Thursday, July 31, 2014

Is The Obama Administration Just A Reincarnation of TV's "Car 54" Sitcom?

We have never been a big fan of Barack Obama. We could go into all of the shortcomings of his administration and personal management style but we have already done that many times before. 

The most recent attempt at framing his failed administration was last month. At that time, we did a series of posts that covered 122 reasons why his administration justly deserves the recent and dubious honor of being viewed by a third of America in a Gallup poll as the worst Presidential administration since 1945. Those 122 reasons can be reviewed at your leisure at:

But those 122 distinct reasons still do not totally capture the feeling and sense of why this is a failed administration. It is more a sense of disinterest that this President often has in doing his job. He is more like a prince than a President. He likes his photo ops with athletic teams and famous celebrities rather than the nitty gritty details and tedium of actually governing. 

He loves to travel the world giving speeches or going on vacations, all paid for by the American taxpayer. 

He loves to play golf even when world events are crying out for his attention and leadership. 

Fundraisers and schmoozing are more important to him even when Americans are desperately fighting for their lives in Benghazi. 

Princely behavior, yes. Presidential leadership, no.

All of these actions and his overall inattention to governing led me to the startling conclusion that he is not very different from an old 1960s sitcom television show, "Car 54". The theme music to the show went as follows (for younger readers, Idlewild was the name of JFK airport in New York City prior to the Kennedy assassination, Khruschev was the Russian Premier at that time):

There's a hold-up in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights,
There's a traffic jam in Harlem
That's backed up to Jackson Heights.
There's a Scout troop short a child,
Khrushchev's due at Idlewild,
CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?

(music)

There's a hold-up in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights,
There's a traffic jam in Harlem
That's backed up to Jackson Heights.
There's a Scout troop short a child,
Khrushchev's due at Idlewild,
CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?

The YouTube version of the original TV show theme song can be seen and heard at:


Which got me to thinking: the lead characters in the Car 54 series, Toody and Muldoon, were not much different than this President. They always seemed to be out of contact and unreachable, besides being incompetent in their job, when crises were going down. 

What would it take to adapt the Car 54 theme song to this Presidential administration? In a few hours of scribbling, I found out that Car 54 really was not much different than this Presidency:

Unemployment is appalling,
GDP it keeps on falling,
Putin’s warring in the Ukraine,
Malaysia lost another airplane,
Cartels are on the border,
Chi-town has no law and order,
BARACK OBAMA WHERE ARE YOU?

Christians slaughtered in Iraq,
Federal debt is out of whack,
Constitution getting shredded,
While veterans can’t get medics,
Middle East is under fire,
Obama Care cost going higher,
BARACK OBAMA WHERE ARE YOU?

Foreign girls are being taken,
But your golf game’s not forsaken,
Hoping soon you’ll start to lead,
Your fundraisers serve no need,
Your promises have been broke,
Your photo ops are a joke,
BARACK OBAMA WHERE ARE YOU?

Sad but true even if done in a comical light. There is a whole lot of angst, death, war, and misery going on in the world but that seems to be secondary to this President, and this Congress, as most if not all of them are about to embark on a long, carefree summer vacation.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no musical talent at all so I am totally unable to take the above parody words and translate them into a good sounding, musical parody of this administration using the Car 54 theme music. If anyone out there wants to take that step, I welcome your musical ability to try your best shot of adopting these words to the Car 54 theme music. I would be more than happy to share your creation in this blog, its related Twitter page, and several Facebook pages that promote freedom and liberty. 

Who knows, these words with your musical talents, might finally wake up some people in this country and show them that we are being served by a Washington political class that is no more competent or serious than a 1960s television sitcom. Good luck!

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




July, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 5: Has The Obama Care Death Spiral Begun and Other Fiascos

Yes, the world has been a mess lately. Fighting in the Gaza Strip, downed airliners, Russians fighting Ukrainians, the economy still stagnant, Iraq being torn apart, Syrian civil war still killing thousands, veterans still not getting the proper medical treatment, a border that is a humanitarian crisis, etc. In the background though, has been the continuing and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

We have had to devote many posts every month to this fiasco since last August. The fallout from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington just keeps on giving and messing up Americans’ lives. This month is no exception. We will probably need most of this week to cover it all, that is how bad the law is many, many months after it was rolled out in such a disastrous manner last fall. 

As with previous months, we will stop talking about Obama Care’s disasters this month with today’s post, not because we ran out of material but because it can get so depressing going over the damage the legislation is doing to lives, health, freedom and the economy.

This is our fifth update post for this month’s Obama Care disasters. The first post can be accessed at:

1) How many people really did sign up for Obama Care insurance policies and took advantage of its supposed benefits? The Obama administration claims that 8 million Americans received insurance coverage, courtesy of the legislation. But the Heritage Fundaiton peeled back that claim of 8 million to show that this is really a gross number that needs to be adjusted downwards to get a true picture of what really happened:
  • While 8 million may have actually signed up for Obama Care insurance policies, reputable sources indicate that only between 80 and 90% of them actually activated their policy by paying some money.
  • Thus, if we remove the non-payers, using 85% as a good estimate for the number of enrollees who actually paid, we end up with only about 6.8 million paying Obama Care customers.
  • Other research has shown that only about half of Obama Care enrollees were new to having insurance, i.e. they did not have insurance coverage prior to the rollout of Obama Care.
  • This means that about the other of enrollees were nothing more than churn in the marketplace, from one existing insurance policy type to another policy type from Obama Care.
  • Thus, the actual number of incremental, newly insured Americans, the whole intent of Obama care to begin with, is about 50% of 6.8 million or only about 3.9 million.
  • This is less than half of what the administration claimed was its target of 7 million newly insured Americans as a result of the legislation.
  • If you believe the supporters of Obama Care when they claim the legislation was supposed to help the 56 million uninsured Americans get insurance coverage, we find that using some simple math that the first wave of Obama Care pure, non-incremental paying enrollees cover less than 7% of the uninsured population. 
  • Even if we assume that not all of the 56 million would be eligible or approproiate for Obama Care policies, the rate of enrollment so far is still less than 10%, as illustrated by this heritage Foundation graphic:













Since rates for Obama Care policies are likely to go up and in some states go up substantially in 2015, it is doubtful that the next open enrollment period will do much better than the first enrollment period when attention was high and rates were lower. 

