Flame Issues in This Election Year

[Gene Scarborough]

[Hal Eaton]

I have just endured the morning news by the Fox folks. Between Geraldo Rivera's pontificating, they managed to bring in a VP of the NRA, and then the archbishop of Washington, who decried the Obama administration's restriction on religious freedom. Now that's a genuine hoot.

Catholic priests have a duty to defend the principles of their church. The procedure is simple: youngsters are taken out of society early in their developing years, taught a rigorous system of religion, denied every normal relationship that others enjoy (for many, it's poverty, chastity, and obedience), then placed back in society in positions wherein they are supposedly ready to answer the needs of all us ordinary folks. (I well remember, from 40 or so years back, a Knights of Columbus tract that headlined, "Catholic Mothers Have No Problems," since they can simply go to their parish priests for solutions.)

Fox's guest belabored the point that the administration was interfering with the religious freedom of the church. Nobody mentioned that, if an RC lady used the contraceptives they were deploring, she risks excommunication -- an eternity of hellfire. (Now, that's religious oppression.)

IMO TIC

[Dave Roberts]

The health care rules only apply to religious institutions taking federal money for services. Churches do not have to follow this. Only their social service or educational entities that are receiving government funds are required to comply. Guess religious groups have gotten in bed with government and now are finding it uncomfortable to be exposed.

[Hal Eaton]

Quote from a previous post: I have never met a woman who had an abortion who did not have pangs of guilt over her decision.

I recently sermonized on the subject of guilt, blame, fault, cause, responsibillity, shame, credit -- each word has a different meaning.

Guilt was the most surprising; it is nearly always the result of outer influences trying to make us label our conduct as wrong, or sinful (if delivered from a religious standpoint). As pointed out in a couple of posts, the thrust of many "pregnancy centers" is to (1) make the client aware of said guilt, and (2) be freed from guilt by following the advice of the "providers" of help.

The psychology of the process is remarkably like the instilling of religious conversion. First, you make the target aware of sinfulness, then project the idea of a born-again experience to alleviate the resulting guilt. It's even easy to accomplish (and has been proven effective) with younger (and younger) conversions. And the guilt-instillation process is numerically more effective if delivered from a pulpit, rather than on a one-to-one basis. Hence, pulpit evangelism becomes the most often used procedure. (Is it safe to surmise that we "farm out" the responsibility to "youth blasts", concert-type revival meetings, celebrity encounters, etc.?)

IMO

[ET]

I'd like to make a minor note here on this health care deal. The issue is about government dictating what must be covered by health insurance. So essentially government is going to force insurance to increase their costs in order to achieve a political goal. This is not the first time this has happened and it happens regularly on the state level. Government issues an edict to increase the cost of health insurance, yet people complain vociferously about rising health care costs.

My question is this: The moral question aside of government encroaching on religious conviction to achieve a political goal while denying they are doing it, will the same people who support this mandate from D.C. blame the insurance company or Obama when their health insurance premiums go up?

This is one of the primary problems with health care in this country. Government passes mandates to force insurance companies to cover this or that, regardless of whether or not the consumers getting that insurance actually need that coverage or would choose to pay for it if offered. Economics 101 kicks in and health care costs rise, then insurance companies get blamed for the increased cost that they did not create.

My wife's nephew has autism. Her sister-in-law was advocating for some legislation in Virginia to force insurance companies to cover autism-related costs. There was even a Facebook "like" deal going around and I refused to "like" it because it goes back to this very problem -- government dictating what must be covered, increasing costs as a result. Of course, an even bigger issue is that 85% of us get our health insurance through our employers instead of buying it on the open market like we do with auto, home and life. Unless we 85% get weaned off of having someone else pay large chunks of our health care costs, we'll never get a handle on cost containment.

[Gene Scarborough]

ET---

I was in the insurance business from 1986-1999 (active with a liscense for another 5 years). The cost of insurance is directly related to the cost of medical procedures and hospitals. During that time the cost of healthcare (without any government mandates to speak of) was growing at 3 times the inflation rate.

It would be logical to ask: "WHY?"

Several factors kick in:

1) Doctors are in it for the money and expect no less than $200K up per year.
2) Drug companies are in it for the money and the same drugs bought in Canada/Mexico cost about 30% of inside the US border.
3) Hospitals are in it for the money and charge $10 for an aspirin along with other "incidental" costs.
4) People are convinced they must not get sick or die---and a magic pill is their solution to constant "feeling well."

Put these things together and you have a prescription for high costs. Add in the greedy ambulance-chasing lawyers and you have something outside the field which contributes to high and rising costs. In Greenville, NC, right across the street from a gigantic medical center is an equally gigantic law office of Taft, Taft, and Hagler inviting anyone with a gripe to get their counsel---of which they get 30% each case won!

Medicine has changed for the better. What used to require great (almost magical) skills in heart surgery can now be done with a stint inserted from the groin argery without invasive surgery! So why the high cost?

