keith

Let's see what North Korea has been up to lately....half a dozen missle launches, tossing out the 1953 armistice, a successful nuclear bomb test, prepares for another long-range missle test and dispatches a ship and declares (for some reason) that any attempt to stop or board it will be viewed as an act of war.....hmmmm. All this and it is entirely likely that Kim Jong-il is insane. I'm beginning to think some strategically placed crusie missles may be necessary at this point. We should engage China and Russia and make this a unified response. If neither agree or want to participate, then at least we know exactly where they stand on this. Keith

I appreciate that you are bringing your knowledge and experience in this arena to the board and that you patiently try to explain the various issues for us, but I disagree with your fundamental premise and I think for those attempting to make a case for health care reform, it is a dangerous place to start. Personally, when I hear discusions start this way it's like hearing Al Gore say, "the debate on global warming is over." This is a huge red flag IMHO. Random thoughts and comments.... Arguably, the United States has the most advanced medical care, medical technology, medical treatment and procedures available in the world today. This just doesn't happen by itself, we enjoy this precisely because of our system. Broken systems do not produce these results. If we say the *cost* of providing health care is the problem (not the cost of insurance), then what are we doing about that? I have seen nothing in Obama's plan that identifies the components that make up the cost of the acutal health care and attacking those. How much of our health care expenditures are defensive in nature (trying to avoid a law suit), how much is discretionary (face lifts, augmentation, life-style driven), how much is spent in the last year of life? We are over medicated and looking for a quick fix in a pill. Here's an idea. Take most of the prescription medicine and make it available over-the-counter. Now if someone wants that pill, they have to pay for it out of their own pocket. I bet you would see a dramatic drop in all the pills people are taking. "can't afford coverage and are scared to death of getting ill and going bankrupt you will understand" I submit that this is not a health care issue. This is a fear thing, an emotional response, probably somewhat irrational and I would say sensationalized by the media. This speaks to the catastrophic health event and the let's assume the worst case scenario arguments. Do these happen? Yes, they do, but what are the odds that they will happen to you? We've all allowed the horror stories that get protrayed over and over again in the media to permeate our psyches. Perhaps our health care system is too good and people are "saved" here (only to become that catastrophic health care burden) when in other countries with less advanced health care, they would not have been saved. "... stating that private insurance companies who are revenue and profit driven will solve the problems on their own is naive." Aren't hospitals and doctors also driven by a profit motive? From the CNN article.... "Obama said he's already identified "hundreds of billions of dollars" worth of savings in the federal budget that could help finance health care reform, such as rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. He's also proposed reducing tax deductions for high-income Americans." So if we have waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid (Federally managed programs), why will that not exist in the new programs? If this waste, fraud and abuse exists now, what is being done NOW to rectify it? Hundreds of billions of dollars???? If he is not going after that now then it is criminal. Keith

Good advice for our Congress. Keith

So, all those signs the Iranian protesters are carrying and waving around. You know the ones in English. Who are those for? Maybe we already are meddling. I mean they would not create protest signs in the mother tongue of the Great Satan on their own would they? Keith

In my best Jim Mora voice rant...... Leadership? Don't talk about leadership! Are you kidding me? Leadership? Keith

Smells like a setup to me. Hamas (or their agents) probably planted to bombs in the first place only to later "save the day" in a feeble attempt to garner good will. Keith

I can't believe a video of this has not surfaced. Come on, no one was filming? Keith

I'm pretty sure he was talking about an 18 year old camel, so I think everything is OK. Keith

I liked these this passage. "Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago." After reading the article, the image I had was a bunch of environmental "scientists" standing around dumbfounded scratching their heads looking at the glacier and wondering why the facts don't match up with their strongly held beliefs. I mean, how could this be? Oh well, I'm sure they thought, global climate change works in mysterious ways. Keith

Thanks Harry for the thorough review. It seems like this is something that you are fairly close to. I've read though your post several times looking for a problem definition and possible root cause and I'm still struggling with this. Before I make a stab at it, I have a few comments and questions about some of the things you have provided, it is definitely thought provoking. Although I've taken some snippets out of your text, these comments and questions are not directed at you personally, I'm just throwing them out there as they came to me. Where does this number come from? Is this for business bankruptcies or personal bankruptcies? If this number is for personal bankruptcies, were these for people with or without medical insurance? Medicare is currently administrated by the Federal government, right? Where does this number come from? Rather than just throwing out a large number like this, I think it would be more meaningful if the circumstances as to why these 46 million Americans (are they all citizens?) do not have health insurance were broken down. If we assume this number is correct and say there are approximately 330 million Americans, that means (330M - 46M) / 330M = 86.1% of all American citizens have health coverage. That's a fairly healthy percentage (no pun intended). I'm sorry to say, but this seems like a liberal battle cry. Given the percentages above that means that 86.1% of all Americans are both healthy and wealthy. So, we are doing all this for 13.9% of the population some of which could most likely afford health insurance today but are either not interested or do not think it is important enough. Didn't we already determine that the government run Medicare system is no good? Costs have certainly been growing faster than just about everything else and is significantly out pacing inflation. The big question is why? How much are we now spending on the last year of life? How much of these expenditures are discretionary? Everyone expects medical miracles these days and wants the absolute best care available. Plain and simple, advanced medical technology costs money. We are fortunate to live in a country that has at its disposal the most modern and advanced medical technology available. What about the other factors that go into the cost of health care? I think this is the key area to investigate and attack IMHO. This is annually, right? That's $3,260 in medical expenses (or is that insurance?) for each and every one of those 46 million people. Are these the sickliest people on the planet? I have a family of 5 and with the exceptions of the years my children were born, I have not come close to those medical expenses for my entire family. I'm talking about actual costs, not my out of pocket costs. If you tell these people they have "free" health care, they will go to the doctor for every sniffle, cut or ache and pain. If, on the other hand, you gave them the $3,260 and said that's your medical budget, you get to keep whatever you don't spend on medical care, they would be very judicious about going to the doctor. There is an old saying, physician heal thyself. That's the weird thing about old sayings, they are almost always right. To me, I think this all boils down to cost. I suspect that less and less of the total costs is actually directly related to providing health care services. In my opinion, if we could get the costs under control and back to some sense of rationality, then most of the other problems would go away. We need one of those pie charts that shows where and what percentage of each dollar spent on health care really goes. I think we'd all be shocked. There is a general practice family doctor up in the New York area that go so fed up with the mess that he decided to stop accepting any insurance. He simply charged a flat-rate fee of $79 for office visits and most procedures. The state government when nuts and told him he could not do that. Huh, what? The state said he wasn't allowed to charge rates that low. They shut him down. There was enough of a public uproar that the state finally backed down and let him run his practice as he saw fit. Keith

