Minor Thoughts from me to you

Health Care Cost Increase Is Projected for New Law - NYTimes.com

A government analysis of the new health care law says it will not slow the overall growth of health spending because the expansion of insurance and services to 34 million people will offset cost reductions in Medicare and other programs.

The study, by the chief Medicare actuary, Richard S. Foster, provides a detailed, rigorous analysis of the law.

In signing the measure last month, President Obama said it would "bring down health care costs for families and businesses and governments."

But Mr. Foster said, "Overall national health expenditures under the health reform act would increase by a total of $311 billion," or nine-tenths of 1 percent, compared with the amounts that would otherwise be spent from 2010 to 2019.

This analysis isn't really a surprise to me. It seems pretty obvious that adding lots and lots to uninsured people to Medicare will increase costs by quite a bit. And, this picture, is actually a best case scenario. It assumes that politicians won't act like politicians.

Mr. Foster says the law will save Medicare more than $500 billion in the coming decade and will postpone exhaustion of the Medicare trust fund by 12 years, so it would run out of money in 2029, rather than 2017. In addition, he said, the reduction in the growth of Medicare will lead to lower premiums and co-payments for Medicare beneficiaries.

But, Mr. Foster said, these savings assume that the law will be carried out as written, and that may be an unrealistic assumption. The cuts, he said, "could become unsustainable" because they may drive some hospitals and nursing homes into the red, "possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries."

If you believe that politicians are actually going to cut payments to Medicare physicians and hospitals, then you obviously haven't been paying attention to the votes that have been taken in Washington over the last two decades. Congress loves to talk about cutting payments to Medicare. Then, every time the cuts come due, there's a bipartisan rush to postpone the cuts. Government spending is going up. Way up.

Obamacare delenda est

The government wants to run your healthcare. At the very least, they want more control over the companies that do run your healthcare. They want more control because they think the existing companies are incompetent, greedy, or both. But how is government doing with the healthcare they already run?

Not well.

FOXNews.com - VA Claims Office Takes SNAFU to a New Level

Last month, a decorated Gulf War hero received a letter from the Veterans Affairs Administration that said: We are working on your claim for menstrual disorder.

There was just one problem: The claim was submitted for fibromyalgia.

Make that two problems: The claim was submitted by Glenn McBride, a 40-year-old man from Roanoke, Va., who most definitely does not get menstrual cramps.

... Jim Strickland, a veterans advocate who writes a regular health care benefits column on VAWatchdog.org and has his own benefits-related Web site, said he wasn't at all surprised to learn of McBride's "menstrual" letter. "There are 57 regional offices and every one is operating in total chaos and in crisis," he said. "Full frontal mass chaos. Every day."

Contacted in the middle of the week, Strickland said he'd already received two e-mails from veterans who were mailed the records of other veterans. And he provided his most ridiculous example of a nonsensical claims letter, one that managed to try to collect debt and to discuss overpaying the same debt -- at the same time.

Strickland says the problem at the root of letters like McBride's is a bonus structure paid out to VA claims employees.

"The more work, the better the bonus is," he said. "It's strictly volume, not quality driven. There is no accountability whatsoever.

"The art of the Teflon Jacket has been perfected at our VA. They are really totally invulnerable to your criticism."

Let's keep the government out of healthcare. Obamacare delenda est.

A revolt grows in Jersey - NYPOST.com

New Jersey voters just sent another loud reminder of their disgust with out-of-control taxes.

Of 537 school budgets up for a vote in the Garden State, 315 -- a whopping 59 percent -- went down in flames Tuesday.

That's more than the state's seen in decades.

Why so many rejections?

Because some 80 percent of those budgets sought property-tax hikes.

As if Jersey isn't already a national leader in property taxes.

As if ObamaCare, the stimulus and Washington's trillion-dollar deficits hadn't sent actual taxpayers into a lather.

Homeowners, in particular, have had enough.

Median tax bills in six Garden State counties are among the 10 highest in all of America. As a share of income, levies in Passaic and Essex lead the nation -- with Bergen, Union, Hunterdon and Hudson not far behind.

School boards -- and teachers unions that refused concessions -- must have been dreaming if they thought voters would rubber-stamp tax hikes yet again.

No, this time taxpayers were paying . . . attention.

Fact is, last November's election of Republican Gov. Chris Christie in Democratic New Jersey was no fluke.

Woo-hoo!

