From the category archives:

Health Care

How health insurance companies gave Obama’s health care reform it’s second wind

March 16, 2010

In November, the Democrats were on the ropes. The GOP had just elected themselves a golden child with Scott Brown and tilted the scales back below sixty votes in the Senate. They had won two gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. The media was calling the Health Care Reform bill dead. Time between now [...]

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Plain Joe Lieberman

December 18, 2009

If you haven’t already seen the “one more moment” video between Lieberman and Franken, here it is.

At first, I just laughed. Funny people, Senators. “Let him talk, he wasn’t saying anything anyway.”
But then I got to thinking. If Joe Lieberman had to deal with real life the way we all out here in Realitytown have [...]

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Where is the bell-shaped curve in the GOP health care dissent?

December 15, 2009

I bolted straight up in bed last night and asked myself the most obvious question most folks in the media should be asking themselves about the health care reform debate. “Where is the bell-shaped curve in the GOP dissent?”
Think about this. When was the last time you had forty supposedly independent-minded people agree on anything? [...]

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Unintended consequences

December 9, 2009

Yesterday, the US Senate tabled the Nelson amendment which would have limited access to abortions for people who had insurance subsidized by the US government. As part of the compromise, Medicare will be opened up to people 55-64 who have trouble being covered by their employer.
In addition, nobody is challenging the “right” of anyone under [...]

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We are creating our own nanny state and them is us

December 8, 2009

The photo above in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye this morning and sent me into a tizzy. For the record, I am a bit upset at the direction the health care reform bill is taking. It favors the preservation of the insurance company system by forcing us to buy the same crap that [...]

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Insurance companies should fear people like Dr. Dave Ores more than any health care reform bill

November 16, 2009

While the politicians in Washington argue about how many uninsured people there really are, call each other liars and debate over eleventh-hour amendments, real people with real lives are not waiting around for some edict to determine their destiny. They get fed up, roll up their sleeves and get the job done themselves. And [...]

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An argument for pulling the plug

October 18, 2009

The argument for pulling the plug on someone who is brain dead and on life support is very easy and can be made in two sentences. For now, though, humor me with a short theory on some health insurance stuff.
I think ultimately people buy health insurance in hopes of preventing their own death. Regardless of [...]

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Why banking pay bonuses piss people off, how spanking is a good thing, what just compensation really is in Eminent Domain and why the military is meeting their recruiting goals

October 14, 2009

There was just so much stuff today that made this puppy’s head spin. Amazing how the news media can be given all the facts and come to the wrong conclusion simply by assuming the story HAS to be more complicated than the simplest explanation.
Banking bonuses getting paid to incompetent employees
Jim Cramer came on Morning Joe [...]

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A metaphor for health insurance even Congress can understand

October 13, 2009

One of the arguments that always comes back about the number of uninsured is that 64% or so of Americans have insurance and like it. (WaPo)
But, what nobody is doing is actually looking at what the insurance really is. Here is a metaphor that I think might clear up what the insurance problem in this [...]

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Health care reform my puppy butt

October 8, 2009

Yesterday, Keith Olbermann had a one-hour special comment about health insurance and health care in America. He has recently had a first-hand experience with his father.
I don’t know how much it cost to produce one hour of Countdown nor do I know what the lost opportunity costs are from insurance ad revenue MSNBC will [...]

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Hi Mr. Boehner

October 1, 2009

Hi Mr. Boehner,
I saw you on MSNBC’c Countdown saying you have not yet spoken to an American who wants the public option on health care. If you are free at any time tomorrow, you can call me and we can have a conversation about how I want the public option. You can even record the [...]

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Those damn socialists at the Englewood Water Department

September 29, 2009

A water main starting leaking in front of my house. Last week, the City of Englewood sent a man out in a pickup truck who marked up the pavement with green and orange paint.
This morning, the Socialist Englewood Water Department sent an entire crew of water department surgeons out with spare parts, heavy equipment and [...]

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Dear Minority Leader John Boehner; this I fear more

September 20, 2009

A few days ago, I saw a video of you saying that Americans most fear the US Federal Government is spending beyond it’s means and that we are leaving a mountain of debt to our kids and grandkids. (I can’t find it right now, but when I do, I’ll post it.)
I think you are wrong.
Here [...]

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Health insurance is not at all like car insurance

September 16, 2009

Barack Obama compared having health insurance to having car insurance in his speech last week. Today, I read an article in the WSJ that did the same thing. Over the course of a week, I have heard this being repeated again and again. The two are not at all analogous to each other.
Driving is a [...]

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Kill the beast! The public option in health care reform

September 14, 2009

The title of this post is taken from the lyrics of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and explains what the right is doing with the so-called public option of health care reform. Love or hate him, Robert Reich explains the public option clearly, at least to us who laugh at the notion of “competition” with [...]

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Fox Business News creates another death match

September 9, 2009

Forget Death Panels. The event of the evening will be the Presidential Death Match.
“In this corner we have B. Hussein Obama, lightweight, barely weighing 170 pounds. He has never won a title fight in his entire anemic political career. And in this corner, the entire GOP fat cats and most of America, salivating at the [...]

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Health care on a freemium pricing model

September 9, 2009

I was listening to Gary Vaynerchuk* yesterday deliver a talk to publishers and indie bookstore owners. At some point in the talk, he encourages everyone to have some sort of freemium pricing model. That got parked in the furrows of my brain.
What if we had a freemium pricing model for health care? When you move [...]

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Grow up and buy your own insurance

September 2, 2009

VIDEO: Rep. Jenkins Laughs at Uninsured Single Mother, Son

Grow up and buy insurance that is not available and not affordable if it was. Grow up and buy insurance that will increase your premiums 30%+ a year, not cover your basic needs without a high deductible and drop you when you dip into it.
Rep. Jenkins, who [...]

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Health insurance companies will be ok but you lose. Again.

August 23, 2009

Regardless of what health reform laws pass in the next several months, health insurance companies will still be ok. They will find ways of continuing to extract premiums from business and individuals all the while maintaining their profit margins and paying fewer claims.
How do I know this? I’m watching the credit card companies.
Last week, new [...]

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