Pretty pathetic performance given it was years and billions of dollars in the making with widespread media coverage. A detailed analysis of Obama Care’s impacts, both pro and con, can be accessed at:


2) As we have mentioned many times before in this blog and on this topic, we would never want to deny any American access to a doctor or medical professional. However, one of the other negative aspects of Obama Care is that by providing more access to health insurance for what is a disappointing number of enrollees, the legislation never effectively figured out how to get more doctors available to handle this higher work load. 

As a result of the legislation and other factors, the country is facing a severe shortage of doctors, especially general practitioner doctors to handle America’s medical needs. Which gets us to a potential piece of Obama Care irony: the good news is that you now have health insurance, the bad news is there are not enough doctors for you to take advantage of your new insurance. 

A June 14, 2014 article from USAToday summarized some of these issues quite nicely:
  • The country is expected to need 52,000 more primary care physicians by 2025, according to a study by the Robert Graham Center, which does family medicine policy research. 
  • However, despite Obama Care, Federal funding for teaching hospitals that could train thousands more of these doctors expires in late 2015.
  • Population growth will require 33,000 additional physicians, the aging population will require 10,000 additional doctors and Obama Care is expected to increase the number of family doctors needed by more than 8,000, the study says.
  • Farzan Bharucha, a health care strategist with consulting firm Kurt Salmon, says the ACA should have focused more on the primary care shortage "because we already knew there was a problem -- and we knew implementation of ACA would potentially make it worse."
  • The Obama Care legislation came up far short in this area, providing funding for 600 new primary care residencies. 
  • So while Obama Care is not the primary driver of our doctor shortage, it certainly is a significant factor contributing to the shortage, a reality that the Obama Care supporters never truly understood and a reality that will eventually affect every American.
3) The words “death spiral” is starting to crop up relative to a lot of Obama Care news coverage. One reason for such talk is the reality that when the Obama Care health care exchanges went live last year, most new customers were expected to enroll in the least expensive “bronze” plans. 

However, a recent HHS report “Premium Affordability, Competition, and Choice in the Health Insurance Marketplace, 2014,” shows a much larger-than-expected number of Americans enrolling in the “silver” plans. This could indicate that the exchanges are getting a mix of customers that are older and sicker than what the insurance companies and the Obama administration expected and planned for. 

This could mean higher policy prices going forward that may cause many healthier customers to drop their Obama Care policies which would require higher insurance premiums going forward which would force out more customers, etc. = death spiral.

According to David Hogberg of the National Center for Public Policy Research the key indicator to watch for the beginning of the death is to watch how much insurance premiums rise in the coming months. The fact that insurance companies in Arizona, Ohio, Vermont and Washington state have already asked for premium increases anywhere from 12 to 26% could be a precursor to the death spiral, since according to Hogberg: “If we see really high increases like that, there’s going to be a lot of incentive for young and health people who aren’t getting very big subsidies or getting no subsidy at all to drop out of the exchanges.”

Given that no one is denying that the percentage of younger, healthier enrollees is far below what the expectations and need was and we now know that a higher percentage of policies sold were Silver and not Bronze, it will not be surprising that the future betting on Obama Care is not whether or not it survives but rather when will it die from its own weight and ineptness.

4) You cannot go too wrong in life if you listen to the views, opinions, and experiences of smart people than if you listen to the views of politicians. First of all, politicians have been known to lie and usually have a long track record of non-accomplishments beyond their own self-enrichment.

Smart people on the other hand, are creative, good problem solvers, and innovative. That goes many times over for the original developers of Google, a non-entity until recently and now one of the most powerful companies in the world. Given that success, I tend to listen to the founders of Google when the talk.

In a recent CATO Institute interview from July 10, 2014, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page has some pretty damning comments about Obama Care when they were asked, “Can you imagine Google becoming a health company?”

Brin responded: Health is just so heavily regulated, it’s just a painful business to be in. It’s just not necessarily how I want to spend my time. Even though we do have some health projects, and we’ll be doing that to a certain extent. But I think the regulatory burden in the U.S. is so high that I think it would dissuade a lot of entrepreneurs.

Page responded: I am really excited about the possibility of data also to improve health. But I think that’s what Sergey’s saying. It’s so heavily regulated, it’s a difficult area…I do worry, you know, we kind of regulate ourselves out of some really great possibilities.

If two of the most innovative and creative people in the country want nothing to do with health care because of government regulations and heavy handedness, that tells me something and that something is not good.

5) And finally for today and this month’s updates, consider a recent Washington Examiner editorial on Obama Care’s costs and the high likelihood of even higher costs next year:
  • The Examiner editorial starts off with that famous false Obama promise that insurance premiums would go down by $2,500 per year for the average family, a reality that never took place. 
  • The editorial also cites an analysis we have already discussed, an analysis done by the Manhattan Institute which found that individual market insurance premiums have increased by 49% on average in 2014 after the most recent round of Obama Care regulations went into effect compared to prior to the legislation.
  • Some of these increases were much worse in some places than others. The average 27-year-old man in Miami, for example, is now pays 59% more this year than in 2013.
  • In Philadelphia, that same man is paying 68% more.
  • In both Las Vegas and Little Rock, the rates for 27-year-old women more than doubled, and the rates for men of that age more than tripled. 
  • In North Carolina, rates for 64-year-old men and women nearly tripled as Obama Care took effect.
  • In Colorado, a unique state where Obama Care actually did bring down premium rates in 2014, instate insurance companies are now planning to claw recover lost profits, with the result that some customers will face increases as high as 35%.
  • Indiana citizens will soon pay, on average, about three times as much ($514 per month) for individual market insurance plans as they paid in 2013 ($174 per month.) 
The closing paragraph in the Examiner editorial does a great job of summing up would could have been, what should have been, but what we ended up with: a Rube Goldberg type of insanity, was driven by political class hubris and vanity, making life for Americans more dangerous, more costly, and more stressful than before: 

This brings to mind one of Obamacare's most important lessons about government overreach. A simple expansion of Medicaid or a law assisting people who were uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions could likely have insured as many new people as Obamacare without being so unpopular. But Obama grandiosely insisted on the kind of “fundamental transformation” of American health insurance. That's why Obamacare has disrupted the already-insured and made health insurance significantly less affordable for millions of middle-class families.

