A letter to the media.

You’ve become chattel. 

There has been talk for years about how liberal leaning media have become less and less objective in their reporting, often going to the limits of journalistic integrity in order to manipulate opinion toward their beliefs.  Whether it be faulty reporting about social issues, politics, junk science and the environment; there has been a definitive lack of ability to simply tell the story without editorializing. 

As a matter of fact, editorializing has become the new journalism, especially with the advent of instant worldwide communication.  At no other time can a lie be spread so quickly and so many people believe fabrications at such speed.

This aside, your very integrity (despite your beliefs) is so far removed from any definition of journalism that the Obama administration believes that you are its personal property.  Since the word “chattel” is derived from “cattle” it makes sense to tag you with this moniker.

Stay in line.  Eat your food. Come to the barn when called. Give birth to calves when I tell you to. Stand at the milking machine and wait until I’m finished. Don’t talk back, or you’ll be put on a truck headed for the processing plant.

Do you understand that in telling you to decry Fox News, Obama’s cronies (and therefore him) threatened you?  Are you afraid or are you simply standing in line and waiting for your turn at the milking machine?

To stay with the whole bovine theme, we need more bulls out there.  Someone not afraid to run the farmers around the field and stick their horns in soft places every once in a while.  We need fewer cows that just stand and do as they are told.

I wanted to update the former post with the following, which is a bit better.

The host of issues surrounding the healthcare debate continues to grow on a daily basis as each of the bills in Congress are scrutinized by groups on both sides. However, one piece of the puzzle, the actual administration of the program, has been for the most part ignored as even the best crystal ball is unable to peer through the bureaucratic fog of a government program yet to be realized.

It IS clear though that the very foundations of the administration of the healthcare plans are set in quicksand and are likely set up to ensure that a public health plan becomes the only option available to anyone. The offending idea is that of using medical loss ratio as the basis for judging current insurance offerings as to their efficiency, and that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will be given the broad power to define the medical loss ratio as it pertains to ensuring adequate participation, competition, and value for customers “so that their premiums are used for services.”

In other words, so all money goes to services, and none to administration costs.

This sounds all well and good. It harkens to the scandals of the early 21st century in regards to the ratio of charitable contributions which went to the administrative costs (most notably salaries) of charities as opposed to funding actually reaching the needy, whether they be the poor or panda bears. Medical loss ratio is simply defined in the same manner. It is the difference between how much of your premium goes to actual medical care and how much goes to administrative costs and profit of the insurer. It has become the equation used to judge the success and efficiency of health care.

I’ll use the conclusion of an article by James C. Robinson, Kaiser Permanente Distinguished Professor of Health Economics at University of California at Berkeley, published in Health Affairs, Volume 16, Number 4 (1997) to illustrate why medical loss ratio is a baseless foundation for determining administrative or clinical success in healthcare.

“The medical loss ratio is an accounting monstrosity, a convolution of data from myriad products, distribution channels, and geographic channels that enthralls the unsophisticated observer and distorts the policy discourse. The hard but inescapable conclusion is that informed choice and sophisticated purchasing of health care must rely on a more extensive set of performance measures, no one of which is as comprehensive as the medical loss ratio is purported to be but each of which has some of the analytic validity that the medical loss ratio lacks.”

The de facto holder of the biggest megaphone, President Obama, has certainly used at least the idea of medical loss ratio in his impassioned speeches about dirty profit-minded “big insurance” in his drive to socialize health care in America. Medical loss ratio is an easy target to sway emotion and distinguish the difference between benevolent, socially responsible change and evil capitalists profiting on the sick.

Now, this illogical, emotionally driven accounting gimmick has become the basis of administering health care in America. Time and time again it is referred to in the House Bill as the measurement tool of success in both administrative and clinical settings. With the Secretary of Health being given the broad power to define (and adjust) medical loss ratio, it is easy to see that the bar will be set high enough that few, if any; private insurance plans will be able to reach the standard set by the government. One by one, they will fall and their members transferred to a public plan until there is not one non-governmental entity providing insurance.

By simplifying the complexities of clinical care and insurance administration down to this lowest common denominator, we are ensuring the economic and administrative failure of any health reform in America. Junk science is rampant in governmental policy…has been for decades. We allow emotion to generate legislation instead of looking directly at the facts, no matter how complex they may be. There is no doubt that junk economics is being used in the health care bill. The US health care system is a wildly complex system that is, admittedly, bleeding in several locations. Using an obscure accounting trick to fix it is like treating a laceration with blood thinners.

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking through the House Healthcare Bill and looking for things that you may not have heard about from the media.  After quite a bit of research, I discovered something I think is critical.  To sum up at the start, the very foundation of how the program would be administered is built in quicksand.

Medical Loss Ratio.

Medical loss ratio is basically defined as the amount of your insurance premium goes to actual medical care as opposed to how much goes to administrative costs of your insurer.  A good medical loss ratio is considered anything above 75% (3/4 goes to medical care, 1/4 goes to administrative) and there are some non-profit insurance providers which have achieved a ratio of 96%.

