Love My Country, Loathe My Government: rhode island

Showing posts with label rhode island. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

June, 2025, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: Medicaid Inefficiencies, Stupid Rhode Island Taxation and Another Criminal Government Employee

There is a lot going on in the world: LA riots, Middle East powder keg, the Russian/Ukrainian war, etc. But through all this, the American political class continues to constantly deliver its own special brand of insanity, stupidity, wasteful taxpayer spending, and ineffective government programs:

1)We have often discussed the reality that the three major Federal government programs concerned with retirement and health, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, are rife with corruption, inefficiencies, and criminal fraud. That train of wasteful spending continues to rob taxpayers:

According to Dr. Mehmet Oz of the Trump administration, Medicaid continues to be falling far short of being efficient and cost effective.
Specifically: "There's about $14 billion we've identified with DOGE, of folks who are duly enrolled wrongly in multiple states for Medicaid. You live in New Jersey, but you move to Pennsylvania, and which state gets your Medicaid? Turns out both states collect money from the federal government."
He wants the process cleaned up and made more efficient so that those that were originally intended to benefit from the program, those with disabilities, those in the twilight of their lives, those with low incomes, etc. get the best care possible, under the original writing and intention of the Medicaid law.
This means that able bodied people who decide to freeload off the system and not seek a job, volunteer in their community, or are going to school should be removed from the Medicaid roles and their benefits go to those that actually need the help.

Keep in mind that the $14 billion discussed here does NOT include the tens of billions of dollars every year that are lost to outright criminal fraud. That is what many in Washington are trying trying to clean up despite the actions of many (i.e. Democrats) that do not want the system cleaned up to better serve both taxpayers and the truly needy,

2)We very often discuss the reality that a state or large city government will soon go bankrupt. These states and cities are run by inept politicians that do not understand the following basic economic principle, the financial death spiral:

State and city politicians continue to raise taxes rather than make their government more efficient or smaller.
This continual rising of taxes causes residents and businesses to migrate out of the city or state to places where the tax burden is far less onerous.
This out migration means that fewer residents and businesses will be around to pay taxes and the tax base, and the city or state tax revenue stream, decreases.
Given the shortfall of tax revenue because of the out immigration, rather than fix the government, the politicians raise taxes again to make up for the tax revenue shortfall.
This causes more residents and businesses to flee which reduces the tax base even further which reduces the revenue stream which causes more tax increases and the financial death spiral is in play.

A real life instance of this simple economic principle played out in Maryland a few years ago. State politicians raised the tax rate for state residents earning over a million dollars a year.

Within a few years, the state government was collecting less tax revenue from residents earning over a million dollars a year even though the tax rate was higher. What happened: very simple, wealthier residents moved out of state to avoid the higher tax rate, reducing the tax revenue stream from the wealthier state residents

And now, state politicians in Rhode Island never learned anything from an economics textbook or the state of Maryland:

The state government recently enacted a so-called “Taylor Swift” tax since she is a rich entertainer who owns property in the state.
This tax places a new, incremental tax on anyone who owns a house in the state assessed at over $1 million in value.
The tax is $2.50 for every $500 in assessed value over a million dollars.
Thus, a home owner with a house assessed at $2 million would pay an additional $2,000 in taxes every year.
Thus, anyone with a home assessed at $11 million would pay an additional $20,000 a year.
Taylor Swift is looking at an additional $136,000 a year in taxation.
The politicians also increased the real estate conveyance tax, a tax placed on the sale value of a home when it changes owners, about a 60% increase.

How many Rhode Island millionaires will sell their homes in the state and move to less taxation states? Politicians never learn. People want to be free and that includes keeping as much of their hard earned dollars as possible.

3)It is not only hardened criminals and criminal enterprises that defraud the Federal government and taxpayers:

Malaina Chapman once worked for the Federal government’s Small Business Administration.
She was recently sentenced to Federal prison for committing fraud by submitting fake tax documents and ripping off government COVID programs.
She applied for a government loan for her fake company called “Upscale Credit Lounge, LLC.”
Her loan application included fake revenue and profit statements for her non-existent business.
She got a a loan worth $17,052.50
Not satisfied with that criminal act, she then submitted another fake loan application for another fake company she invented.
That got her a government check for $14,191.
She eventually and illegally received $230,246 worth of taxpayer wealth.
She eventually recruited others and helped them submit false loan applications for them to illegally get government money.
In all, she helped herself and others receive over $800,000 of taxpayer dollars under false pretenses.
She spent this taxpayer money on high end personal items (e.g. Louis Vitton, Chanel and other brands) and $7,500 for a luxury vacation in Key Largo.

