June 29th, 2010 by John Feehery
MRI / Photo credit: Jan Ainali
There are two things that can ruin an MRI scan. One of them is metal. The other is Obamacare.
The MRI machine was first used on a human being on July 3, 1977. Three doctors, Dr. Raymond Damadian, Dr. Larry Minkoff and Dr. Michael Goldsmith, worked for 7 years on their machine, which they called the “Indomitable.”
The MRI’s most important component is a huge magnet, which is why it is pretty dangerous to bring any kind of metal object into a room where a MRI is being used.
If you are holding a paper clip or a screw driver, when the MRI switch is flipped on, the paper clip or screw driver could fly out of your hand and through the air, towards the magnet, where the patient is usually laying down. That paper clip or screwdriver then could become a flying missile, heading right for the poor sucker who just wants to find out what is going on inside his or her body. That is one way to really screw up an MRI.
Basically, an MRI machine uses the huge magnet to create electromagnetic waves that create photons that are then turned into images, which are then read by radiologists. Read more...
Tags: America, Canada, General Electric, health care, Milwaukee, MRI machine, Obamacare, socialist
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, Politics, Theory, health care | No Comments »
June 10th, 2010 by John Feehery
Greece / Photo credit: Ulamm
In actuality, there isn’t much in common between the United States and the Greeks.
That was the conclusion of a distinguished panel of economists hosted by the American Action Forum and led by former CBO director Doug Holtz-Eakin.
But if we don’t get our act together soon, things could get steadily worse for the economy and for the American people, and while we probably won’t default on our debt (because we can always print more money), it won’t be very pleasant around here unless we start making some fundamental changes
Senator Judd Gregg, a longtime deficit hawk and current ranking member of the upper chamber’s Budget Committee, keynoted the forum, wryly pointing out in his presentation that western Democracies founded on the Scottish Enlightenment philosophy of free market capitalism and representative government (which, of course, would include the UK, the US, and Japan) are having the hardest time dealing with debt.
Totalitarian regimes, like the Chinese and the Cubans, don’t have our debt problems, because in the case of the Chinese, they work hard and have a government that is immune to public opinion, and in the case of the Cubans, nobody sane would lend the large amounts of money in the first place. Read more...
Tags: Andy Busch, china, Cuba, Dean Baker, Debt, doug holtz eakin, Government, Greece, health care, judd gregg, Politics, spending
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, health care, spending | 2 Comments »
June 2nd, 2010 by John Feehery
Obama Signing the Health Care Bill / Photo Credit: Keith Ellison
As the Obama Administration grapples with a host of crises, from the Gulf Oil spill, to the potential war on the Korean Peninsula between North and South, to another potential war in the Middle East between Turkey and Israel, to the credit crisis in Europe, to the crisis on our Southern border, it will also have to deal with a crisis of its own making.
The health care law, the one the President signed into law, sucks. There is no other way to describe it. It sucks for those who are trying to find a job, it sucks for those who will have to pay more in premiums, it sucks for our deficit problems, it sucks for American competitiveness, it is sucks for doctors, for patients, for, well, everybody, except maybe those who want the whole system to collapse so that we can impose government run health care in its place.
That is the conclusion of a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and the conclusion of the current occupant of that office, although, of course, they would never put it those terms. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Congressional Budget Office, Gore divorce, Government, Gulf Oil spill, health care, health care law, Korean Civil War, Obama Administration, Turkey-Israeli split
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, health care | 2 Comments »
April 14th, 2010 by John Feehery
In Ancient Rome, it was the poor people who lived in the suburbs. The rich lived in the city center, close to work, close to entertainment, close to all the finest restaurants (or the Roman version of restaurant).
But in post-World War II America, that all started to change. Public transportation became more readily available, and bedroom communities rose up, first outside of New York City, and then swept the nation.
The riots of the 1960’s convinced many ethnics and the few remaining Protestants who lived in the big cities, that the American dream was better found in the suburbs, and a great wealth transfer from the cities to the suburbs began in earnest.
As that happened, a familiar voting pattern started to become accepted wisdom. The Democrats dominated the cities, while the suburbs were Republican bastions. And for close to 30 years, that was pretty much how it worked out.
White middle-class families, some ethnic Irish or Italian or Polish from their neighborhoods in the cities, mixed with Presbyterians and Anglicans from the wealthier parts of the cities. Other Protestants, usually Baptists or Methodists came in from rural parts of the country, looking to find work and their version of the American dream. They mixed in a monochromatic melting pot, and slowly lost their own identities, as their kids went to public (better and cheaper) high schools, intermarried, and moved to other suburbs or sometimes to other regions of the country. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, crime, GOP, Government, Politics, Republicans, schools, spending, suburbs
Posted in GOP, Government, Politics, Theory, health care, spending | No Comments »
March 31st, 2010 by John Feehery
So, according to various news reports, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman is going to “investigate” corporate America for reacting to the President’s new health care law by promising to take huge tax write-downs because of the expected negative impact of the law on their bottom lines.
This kind of reminds me of when O.J. Simpson decided to launch an “investigation” into who killed his wife.
Who killed the jobs, Mr. Waxman?
You did. And no matter how you try to shift the blame, you can’t escape that truth.
According to the Daily Caller, “Rep. Henry Waxman demanded that AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, and Deere & Co. justify their claims about the “costs the companies plan to book related to the new health-care law.” According to Business Week, “Dallas-based AT&T said in a regulatory filing yesterday it would record $1 billion of costs, the most of any U.S. company so far. AT&T previously received a tax-free benefit from the government to subsidize health-care costs for retirees. Under the new bill, AT&T will no longer be able to deduct that subsidy.”