Higher costs, less choice, less freedom, economic hinderance, more fraud, higher debt, this is the Obama Care legacy. And I am sure it will be the same disastrous legacy that we discuss when we touch on the subject again.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




Tuesday, July 29, 2014

July, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 4: New York Insurance Prices To Rise, More Broken Obama Care Promises, and More

Yes, the world has been a mess lately. Fighting in the Gaza Strip, downed airliners, Russians fighting Ukrainians, the economy still stagnant, Iraq being torn apart, Syrian civil war still killing thousands, veterans still not getting the proper medical treatment, a border that is a humanitarian crisis, etc. In the background though, has been the continuing and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

We have had to devote many posts every month to this fiasco since last August. The fallout from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington just keeps on giving and messing up Americans’ lives. This month is no exception. We will probably need most of this week to cover it all, that is how bad the law is many, many months after it was rolled out in such a disastrous manner last fall. 

As with previous months, we will likely stop talking about it this month not because we ran out of material but because it can get so depressing going over the damage the legislation is doing to lives, health, freedom and the economy.

1) The Minority Report website recently did a short article that highlighted some of the recent news reports relative to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Given how poorly the legislation was constructed, written, and implemented, it is no surprise that the negative coverage of the mess it has caused is pretty widespread:
  • New IG Report Reveals ‘Defective’ Obamacare System That Could ‘Jeopardize Coverage For Millions’: “Although the Federal marketplace received documentary evidence from applicants related to inconsistencies, it could not resolve the inconsistencies because the system functionality to resolve inconsistencies had not been fully developed.” (HHS Inspector General Report, p. 21, 7/1/14)
  • Senator Mitch McConnell: “‘It now appears that the Administration’s promises to protect taxpayers from wasteful and fraudulent payments will join ‘if you like your plan, you can keep it’ and lower premiums as just the latest in a string of Obamacare’s broken promises.’”(Senator McConnell, 7/1/14)
  • ‘Data Discrepancies,’ ‘Inconsistencies,’ ‘Defective’ System: “The Obama administration has been struggling to clear up data discrepancies that could potentially jeopardize coverage for millions under the health overhaul, the government’s health care fraud watchdog reported Tuesday.”(AP, 7/1/14)
  • “The Health and Human Services inspector general said the administration was not able to resolve 2.6 million so-called ‘inconsistencies’ out of a total of 2.9 million such problems in the federal insurance exchange from October through December 2013.” (AP, 7/1/14)
  • “… potentially hundreds of thousands of people are receiving bigger subsidies than they deserve. … Under current rules, people receiving unwarranted subsidies will be required to return the excess next year.” (The Washington Post, 5/16/14)
  • “A family of four with an annual income of $80,000 could be required to repay as much as $2,500.” (The New York Times, 6/15/14)
  • “…important aspects of the Web site remain defective — or simply unfinished.” (The Washington Post, 5/16/14)
These reports and realities of the Obama Care disaster do not just come from those opposed to the whole concept of Obama Care. These observations and opinions come from the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the Inspector General, etc., sources of news and information that generally do not lean towards the right side of the political spectrum. 

This lends credibility to the assumption that yes indeed, Obama Care is as bad as it appears to be when it comes to defective systems, fraudulent subsidy payments, bad data and information, and a whole host of other operational and financial problems.

3) President Obama was basically crowned the top political liar for 2013 when three of his lies made the top ten political lies list of the Washington Post for last year. His promises that if you like your current insurance policy, doctor, or hospital you could keep it under Obama Care, that the average American family would see their annual health care costs go down $2,500, that signing up Obama Care would be simple and easy via the online exchanges, and a host of other broken promises gave him that well deserved attention on the Post’s top political lies in 2013.

But the lies and deceptions did not stop with him. Consider the compilation of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s deceptions and/or ignorance relative to Obama Care’s capabilities and promises, a list also compiled by the Minority Report:
  • “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius promised to thoroughly vet the salary information that people submitted as part of their health insurance applications.” (The Washington Post, 5/16/14). 
  • HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius: “I certify that the American Health Benefit Exchanges (Marketplaces) verify that applicants for advance payments of the premium tax credit and cost-sharing reductions are eligible for such payments and reductions, consistent with the requirements of section 1411 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act…” (Sec. Sebelius, Letter To Vice President Biden, 1/1/14)
  • HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius: ‘numerous systems and processes to carry out these verifications’ “As required by the Affordable Care Act and implementing regulations, when a consumer applies for insurance affordability programs, including advance payments of the premium tax credit and cost – sharing reductions, the Marketplace verifies application information provided by the consumer when making an eligibility determination. The Department of Health and Human Services has issued regulations that detail these procedures, and the Marketplaces have implemented numerous systems and processes to carry out these verifications…” (Sec. Sebelius, Letter To Vice President Biden, 1/1/14)
Obviously none of these commitments and statements have come true or were ever true, given the news reports and Inspector General’s findings. Makes you wonder if she was just that ignorant of what she was supposedly in charge of or was being deliberately deceptive to cover up the fact that what she was supposed to deliver she could not deliver. In either case, just another unfolding disaster and deception of Obama Care.

3) A recent New York Post article reviewed some of the rate increase information that was becoming available for new York state residents who were Obama Care policy customers. Highlights of their findings include the following information:
  • Overall, Obama Care participating insurance firms are looking for double-digit hikes for insurance policy premiums in 2015.
  • While the overall average 2015 cost increase is about 12%, a number of insurance companies, mostly those serving large numbers of Obama Care customers, want to boost individual premiums by nearly 20%.
  • Excellus Health Plan is seeking a 19.7% increase for its more than 24,000 customers.
  • MVP Health Plan, with nearly 33,000 customers, wants a 19% increase.
  • Health Republic Insurance of New York, the largest insurer of Obama Care policies with more than 68,000 customers, asked for a 15.2% increase for individual plans.
  • Unitedhealthcare wants a 12.5% increase for small group plans, but a decrease of 2.4% for individual plans.
  • In some letters to customers, insurers cited requirements in Obama Care as contributing to the proposed rate increases, i.e., the legislation requires that all policies include features that add expense but may not have value to many customers.
In other words, New York citizens will be experiencing what the rest of the country is or will be experiencing; big insurance costs increases rather than that elusive $2,500 health care cost REDUCTION the President falsely promised.

But this should not surprise anyone. Many times when the Washington political class tries to resolve a problem, their lack of problem definition and resolution skills often make the original problem even worse. Obama Care is a textbook example of such ineptness.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




July, 2014, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 3: Costs Still Going Up, deaths Panels on The Horizon, and Dying While Waiting

Yes, the world has been a mess lately. Fighting in the Gaza Strip, downed airliners, Russians fighting Ukrainians, the economy still stagnant, Iraq being torn apart, Syrian civil war still killing thousands, veterans still not getting the proper medical treatment, a border that is a humanitarian crisis, etc. In the background though, has been the continuing and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

We have had to devote many posts every month to this fiasco since last August. The fallout from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington just keeps on giving and messing up Americans’ lives. This month is no exception. We will probably need most of this week to cover it all, that is how bad the law is many, many months after it was rolled out in such a disastrous manner last fall. 

