The following definitions I found in the article “What Kaiser’s Acquisition of Geisinger Means For Us All,” Forbes, Robert Pearl M.D. May 31, 2023 There are a couple of terms within the article which I would like to point out. Fee For Service and Fee For Value. For clarity, Traditional Medicare uses Fee For Service methodology and Medicare Advantage uses Fee For Value methodology. The following paragraphs were pulled from the Forbes article...
Read More »Another Student Loan Scam Involving Prestigious Universities this time
I took this article and broke it into different parts. If it does not make sense, blame me and not the Insider author. This is a different topic but along the lines of student loans which Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice has been fighting. Republicans support these companies. Democrats are pushing back. Fomer students are holding the five and six digit debt. And no one has fixed the damn problem allowing OPMs to do this. DeJa’Vu just like the...
Read More »Origins of Memorial Day
Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared it should be May 30. It is believed the date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The first large observance was held that year at...
Read More »The modern free press
“The modern free press,” Infidel753 Blog, Infidel753 In the US, we have probably the world’s strongest protections for free speech and freedom of the press, thanks to the First Amendment and the citadel of jurisprudence built on it. And yet the mainstream media here are usually strikingly timid and reluctant to call a spade a spade. Recent examples of this include their treatment of Trump as a normal presidential candidate despite his abuse of...
Read More »Another Legal Challenge of the ACA Coming Out of Texas and the Fifth District
Cost-Free Preventive Care Under the ACA Faces Legal Challenge, JAMA | JAMA Network, Gregory Curfman, MD; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo. The same federal Jackass judge in Texas who struck down the entire ACA (2018) has risen again. In this particular instance, he is taking aim at a core protection of the ACA or Cost-free preventive care. These services range from cancer screening to pregnancy care and have benefited more than 150 million US residents of...
Read More »Piercing the myth: How privatizers got their mitts on Medicare
Piercing the myth: How privatizers got their mitts on Medicare, The Stand, Kip Sullivan Insurance companies decried Medicare’s fee-for-service model. But then Congress let them replace it with something much worse. (May 4, 2023) — Congress enacted Medicare in 1965 as a fee-for-service system because the insurance industry did not want to insure the elderly and the poor. Today the insurance industry spends megabucks on advertising to lure...
Read More »14th Amendment, Debt Ceiling & Perpetual Bonds
When I read this (third article below), I thought of an earlier commentary by one of our peer-reviewed economists. This is what Robert Waldman had to say: “Investors are glad to pay the Treasury to keep their wealth safe. Now consider the US Federal Government intertemporal budget constraint — the present value of spending must be less than or equal to the present value of revenue. What is the present value of revenue ? It is calculated by...
Read More »The budget ceiling and the Gephardt Rule
The so-called Gephardt Rule (in honor of Representative Dick Gephardt who introduced its first version) provided that when the House agrees to a budget resolution, the Clerk shall prepare a joint resolution suspending the debt limit for the fiscal year covered by the budget resolution. It was repealed at the beginning of the 107th Congress, which had a Republican majority.The Gephardt Rule reflects the language of the 14th Amendment and would obviate...
Read More »Labor has gained and Corporations have been sucking up the lion’s share of all gains
Labor has gained since the pandemic, but corporations have been sucking up the lion’s share of those gains . . . – by New Deal democrat I neglected to add a link to my Weekly Indicators piece at Seeking Alpha on Saturday, so here it is. Also, I’ve been trying to understand why, with all of the long and short leading indicators lined up in almost classic formation, no recession has started yet. I discussed that in another piece at Seeking...
Read More »Why Does Poverty Continue to Exist in America?
A long and good NYT take on why poverty continues to exist, stays stagnant or continues to grow in one of the richest nations in the world and the most capable of all to end poverty. A good read. “Those who have amassed the most power and capital bear the most responsibility for America’s vast poverty. Political elites have utterly failed low-income Americans over the past half-century. Corporate bosses have spent and schemed to prioritize...
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