect health for 53 years for everybody in the country. ….. or…… someone else’s bank account growing a little bit more…
Hmmmm. I think having someone else’s bank account grow a little more, is far more important to me than whether or not I have a healthy life or get to pull a few extra years to live on this planet.. I will vote for Romney to get rid of Obamacare.
Of course, expect to hear the touting of …. Socialism is better than Capitalism.
That depends upon your definition. For you see, Canada has been under Conservative Control for a long time. Since the 1990s, Canada has pursued a hardheaded (even ruthless), fiscally conservative form of socialism. It is just that their conservatives are conservative, and not fanatics which has made all the difference. The argument is still out there that “uncontrolled Socialism” might not have painted as pretty of a picture as this blend of Conservative Socialism has wrought.
The proper name being thrown around to describe Canada, is now hybrid-economy, meaning it takes the best from both worlds and blends them together. Sounds like marriage.
As a footnote it would be good to hit all conservatives with this hockey puck right between their eyes.
Footnote: American Conservatives believed in managed healthcare when it was created as the Heritage Foundation Plan; implimented as Romney-care; and tweaked as the Republican Senate’s Plan. There is something seriously wrong with today’s Republicans. Seriously wrong. They need to go up to Canada and see a doctor.
You have gubernatorial posturing by Texas gay Rick Perry and Florida atheist Rick Scott:
We are not going to do Obama-care no matter how much it costs this state. Humph.
Minutes ago, Bill Frist (remember him: Republican Senate Majority Leader throughout the Bush years) just came out and said that was nonsense.
Frists writes that both parties should support exchanges, since it was an original Republican idea. Here is part of what he said……
A doctor, Frist says that he “sees little advantage” for Republican governors to refuse to set up exchanges in their own states and “default to the federally designed, one-size-fits-all exchange when they can design and run their own.”
“State exchanges are the solution. They represent the federalist ideal of states as “laboratories for democracy.” We are seeing 50 states each designing a model that is right for them, empowered to take into account their individual cultures, politics, economies, and demographics. While much planning has yet to be done, we are already seeing a huge range in state models. I love the diversity and the innovation.”
First it was Roberts. Now it is Frist. It appears that all conservatives who have nothing at stake in this election are supportive of Obama-care because it is such a great idea. After all, Republicans were the ones who thought it up.
Meaning that those who are against it, simply have a political axe to grind.
Obama-care is the best thing that has come our of government since Medicare and before that, Social Security.
Even honest conservatives think so…..
Now, if we can just persuade the dishonest ones…..
Here is what we lose if Republicans for some reason take the ACA (Affordable Care Act) away.
WE LOSE: Medicare picking up the cost of prescription drugs, without which, they would do without.
WE LOSE: Young people staying on their parents health care until 26; without which, all these would be uninsured.
WE LOSE: Access to preventive care like colonoscopies or mammograms without co-pays.
WE LOSE: The right to get sick and NOT have our health insurance get dropped because we have now, become a liability. If you get sick, they can’t drop you!
WE LOSE: Tax credits to small businesses to balance the payment towards their employees insurance.
For all you big babies crying boo hoo hoo over Justice Robert’s defection, why on earth do you think we would ever give these up, just so some rich person who already has tons, and tons, of extra cash just sitting around doing nothing, gets to pay a tiny little bit less in taxes?
Are you nuts?
kavips 