Despicable government employee behavior. Americans and American businesses were struggling to survive the pandemic and scum like her were ripping off the program that was trying to help out struggling American people and businesses.

The good news is that this government employed criminal got caught and is going to prison. The sadder question is how many other government employees also ripped off the taxpayer who have not gotten caught?

Enough insanity for today: government inefficiencies in the Medicaid program, stupid economic decisions in Rhode Island, and criminal fraud from yet another government employee.

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Sunday, May 10, 2015

May, 2015, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Emergency Room Visits Up, Exchanges Crashing, and More

Ever month for the past few years we have had to dedicate multiple posts every month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. It is without a doubt the worse piece of legislation ever passed passed by Washington, as one can see from our dozens of posts and the hundreds of mini-disasters we have discussed in each of those posts.

The legislation has increased insurance costs, stifled the economy, caused millions of people to lose access to their preferred doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies, increased the national debt, and exposed the many lies and intentional deceptions of this President and his political allies. It is a piece of legislation that has no chance of accomplishing its supposed goal of reducing healthcare costs in this country since it never understood nor addressed the underlying root causes of our high healthcare costs. These root causes include, but are not limited to:

Americans eat too much overall and eat too much of the wrong types of food.
Americans smoke too much.
Americans do not exercise enough.
Washington laws and regulation encourage additives such as high fructose corn syrup to infest our food supply.
The medical industry is in urgent need of tort reform.
Current laws and regulations discourage cross state border insurance company competition.
Federal healthcare programs today are infested with criminal activity that wastes upwards of a $100 billion a year.
The Obama administration never “followed the money” to find out where the waste and over charging was in the entire medical industry.

Without understanding and alleviating these root causes, it makes no difference how many people get Obama Care insurance policies, the costs will keep going up and care quality will keep going down.

So with this quick background, let’s take a look at what Obama Care disasters have popped up in the past month or so:

1) Many states set up their own Obama Care so-called exchanges to market and distribute Obama Care insurance policies to their citizens. Those that did not defaulted to the Federal Obama Care health insurance exchange. To encourage states to build their own exchanges, the Federal government and American taxpayer gave those states billions of dollars to get their operations up and running, with the expectation that this seed money was enough to build a robust and financially stable marketplace.

That has turned out to be a bad assumption. We have already reported on how many states have struggled to establish a credible online exchange, going over budget, curtailing features, opening up customers to identity theft threats, etc. That trend of failure continues according to a recent Washington Post report: "Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer-call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions. Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which is now working smoothly."

I would take issue with the assertion that the federal exchange is working “smoothly.” That process had some serious operations problems during the second Obama Care enrollment period but relative to the horrible state exchanges it was much better. But the fact is that years and billions of dollars later, the state exchanges are mostly a disaster, something recognized by the usually Obama-friendly Washington Post.

2) The website, www.libertyunyielding.com went into further detail from that Washington Post report on what is failing or has already failed at the state exchange level of Obama Care:

Insurance policy signups in year two of Obama Care at the state exchange level rose only 12% vs. 61% for the Federal exchange.
“They are literally looking at huge gaps, and they are not sure how they are going to get through the year,” said Caroline F. Pearson, a senior vice president at Avalere Health.
Minnesota and Vermont are so frustrated with costly data systems problems with their exchanges that they are considering handing over some or all of their functions to the federal exchange.
Lawmakers in Oregon have already given up and dumped dumped their state exchange in March.
The Rhode Island legislature is considering a fee on health plans that would go up or down according to the exchange’s operating costs. So much for the state exchanges not being a burden to local and state taxpayers, as promised by Obama
However, the obvious problem with the Rhode Island solution is that any additional fees on the insurance companies will be passed down to the consumer, something most legislators seem to forget. Higher insurance rates will depress enrollments even more and likely result in more cancellations due to higher costs.
In Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland and the District of Columbia, fees to support the exchange are imposed on plans sold on and off the marketplaces. Thus, now non-Obama Care policy holders have to subsidize Obama Care policyholders, increasing costs for those non-Obama Care customers.
In DC, the financials are so bad that about $25 million of their exchange’s $28 million budget comes from user fees assessed on insurance products not offered on the exchange.
In Hawaii, which has had one of the worst exchange experiences, their exchange needs $28 million to fund operations until 2022, when it is projected to become self-sustaining, something that was supposed to happen already but which is now expected to be seven years later, officials say.
Without the additional money, “it’s going to be very difficult to keep the doors open,” said Jeff M. Kissel, executive director of Hawaii Health Connector.
As a backup plan, officials are talking to the Obama administration about a possible federal takeover of the marketplace.
The cost of the exchange system in Vermont is expected to balloon to almost $200 million by the end of the year, with state officials also thinking of moving to the federal marketplace if things don’t improve.
In Maryland, where their exchange’s systems problems were so horrible that they turned to Connecticut for help, officials expect to have enough revenue to cover operations for the fiscal year that begins July 1. If not, the exchange would need to ask the governor for more funds.

