Health Reform Repub Plan to Dismantle Less Likely to Succeed if Dems Inform Us

Tags: Repub Gov Opting Out Health Reform Now Little Financial Protection Drop Retirees Preexisting Conditions Healthcare Reduces Wall Street Profits

HEALTH REFORM Kaiser Health News

I have found that Kaiser Health presents neutral facts on PBS NewsHour. If you want to under the real facts without political bias go to http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/ Kaiser picks out news items that will help us understand the facts. Because Republican Governors have the option of opting out of some provisions, they can increase the suffering of many of its residents as Texas has done by making the process of enrolling in Medicaid so difficult that 30% of Texans have no medical care at all.

A large number of Americans have policies that provide very little financial protection such as McDonald's, WalMart, and now have the very real risk of losing all of it. Most of the increase in rates at corporations resulted from the anticipated increase in rates by Health Care Corporations to try to blunt the effect of the Exchange in 2014. That is why the Public Option was so important. Only Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (I) stopped the Medicare and/or Public Option bills.

Republicans opposed many of the bills passed during the Bush Administration, but they know how to use the carrot and stick to force them to vote for Medicare Part D which Bush lied about the cost and a freebee for Insurance Companies and Big Pharma. Obama stopped the waste and has already been quite successful in stopping several $billion in Medicare Fraud already.

Most analysts think that even large corporations will likely eventually drop coverage for retirees because the cost is getting too high and they longer have the threat of keeping employees in place who have pre-existing condition including pregnancy to keep them from getting insurance before this new historic Health Care Reform. In the past three years my corporate funded healthcare for retiree made it clear that they can drop Healthcare for retirees at anytime. I take so few drugs that the company makes money on me instead of losses!

Because the new Healthcare Reform bill is funded starting in the House, it will be a disaster if the Republicans choose not to fund many provisions of the Reform Bill. Unfortunately that is the only way that it was possible to pass the bill.

Jim Kawakami, Nov 7, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Republicans Governors Part Of Health Law Fight

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Report.aspx?reportdate=11-5-2010

News outlets looked at some of the strategies Republican leaders may turn to in their efforts to pull back on the health overhaul.

The Washington Post finds that since the changes of repeal are "slim to nil, at least through 2012," Republicans may turn to getting rid of parts of the law, including "unpopular aspects that are less central to the law," including a provision that requires businesses to expand their reporting to the IRS of what goods and services they buy. "The measure was intended to raise money for the law by helping the IRS clamp down on tax evasion. But many small businesses say that complying with it will prove costly and onerous. Democrats and the president have expressed a willingness to modify or repeal it, as long as Congress finds an alternate funding source" (Aizenman, 11/4).

The New York Times: "Republicans also say they will try to deny money to put Mr. Obama's new health care law into effect, though they have not made clear what they would do to make up the cost savings that would be lost if they succeeded in repealing the law. … It is unclear whether federal agencies could perhaps reprogram money intended for other purposes to make up for any money blocked by Congress" (Calmes, 11/4).

The Washington Post, in a separate story: "Instead, Republicans will try to change or eliminate portions of the legislation by relying on tools such as the the Congressional Review Act of 1996, a little-used statute that allows Congress to overturn a regulation before it takes effect by passing a 'resolution of disapproval' in both chambers. But the measure can be vetoed" (Murray and Bacon, 11/5).

McClatchy: "The real value of the House vote is to show disgruntled voters that GOP lawmakers haven't conceded defeat on the president's signature domestic-policy triumph, said James Capretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. … A House vote also will help, from a public awareness standpoint, keep the controversial law in play for the 2012 elections" (Pugh, 11/4).

PBS Newshour interviewed policy experts on what voters may be thinking. Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA said: "I don't think health care was a top issue during the campaign. If you take a look at the preelection surveys that were undertaken by Associated Press, the Kaiser Family Foundation, New York Times, they show that most people want health reform to have a chance to work.(Kaiser Health News is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.) Some of them actually want to build on health reform and make it even better and improve it further. I don't think there is public support for repealing the legislation."