Example: I have an acquaintance who had a stint procedure done for a blocked caronary artery in Ghana (the care was comparable to the US). The total cost of the procedure--including the hospital---was $1,500! In America it would have been anywhere from $15,000 to $150,000 depending on the location.

I fail to see your logic. We are a nation of pill poppers. The TV advertises the latest magic. They spend 2/3 time of the commercial speaking at auctioneer speed all the side effects---only to fend off lawsuits!

It's really simple: we are a nation of sissies failing to admit people get sick and some die. As long as there is money to be made from witchdoctors and pharma, it will be the same. Government intervention---at it's basic level---sets limits on what a government-backed insurance program will pay.

Doctors don't like it / pharma certainly does not like it / people paying through taxes actually benefit with cost savings and adequate healthcare. Not many in England like their system, but we could do better if we chose. Few British Doctors own a house in the mountains, another at the seashore, a really fancy one where they work, and all the family members drive a Rolls-Royce. There are controls on cost there.

BUT the average citizen gets a fair healthcare at a fair tax---and they deal with the issues we do not seem to want to address. When the AMA and Pharmaceuticals have massive lobbists highly paid you get to the bottom = Show Me The Money!

[ET]

Those medicines cost 30% of U.S. price because the Canadian government "negotiates" a deal to pay only so much or they will not enforce the drug patents. U.S. company have a choice between taking what the Canadian government gives or having other companies steal their medicines. So U.S. consumers get to pay more to offset those loses.

I am not arguing that government mandates are the only problem with growing health care costs, but they most certainly play a part. And who goes into business in any area if they aren't in it for the money?

As one commentator has said, there's nothing in economics that dictates that health care should be inexpensive of fit some generic definition of "affordable", especially if it is of high quality. We want health care to be cheap and of high quality, two things that don't usually go together in any area. Just because we want health care to be something folks classify as "affordable" has no bearing or influence on the actual cost of producing health care goods and services.

Too many people think that because they want something, that government can rewrite the laws of nature or human nature of the laws of economics.

[Sandy]

[Gene Scarborough]

Does anyone remember the days of the old family doctor who would actually make a house call?

Now doctors want to be specialists and few can look beyond his speciality to spot a general health need which might be resolved with a simple change of lifestyle over some $10 a pill prescription from which he gets a trip somewhere exotic if he prescribes enough of it!

Cut out the ambulance-chasing lawyers with tort reform and caps on payments, and you have just reduced the over-all cost by some 30%!

In an economy where my small business and others are taking a 50-70% reduction in earnings and compare it to the hospital where my wife works doing massive renovations to look pretty. The facility as it was was doing a good job. The demands on staff have tripled and nurses do most of the doctor's function with LPN's doing their old dirty work with bedpans.

Meanwhile, MERCID has become a life threatener because they just don't clean up enough behind each patient!

Common sense and good competition should drive costs down. If that doesn't happen, then government has a duty to set caps and bring it under control.

Has any medical professional or administrator taken a cut in pay as have all small business owners in this busted economy?

[ET]

[Gene Scarborough]

You are ignoring the price controls of the Great Depression and WWII, ET!!!!!!

True Capitalism generates the best services as the lowest price.

I fail to see much of that in Healthcare these days. Highway bidding collusion got caught in NC some years ago as they consulted with one another on each bid. We have only about 5 major highway construction companies in this state with the finest roads in the SE.

Since the establishment of the Medical School at East Carolina University we have had access to great services down east. Prior to that we had great services at Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. Recently all the hospitals down east have joined up with Pitt Memorial (the hospital associated with the Medical School). They are spending much money with a name change and ads so that now there is a monopoly in healthcare around here and prices will reflect such.

IF insurance companies had called a halt to escalating prices and rediculous prices by setting caps, the government would not need to be involved in such. You do know that Blue Cross / Blue Shield was formed by Doctors, do you not?

The Doctors did their services pre-BC/BS for the best the patient could do. Sometimes they were paid in pigs and chickens. When they died and their widows looked at the books and unpaid bills, they decided if an insurance company paid for their services they would get paid with little hassle. That was the first colusion between doctors and insurance so the docs would not have to worry about good pay for services rendered!

[ET]

[Sandy]

Overall, health insurance rates, prescription drug prices and even the cost of some medical procedures have dropped since "Obamacare" was passed. Sometimes government regulation eliminates the "gleaning" and "cost inflation" that private companies build in when they want to increase their profit margins at the expense of people who have health issues. That's one of the reasons why free market, laissez-faire capitalism doesn't work with health care.

[Gene Scarborough]

ET----

Your response had nothing to support it beyond your statement!

Free Enterprise works---IF it is not abused.

I do tree work and my competition limits what I can charge. On the other hand, if I have a $42K Bobcat that elimnates them spending $1K more to have their yard restored after a lesser-charging company does their work, then they learn a lesson that "the lowest bidder is not always the best company."