The four Biblical gospels tell the story of Jesus' life in different ways, presenting events in varying orders, and sometimes even disagreeing about what events to include and exclude. Justin Taylor, with help from the ESV Study Bible, prepared a harmony/chronology of what happened during the week before Jesus' crucifixion.

I haven't read through this yet, but I intend to.

• Holy Week: What Happened on Monday?
• Holy Week: What Happened on Tuesday?
• Holy Week: What Happened on Wednesday?
• Holy Week: What Happened on Thursday?
• Holy Week: What Happened on Friday?
• Holy Week: What Happened on Sunday?

There was a kerkuffle in the blogosphere a few weeks ago, over John Piper's decision to invite Rick Warren to speak at the Desiring God National Conference, later this year.

There are quite a few people who think that Pastor Piper made an unwise decision, by associating himself with Pastor Warren. And, I'm sure there are quite a few people who think that there's absolutely no reason not to associate with Rick Warren. So, here are some resources to shed some light on the situation.

• John Piper briefly spoke, in February, on the decision.
• John Piper spoke, at length, about his decision on March 31.
• Doug Wilson speaks on Piper's decision. Bonus points for calling the "watchdog" or "discernment blogs" the "floor of the monkey cage blogs".
• Rick Warren's 2004 interview with Modern Reformation. Warren is often criticized for being too pragmatic and not theological enough. In this interview, he tries to make a case for himself as someone who translates theological ideas into terms that people can understand.
• Tim Challies on why John Piper should not have invited Rick Warren. Tim makes the case that Warren doesn't treat the Bible with respect and that he spends too much time tailoring his message to suit his audience.
• Phil Johnson writes about the controversy. While he acknowledges the critics concerns, he blasts their attitude of utter condemnation.
• Trevin Wax encourages people to think more about what their anger might be communicating.

I report, you decide. But my own position is close to what Doug Wilson says.

Why We Need Generic Copies of Biologic Drugs - NYTimes.com

we continue to spend more on drugs -- in part because of the increasing use of so-called biologic medicines, which cost, on average, 22 times as much as ordinary drugs. In 2008, 28 percent of sales from the pharmaceutical industry's top 100 products came from biologics; by 2014, that share is expected to rise to 50 percent.

Biologic drugs can be more expensive to manufacture; they are grown inside living cells rather than put together chemically, as conventional drugs are. But this does not fully account for their high prices. Another important factor is that they very rarely face competition from generic copies.

Congress has an opportunity to change this by including in health care reform incentives for generic drug makers to compete in the biologics marketplace. But unfortunately, both the House and the Senate versions of health care reform contain provisions that would discourage the development and significantly delay the approval of generic biologics.

In general, I'm in favor of swinging the pendulum back towards less intellectual property protection. This sounds like a bad idea to me.

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour signed a bill last month requiring all patients to get a prescription before buying any medicine containing pseudoephedrine.

This is insane. This is seriously insane. This law -- and Federal laws requiring Sudafed to be kept behind the pharmacist's counter -- have done nothing to curtail access to meth. These laws have accomplished one thing and one thing only: meth production has been shifted from small labs to super high tech Mexican labs. Meth is still plentiful in the United States. But it's now fueling the growth of Mexican drug gangs and Mexican smugglers. If anything, the status quo ante was better in that it wasn't creating sophisticated cross-border smuggling operations.

Now, every Mississippi resident suffering from allergies, sinuses, or colds will have to go to a doctor before they're able to get any effective relief. Doctors' offices and emergency rooms will become more crowded and the entire state population will be vastly inconvenienced. All for a law that will have no practical effect whatsoever.

For the record, Governor Barbour will not be getting my vote, should he decide to run in the Republican presidential primaries.

"Let me be clear: if you like your doctor, you can keep him". Who hasn't heard the President make that promise by now? The problem is, it makes a huge assumption. That promise assumes that your doctor isn't going to retire as a result of healthcare reform.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that more than 30% of physicians want to leave medical practice if the current healthcare reform plans are implemented.

In other news, nurses report that they spent 25% of their time doing "indirect patient care".

Nurses reported having to document patient care information in multiple locations, in addition to having to complete logs, checklists and other redundant paperwork that prevented them from having more time with their patients. Beyond these paperwork redundancies, nurses reported significant time being wasted trying to secure needed equipment and supplies.