But Capretta, on that show, said health care was a "front-and-center issue. Many, many candidates, both for the House and the Senate, ran explicitly on repeal and replace. And, by and large, they won" (Brown, 11/4).

The Wall Street Journal reports that Republican governors are also eyeing opting out of the law. "Republicans recaptured at least 11 governors' seats from Democrats in Tuesday's election, winning in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Tennessee, New Mexico, Iowa and Maine. Democrats reclaimed at least two seats from Republicans, in California and Hawaii. … While governors can't avoid much of the law, they can throw sand in its gears and keep states out of involvement in a central part of it—new exchanges for selling insurance policies. Wisconsin's Republican governor-elect, Scott Walker, met with lawmakers Wednesday to discuss how to minimize the state's participation in the law's expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor. He also wants to lean on private entities to run the insurance exchanges, where lower earners who qualify for tax credits and small businesses will shop for insurance starting in 2014" (Adamy, 11/5). ... http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Report.aspx?reportdate=11-5-2010

(Worth looking at the summaries of more news at the above link. Jim)

No Comment Needed Fed Allows Banks Borrow at 1 Percent and Charge Higher Rates to US Treasury

Tags: No Comment Needed Fed Allows Banks Borrow at 1 Percent and Charge Higher Rates to US Treasury

Campaign Desk, Economic Crisis, The Audit — November 5, 2010 08:52 AM

Nasiripour on America’s Failing Monetary Policy

By Felix Salmon

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/nasiripour_on_americas_failing.php Shahien Nasiripour has delivered a massive 4,000-word article on the Fed’s monetary policy, laying out with great clarity just who’s benefiting (big banks, corporations, and the U.S. Treasury) and who’s losing (the public at large, and especially retired savers and the unemployed).

To some extent, monetary policy always works like that: savers get hit when interest rates fall, while banks love it. But this time it’s even worse than usual, since businesses aren’t borrowing or investing — and insofar as they are borrowing, they’re using the proceeds to buy back their stock, rather than to employ more people.

The net result is that the banks — whose collective cost of funds is now less than 1% — are now lending overwhelmingly to just one borrower:

U.S. banks now own more than $1.5 trillion in Treasuries and taxpayer-backed debt issued by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to the latest weekly data provided by the Fed. It’s a 30 percent increase from the week prior to the Fed’s Dec. 16, 2008, announcement that it was lowering the main interest rate to 0-0.25 percent.

Outstanding commercial and industrial loans at U.S. banks have fallen from $1.6 trillion in October 2008 to $1.2 trillion this past September, Fed data show. The $390 billion drop is equivalent to a 24 percent reduction in credit to businesses.

It’s truly outrageous that banks are lending more money to the U.S. government than they are to all commercial and industrial borrowers combined; well done to Nasiripour for connecting these dots and for providing a much-needed dose of outrage at the way in which Bernanke’s monetary policy simply isn’t helping the broad mass of the U.S. population.

Is there something else that Bernanke could be doing, and isn’t? Nasiripour doesn’t address that question in this piece. But simply framing the problem is important enough: with fiscal policy in gridlocked Washington a non-starter, monetary policy is all that we have. And it clearly isn’t having the desired effect.

Flu Vaccines Should We Get Them or Not? How Effective are They? How Safe?

Tags: Flu Vaccines Should We Get Them or Not How Effective High Dose CDC Conclusion Yes

Shannon Brownlee, an excellent medical journalist who wrote the superb book Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer by Shannon Brownlee, 2007, wrote in The Atlantic magazine with Jeanne Lenzer November 2009 issue http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/11/does-the-vaccine-matter/7723/ about whether taking flu vaccines really makes a difference. Most of the data shows that it has not been that effective against normally healthy seniors and the less healthy die whether they had the vaccine or not when they get the flu. About 36,000 seniors die each flu season. I hope the stronger dose is more effective to make up for a weak immune response for seniors.