The House and Senate bills go into great detail about how the Secretary of Health and Human Services will use medical loss ratio as a measurement of success and failure as they regulate current insurance companies, but also as the building block of the public healthcare option (the government health plan).

Sounds reasonable doesn’t it?  I mean, we all looked closely at similar ratios a couple years ago when we discovered several of the largest charities in the US were using way more money to cover salaries, perks and offices than actual money going to those in need?

Here’s the problem.  Medical Loss Ratio is an accounting gimmick.  The math they will be using to control, regulate, and build this massive program is an “obscure statistic”(1).

James C. Robinson, a professor of economics in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley wrote an article called “Use and Abuse of Medical Loss Ratio to Measure Health Plan Performance.”(1)  The subtitle of the article says it all…”This accounting tool was never intended to measure quality or efficiency.”

To add to the whole argument…and I’m not sure if Mr. Robinson will appreciate me pointing this out today…he said in the article “Juxtaposition of low medical loss ratio with for-profit status has fed the flames of HMO bashing but is completely without substance.”  So…all the “big-insurance” claims by Obama and Congressional Leaders is also based on bad math.

The main point here, is that an accounting gimmick is being used as the foundation of the entire administration of this healthcare program. Haven’t we had enough accounting gimmicks in our recent history?  Aren’t the very people proposing this massive expenditure the ones who have been screaming about corporations that used accounting gimmicks to pad their profits? 

Do they know this is a gimmick?  If they do, they’re intentionally screwing all of us in the name of ideology.  If they don’t, they’re being irresponsible and screwing us.

Look.  I’ve been watching crappy science and crappy math become the basis for policy for years.  For my regular readers, check this article out (MIT Scientist sez Carbon Dioxide irrelavent in climate debate)… Once again, we are using emotion to make decisions, not science, not math, NOT LOGIC. 

This has to stop. 

Get informed or stay out of the argument.

(1) HEALTH AFFAIRS, Volume 16, Number 4

It’s been a long time since I last wrote; but the Health Care Dilemma has me very concerned and I’ve been taking some time to actually read through the current legislation brought forward by the House of Representatives and entitled “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.”  I’m going to cover different parts of the legislation as often as I can in the hopes that you will learn what is happening and hopefully can make your own informed decisions.  I cannot claim absolute journalistic integrity, but I will not lie about what I find.  So, let’s get started.

If you want to see (and save) a copy of the bill, you can find it here.

On page 30 of the document, in Sec. 123, the bill outlines the Health Benefits Advisory Committee. This “private-public” committee is charged with creating the baseline health standards for Americans and passing these standards on to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Here’s how the membership breaks down.

1. Surgeon General of the United States (Chairperson)
   1. Nominated by the President of the United States (President Obama nominated Regina Benjamin on July 13, 2009)
2. Nine (9) members who are not Federal employees or officers and are appointed by the President
3. Nine (9) members who are not Federal employees or officers and are appointed by the Comptroller General of the United States.  The Comptroller General is the head of the Government Accounting Office, which is charged with keeping Government in check. Comptroller Generals serve a 15 year term and are nominated by the President.  Our current Comptroller General is an “interim” fill-in for a recently resigned CG and will continue to serve until President Obama nominates someone else to the post.
4. An even number (not to exceed eight) of Federal employees or officers which the President will appoint.

Is anyone seeing a trend here?

The makeup of the committee (Page 32 – Line 25)  is interesting.  It includes all the people you would expect to serve in such a post…experts in health care financing, labor reps (unions), health insurance providers, etc.  Two things caught my eye though… First,  ”experts in racial and ethnic disparities” and second, “at least one practicing physician or other health professional.”  If we are to provide health care for all Americans, why the ethnic and racial disparity people.  And for that matter, why do unions have to be involved?  And why in the world would you write “at least one practicing physician?”  Wouldn’t it make much more sense for a panel deciding medical benefits to be stacked with practicing physicians?

THE SIMPLE TRUTH
President Obama, through this legislation, is given the ability to completely control who will sit on this panel.  He will succeed in this through a combination of straight appointments, and his ability to nominate and push through a majority Congress the Surgeon General and Comptroller Generals of his choice.  There is too much power in his hands to stack the Health Benefits Advisory Committee to his liking, and too much power granted to the Committee itself to decide the baseline of standards.  And as if we aren’t moving a little too fast for comfort right now, once the legislation is passed into law, this committee will be completely staffed in less than 60 days and has 12 months to establish all the baselines for care.

Read it.  Understand it.  Make your decision, do something about it.

Oh, and please comment on what you see here.

Saw Obama lie ouright yesterday in statement about the Energy bill the House so foolishly passed yesterday. Said that he wanted to follow California’s example for EPA standards on pollution.

Then he said…”California’s economy is on par with the rest of the country,” in justifying the idea that these standards will create economic health and save the Earth Mother simultaneously.