When asked for solutions to these challenges, nurses recommended a combination of ancillary staff support, hospital-wide communications technology and reductions in redundant regulatory requirements.

Adding more bureaucracy, rules, and paperwork to the medical process is unlikely to make things better. Doctors may quit and nurses may quit. But, by all means, bring on the healthcare reform. If you like your doctor, the President has promised you can keep him. And the President is an honorable man.

Well, I haven't posted anything about the Toyota brouhaha yet. So this is it.

Car and Driver takes down the Prius drivers whining about their brakes. Their high-tech regenerative breaks that all of them were so proud of a few years ago.

Popular Mechanics explains in painstaking detail exactly why Professor Dave Gilbert, of Southern Illinois University, is dead, dead wrong when he claims that electromagnetic interference causes unintended acceleration in Toyota's cars. Henry Payne points out that Professor Gilbert is being paid by trial lawyers suing Toyota and that ABC has been airing fraudulent footage in support of these fraudulent claims.

Finally, Steve Chapman reminds us that Toyota's are still amazingly safe.

During the last decade, the sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles has been blamed for 34 fatalities. In that same period, more than 21,000 other people died in accidents while riding in Toyotas. Your own lapses, and those of other drivers, are far riskier than the flaws found in your automobile.

Chuck Hurley, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, agrees on the pressing need for Toyota to repair its troubled cars. But he estimates that more than 80 percent of traffic deaths are the result of excessive speed, drunken driving, or unused seat belts. Last year alone, more than 11,000 Americans died in accidents involving drunk drivers. By contrast, only about 2 percent of wrecks stem from vehicle defects.

In summary, take a chill pill folks. Lay off of Toyota and remember that Congress outright owns two of Toyota's competitors. Do you think that might be influencing Congress's shameful behavior? I do.

Greg Mankiw explains the spending problems with the healthcare bill through a short, imagined dialog between two friends. Here's the kicker:

Even if you believe that the spending cuts and tax increases in the bill make it deficit-neutral, the legislation will still make solving the problem of the fiscal imbalance harder, because it will use up some of the easier ways to close the shortfall. The remaining options will be less attractive, making the eventual fiscal adjustment more painful.

With the President's current budgeting trends (spend as much as you can, as fast as you can), we're facing an $11.3 trillion deficit by 2020. By that time, the federal debt will be a staggering $20.3 trillion. (The debt was $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008.)

It's not enough to be happy that we're maintaining the current levels of spending or -- even worse -- that we're managing to spend more in a "deficit neutral" way. It's serious business and it's time we stopped "kicking the can down the road to future generations", as the President likes to say.

The Myth of the Recovery

The gains on Wall Street have been goosed largely by government spending and guarantees, not the usual private sector–funded growth. And federal spending cannot continue indefinitely without deficits and debt service spiraling out of control. John Silvia, chief economist for Wells Fargo, says, “We have seen a recovery, but it’s driven primarily by federal spending and special federal projects. The character of this recovery is very different than we’re used to.”

Consider that 37 percent of the third-quarter GDP growth was due to motor vehicle purchases, which were stimulated almost entirely by the Cash for Clunkers program. “The third quarter was really just a lot of Cash for Clunkers spending that won’t be sustained in the foreseeable future,” Silvia says. (Final statistics for fourth quarter spending were not available at press time.)

The car scheme, an attempt to jump-start the bankrupt auto industry, offered consumers a government-funded credit of up to $4,500 if they traded in their gas guzzlers for more eco-friendly vehicles. But since most participants probably were already planning to buy a new car, the program essentially shifted future demand for automobiles to the third quarter of 2009. Instead of continuing to grow, car sales dropped 34 percent immediately after the program ended. Figure 1 shows U.S. auto sales in 2009 largely following the 10-year average month-to-month change until the Cash for Clunkers credit jolted demand, followed by a subnormal drop.

This is not real growth. It’s the national equivalent of a credit-card buying spree, with the bills—in the form of debt service and unfunded liabilities—to be paid off later. It is a faux recovery.

Insurer's Gone Wild

"We allow the insurance industry to run wild in this country," President Obama declared on Monday. "We can't have a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people."

Yet Obama's plan to tame health insurers would boost their business, protect them from competition, and guarantee their profits, all at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. It is therefore not surprising that the insurance companies, while they object to the president's rhetoric and quibble over some of the details, are happy to be domesticated. Here are five ways in which Obama would help insurers while pretending to fight them.

