Florida State Seminoles

[eCat]

Author Steven Brill, who has spent the past two years immersing himself in the subject, has come out with a new book, "America's Bitter Pill," that takes a comprehensive look at what the new law does and doesn't do. Brill argues that Obamacare is the product of what he calls an "orgy of lobbying" and backroom deals in which just about everyone with a stake in the $3-trillion-a-year health industry came out ahead - except the taxpayers.

Steven Brill says that the outrage is what the Affordable Care Act doesn't do.

Steven Brill: It doesn't do anything on medical malpractice reform. It doesn't do anything to control drug prices. It doesn't do anything to control hospital profits.

Lesley Stahl: So all the cost controlling side of this just went by the wayside?

Steven Brill: 99 percent of it.
Steven Brill: If you go after costs, you're never going to get anything passed because the lobbyists will just not allow it to be passed.

Lesley Stahl: So let's go through what each entity won.

Steven Brill: The drug companies they were going to get $200-plus billion worth of new customers able to pay for drugs. They were going to avoid the calamity of the real reforms that they were worried about: price controls generally.

Lesley Stahl: Canada.

Steven Brill: You and I being able to buy drugs from Canada. That would have cost them hundreds of billions.

The hospital lobby did agree to cuts in how much the federal government compensates them for Medicare patients, but Brill says overall the trade off in new paying patients would more than make up for that. And the hospitals managed to keep other cost controls completely off the table, allowing them to charge whatever they can get for hospital stays and greatly mark up drug and test prices.

The charges add up - over the single-spaced 18 pages of the bill. Independent hospital economists say these are all greatly inflated over their actual costs:

Like a PET scan for $5,453 - a 400 percent mark up.

Three CT scans for $9,685 - an 1,100 percent mark up.

The charge for his room was $10,746 for six days. That comes to $1,791 a day.

Steven Brill: You and I need to get into this business. It's a really good-- They call it nonprofit, but it's a good business.

The single largest charge was for his cancer drug, Rituxan: for one dose, the hospital billed him $13,702.

Steven Brill: The hospital paid $3,500 for that drug. OK?

Lesley Stahl: How many times - that's for--

Steven Brill: That's a 400 percent mark up.

Lesley Stahl: This is a nonprofit hospital. What does nonprofit mean?

Steven Brill: It means they don't pay taxes, that's the first thing it means.

Lesley Stahl: They don't pay any taxes?

Steven Brill: They've created in health care an alternate universe economy, where everybody except the doctors and the nurses, makes a ton of money. And nobody is holding them accountable and Obamacare does zero to change any of that.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-obamac ... 0-minutes/

[eCat]

Lesley Stahl: President Obama says over and over that costs are coming down, or he implies they're coming down because of the Affordable Care Act.

Steven Brill: Who knows, someday maybe it'll be true.

Health care costs have slowed down, though Brill says not because of Obamacare... And besides, they're still rising at a rate double the pace of inflation.

Steven Brill: The much touted, you know, savings that the president keeps talking about, it's still increases.

Lesley Stahl: So instead of going like that, it's going like that.

Steven Brill: You know, if there's a stat, if there's a piece of data that comes out that says that the galloping increase in the cost of some aspect of health care has started galloping a little less, it's touted as the cost is going down. It's just ridiculous.

Steven Brill: Obamacare is a government takeover of health care, that's what the Republicans say. Obamacare is the opposite of a government takeover of health care. Obamacare is the taxpayers intervening to pay the private sector for their already inflated prices that they charge for health care.

[Saint]

I think we agree and it just makes the idiots screaming "socialism" look even more stupid, which I thought was impossible.

Meet the new boss. It's the same as the old boss.

[crashcourse]

2 albuqurque cops charged with murder

http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article ... 009611.php

no excuse for whaat they did

[Bklyn]

The injustice...

http://www.chron.com/news/us-world/arti ... rhoustontx

[DooKSucks]

Med Mal Reform or any other tort reform is insurance and medical professional bullshit. Med mal is only a small fraction of the cost. States that have enacted med mal and tort reform have not seen any drops in insurance costs. The only beneficiary is the insurer's bottom line. The decks are stacked against plaintiffs as it is. They don't have the pockets of the insurance companies and settle because they are being starved out.

[Bklyn]

I really don't know why any of these blanket police apologists can even deign to hold up the Tamir Rice case as an example of justifiable force...

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/op ... ?referrer=

[eCat]

I really don't know why any of these blanket police apologists can even deign to hold up the Tamir Rice case as an example of justifiable force...

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/op ... ?referrer=

reading that just pisses me off all over again about that (although I don't understand why they want to clutter this up with Zimmerman)

[Bklyn]

Yeah, it ended with a bit of the limp. However, the beginning was just...sheesh. I hate blanket apologists, overall, but the police thing is doubly perplexing.

[eCat]

Do I believe in climate change - yes I do, but I'm not one to buy get all worked up about the long term effects of it.

At any rate, for those that are desperately trying to alter the behavior of people to save the planet, Scientists are just completely fucking you over with submitting false or misleading data in an effort to secure funding ring the alarm. And as a result, when the public hears about these kind of activities, they grow less resolved to act on any climate change initiatives.

here is small, but yet typical example in the field of climate where where scientists were creating alarm where none existed

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/ ... r-figures/

[Saint]

The thing about climate change is that there are things we can do to help (you can see that through the ozone making a comeback) and there are things beyond our control (or our influence) to make it better or worse. And both sides have voices with a separate agenda. But the bottom line is that short-term fixes or gains are better avoided for long-term solutions, not only to a better environment but also a better way to live our lives. We can't go on burning fossil fuels and then look for another solution when they're gone.

The biggest problem mankind has had since its first appearance has been greed.

[sardis]

A pretty good idea.

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/teen-op ... 91002.html

[BigRedMan]

It is better to do something and in the end, we didn't need to do it than the other way around. I think the risk is to high to do absolutely nothing.

However, Mother Nature is a stone cold serial killer. When she wants human life to end, she will do so.

[hedge]

Even Mother Nature is going to have a chore putting you down...

[eCat]

It is better to do something and in the end, we didn't need to do it than the other way around. I think the risk is to high to do absolutely nothing.

However, Mother Nature is a stone cold serial killer. When she wants human life to end, she will do so.

Whatever we do, what good is it going to be if China , India and Russia just keep dumping and pumping?

[BigRedMan]

Well that is what I mean. It has to be a global change to include those countries.

[eCat]

woman claims under oath she was sex slave and fucked Alan Dershowitz at least 6 times

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=33188442

[AlabamAlum]

She also says she had sex with Prince Andrew.

Sounds like a prostitute who had issues with reality. Johns become someone famous....or maybe Dershowitz and the Prince ran a train on her.

[aTm]

Supposedly there are photos of her with the prince, so it seems she's acquainted with him at least.

[AlabamAlum]

Oh wow. I so hope this is true, then.