CALIFORNIA IS ON ECONOMIC PAR WITH THE REST OF THE COUNTRY? Last I heard, California’s economy is a squirrel’s whisker away from total collapse. They’ve created so many regulations out of junk science and liberal idealism that they are literally bankrupt.

What is wrong with everyone? We watch as they follow FAILED historical economic policies, and now they want to follow FAILED environmental policies that have neutered what was once the greatest state in the nation?

ARGH. Don’t even get me started on the fact that all the fuzzy feel good sources of energy DON’T WORK! Look, when one of the top researchers in the country from Cornell University tells you that the current state of wind and solar cannot possibly meet even the slightest energy needs…YOU SHOULD LISTEN AND FIGURE SOMETHING ELSE OUT!

Lemmings…all of you.

Just wanted to share a little pun-ishment.  Two cases…

First, I had sent a short story to my friend Ruxx Deluxx and the base of the story was pooh (not the teddy bear).  Here’s his reply which had me in tears.

“While I normally find poo stories corny & beneath me, this knocked me
off my stool.  Bowled me over, you could say. It’s amazing what one
squeezes out when inspired.”

The second comes from a comment on the Christian Science Monitor’s The Vote Blog.  Although the story was about Joe Biden being shuffled off to Siberia after his flu comments…the one commenter said this:

“Remember before November when someone said Obama would win the election ‘when pigs fly?’ Well, Obama won and the swine flew.”

Share your favorite puns with me!  One of my fondest memories was when my friend Ron Solomon (rest in peace, my friend) told our 6th grade teacher that his joke about the dentist “deserved a plaque.”

Dear DOD and White House staffers…need photos of Air Force One with Statue of Liberty background? Ever heard of PHOTOSHOP?!?!?!?!? We’re surrounded by, and managed by…idiots.

Ali Soufan’s editorial in the NY Times today brings about another question in the whole “torture” debate  for me.  Soufan poses midway through that”…it is in our national security interest to regain our position as the world’s foremost defenders of human rights…”

First, we don’t need to REGAIN anything.  Name another country that has done more for human rights than the U.S.  There’s been no slippage in ranking, Mr. Soufan.  No other country even comes close to matching the financial and human resources outlay of the United States when it comes to defending the rights of humanity as a whole. 

Second, I would strongly suggest that “human rights” belong to the innocent, not to those who would perpetrate evil.  In assigning such rights to the most heinous of our species, you deny the truth to those who deserve it.  A man hell-bent on destroying thousands of lives, who dreams of increasing that number tenfold and thereby securing a place in history and heaven does not deserve to be afforded the same human rights as a child in Darfur.

As the human race, we MUST assign certain labels to the basest of our humanity.  We must point to one end of the spectrum and say “good” while pointing simultaneously to the other end, saying “evil.”  Assigning the same rights to both ends of the spectrum is morally unconscionable, Mr. Soufan.

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy.  We risk very litle yet enjoy a position overthose who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment.”

Who spoke that little pearl?  You’ll have to read on…

The other night, I was watching Sports Center, and one of the commentators was criticizing a certain professional baseball player for watching the 3rd strike which just happened to end the game with runners in scoring position…yada yada yada.  How easy it is for someone sitting behind a desk in Connecticut to be a critic.  My question to him is…have you ever stood at the plate and had a 95 mile an hour slider thrown at you?  I doubt it…cause if you have, you’d keep your damn mouth shut.

The constant criticism of the former administration’s tactics in garnering information from terrorists is much like that guy on Sports Center.  As our guru at the beginning of the post said, there is no risk in criticism.  I would add to that…there is nothing but profit in claiming the moral high ground long after an event has passed.

Hindsight is much more than 20/20.  It’s looking through high-powered binoculars with laser surgered eyes and focusing with massive amounts of information, debate, polls and crazy multi-billionaires to support you.  How easy it is to make clear-eyed judgment on someone who was looking out from the fog of war; the smoky haze of death and destruction; and the bitter, angry tears of a nation.

I despair when those who have not been forced into decisions criticize those who were.  I despair when a man or a woman with nothing to lose can pass judgment on a man with everything to lose. I despair when we look back, and yet forget the reasons why a decision was made.  If I have to spell out the reasons why…you have forgotten.

“We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”

A wise man, that Anton Ego.

Prediction:  The stimulus package currently awaited by President Obama will be his ultimate undoing.  The main reason being (IMHO), he is trying to use it to make good on his myriad campaign promises in one fell swoop. 

We can discuss ideology all we want. He is, we are, they are… But to me, the simple fact is that his liberal support network (the Soros’s of the world) have been pressuring him since he was declared the winner and he has some serious debts to pay off.  Nothing like millions (and billions) to pay off what you owe, and always be able to say later “I did!  I DID!”

I learned long time ago, you can’t drive a roofing nail with one swing of the hammer.  But you can with a coffin nail.