I'm bored

out of my f$@#ing mind.

Medicare and the Mythical "Government Takeover"

The right wing is claiming that Obama wants to take over the healthcare behemoth. But the left says that there's already a single-payer, low overhead system that works fine in Medicare. What's up? Here's my take.

For the sake of argument, let's go way out on a limb and say that the right wing is in bed with the insurance industry and big pharma. Now let's look at Medicare. Doctors don't like it because it doesn't pay enough. But health insurance and big pharma like it. If you don't believe me, look at the GOP Medicare bill that used Medicare to hand $700 billion taxpayer dollars to pharma.

Health insurance CEOs love Medicare, because the government is taking the highest risk, lowest profit customers off their hands, and they can fleece the rest of us for more money (insurance companies want to insure people who don't get sick). It's the right wing's view of "free market economy": the rich get to benefit and everyone else assumes the risk (see the mortgage fiasco).

Big pharma loves Medicare because it covers the demographic that consumes large quantities of medicine, and billing for pills is much easier than procedures and office visits as doctors must do. Doctors and clinics hate Medicare, but they don't have the lobby that huge insurance and pharma corporations do.

But if they love Medicare, why are they sh@#ting chickens right now and screaming bloody murder? Because they see a system like Medicare for the rest of us taking market share, pure and simple. Forget the fact that this "government takeover" would cover those without health insurance, who are never, ever, going to buy it from and insurance corporation. But they see a day when a public plan is available, with 4% overhead, and they are chugging along, raking in 30% profits, and someone notices that they offer nothing but a place to dump huge sums of money and get little coverage.

They fear an exodus.

That is why the U.S. still has Medicare through 8 years of complete GOP dominance. If they were really against socialized healthcare they would have killed it instead of dumping nearly a trillion dollars into it. But we all know that the GOP will sell out any ideology for power, and killing Medicare would turn off the entire AARP. And we know that there is no way they are going to kill Medicare because it increases profits for the healthcare industry. And this is why the healthcare industry hates the thought of a public option: it would take money out of CEOs' pockets by taking some of the milk from the cash cow that is the American Middle Class.

Lincoln wants a smart grid

I submitted this to the local paper, I don't think that it will make the print, but...

The sidebar story in the Journal Star Friday (p. B1) was absolutely shocking. The Lincoln Electric System wants a “smart grid” and is waiting for a federal government takeover with their $33 million grant. These sparxists are no doubt planning to pull the plug on anyone who doesn’t agree to high voltage mind control. How can we trust a grid that is smart, working its way into every house in Lincoln, even homes with little kids! And puppies! My dear old grandma is going to be plugging into that grid, and Obama will listening to her thoughts.

We are hard working people who, for the most part, do not take handouts from the feds. We could all get together next Saturday and have a good old fashioned grid raising, and have it all done by sundown--without Big Brother forcing it down our throats. I ask everyone to go down to LES and scream some vitriolic blather--just call Obama a communist, it doesn’t have to make any sense--into the face of the first person you see. If they look perplexed, it’s just a cover; they’re all wired. We need to stop this takeover and keep Obama and his socialized smart voltage off our grid.

Another day another bubble

The Fed and many economists missed the housing bubble. They missed the dot-com bubble. And now are they missing the healthcare bubble? The cost of healthcare has out paced inflation by a factor of 2, and profits are only eclipsed by those in the oil industry. But, just like the housing fiasco, the people fueling the bubble are running out of money; the middle class has already lost a big chunk of their major investment with the housing bust, and are spreading meager earnings to the healthcare and energy industries. Yet the heathcare industry lobbyists own our representatives and will see little to no impact from any plan that emerges. How will it pop? Who will pop with it? The president and economists have told us that it is not sustainable, and they appear to be correct. I can't wait to see how this one ends.

Pundits who won't go home

This is a question for the cable "news" networks. Is there anything that a pundit/strategist/staffer/congressman can say that will negate his/her/its chances of being called back for the next yell session? There doesn't appear to be anything that can perturb your apparent lack of shame to the point where you will not call them back.

Joe Biden

With all due respect to the Dark Side, isn't it nice to have a vice president who you can laugh at? One who says things that are silly in the context of Beltway politics, but you can be pretty sure that he's not running assassination squads or waterboarding detainees? My conscience is okay with Joe.