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Monthly Archives: April 2016

Good Job


Can anyone do a good job? The politicians and the aspiring politicians all campaign on doing a good or better job than whoever is in the office now. Can anyone do a better job? The answer has yet to be known. Looking at the rhetoric, each campaigner advocates for reform but unfortunately reform is not as easily accomplished as stated. It takes a combined effort of all of the elected officials to do the necessary job of Governing. What we have is a selected group of people whose purpose is to further their own agendas not the required agendas of the Government. That is probably the least of our problems, the most is more dysfunction which ultimately affects the voters.  What we as voters do is to select the candidate who most mirrors our opinions (which are often based on what is aired in the media) and thoughts. In a perfect world this would be reasonable but since the candidates are imperfect (as  we all are) we need to pay attention to what the candidates say and what we (should) know as fact or reality. Our ability to vote is the main resource we have to insure better government and unfortunately we have not done a very good job so by extension the people we’ve elected haven’t fared well either. We have often kept the same people in office too long even when we know they have not done a good job but we were either swept up in the hype and rhetoric of campaigning or we were lazy. Generally we do what is required of us in our work and home lives but seldom more than that on a consistent basis. With this in mind we have allowed our elected representatives to do the same and less. We hold them to a higher standard because they hold an office that we put them in while forgetting that they are ordinary people in a necessary job. Can they do a good job?, yes they can but we have to keep reminding them to do it and expect it from them. Always remember Government moves at a slower pace due to checks and balances so what is legislated or debated now will not become reality for months to years in some cases. Unfortunately the ill effects will last as long if not longer so who we elect is the first big step to better government and practicality should be the deciding factor not personal beliefs.

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Reality


The Presidential candidates all have their ongoing talking points and those points are designed to get your attention and hopefully your  vote. This is normal for elections but in the last 10 years or so these campaigns have become particularly virulent and nasty. Possibly half of what is said on the stump is either false or half-true. Even with speech writers more stuff is said that is impractical or impossible in the real world but it fires people up and gains attention. Not many of  us know (or maybe don’t care to know) what actually happens in the White House on the issues of trade, war and immigration. The candidates can afford to attack the administration since they do not know what is really involved but state with surety that what they say is fact. Not one has proposed a replacement for the Affordable Care Act (no matter how radical or ridiculous), not one has come up with a way to defeat ISIS and not one has an answer to immigration (except a wall). All these things if done improperly will send the U.S. down a dark path worse than Vietnam. The middle east has been in turmoil for centuries in one form or another and what is going on now has more to do with the intervention of some major countries in the past than the current events. The discovery of oil fueled a boom in some countries but did not extend down the people who needed it the most. The various sects have divided the Islamic religion for years but new wealth increased that divide exponentially. Meanwhile we (the west) and Europe bought cheap oil and ignored the internal issues of the region. For some reason we took on the task of removing and installing dictators in hope of helping but our efforts only exacerbated the situation. Now we have a major humanitarian crisis that has engulfed most of Europe and extending to the west via South America and Canada. There is no reason to ban refugees whose home have been obliterated by bombing, family members and entire families killed. The possible solution is tell the truth about the situation so that everyone knows what the real situation is. We in the U.S. should understand better than anyone what the result of this type interference does to people as we did it to the Native Americans, the American born Japanese and the enslaved African Americans. With this knowledge we should really be a lot smarter as voters than we are.

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Benefactors -Beneslackers-Benefakers


The ongoing and seemingly never ending rhetoric accompanying election campaigns is an indication of how jaded we have become as voters. This phenomenon has worked in favor of the candidates since their objective is to win at any cost. This cost may affect the people they represent more than anyone else. If we expand that representation to the nation , it will become apparent that voters need to be better informed before voting. It is easy to become enraged by sound bites, hate speech and lies but the truth no matter how obvious is always the first to be ignored. Our misdirected anger in this season of elections has brought out the worst in us, where we should be concentrating our efforts is removing our Congressional representatives as their terms end, once this precedent is established we should begin to see an upward swing in the quality of our government at the local, State and Federal levels. The people we have elected regularly all  have the same spiel and that is, “I work for you”! We are stuck with 535 “benefakers” s  who have  offered themselves as benefactors have for as long as they have been in office. What benefactor would shutdown the Government leaving the people they are supposed to work for stranded. Now consider that these benefakers refuse to consider a replacement Supreme court justice, tried over 60 times to  overturn  the Affordable Care Act and failed. If these “benefakers” had spent the same amount of time reading the ACA and making necessary changes to create a better product, that would have  been beneficial. If these benefakers had not spent so much time naysaying climate change, air quality and economic  issues where would we be? We (voters) need to decide what we want and what we need, then balance the two for a workable solution. If we as voters urge our representatives to do what’s right, that will benefit all of us.

 

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The ACA (Obamacare) High Costs


  • Costs are determined by the number of people who sign up, the more people signed means lower costs for all.
    One Big Insurer Explains Why Obamacare Premiums Are Rising So Much

The Fiscal Times

By Millie Dent 21 hours ago

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association just released a new study that helps explain why some big health insurers are struggling to make money under Obamacare — and have jacked up premiums in many cases.

The insurance giant’s newly covered customers were sicker, required more care and had higher medical costs than individuals who were already covered.

Blue Cross looked at the medical services used by people who enrolled in its plans before and after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in 2014. The study was based on claims for 4.7 million people.

Related: Affordable Care Act Hasn’t Made Health Care Affordable, Study Finds

Compared to the company’s previously insured population, new enrollees in individual Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans in 2014 and 2015 were found to have higher rates of certain conditions and diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, depression, coronary artery disease, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C.

HIV was more than three times as common among newly enrolled customers compared to those who already had coverage, the report found. Hepatitis C was more than twice as common.

The relatively poor health of people enrolled under Obamacare is not surprising given that many of the newly covered had gone without health insurance before and thus were not able to get medical treatment for their illnesses. That history also helps explain why newly enrolled consumers in 2014 and 2015 also used more medical services than those who had purchased coverage prior to 2014. In the first nine months of 2015, new enrollees filled 35 percent more prescriptions than those who had purchased coverage prior to 2014. Hospital admission rates jumped 84 percent higher, the report found, and the frequency of visits to doctors and other medical professionals shot up by 26 percent.

Related: Millions Face Premium and Deductible Sticker Shock Under Obamacare

Insurers expected the newly enrolled would be more expensive to cover, but Blue Cross and others underestimated just how much more expensive they would be and how much more medical care the new customers would need.

The result, in many cases, has been a spike in premiums: Blue Cross plans have seen substantial rate hikes. “As we see increases in uses of services, the premium has to go up to cover the services,” says Alissa Fox, vice president of policy at the insurer.

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Disease Prevalence

One hope is that, as these newly insured get treated for their most urgent and long-standing medical issues, they will require somewhat less, or less expensive, care going forward.

But the Blue Cross data also serves as a reminder of why it was important for Obamacare’s success that a large pool of people — healthy and unhealthy, young and old — signed up for coverage, as a way to keep a lid on cost increases. And the Congressional Budget Office projected in a report issued last week that about 12 million people will get their insurance through Obamacare exchanges this year, down from a projected 13 million as of January and a forecast of 21 million a year ago.

Those numbers, combined with the figures from Blue Cross and Blue Shield, suggest that the painful Obamacare transition period for insurers will last a while longer.

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