As with previous months, we will likely stop talking about it this month not because we ran out of material but because it can get so depressing going over the damage the legislation is doing to lives, health, freedom and the economy.

This is our third update post for this month’s Obama Care disasters. The first post can be accessed at:


1) The Washington Examiner ran an article on July 10, 2014 by Philip Klein that discussed the coming rate increases that Obama care policy holders are likely to experience in 2015. Highlights from that article include the following:
  • One driver of higher premium costs in 2015 is the fact that Obama Care policies must offer a certain, large set of benefits and services regardless of the specific needs of a specific customer, a set of benefits that is expensive and often unneeded but required by the law.
  • The second cost amplifying reason is that insurers are now required to accept anyone who applies, including those with pre-existing conditions, so that their costs go up which means everyone’s premiums eventually must also go up. 
  • Obama Care also limits the amount that insurers can charge older and sicker patients relative to younger and healthier patients, driving the costs up for the latter group who end up subsidizing the care of older, sicker customers.
  • Obama Care will collect over $100 billion in taxes on insurance plans between 2014 and 2022. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that the taxes “would be largely passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums for private coverage.”
  • A June, 2014 detailed county-level analysis of insurance premiums by Avik Roy and a team at the Manhattan Institute found that, on average, individual market premiums jumped by 49% in 2014 as compared to 2013, likely due to the reasons listed above.
  • A PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis of premiums across 18 states in which insurers have submitted filings for next year, found that in 2015, rates would be going up in those states by an average of more than 7%. 
  • In six of those states, increases are likely to be in the double digits.
  • According to eHealth, a website for purchasing medical coverage, the average monthly rate for health insurance premiums in Indiana was $172 in 2013. But by 2015, according the PricewaterhouseCoopers study, the state average will be $514, about three times higher after Obama Care is implemented.
  • On top of all of these upward forcing pressures, the only factor keeping the rates from not going higher is the fact is that insurance companies have responded to Obama Care by reducing the choice of doctors and hospitals offered in their plans. This helps cap costs but results in increasingly narrow and inferior medical care and choices.
No surprises here to anyone who has read our ongoing commentary on Obama Care. Many other analysts and researchers have come to the same conclusion, namely that Obama Care is doing the opposite of what the President promised it would do. It is causing insurance costs to spike higher rather than decrease an average of $2,500 a year for an average American family.

2) We have seen the ever widening scandal at the Veterans Administration where it appears that the Federal government has been quite inept in providing care to our veterans. The fear, of course, is that the same incompetence and huge expense will occur as Obama Care rolls out and costs us much more with minimal benefit in return.

A recent report out of Great Britain adds more evidence to the argument that governments and politicians are quite incapable of operating a nationwide health system in an effective and efficient manner. Details of their latest nationalized health care scandal includes the following details:
  • The Royal College of Surgeons recently issued a report claiming that the British National Health Services (NHS) is denying life-saving operations because of age discrimination in defiance of the law. 
  • Recently uncovered documents prove for the first time that across large areas of the Britian no patients above the age of 75 are “receiving surgery for breast cancer or routine operations such as gall bladder removal and knee replacements.” 
  • This should not come a surprise since nine years ago, back in 2005, the British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a research report that predicted exactly what this latest report asserts: older citizens could be denied health care services because of a lack of funding combined with their advanced age. NICE concluded that it would just not be economically expedient to provide care for these older (and sicker) citizens.
  • Because of budget considerations, the 2005 NICE report suggested that “patients could be denied certain health treatments because of their age.”
Can you say death panels? Maybe Sarah Palin was right after all. It is apparently happening in Great Britain when the government started running out of money to operate is version of nationalized health care. Given the ever escalating cost of Obama Care and the shoddy treatment of out vets relative to Federal government managed health care, who is to say the same thing will not be going on here as costs go up but funding levels cannot keep up. 

3) The saddest part of Obama Care is the reality that some Americans have already died as a result of the legislation. The Heritage Foundation recently reported on a recent fatality caused by Obama Care:
  • A Nevada woman with a brain tumor who sued Nevada’s Obama Ccare exchange contractor for delayed coverage died recently as a result of complications from her illness.
  • The woman, Linda Rolain, was among 150 Nevadans suing the contractor Xerox for lack of coverage via the Obama Care processes.
  • Ms. Rolain’s lawyers issued the following statement as a result of her death: “We are worried that this is the first of many Nevadans who have life-threatening issues that may end up in such tragic circumstances.” 
  • Rolain was diagnosed with the brain tumor in early 2014 but was unable to receive treatment for her cancer for months after her diagnosis due to enrollment problems with the state’s Obama Care exchange, Nevada Health Link.
  • Her husband, Robert Rolain, asserts that his wife’s tumor went from treatable to fatal as they awaited coverage. 
  • According to Las Vegas insurance broker Pat Casale, who helped Rolain with her enrollment issues, he knows several people who are “in serious need of care” but aren’t receiving it despite the fact that they’ve paid Obama Care insurance premiums: “This poor lady was told in January that she needed immediate attention. Her doctor said if she had begun treatment in March, he might been able to give her quality of care, and she might have lived longer. She had no chance because of the delay.”
This is what happens when politicians decide they know what is best for us, people die that did not need to die. Obama Care, even though it is a horrible piece of legislation, was not ready for reality when it was prematurely and selfishly rolled out last fall. 

The Federal government and the politicians who operate it had billions of dollars and years for the preparation of the program and still could not get it done. As a result, people are dying as they wait for the Obama Care mess to somehow mend itself, a miracle that is not likely to happen anytime soon or at anytime at all.

People are dying, costs are going up, and a clone of Obama Care in England has basically devolved into a death panel medical system. And there is more to come in the next few days, the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




Monday, July 28, 2014

July, 2014 Update, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 2: An Incompetent Enrollment Process, Likely Cost Increases In Florida, and More

Yes, the world has been a mess lately. Fighting in the Gaza Strip, downed airliners, Russians fighting Ukrainians, the economy still stagnant, Iraq begin torn apart, Syrian civil war still killing thousands, veterans still not getting the proper medical treatment, a border that is a humanitarian crisis, etc. In the background though, has been the continuing and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

We have had to devote many posts every month to this fiasco since last August. The fallout from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington just keeps on giving and messing up Americans’ lives. This month is no exception. We will probably need most of this week to cover it all, that is how bad the law is many, many months after it was rolled out in such a disastrous manner last fall. 