The current vaccine has the California strain of H1N1 reflects the more than 300 mutations already occurred in the Swine/Bird flu virus. The rapid mutations of viruses does not necessarily mean that the vaccines do not work. They just don’t work as well, but they work well enough to prevent death. The bird flu in the flu last year did not contain the deadly gene in the 1918 Flu Pandemic, but the weakened mutated H1N1 virus has infected but not sickened many generations. This explains why many people did not die last year as in other pandemics.

Word to the wise. Don't bother storing TamiFlu or Relenza. They don't work anymore.

If your any of your sons and daughters or those grand kids die from the flu even the risk is at most 2 percent of the population, it will not be less painful. Already we are starting to have a whooping cough epidemic because parents refused to vaccinate their children in our scary corporate world already are fearful so they are more susceptible things they see on the Internet or hear from talking with your friends and neighbors. Whooping cough can be fatal.

President Obama along with Healthcare experts and his team at the CDC thought about this problem and decided to also have a volunteer High dose Flu and Seasonal Flu combined vaccine. The high dose Vaccine contains triple the dose of the three vaccines A H3N2, an influenza B Virus, and the California 2009 H1N1 Swine/Bird Flu vaccine for those over 65 and others with reduced immune response.

I got my High Dose Vaccine this Tuesday and the only side effect was a slight soreness the day after when I woke up but never noticed it afterwards. Influenza B is less normal so fewer may have exposure immunity to it. That is the reason the H1N1 flu virus was deadly for the younger age group, but not the older group. The reason the regular seasonal flu did not occur last year is that it was the same virus as the year before.

Better Safe than Sorry!

Jim Kawakami Nov 5, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

PS: I normally look at the table of contents carefully, read the introduction carefully, and even the acknowledgements carefully. I then read parts of various chapters and even the notes at the end of the book to decide whether to read the book. My time is much more valuable than the cost of the book.

Although I am well aware the Professor Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., M.D. Is one of the pioneers of vitamin D research is the one who discovered the active hormone during his Ph.D. Research and he knew that vitamin D improves the health of animals such as gorillas, lizards, polar bears, and other animals at zoos who are often sheltered without exposure to the sun to get their vitamin D, many of the babies die there.

He installed lights that mimic the sun in the shelters. He also knew that people who work and play in the sun are a lot healthier than those who do not. Also with all other factors equal, those who live near the equator and at latitudes north of Los Angeles and south of Buenos Aires, Argentina are generally healthier.

In the 1930s Americans did everything possible to get more sun by buying UV lamps and going to tanning salons. Then the smart scientists doctors struck. One of the many horrible things introduced on a mass scale during the Reagan administration without any or adequate testing were High Fructose Corn Syrup by heavily subsidizing corn in 1985 to increase the profits of processed food corporations, and soft drink makers and introduced UVB sunscreens without testing for safety.

When Melanoma mushroomed in both Australia and Scandinavia, my brain antenna started wiggling fast. No one here seemed to have noticed. Without really thinking they started increasing the sunscreen PSF to block out more UVB! It just got worse! Autism doubled in California among the affluent who paid attention to the experts and put on more sunscreen at a higher SPF. If I felt any burning, I put on a shirt or stepped into the shade. Luckily I brown easily.

My good friend and neighbor Joan kept using the lower SPF sunscreen in the morning sun at the beach which was only a block or so away when Tom and Joan bought a summer home there.

I went the other way. Whether I was playing tennis outdoors or skiing in the high mountains, I refused to use sunscreens. Only when I vacationed in the Caribbean did I use it sparingly. Then I did not know about UVB producing vitamin D in my skin, but I did feel that something was wrong. Everyone at work laughed at me!

The book The Vitamin D Solution: A 3-Step Strategy to Cure Our Most Common Health Problem which he lists on the cover page.

Prevent and Treat: Osteoporosis, Heart Disease, Cancer, Autoimmune Diseases, Depression, Insomnia, Arthritis, Diabetes, Chronic Pain, Psoriasis, Fibromyalgia, Autism … as well as other diseases, chronic conditions, and mild ailments.

