The Goat Pen

1. IB says that "America voted down another Reagan." Incorrect. Reagan was a winner who consistently role-modeled conservatism as CA governor and then effectively articulated conservatism to average American people. Romney role-modeled mushy moderatism as MA governor and ineffectively conservatism to average American people.

2. I heard today that Romney won 3 million votes LESS than McCain. If those 3 million had voted for Romney, he would have won the popular vote. That is an amazing and completely unexpected statistic. That means that Romney failed to mobilize the conservative base of his own party, just as I predicted back in the primaries. As such, Romney now joins a long and growing tradition of losing mushy R moderates McCain, Bush Sr., and Dole.

3. In Greece, there must be some wise people who have discovered strategies to survive in an economic environment of debt judgement day, collapsing currency, and social unrest caused by reality-imposed austerity. I want to learn what those strategies are. They will come in handy here in America soon.

For $15k that better be a tattoo. OTOH based on Roves return on the dollar it probably is just paint. Fucking idiots.

Professor Tiger wrote:1. IB says that "America voted down another Reagan." Incorrect. Reagan was a winner who consistently role-modeled conservatism as CA governor and then effectively articulated conservatism to average American people. Romney role-modeled mushy moderatism as MA governor and ineffectively conservatism to average American people.

2. I heard today that Romney won 3 million votes LESS than McCain. If those 3 million had voted for Romney, he would have won the popular vote. That is an amazing and completely unexpected statistic. That means that Romney failed to mobilize the conservative base of his own party, just as I predicted back in the primaries. As such, Romney now joins a long and growing tradition of losing mushy R moderates McCain, Bush Sr., and Dole.

3. In Greece, there must be some wise people who have discovered strategies to survive in an economic environment of debt judgement day, collapsing currency, and social unrest caused by reality-imposed austerity. I want to learn what those strategies are. They will come in handy here in America soon.

If you want to see the Republicans get beaten by a worse margin than in '08 or '12, then pray they nominate someone on the far right.

McCain probably ran as more moderate than Romney and did better among Hispanics for his immigration stance. And as much as Republicans hero-worship Reagan, he participated in some huge COMPROMISES with congressional Democrats, particularly in his second term.

bluetick wrote:

Big Orange Junky wrote:And after looking at the other link it doesn't say how they come up with it. Just prices.

They don't throw in the fact that it is illegal for me to send one price to one person and another price to someone else. In other words if the insurance company forces me to bill 350 bucks to get 100 bucks (which they do) then when a self pay patient comes into the office I must send him a bill for 350 bucks, even though the insurance company won't pay me the 350 if I don't send him a bill for 350 and only bill him for the amount I would normally get paid for the visit, 100 bucks, it is considered insurance fraud.

So I have to waste paper and send them the bill for 350, then if they show intrest in paying the bill and come in to the office to discuss it I am allowed to discount it down to the 100 bucks, but I had to bill him for the 350 first. Nice way to also build animosity toward the docs for being "expensive".............

So the article doesn't mention all the lawsuits and the malpractice insurance, plus it appears they go by billing, at least for the uninsured, as opposed to payment which really skews things.

I don't know what if anything you know about reasonable and customary contracts and how they're determined. The key word is contract. Your group partcipates as a preferred provider for various carriers because it's in their financial best interest to do so. With that participation comes the responsibilty to adhere to agreed upon terms and charges for service.

Or maybe you're not in a group. You keep talking about "I bill so-and-so" - do you have your own shingle? If so you can charge whatever you want, or trade for a basket of eggs or maybe a pig.

I am not in a group. I am on my own and I know about the contracts. Problem is I also know how they have been enforced.

It says usual and customary, but then if you are caught giving too much free care then their auditors say "well your usual and customary fee is free so you have comitted insurance fraud".

Same thing for the medicare bunch when it comes to what I bill. Notice after I send the bill I am allowed to cut the payment they actually make to medicare rates, but I have to send them the same bill that I would send Medicare or it's "fraud" in their eyes.