As with previous months, we will likely stop talking about it this month not because we ran out of material but because it can get so depressing going over the damage the legislation is doing to lives, health, freedom and the economy.

1) Besides the big problem Obama Care is facing that we discussed yesterday, namely that a court ruling may have gutted the main thrust of the legislation which was to give out subsidies to low income Americans to purchase overpriced and under featured Obama Care insurance policies, the logistics and operations of the entire effort continues to be a disaster.

The General Accountability Office of the Federal government recently announced that it had completed a sting operation on the sign up process of the Obama Care process. What they found was very discouraging, but not surprising, given how poorly every other aspect of failed to meet even minimal standards of quality:
  • Despite using totally fake ids, undercover GAO investigators were able to obtain taxpayer-subsidized health care coverage in 11 of 12 attempts, according to Associated Press reporting.
  • This latest disgrace and dysfunction appears focused on Obama Care call centers that handle applications from those people who were unable able to enroll in the system via online the online exchanges.
  • Members of Congress had some correct if cynical, remarks about non-existent people being able to get enrolled in Obama Care policies. Congressman Dave Camp said the GAO finding is just more proof that Obama Care is rife with “incompetence, waste and the potential for fraud.” Senator Orrin Hatch said: “Obama Care is working really well — for those who don’t exist.”
It seems ironic and pitiful that many of our real, living, breathing veterans cannot get basic medical care from the Federal government but fictitious people have no trouble getting health insurance coverage from the same Federal government. Talk about incompetence.

2) Not surprisingly, more states are finding out that the premiums likely to be paid next year on Obama Care policies will be much higher than today’s premiums. Kaiser Health News recently did a story on what is going on in Florida relative to the latest cost increase news. Highlights of their report include the following:
  • The top executive of Florida Blue, the state’s largest health insurance carrier, recently went public with the announcement that his Obama Care customers will see an increase in their policy costs in 2015.
  • Apparently, the company, which picked up the most Obama Care enrollees in the state, were stuck with a larger percentage of older and sicker patients than they expected.
  • In addition to not getting enough younger and healthy enrollees, the company ended up paying more than expected for people seeking more expensive health services: “We will be under tremendous financial pressure initially given the age, risk profile and high utilization of the new membership. It is far from clear that large enrollment in the marketplace is a financially beneficial place to be.” 
  • In other words, expect your Obama Care policy premiums to go up next year because we are getting killed financially by those same policies.
  • Florida Blue has not yet gone public with its 2015 rate increases, that information will be made available in a few weeks but the news does not sound good for none or minimal rate hikes.
  • About 23% of those who bought Obama Care policies from Florida Blue this year were in the 18-to-34 age category, far below the national rate of 28% and farther below the 40% threshold that the Federal government said was needed for the entire Obama Care process to be viable.
Another state whose residents will probably not see their annual health care costs go down $2,500 as promised by the President. But that should not come as a surprise since we have not seen ANY state whose health care costs went down enough to justify that claim.

3) Given how poorly every aspect of Obama Care has unfolded so far, is there any hope that it will work itself out for the greater good over the next decade or so? If you believe the latest forecasts from the Congressional Budget Office, the answer to that question is not good. 

Remember, one of the utmost, primary goals of Obama Care was to get affordable health insurance coverage for every American. That is why it is officially called the “Affordable Healthcare Act.” But that primary goal will not be attained, even ten years from now, according to the Congressional Budget Office‘s April forecast of what will happen to enrollment in health care plans from 2015 to 2024:
  • By 2024, about 31 million Americans will still remain uninsured.
  • Starting with an estimate that 56 million Americans did not have health insurance coverage prior to Obama Care, that number will be reduced by 25 million people who will purchase Obama care coverage in the exchanges in the next ten years.
  • 13 million more Americans will gain health insurance coverage coverage through the dysfunctional Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program as a result of Obama Care.
  • 7 million Americans will lose health insurance coverage from their employees as a result of Obama Care.
  • 5 million fewer Americans will carry individual coverage directly from an insurer.
  • Add all of these additions and subtractions up, account for rounding, and we find that the official CBO estimate forecasts 31 million Americans will still be uninsured in 2024.
Even more discouraging, the CBO estimates that the reduction in uninsured will come at a cost to the country, its taxpayers, and its economy of $1.8 TRILLION over those ten years. If we divide the net gain in insured Americans, about 25 million, into the cost of insuring them, $1.8 TRILLION, simple math shows that it will cost an amazing and mind numbing $75,000 per person to insure those under an Obama Care policy.

It is an amazing and stupefying cost and yet, despite the high cost, more than half of today’s uninsured Americans are still uninsured ten years from now. Failure is the only way to describe such a high cost to meet less than half of the overall and primary goal of the entire Obama Care operation. There has to be a simpler, more effective way.

4) We have often made the case in past Obama Care posts that the legislation, as it is written, hinders economic and employment growth in so many ways. That reality was reinforced recently n a Heritage Foundation interview with Billie Baggett of IHT Staffing, a temp agency located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Under financial and work hour pressure to comply with the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Baggett claims many South Carolina businesses are cutting back by hiring more part-time rather than full time employees. He points out that while unemployment levels have dropped, to pre-recession levels at 6.1% nationally, his staffing agency work in South Carolina shows that this number may be skewed. Many employees have returned to work, but in new part time positions.

He blames Obama Care for the shrinking work week and the growth in part time vs. full time hiring: “I would say 90% of our employers, businesses today, are hiring part-time as opposed to full-time, because of the Affordable Healthcare Act.” 

A primary provision of the 2009 law, the employer mandate, requires all business with more than 50 workers to provide healthcare benefits to full-time employees. The law defines a full time employee as any employee who works more than 30 hours a week. While the Obama administration has put off this employer mandate until 2015, Baggett believes that it still discourages business from filling full time posts: “It’s not something a corporation wants to do.” 

James Sherk, a senior economic analyst at The Heritage Foundation, agrees and believes that the Obama Care employer mandate has already affected the job market, the economy, and predicts additional downsides in the future: “Obama Care will further reduce hours by increasing the costs of hiring full-time employees while discouraging workers from working full-time. Fewer work hours will impede income mobility for low-wage workers.”