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee put out a couple of fun facts about the terrible impact of this legislation on job creation. Read more...
Tags: Congressional Budget Office, health care, Henry Waxman, Jobs, National Federation of Independent Business, O.J. Simpson, Unemployment
Posted in Government, Politics, Theory, Unemployment, health care | No Comments »
March 26th, 2010 by John Feehery
Republicans can learn much from Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
When a bipartisan majority in the House and the Senate passed the prescription drug benefit in 2003 (after a painful three and a half hour vote on the Conference report), Pelosi, who was then Minority Leader, promised immediately to repeal the legislation.
Democrats even briefly toyed with using that as one of their campaign themes, but it got lost in a Presidential campaign that focused mostly on national security and John Kerry’s flip-flopping ways.
But that didn’t mean that Mrs. Pelosi forgot about her pledge.
This health care reform package is notable for many reasons. It took a long time to get done. It spends a lot of money. It will immediately raise premiums. It promises to give better access to health insurance to those with pre-existing conditions. It makes people who don’t want to buy or can’t afford to buy health insurance buy it anyway.
And it repeals two parts of the original and most offensive (from Pelosi’s perspective) portions of the bill. It destroys the Medicare Advantage program, which Democrats irrationally feared would lead to the privatization of the Medicare program. And it makes the prescription drug companies fill in the so-called donut hole, which was put in place to keep the original bill within its budget parameters. Read more...
Tags: health care, House, Nancy Pelosi, prescription drug benefit, repeal, Senate
Posted in Government, Politics, Theory, health care | No Comments »
March 25th, 2010 by John Feehery
Put away those Confederate Uniforms.
As it turns out, we don’t have to re-enact the Civil War. The Health Care law is so bad, we don’t have to stretch back to the 18th or 19th centuries (or the 20th century for that matter) to come up with analogies to fight it.
We don’t have to channel our inner-John C. Calhoun and come up with a nullification theory about this law.
We don’t have to compare this to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which helped lead to the Civil War.
We really don’t have to compare this bill to the Boston Tea Party either. Sorry, tea-partiers.
Newt Gingrich made the unfortunate comparison of this bill to the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s. Hey, Newt, I hate to remind you, it is awfully hard to defend Jim Crow these days. Well, it was awfully hard to defend Jim Crow at any time. And it was altogether appropriate and fitting to protect African-Americans as they exercised their God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But this health care bill has nothing to do with the civil rights fights of the 1960’s. Read more...
Tags: Civil War, health care, Newt Gingrich, socialist, Tea Party
Posted in Financial Crisis, Government, Politics, Theory, health care | 2 Comments »
March 24th, 2010 by John Feehery
I am not one to quote liberal bloggers like the folks at Firedoglake. But when they are right, they are right.
They analyzed this bill and their conclusions are devastating (here is the link: http://budurl.com/qxx8)
In a nutshell, this is what they say:
This bill is not universal (24 million will still not be covered in 2019).
The insurance companies don’t really hate this bill. (Why should they? Their stocks have risen close to 30 percent since last October 30th, and the plan that was adopted is very similar to the one penned by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP))
Premiums are not going to go down. They are going to go up at the same rate as the status quo.
This bill will not help middle class families (a family of four making $66,370 will be forced to pay $5,243 per year for insurance. After basic necessities, this leaves them with $8,307 in discretionary income — out of which they would have to cover clothing, credit card and other debt, child care and education costs, in addition to $5,882 in annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for which families will be responsible). Read more...
Tags: bill, Firedoglake, health care, liberal
Posted in Government, Politics, Promises, Theory, health care, spending | No Comments »
March 24th, 2010 by John Feehery
Let’s rewind the tape and imagine how this all could have played out better for President Obama.
Let’s imagine that instead of telling Congressional leaders that he wanted to jam through a stimulus package the week he was sworn in, he decided to actually work with Republicans to pass a bill.
Let’s imagine that he listened to the Republicans and that he proposed a simple two-step stimulus package. The first half would have been a dramatic lowering of the corporate tax rate to say 10%, which would have instantly led to a quick burst of economic activity. The second half would have been focused on transportation projects, not only including shovel ready projects, but other longer-term projects that would have insured sustainable growth for the future.
Imagine if as part of this stimulus plan he gave every family who made less than $50,000 a $10,000 dollar check and every family who made less than $100,000 a $5000 check. I bet you that would have stimulated the economy.
Republicans and Democrats would have had no choice but to vote for that bill. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, health care, Tea Party
Posted in Government, Theory, health care | 3 Comments »
March 23rd, 2010 by John Feehery
The Democrats and their allies are feverishly trying to spin their health care victory as a victory for their political fortunes. Stan Greenberg, in the New York Times, says, “Democrats today could easily be at the beginning of a hopeful six-month period, starting with the signing of the health care legislation that will further raise the public profile of the president and the Democratic Congress.” Mike Barnicle, on Morning Joe, asked Joe Scarborough, after ticking off the law’s many giveaways, “Joe, how do you run against this?”
The answer is simple. You run against everything that has happened thus far.
You run against the trillion dollars of tax increases, especially the tax increases on the health insurance of hard-working union people. You run against the premium increases that will hit most Americans who have health insurance. You run against the elimination of the Medicare Advantage program. You run against the individual mandate. And you run against the complete government takeover of the student loan industry. If you or your kid need a loan to pay the exhorbinant college tuition prices, you now only have one choice: the federal government. So, if you can’t get a student loan, you know who to blame: The Democrats. Read more...
Tags: AAA bond rating, Barack Obama, Chinese, Democrats, election, Government, health care, House Republicans, legislation, spending, Stan Greenberg, taxes, White House
Posted in Government, Politics, Theory, election, health care, spending | No Comments »
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