The Seasonal Flu and Swine/Bird Flu Vaccines

http://www.flu.gov/individualfamily/vaccination/index.html A seasonal vaccine is distributed routinely every year.

• Unlike last flu season, when you needed to get two vaccines, the 2009 H1N1 and the seasonal vaccine, this flu season you only need the seasonal vaccine.
• The 2010-2011 flu vaccine protects against an influenza A H3N2 virus, an influenza B virus and the 2009 H1N1 virus that caused so much illness last season.
• Everyone 6 months of age and older should get vaccinated against the flu as soon as the 2010-2011 seasonal vaccine is available in your area.
• Vaccination of high risk persons is especially important to decrease their risk of severe flu illness.

• Vaccination is important for health care workers, and other people who live with or care for high risk people to keep from spreading flu to high risk people.

• Children younger than 6 months are at high risk of serious flu illness, but are too young to be vaccinated. People who care for them should be vaccinated.

Key Facts about Seasonal Flu Vaccine (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

What if I don't like shots but still want to get vaccinated from the flu? If you're worried about shots, you can take the nasal spray! This mist spray is not for pregnant women, but is fine for all other healthy people between the ages of 2 and 49.

Vaccine: Flu Shot or Nasal Spray?

Age and Conditions	One dose of Seasonal Vaccine	Two doses of Seasonal Vaccine	OK to Get Nasal Spray?
0 – 6 months	No	No	No
6 months – 9 years	One dose of seasonal flu vaccine if the child has had seasonal flu vaccination in the past.	Two doses of seasonal flu vaccine are needed if this is the first time the child is receiving flu vaccination.	No for children younger than two years. Yes, for children older than two years, unless the child has certain conditions. Check below for conditions information.
10 – 49 years	Yes	No	Can receive nasal spray if healthy and no underlying health conditions
50 years and older	Flu Shot Only	No	No
Pregnant women	Flu Shot Only	No	No
Arthritis	Flu Shot Only	No	No
Asthma	Flu Shot Only	Two doses of only Flu Shot if 6 months – 9 years (if first time flu vaccination)	No
HIV/AIDS	Flu Shot Only	Two doses of only Flu Shot if 6 months – 9 years (if first time flu vaccination)	No
5 years and younger, with a history of recurrent wheezing	Flu Shot Only	Two doses of only Flu Shot if 6 months – 5 years (if first time flu vaccination)	No
Children or adolescents receiving aspirin therapy	Flu Shot Only	Two doses of only Flu Shot if 6 months – 9 years (if first time flu vaccination)	No
People who have had Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) within 6 weeks of getting a flu vaccine	No	No	No
People who have a severe allergy to chicken eggs or who are allergic to any of the nasal spray vaccine components.	No	No	No

• For decades, vaccines have been produced in chicken eggs. This process is time-consuming and for some flu seasons has resulted in flu vaccine shortages early in the flu season. Cell-based vaccine production takes less time, and has the added benefit of allowing persons who are allergic to eggs to receive the vaccine. Cell-based vaccine is not expected to become available until 2011. More information about cell-based vaccine productions.

• When a critical portion of a community is immunized against a contagious disease, most members of the community are protected against that disease because there is little opportunity for an outbreak. Even those who are not eligible for certain vaccines get some protection because the spread of contagious disease is contained. This is known as "community immunity."

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Fluzone High-Dose Vaccine

Fluzone High-Dose vaccine is a flu shot, made up of the 3 flu strains most likely to cause illness for a particular flu season. Fluzone High-Dose vaccines contain 4 times the amount of antigen (the part of the vaccine that prompts the body to make antibody) contained in regular flu shots. The additional antigen is intended to create a stronger immune response (more antibody) in the person getting the vaccine.

Human immune defenses become weaker with age, which places older people at greater risk of severe illness from influenza. Also, ageing decreases the body’s ability to have a good immune response after getting influenza vaccine. A higher dose of antigen in the vaccine is supposed to give older people a better immune response and therefore better protection against flu.