That will do it for today. More of the same for those affected already by Obama Care: faulty and criminal fraud-ready sign up processes, likely insurance premium cost increases in Florida, failure to reach fully insurance status in ten years despite an astronomical cost of failing to do so, and the continuing proof that Obama Care is stifling earnings, work hours, and the economy.

And we still have a lot more disasters to cover in this month’s Obama Care disaster updates.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




Sunday, July 27, 2014

July, 2014, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 1: Court Guts the Legislation and Obama's Promised Savings Still Lost In Space

Yes, the world has been a mess lately. Fighting in the Gaza Strip, downed airliners, Russians fighting Ukrainians, the economy still stagnant, Iraq begin torn apart, Syrian civil war still killing thousands, veterans still not getting the proper medical treatment, a border that is a humanitarian crisis, etc. In the background though, has been the continuing and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

We have had to devote many posts every month to this fiasco since last August. The fallout from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington just keeps on giving and messing up Americans’ lives. This month is no exception. We will probably need most of this week to cover it all, that is how bad the law is many, many months after it was rolled out in such a disastrous manner last fall. 

As with previous months, we will likely stop talking about it this month not because we ran out of material but because it can get so depressing going over the damage the legislation is doing to lives, health, freedom, and the economy.

1) The most recent, most fascinating and likely most uplifting news about Obama Care we have ever seen came about last week as a result of a court decision. Before we get into the decision, let’s review how Obama and his Congressional cohorts set up the law in the first place:
  • The centerpiece of the legislation was the concept of setting up state government developed and operated health insurance exchanges.
  • These exchanges were to be online, Internet portals where theoretically a person could log on to the exchange’s website, put in some personal and financial information, and be offered a wide ranging set of Obama Care health insurance policies to choose from to insure themselves and/or their families.
  • Additionally, if the person or family applying via the exchange for insurance had a low enough income level, they would be offered Federal subsidies to help defray the cost of their Obama Care insurance policy.
  • If a state did not establish an Obama Care exchange in their state, an option that was written into the law, then citizens in those states could still get Obama Care insurance coverage via the national Federal online insurance exchange.
  • The Obama administration offered two incentives to encourage the states to set up their own Obama Care exchanges. The first incentive was monetary support for the programming and development of the state’s exchange software.
  • The second incentive was the requirement that those Federal subsidies to help defray the cost would only be available to citizens in states that had built their own online Obama care exchange. Anyone who got their Obama Care insurance via the Federal exchange were explicitly made NOT eligible for subsidies in the legislation.
Thus, the writers and supporters of the law thought they had everything covered by offering the two incentives, exchange development money, and subsidies to only state exchange customers, and that these incentives would be enough to get most, if not all, states to develop their own exchanges.

However, their logic backfired when a large majority of state governments said no thanks to both incentives and defaulted their citizens to the Federal exchange, an option that the legislation prevented those people from getting subsidies. When the backfire became clear, the Obama administration blatantly ignored the legislation itself and illegally proclaimed that everyone, regardless of what exchange they used, would get subsidies, a clear violation of the language of the law.

Well, it did not take long for the lawyers and lawsuits to get started and last week the DC district court ruled that the administration had violated its own law by unilaterally voiding the Federal exemption portion of the law. If this decision holds throughout the appeals process, millions of Americans would lose financial help in paying for their Obama Care policies which would likely result in the great many of them cancelling their Obama Care insurance policies.

Renee Nal, writing for the Liberty Unyielding website, had the following observations and media clips regarding this potentially fatal ruling for the worst piece of legislation ever enacted:
  • The majority of people who sign up for Obama Care are expecting to be subsidized by the taxpayer in order to keep their insurance affordable but the ruling “threw out a federal regulation that implements key subsidies that are vital” to the survival of the Affordable Care Act.
  • According to Reuters: “The ruling has the potential to cripple the implementation of the law by making health insurance unaffordable for many people.
  • According by the Daily Caller last month: “According to the data from federally-run Obama Care exchanges alone, subsidies will cost $11 billion — and if state-run exchange customers qualify for subsidies at the same rate, Obama Care subsidies will total $16.5 billion for 2014 alone. The Congressional Budget Office last projected that subsidies would cost $10 billion in 2014.” That money would now be reduced dramtaically as a result fo the court ruling: good news for taxpayers, bad news for many policiy holders.
  • As reported last month by Newsweek, “[A]bout 85 percent of the 8 million people who have enrolled in private coverage under Obama Care sought subsidies, according to the administration."
Since the majority of Obama Care insurance customers got their policies via the Federal exchange, a majority of people who signed up for Obama Care will lose access to their expected subsidies. Once the subsidies go, Obama has the nation right back where it started four years ago and we would have wasted four years and billions and billions of dollars to insure and subsidize a very low percentage of customers. Pathetic piece of legislation.

2) The Heritage Foundation also had some thoughts and analysis on the court ruling and the potentially fatal impact it might have on the legislation:
  • Heritage finds that there will be severe ramifications if the decision survives appeals. First, as we explained above, only customers who got insurance coverage through a state exchanges would be able to get Federal subsidies. 
  • Individuals who used the Federal exchange would face costly premium increases as their subsidies were terminated.
  • Since the Obama care employer mandate penalties are linked to the availability of the subsidies, employers would now not be subject to the penalty in those states that did not establish a state exchange, taking the pressure off of businesses in those states to offer insurance to their employees or face fines.
  • Those states would now have a competitive business advantage over states that forced their in state businesses to comply with Obama Care, a factor that would encourage business development to a grow faster in those non-Obama Care exchange states.
  • Since some states did such a horrible job of setting up their state exchanges, many of them are terminating those state efforts and forcing their citizens to use the Federal exchange which would likely result in even more people not being eligible for Obama Care subsidies.
Heritage sees very few good options for the Obama administration as its key piece of legislation starts to unravel. They could try to amend the law via Congressional action but that is unlikely since the Republicans now control the House and the majority of Americans, as measured through opinion polls, do not like the legislation and want it terminated.

Additionally, many states who initially opted to not establish an exchange did so because by 2015 states are required by law to fund the operating expenses of the exchanges on their own. Furthermore, grant funding that was originally included in the law to help states establish state exchanges is gone, and it is highly unlikely Congress would be willing to appropriate additional funds toward this endeavor.

