OT - United Healthcare Dropping Doctors

[chunkyfrog]

Thank you, Nate. I was getting so sick of all that crock.

[Chevie]

Let me refrain from posting an opinion of the "analysis" posted here so far. Instead ....

... we have moved to an unsustainable model from a sustainable one.

1. The Sustainable Model

Modern man smoked for pleasure and to ease the pain of modern life.

Smokers, on average, died at the age of 64 and lived six months after they were diagnosed with lung cancer. In this six months they could not spend very much of the country's resources on medical care.

2. The Unsustainable Model

Modern man gave up smoking. In order to have pleasure (dopamine) and ease pain of modern life he put sugar in most of his foods (480,000 out of 600,000 grocery store items) and beverages (soft drinks) and thus consumed sugar in great quantities (120 lbs per capita per year).

Modern man's sugar consumption caused him to develop type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease at early ages. Modern man became less productive and often not productive. With these two diseases modern man lives 20 to 30 years before dying. During this 20 to 30 years modern man spends more resources on medical care than the country can muster.

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Appeals to one party or the other will not solve the problem of the unsustainable model we have chosen.

One solution would be to go back to smoking.

Sugar abstinence solutions will fail because man will find a way around them or resort to substitutes which may be even worse.

I look for technology to provide an answer. Come with a product that provides pleasure and escape without costly health issues. Sounds problematic until someone does it.

[ems]

I look for technology to provide an answer. Come with a product that provides pleasure and escape without costly health issues. Sounds problematic until someone does it.

Interesting, Chevie. However, this is a problem that won't be solved in my life time. I suppose I'll have to stick to sugar.

[woodworkerjunkie]

You're right ems, I'm not going there. Just a couple of things you should consider. Women and men have access to birth control, if they are 2 consenting adults and don't take the time to use it, then why should they have a right to kill a child? "A woman should have a right to choose", what rights should that child have? Rape is another matter!

You love saying, "kill a child"... you just love it! Keep saying it... you love it!

A friend on the forum sent me a PM with words about this topic that I won't repeat. I will say, however, that you are an

I D I O T and have the intelligence of a pea brain. And yes, I'm name calling... and the last thing I'll say on this subject.

I will honor my promise to leave the issue alone. As far as insults and name calling, if it makes you feel better, I'm happy for you! It doesn't bother me what you call me, I'm not "offended", as many others would be! Name calling and insults is what people tend to resort to, when they can't defend their views! Sorry, I won't apologize for my Christian views or beliefs!

[Judge Nap]

Appeals to one party or the other will not solve the problem of the unsustainable model we have chosen.

"The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference."
Ralph Nader

[zoocrewphoto]

That is what I see as the main difference between the right-wing and liberals. Most liberals want to apply programs fairly, and eliminate waste and fraud where it exists, whereas most of the right-wing runs around with a proverbial axe wanting to completely eliminate programs in order to reduce taxes on the wealthy, thereby making the innocent suffer with the guilty.

Best wishes, Nate

This isn't true at all. I am a conservative, and I don't want to eliminate most programs. I do want to see REAL reduction of programs by eliminating fraud and limiting the criteria for people getting in.

I see fraud in the welfare system every day. I work in a grocery store. I see people week after week, year after year, paying with food stamps. Some are normal people who really do need the help. But there are others who have expensive cell phones, nice fancy fake nails, nice hair, etc, and they drive a nice car. Yet they have been on food stamps for many years. They also have a tendency to buy expensive foods, don't care when the price is higher (really, a $10 sandwich EVERY day?). Some of them even try to get us to break the laws for them and then yell and swear at us when we refuse. This is usually in the form of ordering a hit sandwich and wanting to pay for it with food stamps, which is against the law. I could be fined and lose my job. I had a lady ask me if she could get a sandwich with food stamps (I told her any cold sandwich), and she proceeded to try and order a toasted sandwich (um, toasted is hot).

I can usually tell who will pay with food stamps. Not by how they look. But by how they act. They tend to be very demanding, add extras to their sandwich that cost more (extra meat, bacon, etc) and they tend to be rude.

Another fraud issue with food stamps. Some of them have multiple cards. When one doesn't work, they just pull out a= couple more. There are also people who hang around the grocery store and sell their food stamps to other people. And if you check craigslist, you will find people trying to pay rent with food stamps. If they have enough extra to sell them or use them as rental payment, they must not need that much for food.

Unfortunately, other than the people who are obviously selling food stamps at the store, we can't do much to report fraud. We don't have their info to report them. All we can do is smile and tell them to have a nice day, while wondering how much money is being wasted on fraud.