Fluzone High-Dose is approved for use in people 65 years of age and older. As with all flu vaccines, Fluzone High-Dose is not recommended for people with a severe allergy to chicken eggs, or people who have had a severe reaction to a flu vaccine in the past.

Questions & Answers: Fluzone High–Dose Seasonal Influenza Vaccine
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

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Pneumococcal Vaccination

Many people who experienced serious and sometimes fatal complications from H1N1 flu were also infected with streptococcus pneumoniae (a major cause of pneumonia).

Pneumococcal vaccination and Children	Pneumococcal vaccination and Adults
CDC recommends that children under 5 receive the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) Children greater than two years old who are at high risk of pneumococcal disease may also receive the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23).	All individuals over 65 should receive the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) The pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) should also be administered to all persons 2-64 years with high risk conditions.

Letter to Providers Promoting PPSV for Adults

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Voter’s Data Show Republican Party May Be Exerting Its Last Gasp

Tags: Demographics Looks Bad for Republicans, Race Still Potent in South and Country, Latinos will lose their tie to the Catholic Church as they prosper

Predicting the future is difficult, but Harold Meyerson does a respectable job based on future demographics. Lots of old people will die earlier than in the past because of obesity effects such as diabetes 2 and heart disease and cancer.

I plan to boycott the Keith Olbermann hour until he comes back. Send a message to General Electric. While you can donate in secret, the employees cannot! This can't be legal!

Jim Kawakami, Nov 5, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

By Harold Meyerson

Friday, November 5, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110406639.html?wpisrc=nl_pmopinions

Elections always yield a cascade of numbers that nerds such as I rummage among in search of meaning. Here are a few that I think help explain Tuesday's results:

THIS STORY

1. A post-election numbers game

1. Nancy Pelosi, undone by her own success

Zero - The number of newly elected Republican senators in genuinely contested Senate races (excluding, therefore, those like North Dakota's) who carried voters ages 18 to 29. Republicans may have picked up seats in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin, and held them in Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio, but young voters in those states voted Democratic.

Even in Ohio, where Republican Rob Portman beat Democrat Lee Fisher by 18 percentage points, Fisher won the youth vote 49 percent to 45 percent. In the national exit poll on House voting, the Republicans lost the 18-to-29-year-olds by 17 points, and did better the older the voters got.

Moral: There was absolutely a Republican wave on Tuesday, but it looks more like the wave of the past than the wave of the future. Then again, as Faulkner reminded us and as the Republicans continually hope, the past isn't necessarily dead.

One - The number of white Democratic House members in the next Congress who will come from the Deep South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina). Democrats still send nine members from this long-ago Democratic region to the House, but eight of them are African Americans from districts in which whites don't make up a majority. Democratic strength in the white South began its downward plunge when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, but until Tuesday, there were still seven white Democrats in Congress from the Deep South. Now there's just one, Georgia's John Barrow.

Twenty-four - The gap, in percentage points, between the levels of support for Democrats and Republicans among white voters without college degrees who have union members in their household and white voters without college degrees who don't. In Tuesday's national exit poll on House voting, working-class whites voted overwhelmingly for Republicans - unless they lived with or were themselves union members, in which case they supported Democrats by a margin of 55 percent to 43 percent. Working-class voters from nonunion households backed Republican candidates 68 percent to 31 percent - a huge difference. It's not because unionized UPS drivers and nonunion FedEx drivers, say, are two different species of human. It's because the unions' political education and mobilization programs are very effective.

But the other numbers to keep in mind here are those that document the shrinking of unions - from representing 35 percent of the workforce at their post-World War II peak to just 7 percent of private-sector workers today. The deindustrialization and concomitant deunionization of the Midwest are the tectonic shifts underlying the Republicans' strong successes Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and even Upstate New York (not Midwestern, but Rust-Beltish just the same).