Just like the memo that states if I know granny can't afford the copay and I don't charge her for it I am guilty of insurance fraud. They are so strict on that they sent out several letters telling everybody how not charging granny her copay if she can't afford it isn't helping her it's Medicare fraud. (I see the logic but granny can't help it if her appendix ruptures, but I have to be the grinch and "make appropriate actions to recover the copay" or I am the one that is in legal trouble).

Now if I make up a very complex sliding scale and make people give me their tax information etc I can do a little more free care, but it takes hours of extra work to do that and even then it is limited or they start saying my customary fee is whatever the sliding scale says I charge the people who can't afford it.

So, I must send out the bill, but not just for what I would take to make it right, but the full bill as is sent to Medicare before they take the 2/3 off the top and pay me 1/3 or so of what I billed.

It's medicare you really worry about because they have the power of the gun/federal gubment with them and they don't have to be reasonable or even correct, just accuse and get what they want.

And to top it off, if I do send bills to all those people without insurance or a means to pay it, if I don't turn them over to collections I can't count any of that work off my taxes, isn't that wonderful?

bluetick wrote:Why an MRI Costs $1080 in America and $280 in France - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezr ... _blog.html

The United States spends more on health care than any of the other OECD countries spend, without providing more services than the other countries do," the study concluded. "This suggests that the difference in spending is mostly attributable to higher prices of goods and services."

Wow, the usual suspects named, what a surprise....yet not one word on the cost of spiraling litigation or the $$$$$$$$ spent on free care doled out through emergency rooms....speaking of emergency rooms, or is it trauma centers, why have so many closed in the last say, oh, 20 years?

Most states have passed tort reform. This has worked to drop malpractice premiums over time. Settlement amounts (factored for inflation) has dropped. But the cost of medicine has not dropped. Defensive medicine is not about the amount of awards.

Defensive medicine is not about the amount of awards.


Of course not, but uncompensated costs find there way to the revenue stream anyway, fact of life/business.

Neal Boortz gets it, from both angles.

Pay special attention at the 10 min mark.

http://www.boortz.com/Player/101701171/

the farther right the republican party goes the more left out of governement they will be.

an incumbent president who landed boots on the ground to kill the #1 terrorist in the world, whom has taken out #2 alqueda multiple times, who bailed out detroit, who has us out of iraq, who has us out of afghanistan, and who had a hurricane party with one of the repubs finest was going to be nearly impossible to beat

that romney almost did it was something of a minor miracle. If he hadnt alienated 47% of the voters, alineated binders full of women, alienated by continuing to support repubs who thought rape babies were gifts from god, and alienated every autoworker out there he would have won.

I think somewhere there is a repub who can avoid those mistakes and win in 2016

The only disagreements I have is that:

1. Many economists say increasing the taxes is the ONLY way to advert a financial disaster. Some people may lose their jobs, but for the long term, many think this will keep the US from collapse. and

2. there are many people on welfare who vote Republican also. This loss is strictly on the social conservatives.

Owlman wrote:Most states have passed tort reform. This has worked to drop malpractice premiums over time. Settlement amounts (factored for inflation) has dropped. But the cost of medicine has not dropped. Defensive medicine is not about the amount of awards.

This is definately correct. Doctors practice defensive medicine every day in every hospital in America. It isn't just the "amount" it's that you can be sued period. That ruins a docs life to be sued. It is "the worst thing that can happen" to him (aside from family matters etc). Docs don't see it as part of doing business, plus it ruins his life for those years it takes to get the case over with whether or not he should have been sued. He has to miss clinic, disrupt patients and the hospital continuity etc. Docs take it personal.

However I recently saw an article in one of my journals that revealed that tort reform has worked, specifically in Texas off the top of my head. I'll have to try and look that up. It was a good article.