Also, do you see those commercials for free cell phones? Tons of people qualify, but is a cell phone really a required item? And do they really need 250 minutes a month? I got my phone a few years ago, and it is a simple pay as you go phone. I don't use anywhere near 250 minutes a month. In fact, I got my current phone last December. It came with 2200 minutes, and I still have over 800 minutes left. That's a little over 100 minutes per month.

The main difference I see being conservatives and liberals is that conservatives want good programs, but understand that we don't have the money to afford everything. We want accountability and we want the math to work. Liberals have great ideas and want to help everybody, but they don't care if the math doesn't work.

[NateS]

Is Rand Paul the voice of today's conservatives?

nytimes.com
The Appalling Stance of Rand Paul
by CHARLES M. BLOW Dec. 11, 2013

I don’t put much past politicians. I stay prepared for the worst. But occasionally someone says something so insensitive that it catches me flat-footed.

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said Sunday on Fox News: “I do support unemployment benefits for the 26 weeks that they’re paid for. If you extend it beyond that, you do a disservice to these workers.”

This statement strikes at the heart — were a heart to exist — of the divide between conservatives and liberals about whether the social safety net provides temporary help for those who hit hard times or functions as a kind of glue to keep them stuck there.

Whereas I am sure that some people will abuse any form of help, I’m by no means convinced that this is the exclusive domain of the poor and put-upon. Businesses and the wealthy regularly take advantage of subsidies and tax loopholes without blinking an eye. But somehow, when some poor people, or those who unexpectedly fall on hard times, take advantage of benefits for which they are eligible it’s an indictment of the morality and character of the poor as a whole.

The poor are easy to pick on. They are the great boogeymen and women, dragging us down, costing us money, gobbling up resources. That seems to be the conservative sentiment.

We have gone from a war on poverty in this country to a war on the poor, in which poor people are routinely demonized and scapegoated and attacked, and conservatives have led the charge.

They paint the poor as takers, work averse, in need of motivation and incentive.

Well, that is simply not my experience with poverty. I have been poor, and both my parents worked. I grew up among poor people, and almost all of them worked. The problem wasn’t lack of effort, but low pay. Folks simply couldn’t make enough to shake the specter of need.

In fact, the poor folks I knew growing up were some of the hardest working people I have ever known — rising before dawn to pack lunches and sip coffee, trying to get the mind right for a day of toil and sweat that breaks the body but not the spirit.

They were people who wanted what most folks want — to earn an honest wage for an honest day’s work; to live a happy, meaningful life that leaves a mark on the world when they are gone from it; to raise bright, healthy children who go further in life than they did; to be surrounded by family and friends and neighbors — a village — where people support and cared for one another.

That is why I have such a hard time with the conservative argument that helping those in need diminishes their desire to do for themselves, that it suckles them to passivity on a government teat. Hogwash.

To buy into this destructive lie about the character of the poor means you’ve either had no experience being poor, or have no capacity to empathize with their plight.

Being poor is a job unto itself. The daily juggle of supplying the most basic needs — food, shelter, medicine — and the stress of knowing that you are always just one twist of fate away from calamity.

James Baldwin put it best: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

Most people want to work. But sometimes, bad luck comes calling. Sometimes you have a job, but you lose it. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, a new one proves elusive.

And following the Great Recession, that is a particular problem. Maybe you are older and employers are less willing to take a chance. Maybe your industry is shrinking and becoming more efficient, getting by with fewer employees. Maybe the jobs you can find are farther from your house than you can travel and you can’t afford to move. The problems are plenty.

But what we shouldn’t do is to tell people who had jobs and lost them, people who want work and can’t find it, that to help them does them a “disservice.”

That is the height of arrogance and callousness. And it’s disrespectful.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/opini ... h_20131212

[Janknitz]

Sustainable model:

Don't smoke.
Don't eat sugar, grains, or an excess of starchy things (our bodies turn dietary starch into sugar very quickly).
Eat real food, not food products. Avoid toxins.
Move your body and lift some heavy things.

This is how our grandparents lived healthy and productive lives without prolonged illnesses at the end of life.

It's not hard.

[NateS]

That is what I see as the main difference between the right-wing and liberals. Most liberals want to apply programs fairly, and eliminate waste and fraud where it exists, whereas most of the right-wing runs around with a proverbial axe wanting to completely eliminate programs in order to reduce taxes on the wealthy, thereby making the innocent suffer with the guilty.