Twenty-two - The percentage of California voters Tuesday who were Latino - amazingly, an increase of four points over their share of the California electorate in 2008. It was strong Latino turnout and strong Latino support for the Democrats that led to the Democrats' thunderous sweep in California (winning all statewide offices and adding to their strength in the legislature) and their victories in the Nevada and Colorado Senate races. This poses a long-term strategic conundrum for nativist Republicans: As America grows more Latino, the perils of immigrant-bashing will begin to outweigh its rewards. After Sharron Angle's and Tom Tancredo's campaigns, Republicans, at least in Nevada and Colorado, should understand this.

Fourteen - The percentage-point margin by which Americans who blamed Wall Street for the nation's economic problems favored Republicans over Democrats in the national exit poll of Tuesday's voters. The poll asked voters whether they blamed Wall Street, George W. Bush or Barack Obama. Those who blamed one president or the other, not surprisingly, voted overwhelmingly for the opposite party, but those who blamed Wall Street (a plurality of respondents) gave 56 percent of their vote to Republican candidates and 42 percent to the Democrats.

If Democrats want to know why they lost, they should ponder this number and the 9.5 percent unemployment rate. The president's decision to defer financial reform until 18 months after the bank bailouts, and his decisions not to press for a bigger and more visible stimulus or to keep his focus on job creation were fateful mistakes that cost his party dearly.

Health Care Act Saves Much Money Peter Orszag, Former Budget Director

Tags: Treatment Trap Overuse of Medical Care Bad Medicine Making Us Sicker and Poorer

I have read two books The Treatment Trap: How the Overuse of Medical Care is Wrecking Your Health and What You Can Do to Prevent It, 2010, by Rosemary Gibson from the Robert Wood Foundation and Janardan Prasad Singh, an economist at the World Bank and the second books that has lot more about Medicare itself based on the extensive work done at Dartmouth University. Shannon Brownlee a 30 plus medical reporter Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, 2007.

Every treatment and test has risks not often discussed by doctors. Every CT scan, MRI, and even Colonoscopy can damage your kidneys. Just recently, but well known by workers in MRI, it was announced that a warning of four Gandolinium contrast agents for MRI is required.

Doctors are now conducting heart operations on people with no heart disease, hysterectomies on girls who don’t need them, repeated blood tests, X-rays, MRI, CT Scans, and other tests which are not without risk. For example, if you have fluids going into your veins, it is the most common place to get infections because nurses change fluids without being sterile to save time. This rush kills 100,000 patients from the wrong dose or medications and another 100,000 from infections in hospitals.

Reducing unnecessary procedures will not only save money, but also your life. With left procedures, you will most likely get better care. Hospitals and doctors will be rewarded for not carrying out unnecessary tests and procedures.

I had two close friends who died because of MRSA infections acquired from treatments which contributed to their deaths. These books lists many more.

Jim Kawakami, Nov 4, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

To Save Money, Save the Health Care Act

By PETER ORSZAG

Published: November 3, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/opinion/04orszag.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general In the name of fiscal probity, the incoming Republican leadership in Congress has committed to doing whatever it takes to stop the health care reform act from taking effect. Yet many of the provisions that politicians have been taking aim at are the ones that save money — like those that reduce excessive provider payments and create new institutions to curb cost growth.

Opinionator

Peter Orszag's Columns for the Opinionator

Related

1. Malpractice Methodology (October 21, 2010)
2. A Health Care Plan for Colleges (September 19, 2010)
3. One Nation, Two Deficits (September 7, 2010)

If the newly elected representatives and senators are truly concerned about rising health care costs, they should work to deploy the law’s cost-containment measures fully rather than try to repeal them.

Sure, the health care law is not perfect, but it would cut the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalance by a quarter and reduce the projected deficit within Medicare by three-quarters. That may seem fanciful, given how distorted the public discussion has become. But that’s what the projections show, as long as Congress sticks to its guns and the Obama administration does a good job carrying out the provisions of the law.