I have lost jobs to such. In fact, a man with big bucks farming refused my services in stump removal this week. I walked away and invited him to do it himself, if he chose, or call a competitor to see if I was overcharging. I know my "bottom line" and chose to walk away rather than give him a bargain when he could afford to pay me fairly.

I believe in free enterprise. I don't believe in sitting down with my competition to fix our prices! Too much of that is going on today and it sucks and leads directly to this meltdown of the Economy. From Reagan forward the lack of oversight by regulators led to the bank and investment fraud. I have a Series 6 Securities liscense and know the facts that you are fingerprinted and expected to tell your client "the truth / whole truth / and nothing but the truth." The well blow-out in the Gulf was a simple case of no containment dome which was required---and the Bush Administration bears the full blame for such contamination!

So how many of the fraudulent and colluding suckers are in a Federal Pen right now?????

In the face of this do you really believe Free Enterprise always works?

[Gene Scarborough]

[Stephen Fox]

Is the Flaming Issue of the Moment. Check his ERLC and bpnews.net in coming days for the fiasco on Sean Hannity last night in Regard Obama Reversal with the Catholics. And www.religiondispatches.org daily.
Casey Mattox is flaming at the ADF blog or google hissy fit and planned parenthood. Last few days Casey has had this thing for Maggie Sanger

[ET]

[Gene Scarborough]

ET---

You are dropping trou for the wrong reason---we already got our rectal exam from Republican "trickle down theory." Now MItt Romney's taxes are proof positive that something is badly wrong with the tax code.

I we elect a guy like him who is rich beyond imagination / gets tax breaks out the wazoo / has busted more corporations and exported more jobs overseas / and is obviously getting mega bucks from his backers----you better drop trou and open your mouth to allow for the rectal exam by another corncob of Republican and Tea Party excess!!!

[KeithE]

[Gene Scarborough]

[ET]

[KeithE]

[ET]

[KeithE]

You have some good points here ET. I’m open to at what level collective services should be undertaken at. That means the Federal level is one such level and it is not ruled apriori as you seem to do with a selective and “fundamentalistic” reading of that living document the Constitution. I will point out that collective action is often more efficient at larger levels (economy of scale) when there is no differentiation of purpose among the the smaller entities involved. For instance, take your desire to eliminate student loans which opens to doors of opportunity for many that would otherwise be trapped in lower standards of living. Eliminating it shows a lack of compassion and understanding of social mobility in this country and it would further diminish the claim of the US as being the land of opportunity. Moving all of it to the state level would give students in certain “rich” states more opportunity and with time further striate states into rich and poor ones. Cross-fertilization of ideas would also be curtailed.

I agree that the tax code needs to be rewritten entirely (perhaps consumption based) but in a revenue enhanced manner consistent with bringing our national debt down and in a state of “progressivity” that matches that of the 1950-60’s since income inequality has increased markedly since those times (that means a generous “prebate” to cover essential living taxes if we are going with a consumption-based tax system).

I also agree businesses should never be “too big to fail” (translated that means a more aggressive Anti-Trust enforcement and bailouts should never happen). Yet I notice that you are “protective” of the private health insurance business. The JFK quote does not apply since in the health care insurance area, the proposal would lift the problem not from our own shoulders but from the health insurance business’s shoulders which have broadened to enrich themselves with larger than Medicare admin costs and greenlights fee-for-service overtreatment.

And I would favor a Constitutional prohibition of narcotics as well as more UN action, it’s that big of a problem. Our War on Drugs has been an abject failure precisely because it is an international problem and should be treated at that level.

Finally, I wish you would not use such epithets as “comrade” when referring to a lady whose heart is at protecting the public. When a voice comes out and resonates with the public interest, you can count on the corporate media / conservative talk show pundits to begin the demonization of that person if it at all could effect the bottom line of their sponsors (big business).

[Gene Scarborough]

Drugs---

Stangely, not a flame issue. Let's see if another celebrity going down over them does anything?

This, to me, SHOULD BE one of the most serious issues which is totally being ignored.

My son-in-law was a crew member of USCGC Bear out of Norfolk. A couple of years ago they intercepted and inspected a Columbian frieghter headed toward the US in International waters. The inspection revealed drugs so they escorted the ship back into its Columbian port. They were met by Columbian gunboats armed and pointing at them. The Bear is minimally armed so they called the US Navy and there were 3 destroyers on the horizon within about 30 minutes!

What troubles me is that IF we have a War on Drugs, what is the problem with simply giving the crew of that ship 30 minutes to abandon ship before putting shells from the large gun on the Bear beneath the waterline and pursuing a real war on drugs?

We are having more drugs of the greatest potency coming out of Afghanistan and other courtries, friend or foe, than we can imagine. It should become International Law that any ship filled with drugs and with bow pointed toward North America is guilty of drug trafficking and subject to immediate sinking as if it were attacking this country's national defense!

The "War on Drugs" is pure pretense and could be stopped if it were a real national priority. We have the technology and ability. We only lack the will to stop it.