There's nothing progressive about a plan that forces people to buy products from specific companies, under penalty of law. And there's nothing conservative about that plan either. It guarantees profits, eliminates risks, and rips off the American public. Is it any wonder that the American public opposes this plan 2-1?

I love the internet. Love, love, love it. I find so much there.

For example, I read a book many years ago. I was visiting my grandparents as a young teenager and checked out a bunch of books from the Cuyahoga County Library. I really enjoyed one of them and it's stuck in my mind for years as something that I'd like to re-read. Except that neither the title nor the author stuck in my mind. Just the plot. Something about Science Fiction, teenagers, summer vacation, a game, an island, and something to do with space -- or a pig. Or both.

As you can imagine, it's rather hard to find a book based on such sketchy information. I'd tried once or twice over the years but my attempts mainly revolved around browsing the stacks, hoping to find something familiar looking. I didn't have much success and I'd pretty much given up on the attempt.

And then, out of the blue today, I found it. Art Carden wrote a post for Division of Labour entitled "The Kids Are Alright". He included a brief comment that triggered a memory. Well, a partial memory. Okay, more like the half remembered smell of a forgotten scent. It just felt familiar in a way that I couldn't quite define.

We then talked about books I enjoyed when I was younger (William Sleator). One of my favorite Sleator books was Interstellar Pig; I was pleasantly surprised to learn that one of these burgeoning movie-makers has it.

And, sure enough. Interstellar Pig is the book that I read all of those years ago. Amazing. Thank-you internets, with your plentiful, bounteous tubes. And thank-you, Art, for mentioning not only your favorite author but also the book title.

Question for the President | Cato @ Liberty

The rationale for your proposed tax on high-cost health insurance plans is that it would encourage people to purchase less-comprehensive coverage and thereby reduce health care spending.

If that’s a good idea, then why is it bad when insurers raise premiums?

Obviously, it's because consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. You small minded libertarian twerp. Duh: it's good when the government raises prices and it's bad when the market does. Any more questions?

Sending a Message with the Census - Mark Krikorian - The Corner on National Review Online

Fully one-quarter of the space on this year's form is taken up with questions of race and ethnicity, which are clearly illegitimate and none of the government's business (despite the New York Times' assurances to the contrary on today's editorial page). So until we succeed in building the needed wall of separation between race and state, I have a proposal. Question 9 on the census form asks "What is Person 1's race?" (and so on, for other members of the household). My initial impulse was simply to misidentify my race so as to throw a monkey wrench into the statistics; I had fun doing this on the personal-information form my college required every semester, where I was a Puerto Rican Muslim one semester, and a Samoan Buddhist the next. But lying in this constitutionally mandated process is wrong. Really — don't do it.

Instead, we should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — "Some other race" — and writing in "American." It's a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, "American" was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.

So remember: Question 9 — "Some other race" — "American". Pass it on.

There's also a completely unaffiliated Facebook group, to show your support for "Some other race" -- "American".

I know what I'll be doing when we get our Census forms next week.

Off-duty O.C. sheriff's deputy is arrested on DUI charge after crashing twice within 30 minutes | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.

An off-duty Orange County sheriff’s deputy, who allegedly was intoxicated when he crashed his Mercedes-Benz into another vehicle and injured a passenger, had crashed 30 minutes earlier and was allowed to drive from that accident scene by fellow deputies, authorities said Friday.

Sheriff’s deputies were called Monday afternoon to a crash involving Deputy Allan James Waters, 36, and another vehicle outside City Hall in Dana Point. Deputies took a report and permitted Waters keep driving, said Assistant Sheriff Mike James.

About 30 minutes later, at 5:20 p.m., Waters crashed his Mercedes-Benz into a Toyota in Laguna Niguel, causing it to cross the center median and slam into a tree, according to the California Highway Patrol. Dolores Molina, a 78-year-old passenger in the Toyota, suffered minor injuries.

And that, right there, is pretty much why I don't respect law enforcement these days.

Power Line - Geert Wilders speaks

Geert Wilders, possibly the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands, finally gets his chance to speak to the British House of Lords about the threat posed to Western Civilization by radical Islam. (Great Britain refused to allow him into the country last year, claiming that he was too bigoted to be allowed to speak.) Here's the money quote, about the problem facing us.