What a mess. People who thought they were getting low cost, subsidized insurance will now have that subsidy removed, likely resulting in cancelled policies, likely resulting in higher insurance rates for those Obama Care policy holders that still remain, likely resulting in more policies getting cancelled as premiums go up, likely resulting in insurance companies wanting to get out of the business of Obama Care altogether unless they get taxpayer bailout money, etc., etc., etc. 

This death spiral would likely terminate the law under its own incompetence and weight, which would be a good thing. However, as we mentioned above, we would have wasted four years and billions of dollars and be no closer to resolving the problem of ever rising health care costs. Maybe if Obama had listened to his critics back in 2009 and 2010 rather than assuming he knew best, progress on this problem would have been made rather than picking up the remnants of his own making.

3) Mark Meckler,wirting for the American Spectator had some interesting and depressing observations about Obama Care that we have touched on before but which are worth reviewing again here:
  • Recall that the President promised that the average American family would see their health care bill go down by about $2,500 a year.
  • But a county-by-county study by Forbes and the Manhattan Institute found that the average cost for individual, i.e. non-employer provided insurance, insurance policies actually rose by 49% on average rather than going down by $2,500 over the past few years. 
  • The people whose rates go up most are those who are young, healthy, and/or male which is not surprising since the whole underpinning of Obama Care was to get healthy, younger people to pay for the health care and insurance of older, sicker people.
  • The Forbes study found that individual health insurance rates went up in 80-90% of U.S. counties.
  • The law is going to force about a million low income people to pay up by assessing a financial penalty for those that did not sign up for an Obama Care policy.
  • Think about the idiocy of that last statement. A low income American who cannot afford health insurance is going to be forced to pay a penalty for being so poor and after paying the penalty will still not have health insurance. Insanity.
That will do it for Day One of this month’s coverage of the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Many more disasters to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




Friday, July 25, 2014

July, 2014, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and A Believer In Science - Part 5

Today is the final post in our update to a continuing theme in this blog, “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.” The justification for this series was the fact that I just got fed up being yelled at and called a whole slew of not nice names by people like Al Gore simply because I choose to look at the entire spectrum of global warming, and its rebranded them of climate change, rather than the rantings and ravings of people like Gore that look only at the science that supports their viewpoint and not at all science, both pro and con.

We could have devoted more than five days to the update, that is how fast and furious rebuttals and new research are coming along to prove that it is entirely possible and rational to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science. We will cover those trends in a future update but it is time to move on. I think we have made our point this week and again today that it is indeed Al Gore who is on the wrong side of science and reality.

Rather than try to have an adult conversation, people like Al Gore have caused us doubters racists, homophobes, science illiterates, etc. We maintain that if you look at ALL of the climate science, you will see the fallacy and emptiness of Gore-like viewpoints and rantings. To do anything else would not be scientific, it would be scientific heresy.

To view the dozens of posts we have done in the past where we quote famous and credible scientists, cite credible and independent reports, and use logic to show that the global warming scare and climate change mania is probably just that, scare tactics and mania, put the following phrase, “I am a global warming doubter” in the search box above to get a complete list of previous related posts. If you are an Al Gore fan, a dare you to read all of the science put forth in these posts before you commence with the name calling again.

Let’s see what new science evidence has come about since our last update to the theme, I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.”

1) The following research findings were published by the CATO Institute on May 29, 2014 in a piece written by Paul Knappenberger and Patrick Michaels. Another scientific paper has just been published that again finds no correlation between Arctic sea ice loss and extreme cold and wintery conditions across the U.S., something the Obama administration vainly tried to link together last winter during the coldest winter in recent memory in the country.

Colorado State climate researcher Elizabeth Barnes found that natural variability accounted for the polar votex, claiming it was impossible to make the correlation or find any data that linked human-caused global warming and the colder than normal weather. signal even if one were to exist in the vortex data (which there is no proof of). According to the CATO report, shortly after Ms. Barnes‘s findings, a group of prominent climate scientists wrote a letter to a prominent journal stating that drawing the type of connection that the White House was trying to do “was not scientifically advisable.”

In addition, more science and research backed up the conclusion that there was not human affecting behavior relative to the polar vortex. The additional research came from Thomas Ballinger of Kent State University/ His research team found that:
  • The magnitude of the 2014 “polar vortex” was really not that unusual from a historical perspective. 
  • His team, found that relative to vortex behavior across North America since 1948, that the 2014 polar vortex excursion into the country ranked only 6th in southerly extent and 7th in total area. In other words, other polar vortexes had existed in the 66 years, a half dozen of which were worse than the vortex of 2013-2014.
  • The researchers claimed that their work “revealed that the spatial features of the January 2014 [polar vortex over the U.S.] were not extreme relative to certain 1948-2013 Januaries.”
  • They also could not find a link between human manmade global warming/climate change, the northern ice cap, and the polar vortex, despite the Obama administration’s implying that a link existed.
More lies from this administration or just bad science from this administration? You choose but understand relative to other, credible scientists, the Obama administration is probably wrong again when it comes to asserting the reality of the climate.

2) Judith Curry is a professor and the chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, certainly someone with scientific credentials and credibility when it comes to the climate. She recently was interviewed in Australia by the website, Quadrant Online, to discuss her contrarian view that mankind is not causing global warming or extensive climate change. 

This view has gotten her on the bad side of those that want desperately to make that linkage with Scientific American branding her as “a heretic” who has “turned on her colleagues.” Probably her claim that doing science by consensus is not science has also not endeared her to those that claim global warming and climate change are the direct result of mankind’s activities.