Best wishes, Nate

This isn't true at all. I am a conservative, and I don't want to eliminate most programs. I do want to see REAL reduction of programs by eliminating fraud and limiting the criteria for people getting in.

I see fraud in the welfare system every day. I work in a grocery store. I see people week after week, year after year, paying with food stamps. Some are normal people who really do need the help. But there are others who have expensive cell phones, nice fancy fake nails, nice hair, etc, and they drive a nice car. Yet they have been on food stamps for many years. They also have a tendency to buy expensive foods, don't care when the price is higher (really, a $10 sandwich EVERY day?). Some of them even try to get us to break the laws for them and then yell and swear at us when we refuse. This is usually in the form of ordering a hit sandwich and wanting to pay for it with food stamps, which is against the law. I could be fined and lose my job. I had a lady ask me if she could get a sandwich with food stamps (I told her any cold sandwich), and she proceeded to try and order a toasted sandwich (um, toasted is hot).

I can usually tell who will pay with food stamps. Not by how they look. But by how they act. They tend to be very demanding, add extras to their sandwich that cost more (extra meat, bacon, etc) and they tend to be rude.

Another fraud issue with food stamps. Some of them have multiple cards. When one doesn't work, they just pull out a= couple more. There are also people who hang around the grocery store and sell their food stamps to other people. And if you check craigslist, you will find people trying to pay rent with food stamps. If they have enough extra to sell them or use them as rental payment, they must not need that much for food.

Unfortunately, other than the people who are obviously selling food stamps at the store, we can't do much to report fraud. We don't have their info to report them. All we can do is smile and tell them to have a nice day, while wondering how much money is being wasted on fraud.

Also, do you see those commercials for free cell phones? Tons of people qualify, but is a cell phone really a required item? And do they really need 250 minutes a month? I got my phone a few years ago, and it is a simple pay as you go phone. I don't use anywhere near 250 minutes a month. In fact, I got my current phone last December. It came with 2200 minutes, and I still have over 800 minutes left. That's a little over 100 minutes per month.

The main difference I see being conservatives and liberals is that conservatives want good programs, but understand that we don't have the money to afford everything. We want accountability and we want the math to work. Liberals have great ideas and want to help everybody, but they don't care if the math doesn't work.

I agree with you that there is fraud - individual fraud and corporate fraud. Fraud should be stopped. But it is difficult for liberals and conservatives to unite in chasing down and eliminating fraud when so many on the right are always demanding the total elimination of programs that are vital to the deserving. It is pretty difficult to clean something up when someone else is always trying to grab it out of your hands and smash it to pieces.

We have the same problem with regulation of unscrupulous business and tax practices. Instead of trying to make regulations less burdensome, Republicans are always shouting: "Deregulate! Deregulate!" and we can all see where that has gotten us!

Best wishes, Nate

[idamtnboy]

This is how our grandparents lived healthy and productive lives without prolonged illnesses at the end of life.

And often died early. One reason today's generation have more prolonged illnesses at the end of life, is the end of life gets postponed by medical treatment. That allows time for those illnesses to develop.

My doctor said the other day that studies of Egyptian mummies have shown they suffered from coronary disease just like we do today. The big unknown is was that a common condition for all Egyptians, or a condition that plagued the rich because of what they could afford to eat? There are no mummies of common people to use for comparison.

[zoocrewphoto]

I agree with you that there is fraud - individual fraud and corporate fraud. Fraud should be stopped. But it is difficult for liberals and conservatives to unite in chasing down and eliminating fraud when so many on the right are always demanding the total elimination of programs that are vital to the deserving. It is pretty difficult to clean something up when someone else is always trying to grab it out of your hands and smash it to pieces.

We have the same problem with regulation of unscrupulous business and tax practices. Instead of trying to make regulations less burdensome, Republicans are always shouting: "Deregulate! Deregulate!" and we can all see where that has gotten us!

Best wishes, Nate

I really don't think so many people are trying to end the programs, just tighten them up to eliminate waste and fraud

For example, free lunch at school. We could save a lot of money by not insisting that kids take more food than they will eat. I was on free lunch when I was in junior high, and I was required to take 5 items on my plate every day even though I was sure I would only eat 2 or 3. I was required to choose items that I knew I would never eat. So, I hrew a lot of food away and felt very guilty about it. Why waste that money?