Obama seems to have a solution, but I don't think he has adequately defined the problem. The solution seems to be a government take over of, or at least a greater role in, individual health care decisions. Before that happens I really think the problem needs to be clearly defined. Keith

Can someone please explain what the fundamental problem is that Obama is attempting to address with healthcare reform? I mean really boil it down to the one, two or three basic issues. Keith

Now the *right* thing to do would be to share that equally with all of us who did not get one because it you keep it all for yourself.....well that would just be greedy. Keith

"The law makes San Francisco the leader yet again in environmentally friendly measures, following up on other green initiatives such as banning plastic bags at supermarkets." At the same time you'll probably be able to pick up a handful of free condoms on the way out. Keith

Yes, these are the creative "revenue" generating ideas govenment is famous for. What about personal calls made or received on the office phone or using the Internet for, ummm...a little gomeangreen.com action when no one is looking, or that trip to the bathroom for, you know, *personal* business. Are these all soon to be taxable fringe benefits? Keith

I think it is basically saying that some people among the uninsured do not have insurance not because they cannot afford it, they do not have insurance because the *choose* not to have it. I imagine it would be something similar to the way you are required, by law in some states (all?), to carry auto insurance. That should have done away with the need for uninisured motorist insurance, but the insurance companies still peddle that. Keith

Terrorists attack a luxury hotel in Pakistan and kill and wound dozens of people. Apparently they didn't listen to Obama's speech. Or maybe they did. This is a major terrorist attack at a luxury hotel that is often filled with western foreigners and diplomats and we hear barely anything from most of the media outlets. Most refer to a "bomb" or a "blast" killing people, like some inanimate object materialized out of no where and detonated. This was a cowardly terrorist attack, but I guess we're not allowed to acknowledge that any more. Keith

They are just taking a well-worn page out of the environmentalist's play book. If temperatures go up, it's obviously proof of global warming....oh why, why didn't anyone listen to us? We told you this would happen. If temperatures go down, it's either once again proof of global warming (which is strangely odd, but it is the cause of just about everything these days) or it is because the actions the environmentalists have been pushing for are finally working. Thank goodness we took the necessary and decisive steps when we did. If we didn't the world would be a hotter (or colder) place. Phew, that was close! See, all bases covered. It's impossible to be wrong. Actually, we should all just check back in about 10,000 years and see what's up. Keith

Well, it's a good thing we got that stimulus package through when we did. As Pelosi said, if we had not acted right then and there that 500,000,000 Americans were going to lose their jobs - really, 500,000,000 that's what she said! I mean, she's the Speaker of the House, third in line for succession. She wouldn't lie or exaggerate. I shudder to think of what would have happened if our leadership had failed to act when they did. Keith

That speech where he channeled his inner Muslim, where he referenced the "Holy Koran" and what it teaches us numerous times, where he misquoted a verse that is generally used as a justification for Jihad and to fight unbelievers - verse 9:119 (coincidence? perhaps, but kinda spooky anyway), where he laments the fact that time does not permit him to personally solve all the worlds problems ("nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point" - Obama thinks a lot of himself - if he just had the time he could answer all of them.), where he refused to call murders terrorists (they are just mis-guided extremists really), where he routinely condemned the killing of "innocent" men, women and children when it's been made pretty clear that in a terrorists, oops I mean extremists, viewpoint unbelievers are NOT innocent (personally, I found it kind of strange that he felt it necessary to qualify these references with the word innocent). Is that the speech we're talking about here? What a piece of work. Keith

Anyone recall where "saved jobs" are reported in any labor statistics? Hmmm...maybe Obama needs to create a Saved Jobs Counter Czar so we can all be comfortable about the numbers our president is throwing around. Just a thought. Keith

Oh my....Interesting set of qualifications. In order to be eligible, each participant must be considered economically disadvantaged based on federal guidelines. In addition to being out of school, they can meet one of several factors to qualify, including teen parenting or pregnancy, a disability that would hinder them from finding work elsewhere, a skill set below the eighth-grade level, or any record with the law. Keith

National Geographic is in the business of selling its periodical. What sells these days? "Researchers" are given millions of dollars in government grants to build a case for, oops I mean study, global warming (wait it's now called climate change since there wasn't any evidence to support global warming). Do you think they are really going to kill the golden goose. This is their only source of income. We're all being swindled with this Inconvenient Goof. Keith

I think we found them right here in the good 'ol U. S. of A. Keith

Global warming, climate change, whatever you want to call it isn't science. It is a political movement and a business. The earth is in a constant state of change. It always has been and always will be until our rather run of the mill star becomes a red giant and fries mother earth to a crisp before engulfing it. Keith