Highlights/quotes of her interview include: 
  • I am mystified as to why President Obama and John Kerry are making such strong (and indefensible) statements about climate change. Particularly with regards to extreme weather events, their case is very weak. Especially at this time, given that much of the rest of the world is pulling back against commitments to reduce emissions and combat climate change.
  • Regarding the hiatus in warming [i.e. the Earth‘s temperature stopped rising about 19 years ago], I would say that this has not been adequately explained to the public, the IPCC certainly gave the issue short shrift. 
  • The hiatus is serving to highlight the importance of natural climate variability. If the hiatus continues a few more years, climate model results will seriously be called into question.
  • Basically, none [evidence that the missing heat from the past 19 years has gone deep into the oceans]. Observations below 2 km in the ocean are exceedingly rare, and it is only since 2005 that we have substantial coverage below 700 metres.
  • The result of this simplified framing of a wicked problem is that we lack the kinds of information to more broadly understand climate change and societal vulnerability.
  • The first place to start is to abandon the consensus-seeking approach to climate science that has been implemented by the IPCC. Scientists do not need to be consensual to be authoritative. Authority rests in the credibility of the arguments, which must include explicit reflection on uncertainties, ambiguities and areas of ignorance and more openness for dissent. The role of scientists should not be to develop political will to act by hiding or simplifying the uncertainties, either explicitly or implicitly, behind a negotiated consensus.
  • One of the unfortunate consequences of the focus on anthropogenic forcing of climate is that solar effects on climate have been largely neglected. I think that solar effects, combined with the large scale ocean-circulation regimes, presage continued stagnation in global temperatures for the next two decades.
  • The academic community has a lot invested in the case for anthropogenic climate change – substantial government funding, prestige, and political influence.
  • The establishment scientists who support the IPCC consensus do not debate sceptics, for two reasons. They do not wish to lend legitimacy to the sceptics and the sceptical positions. Secondly, the few public debates that have been held did not go well for the establishment scientists – formal, oral debate is not a format for which most scientists have experience.
A rational scientists looking at ALL of the data and research, I.e. using the traditional scientific method of research not the global warming consensus method of scientific research.

3) One of the biggest and probably more effective arguments put forward by global warming advocates is that the polar bears are becoming extinct because of the melting of the northern ice cap. Who could not get excited about saving the cute polar bears?

But apparently this is another global warming reality that is only a myth. New reports have reported that the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) has recently admitted to experienced zoologist and polar bear specialist Susan Crockford that the estimate they gace for the dwindling total number of polar bars in the Arctic was “simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand.”

Ms. Crockford is involved has been critical of official polar bear population estimates because of her research findings and her claim that the IUCN failed to include five large subpopulations of polar bears. Because of the uncertainty of the populations in these areas, PBSG did not include them in their official, shrinking population estimate, which may account for the shrinking population estimates.

How is this science when you just ignore data and reality and publish findings that are not true? Unfortunately, the false numbers become the perceived reality and that results in government and other actions that may not be necessary and may indeed be dangerous to all involved.
PBSG has for years said that global polar bear populations were between 20,000 and 25,000, but these estimates are likely much lower than how many polar bears are actually living in the world.

“Based on previous PBSG estimates and other research reports, it appears there are probably at least another 6,000 or so bears living in these regions and perhaps as many as 9,000 (or more) that are not included in any PBSG ‘global population estimate,’” Crockford wrote on her blog.

4) If you really want to look at reality, and real science and real data, may we suggest that you visit the following article from the Independent Journal Review:


This article has compiled 25 graphs, charts, and other images, from credible government and other sources, that prove you are likely right to be a global warming doubter and believer in science. A sample of these charts include the following:













5) And finally, I could go back and review everything we discussed this week. How the earth’s temperature stopped rising 19 years ago, proving just about every climate forecasting model to be wrong. We could review how politicians have used bogus data, made up data to prove their political point or angle with very little reality or science to back it up. We could remind you that anything the U.S. does to change its carbon habits will be futile unless the rest of the world, especially China, and India do the same.












We could do that summary but probably not as well as it was done by Amy Ridenour, writing for the National Center for public Policy Research blog in June, 2014:  

Top Ten Reasons Washington Should Not Impose New Global Warming Laws or Regulations

Top ten reasons why Washington should not inflict major new laws or regulations to combat global warming:

1. The world isn't warming. Scientists measuring surface temperatures and atmospheric temperatures using satellites - including scientists who believe in the global warming theory -- say the Earth hasn't warmed since the Clinton Administration.

2. Anti-global warming laws hurt people. All the major legislative and regulatory proposals to combat global warming kill jobs and disproportionately hurt lower income people and minorities.

3. The U.S. already leads the world in CO2 reduction and is a great role model. U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions fell 12.6 percent between 2005 and 2012, thanks to technology and conservation. Worldwide, CO2 emissions increased by 17.7 percent during the same period. Those who want the U.S. to set a good example should wake up and realize: we already are!

4. Global warming climate models don't work. Since 1979, over 96 percent of models predicted more future warming than took place. The models, run backward, also fail to predict past temperatures. Our climate system is extremely complex, and even the world's most knowledgeable scientists don't yet understand it.

5. Claims that 97 percent of scientists endorse the global warming theory are propaganda. To get to 97 percent, activists include every scientist who believes the Earth has warmed even a little, and that humans have paid even a small part, but activists use the 97 percent figure as if it represents only scientists who believe warming is catastrophically dangerous and overwhelmingly human-caused. Since even "skeptic" scientists believe the Earth has warmed somewhat since the 1800s, when the Little Ice Age ended, and almost everyone believes humans have played at least a small role in warming by building cities and using energy, that means skeptic scientists are included in the 97 percent figure, which then is used as "evidence" that skeptic scientists are wrong.

6. The IPCC is a political, not scientific, body. The IPCC is a United Nations agency that scientists have quit in protest after governments re-wrote their work to fit an agenda. One Harvard professor recently said the IPCC's "summary for policymakers" should be called the "summary BY policymakers" because the policymakers actually write it for themselves. One IPCC meeting he attended had two scientists and 45-50 government officials at work on the summary document.

7. Global warming believers change their predictions. As their temperature predictions have not come true, activists have desperately started blaming global warming for hurricanes, tornadoes and even cold weather. But climate has natural variations, hurricanes and tornadoes have not increased, and snow and colder winters don't prove global warming. When Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his preaching and movie-making about global warming, he claimed in his acceptance speech that the Arctic would be ice-free by now. It isn't even close.

8. Current sea ice levels prove nothing. While arctic sea ice levels are below average, Antarctic sea ice levels are above average, as are global sea ice levels.

9. Environmental groups give counterproductive advice. While claiming global warming is a crisis, major environmental groups paradoxically oppose the major energy sources that can reduce our CO2 emissions, such as nuclear power, hydropower and fracking, and seek laws to limit them.

10. Politicians are unreliable leaders. After the Clinton-Gore Administration signed the Kyoto global warming treaty, it never presented it to the Senate for ratification. After the Democrat-led House of Representatives passed a "cap-and-trade" bill to fight global warming in 2009, the Senate, led by global warming-believing Democrats, never even voted on it. These politicians claim global warming is a crisis, but they don't act as if they believe it themselves.

Nice summary job, a summary that proves it is entirely possible, rational, and credible to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science. If President Obama did not have such a closed mind on the issue, the country might be able to have an adult, open discussion on the whole issue of climate and reality. However, that is another thing that is doubtful, an open mind from this President.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w