Why do so many people assume that the act does almost nothing to save money? One explanation is that people’s first impressions of health care reform were formed during the summer of 2009, when the debate was dominated by the House bill. In health care reform, there’s always an underlying tension between those who are more concerned about expanding coverage and those who are more concerned about containing costs and improving quality. The House bill tilted toward coverage; the Senate bill, toward cost-effectiveness and quality.

The House bill was legitimately criticized for not doing enough to reduce costs. And that became the prism through which the legislation was and is viewed, even after improvements were later made in the Senate version and in the final law.

Peter Orszag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2009 to 2010 and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

The act’s money-saving potential has also been clouded by an essential truth about controlling costs: it’s messy.

There are four ways to contain health care costs: by reducing payments to providers and suppliers; by rationing services; by having consumers pay a greater share; and by giving providers incentives to be more efficient.

The health care reform act includes hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cuts in payments to providers. Lowering payments within Medicare, though, without also reducing the quantity of services provided throughout the health care system ultimately only makes it harder for those on Medicare to find a doctor or hospital willing to treat them, because so many providers stop seeing Medicare patients. … http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/opinion/04orszag.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

Climate Change 20 Percent Savings Energy Making Changes How You Use Energy

Tags: Climate Change Ignored by Folks who Should Know Better. Energy Efficiency Most Important and Easiest to Do

Apartments built in Eugene in the last 20 years are energy efficient. When the outside temperature went down to 35 degrees, my apartment with no heat turned on went down to 66 degrees. I live downstairs. In recent days when the outside temperature is between 50-60 degrees, curse at my upstairs neighbor whose high temperatures made my apartment too hot at 73 degrees.

Jim Kawakami, Nov 4, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Green and Clueless Sharon Begley, Newsweek, Aug 17, 2010,

… weatherizing homes, upgrading furnaces, switching to higher-mpg cars, changing air filters in a furnace, and not wasting power would cut U.S. carbon emissions by 123 million metric tons per year, which is 20 percent of household direct emissions and 7.4 percent of U.S. emissions. …

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/17/why-we-re-so-clueless-about-being-green.html You could practically hear a collective groan from enviros across the world yesterday, when The New York Times reported on city apartment dwellers who leave their air conditioning running for days and days when they are not even home: with “utilities included” in their rent, these model citizens don’t pay for it, and they want to walk into a nice cool room when they get back from vacation or just a tough, hot slog from the subway. So much for all those 50 Things You Can Do books, magazine articles, and Web sites, all of which patiently explain that it would be really, really helpful if we didn’t run appliances when we’re not using them. Apparently, that message—which green groups have been disseminating for at least 20 years—can’t hold a candle to people’s apathy, ignorance, and selfishness.

Dog Days of the Decade: 2000s Were Hottest on Record

But the problem goes beyond the fact that people don’t care about, or perhaps understand, the fact that wasting energy and using it inefficiently accounts for a good chunk of the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming. (In one 2009 analysis, scientists led by Thomas Dietz of Michigan State University estimated that household-based steps—as opposed to national policies like cap-and-trade—such as weatherizing homes, upgrading furnaces, switching to higher-mpg cars, changing air filters in a furnace, and not wasting power would cut U.S. carbon emissions by 123 million metric tons per year, which is 20 percent of household direct emissions and 7.4 percent of U.S. emissions.) Despite the millions of words that have been written on how to save energy and use it more efficiently, people basically have no idea what to do.

Behind every statistic, there's a good story: facts and figures can add up to something greater than themselves.

