Tag Archives: Hot Topics

It is a given, Trump’s new executive order  is calling for “market-based” pricing or whatever the market will bear pricing to replace Medicare set pricing. Trump sees a conflict between Medicare and the market. Well he is right; but, his solution ll only aggravate the problem of costs.  It will drive up costs for everyone in Medicare, destroy traditional Medicare as healthcare for the elderly, steer more people into costly commercial healthcare, reduce...

Why Is Iraq Blowing Up Now? Yes, Iraq.  It has not made front page headlines with so much else going on, but over the last several days there has been an escalating series of protests against corruption in various parts of Iraq and culminating yesterday in Baghdad with one being met by soldiers firing openly upon the demonstarters with the result being about 104 dead and 6,100 wounded.  The government of Adel Abdul al Mahdi appears in danger of facing a...

2nd whistleblower comes forward after speaking with IG: Attorney The appearance of a second whistleblower will muddy the waters for Herr Trump claiming the first whistleblower got his conversation all wrong. The existence of a second whistleblower — particularly one who can speak directly about events involving the president related to conversations involving Ukraine — could undercut Trump’s repeated insistence that the original complaint, released on...

“Trump’s Executive Order is Backdoor Privatization of Medicare,” Social Security Works, Nancy Altman, October 3, 2019 Thursday and I had to search around for someone who is an expert on Medicare Advantage Plans and Original Medicare. Nancy is one of those experts. Friday and Andrew Sprung has his commentary Trump’s Bid To Destroy Medicare up on xpostfactoid blog. Commercial Healthcare Insurance has been become more and more expensive over the years with...

The argument has been, if people like their private and company sponsored insurance plans they can keep them; but can they afford to do so? In a recent LA Times and KFF survey, 40 percent of respondents said they had difficulty affording health insurance or health care or had problems paying medical bills. An approximate one-half of respondents said they or a family member skipped or postponed getting health care or prescriptions in the past twelve months...

The House Democrats just released their drug pricing plan (summary) on the 19th. I read through it rather quickly and I found it to be interesting and having targets which could work. Rather than jump right into this, let’s talk about purchasing a bit and then what I believe would be better. In a purchasing negotiation there are two typical ways used to negotiate a price to your company. The first strategy is to tell a supplier you have done a market...

UkraineGate: What Will Volker Say? I am referring to Kurt Volker: The president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has revealed text messages of conversations between himself and senior officials at the State Department that he says show they endorsed his controversial dealings with Ukraine…During an appearance on Fox News show The Ingraham Angle last night, Giuliani revealed 15 text messages between himself, U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker, and...

What Kurt Eichenwald says – Saving the Republic When I’m not reading and writing about the economy, I do occasionally comment elsewhere on political topics. So it was on Thursday when, in response to this post asserting that Democrats were powerless to do anything – (including enforcing THEIR OWN GODDAM SUBPOENAS!) – and that it was “green lantern-ism” to believe otherwise, I decided I had had enough (see comment #25), for which I was called a “kook” and...

[embedded content]Not a Human, but a Dance, Atlantic Daily, Ed Yong, September 19, 2019 I do not know about you when you receive a magazine you subscribe to; but when I get mine, I read it from cover to cover. I also send a copy to one who is incarcerated to read and it makes the rounds amongst the inmates. Since I chased prisoners in the service, it is not unusual for me to look after some of them. Me: This bird has more rhythm than I do. Not a Human,...

Country Music I have been watching Ken Burns’s “Country Music”  series on PBS.  May not watch too much more of it as I am not that interested in more recent country music, although I like some of it. So the big story of this series is how much of supposedly “white music” is of African-American origin.  I had long been aware of how the banjo was of African origin, the core country instrument beside the “fiddle,” aka “violin,” which is of European...