Recently there was a push to have doctors stop practicing defensive medicine and using specific guidelines. It came from lots of acaedemia that don't practice much, that won't happen until something is done about the lawsuits.

I thought this was a joke at first, like an Onion article. does this make sense to anybody?

http://www.postsouth.com/article/201211 ... e=printart

"“There is no place in our democracy for a statistical blog that is more powerful and pivotal than all the big-money donors combined,” said Karl Rove, a political consultant and former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush."

So much for Yankee ingenuity and the free market

CIA are horn dogs!

What America "voted down" was personal responsibility. The average American now wants free shit. They think people owe them free shit. The Dems promise them free shit.

Problem is...somebody has to pay for that free shit. More and more it falls on the people who bust their ass...so the freeloaders can have their free shit.

Problem there is...iffen you keep making people bust their ass so they can buy freeloaders free shit...they get sick of it...a tax revolt is coming like we have never seen before. Unfortunately there are fewer people in numbers who carry this burden than the freeloaders. The Dems have basically had this as their platform since FDR. Unfortunately...it sells. Cuz there is more freeloaders than assbusters.

Sad day for America. Very sad. Thank you freeloaders!

THE PROBLEM WITH HEALTH CARE:

I got a cold last week. I've been powering Theraflu and Nyquil. Total cost $18.00 to date, plus missed a day at the office.

My wife got the same cold last week. She went to urgent care on Friday, then followed with her primary care physician yesterday. She's on antibiotics (her persistent "fever" - 99.7 degrees - and ear pressure *may* be due to an infection), Codeine cough syrup and an inhaler. Total cost: $40.00 in co-pays for the two Dr. visits, $45.00 co-pays for the prescriptions, plus whatever urgent care and the primary care physician bill the health plan (I'm guessing $200 each,less the copay), so call it $450.00, plus she missed 4 days of work.

I'd agree with ya wiz except something has to be done about the upper 1-2% getting more and more and more of the wealth of this country. the mideel 40 % are the one getting screwed. the upper 2% do nothing but absorb wealth from the rest of us.

petraeus needs to writ a book--I want to here what hes got to say about benghazi. hard to believe he resigned because of an affair if that s the case 1/2 of america should resign

ther has to be some other aspect of this.

rumor is that it was the CIA's responsibility for security in Benghazi.

crashcourse wrote:I'd agree with ya wiz except something has to be done about the upper 1-2% getting more and more and more of the wealth of this country.

the word "getting" needs to not only be removed from this sentence, it needs to be removed from your brain in how you think about the top 1 to 2%. Get this through your head, there is not some finite vat of wealth that is created from authentic 3rd world labour sweat

the top 1 to 2% CREATED IT out of thin air. They did not "get it" the way I go fishing and "get" a fish (if I'm lucky)

THE_WIZARD_ wrote:What America "voted down" was personal responsibility. The average American now wants free shit. They think people owe them free shit. The Dems promise them free shit.

Problem is...somebody has to pay for that free shit. More and more it falls on the people who bust their ass...so the freeloaders can have their free shit.

Problem there is...iffen you keep making people bust their ass so they can buy freeloaders free shit...they get sick of it...a tax revolt is coming like we have never seen before. Unfortunately there are fewer people in numbers who carry this burden than the freeloaders. The Dems have basically had this as their platform since FDR. Unfortunately...it sells. Cuz there is more freeloaders than assbusters.

Sad day for America. Very sad. Thank you freeloaders!

Personal responsibility is the single most perfect difference between conservatism and liberalism.

The 2012 election was the breaking point for the United States of America. We have proven that we are not responsible enough for self-rule. We need a Monarch who can not be VOTED OUT of office to tell us what we (as a society) can and can't afford.

Alexander Fraser Tytler wrote:A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

The people who want their "obamamoney" have taken over so we are fucked.

Repeal the 26th Amendment

End Women's Suffrage