Scientists led by Shahzeen Attari of the Earth Institute at Columbia University surveyed 505 Americans (recruited through Craigslist), asking them to name the best ways to conserve energy. The most common answers had to do with curtailing use (by turning off lights or driving less, for instance) rather than improving efficiency (installing more efficient lightbulbs and appliances, say). But it is energy efficiency that offers the only possibility for dialing back our voracious consumption of energy and the fossil fuels that generate it. The reason is basic psychology: we are just not going to become a nation of pedestrians, let alone do without all our electronic toys. The only hope is therefore to continue satisfying those materialistic needs but with less electricity and gasoline. … http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/17/why-we-re-so-clueless-about-being-green.html

Senator Bernie Sanders Tells Us How to Improve the Lives of Americans

Tags: Rural Republicans Voters Out Number City Democratic Voters Enhancing House Wins, but Less Senators

Has anyone figured out why rural voters usually favor Republicans in every state and city voters favor Democrats much more often? Is this an epigenetic effect? I can understand the rich and affluent voting for their economic interests, but why do poor Whites vote Republican. Is it only for social issues?

Our new Governor Kitzhaber had two successful terms in spite of having the majority Republicans thwarting him at every turn. He might encounter the same problems with Republicans controlling at least one House.

Generally the more money spent on campaigns leads to winning elections mostly by using negative ads to suppress voters or have voters vote for the moneyed interest candidates. That is why corporations have a great influence on elections. Republicans got seven times more secret outside corporate or billionaire money than Democrats as determined by the number of secret outside ads.

I am losing hope that Obama will ever understand that the only people he could have any chance in passing legislation is to stop his Democrats from voting with the Republicans. Republicans severely punish anyone not toeing their line. Obama needs to learn to stop being a nice guy and go for the jugular.

Pelosi sounds sweet in public, but she is very tough in private. In some ways she or Hillary would have made a better President. They know how to rule. They are both born leaders with lots of experience. Obama could have gotten the public option if he played tough with Liberman and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Half the Republicans and 80 percent of Democrats wanted the Public Option.

Jim Kawakami, Nov 4, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

"I will continue my efforts to reform our trade policy so we move toward fair trade, not unfettered free trade. I will fight for stronger regulation of Wall Street, not weaker. We should increase support for small businesses that are creating jobs."

Read the complete essay »

Tough Times

"These are tough times for our country. The failed policies of the Bush years will be a disaster for the American middle class. We need ideas and legislation that benefit all Americans, not just those with wealth, power and political influence," Bernie concluded.

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CONSCIENCE OF THE SENATE

Listen to what Joe Biden had to say about Bernie »

SOCIAL SECURITY

Growing momentum behind . Bernie's push to give seniors and disabled vets $250 »

HEALTH CARE WORKS

Number of small businesses offering health insurance is rising »

FAIR VS. FREE TRADE

A so-called free trade system has, in a single generation, reversed two centuries spent building this nation," Thom Hartmann wrote at Truthout »

WINNER-TAKE-ALL POLITICS

"How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class." »

Upcoming Events

Thom Hartmann Show Listen to Brunch with Bernie at noon eastern time Friday to hear more about what happens next in Congress »

Weathersfield Memorial Veteran's Day 11/11

Huffington Post Articles:

Bob Cesca: Angry Voters Choose Government Gridlock, Investigations and Shutdown We typically like the idea of two sides locking horns and compromising on the matters of the day. But the era when Republicans would compromise with a Democratic president is long gone. Welcome, everyone, to the suck that never ends. Norman Lear: Enough Already With "The American People" Our experiment in democracy depends, the founders told us at the beginning, on an informed citizenry. Fat chance, American people! Maggie Kozel, M.D.: Veterans Health Care: Why It's the Wrong Time to Privatize Before we take the VA health system away from veterans, we should look at the facts. Peggy Drexler: Women in Congress -- Don't Sweat the Numbers Have we gone from the year of the woman in 1992, to the year of the woman II in 2008, to the year of so-what in 2010? Even as women in politics is becoming no more newsworthy than women in business, the arrival of a new crop of generally young, seemingly bright and overwhelmingly Republican women does raise a question. Are we seeing a shift in women as a reliably progressive bloc on social issues? Tony Schwartz: Fueling Positive Emotions in a World Gone Mad If there is anything this nasty, fear-driven, political season has demonstrated, it's that no politician -- Democrat, Republican, or otherwise -- has any compelling solutions to what ails us. How, then, to feel more control over our destiny?