Unemployment. Yes, we need this program. BUT! We need to have some way of making sure that people are actually looking for work and making a real attempt at getting a job. Lots of people decide it is a nice way to get a free vacation for a while. If they are required to apply for jobs, they apply for crappy jobs they don't want and dress like a slob to make sure they don't get it. In years past, people were required to keep a list of job applications, but never had to prove any of it. Now they don't even have to do that. My sister sat around for 5 months without any effort put into getting a job. She was able to live on unemployment and food stamps. In fact, they now approve you for 6 months of food stamps at a time. So, if you are unemployed for one month, you will get food stamps fro 6 months. That is waste! Human nature is normal. You work for years, you lose your job, and now you have the option of getting half your pay for staying home and relaxing. A lot of people will decide they deserve a break and wait a few months before they start looking for a job. If you know you have a year (or more) before that pay runs out, you just might sit around longer, figuring you have time. Unemployment is meant to help people in need, but it also encourages people to be lazy. If people had to prove their efforts to find a job, and look outside their field, they might get a new job faster, be more productive, and the program wouldn't cost so much.

Several years ago, my nephew lost his job and he would not consider any job that paid less than his previous job. Now, he lost his trucking job because he fell asleep and rolled a semi truck. He wasn't going to get another trucking job anytime soon. Duh. So, there he was, turning down jobs that paid $12-15 an hour because they weren't worth his time. When his unemployment ran out, he took a job for $11 an hour because he needed a job to pay the rent. I bet he wished he had accepted the $15 an hour job. It took him a couple years to get back on track.

Free cell phones - they don't need to be fancy smart phones, and they don't need to have 250 minutes a month.

Now onto some bigger things.

All bills going through congress - one topic per bill. No pork! That would save a ton of money there. We don't need to be funding studies with shrimp on treadmills and other crap like that. If they don't want to tell the American people what they want money for, then they shouldn't be asking for the money. There are so many pet projects that would never pass with a vote from the people, yet they get passed all the time as part of the deals that get made in congress. They are throwing our money away.

Make sure the programs actually help the people that need the help. It seems like a lot of programs actually benefit richer people while not helping those they claim to help. For example, the cash for clunkers program. That helped people buy NEW cars. But how many poor people can afford a new car even with the help? Instead of destroying decent cars that were turned in, why didn't lower income people get help turning in their true clunker and getting assistance in buying a decent used car, while the richer people were upgrading their cars? My parents bought a new vehicle in 1973. All vehicles since then have been used vehicles. During that time, they would have liked to have gotten a new vehicle, but they couldn't afford a new vehicle, even with the tax credit. So, they still have that old minivan. I think it is from 1998.

Raising the minimum wage. Sounds great. Doesn't work so great. Why? Well, a lot of minimum wage jobs are grocery stores, gas stations, fast food, etc. Since they have a lot of minimum wage jobs, they have to increase prices when they wages go up. So, the things that people with minimum wage jobs buy, are the same things that go up in price. They don't really get ahead. Meanwhile, those who are not minimum wage do not go up, so their buying power goes down. Nobody benefits. I am always amazed at how many people assume that everybody at the grocery store gets a raise when minimum wage goes up. Nope. Just those who are at minimum wage (the beginners). Nobody else gets a raise. But we all get the price increase. Also, when too many people are at the top end of wages, they cut the hours, and we simply have to work harder until the wages get balanced out (long time employees quit or transfer). I've seen this pattern many times when we have too many long term employees and not enough newer people.

Have you ever seen the lists of charities and how many of them waste a lot of the money on CEO wages, high employee wages, and very little on the actual recipients of the charities? Well, a lot of government programs are like that. They spend the money like crazy, but they don't actually spend most of it where it will actually help the people they claim to be helping. A lot of the programs are great programs, but they aren't being held accountable for the waste.

[Loreena]

Zoocrew,

I think you're missing your calling. You definitely need to get in politics. I like your thinking. I'm hoping someone in the field sees your posts too. You're one smart cookie.

[ChicagoGranny]

Zoocrew,

I think you're missing your calling. You definitely need to get in politics. I like your thinking. I'm hoping someone in the field sees your posts too. You're one smart cookie.

+1

[ChicagoGranny]

Raising the minimum wage. Sounds great. Doesn't work so great.

Why do the CEOs of many major corporations, like Walmart, Costco and Starbucks, support increasing the minimum wage?

Because it will give them another advantage against small, local businesses and help drive the small guy out of business.






ChicagoGramps

[idamtnboy]

Why do the CEOs of many major corporations, like Walmart, Costco and Starbucks, support increasing the minimum wage?

Because it will give them another advantage against small, local businesses and help drive the small guy out of business.

ChicagoGramps

And..................?????????????

That's the free enterprise free market system isn't it????