We see Islam taking off in the West at an incredible pace. Europe is Islamizing rapidly. A lot of European cities have enormous Islamic concentrations. Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin are just a few examples. In some parts of these cities, Islamic regulations are already being enforced. Women's rights are being destroyed. Burqa's, headscarves, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honour-killings. Women have to go to separate swimming-classes, don't get a handshake. In many European cities there is already apartheid. Jews, in an increasing number, are leaving Europe.

I really should start posting my predictions publicly. Not only would it vindicate me when I'm right, it would keep me honest when I'm wrong.

Last week, I predicted that Justices Scalia and Roberts would be very negative towards the idea of resurrecting the "Privileges or Immunities" clause of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. From reading his past opinions, I know that Justice Scalia isn't a big fan of overturning precedent, especially when said precedents have been around for 140 years. (The Privileges or Immunities Clause was strangeled by the Supreme Court just moments after birth, in the Slaughter-House Cases.) Everything I've read about Chief Justice Roberts says that he's a cautious incrementalist who prefers to make changes to the law in the smallest way that's likely to be effective. I was pretty sure that both Justices would be in favor of expanding gun rights but would be hostile to doing so through the Privileges or Immunities clause.

It turns out, I was right. Here's what happened during oral arguments this morning, in McDonald, et al., v. Chicago, et al..

The first argument to collapse as the hearing unfolded was the plea by the lawyer for gun rights advocates, Alan Gura of Alexandria, Virginia, that the Court should “incorporate” the Second Amendment into the 14th Amendment through the “privileges or immunities” clause. In the first comment from the bench after Gura had barely opened, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., noted that the Court had essentially scuttled that argument with its ruling in the SlaughterHouse Cases in 1873. And within a few minutes, Justice Antonin Scalia — the author of the Heller opinion and the Court’s most fervent gun enthusiast — was sarcastically dismissing the “privileges or immunities” argument.

“Why,” Scalia asked Gura, “are you asking us to overrule 140 years of prior law….unless you are bucking for a place on some law school faculty.” The Justice said the “privileges or immunities” argument was “the darling of the professorate” but wondered why Gura would “undertake that burden.” And Scalia noted that the “due process” clause — an open-ended provision that he has strongly attacked on other occasions– was available as the vehicle for incorporation, and added: “Even I have acquiesced in that.”

This is just incredibly cool.

Dr. Prum and his colleagues took advantage of the fact that feathers contain pigment-loaded sacs called melanosomes. In 2009, they demonstrated that melanosomes survived for millions of years in fossil bird feathers. The shape and arrangement of melanosomes help produce the color of feathers, so the scientists were able to get clues about the color of fossil feathers from their melanosomes alone.

[...] Working with paleontologists at the Beijing Museum of Natural History and Peking University, the researchers began to study a 150-million-year-old species called Anchiornis huxleyi. The chicken-sized theropod was festooned with long feathers on its arms and legs.

The researchers removed 29 chips, each the size of a poppy seed, from across the dinosaur’s body. Mr. Vinther put the chips under a microscope and discovered melanosomes.

To figure out the colors of Anchiornis feathers, Mr. Vinther and his colleagues turned to Matthew Shawkey, a University of Akron biologist who has made detailed studies of melanosome patterns in living birds. Dr. Shawkey can accurately predict the color of feathers from melanosomes alone. The scientists used the same method to decipher Anchiornis’s color pattern.

Be still my beating heart. No, wait. Start beating, my stilled heart. Barney Frank just recommended killing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"As I believe this committee will be recommending, abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their present form and coming up with a new whole system of housing finance [is in order]," House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D, Mass.) said at a hearing.

This is the same Congressman Frank that previously refused to believe that anything could possibly be wrong with Fannie and Freddie.

"These two entities--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

And this is the same Fannie and Freddie that the government is bailing out, with no limits whatsoever on the losses to the American taxpayer.

The Obama administration's decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday.

The Treasury announced Thursday it was removing the caps that limited the amount of available capital to the companies to $200 billion each.

Unlimited access to bailout funds through 2012 was "necessary for preserving the continued strength and stability of the mortgage market," the Treasury said. Fannie and Freddie purchase or guarantee most U.S. home mortgages and have run up huge losses stemming from the worst wave of defaults since the 1930s.

Of course, this is Barney Frank we're talking about here. I shudder to think about what he has in mind to replace Fannie and Freddie. Whatever it is, be sure that you'll be paying for it, not him. You'll probably be paying a lot.