What a disaster and disgrace. So many promises unfilled, so much time and money wasted, so many lives disrupted for nothing.

3) One of the supposed big selling points of Obama Care was that the legislation would significantly reduce the number of emergency room hospital visits by sick people since they would now have health insurance. And while the legislation did increase the number of people with health insurance coverage, usually via the poor quality Medicaid process, it did not reduce the number of emergency room visits. In fact, according to a recent USA Today report, a survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians found that:

28% of those surveyed said they had seen a large increase in emergency room visits over the past few years.
47% had seen slight increase in the number of emergency room visits.
So, three quarters of those working in hospital emergency rooms had seen at least slight increases in visits, the exact opposite of what Obama Care was supposed to do.
“Such hikes run counter to one of the goals of the health care overhaul, which is to reduce pressure on emergency rooms by getting more people insured through Medicaid or subsidized private coverage and providing better access to primary care,” explains the USA Today article.

But this finding is not new since in May, 2014, the Huffington Post reported that: “The American College of Emergency Physicians polled more than 1,800 emergency room doctors last month, and 46 percent reported increases in patients coming through their doors since Jan. 1, the day coverage took effect for millions under Obamacare.”

But this should come as no surprise since the article also points out that the same thing happened in two states that had preceded Obama Care with similar programs, namely emergency room visits went UP and not DOWN as was promised by Obama and others: “While a survey of emergency department physicians’ impressions lacks hard data about patient behavior and can’t be considered conclusive, the results are consistent with studies about the effects of Massachusetts’ 2007 health care reform law and a 2008 expansion of Medicaid in Oregon.”

So did they lie about reducing emergency room visits or were they that lazy that they never checked for real world examples of what would happen? Given the track record of this administration and the current set of Washington politicians, I go with the former possibility.

That will do it for today but more Obama Care disasters to follow tomorrow, the legislation that keeps on giving...and that is the problem.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

November, 2014: I Am A Global Warming Doubter and A Believer In Science

Every month or so we have a series of discussions around the theme of “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.” This thread started a number of years ago when I felt that those on the global warming bandwagon were not looking at all of the available science and were just cherry picking science and research that favored their position, ignoring other findings, realities, and science that disputed the concept of global warming.

What really pushed us down the road as we delved deeper and deeper into the possibility that global warming, and its rebranded theme of climate change, was the hysterics of people like Al Gore. Mr. Gore would go into rages when anyone dared question the concept of global warming, at various times calling doubters like us racists, homophobes, and a slew of other slurs and insults.

Our view that calling people names for having a different opinion is no way to have an adult conversation and reach a consensus plan of attack against the problem, assuming there was one. And that is a big assumption since after presenting dozens of posts with hundreds of counter examples to both man made global warming and man made climate change, it has become pretty clear that those who doubt the concept of global warming and still believe in science are probably on much more solid scientific ground than those that rant and rave like Al Gore.

To prove our point and look at the accumulated realities, data, and science we have previously put together, just enter: “I am a global warming doubter” in the search box above. For the latest news and realities, continue reading below with our latest update on how it is okay and rational to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science.

1) For some reason, Secretary of State John Kerry seems to think that global warming and climate change are so real that they are more dangerous to us than ISIS rampaging across the Middle East, Russian’s Putin exerting his arrogance and strength over eastern Europe, the rise of China’s economy and military, the potential of Ebola and a whole host of other international threats. But how does his concerns match up with the rest of America’s concerns?

A recent Gallup poll shows that relative to the rest of America from a priority perspective, Kerry is not of this reality:

Only 40% of respondents identified climate change as either “very important” or “extremely important” to their votes in the Gallup poll.
The top concern of Americans in the poll are the economy (88%), followed by the availability of good jobs (86%), the way the federal government is working or not working (81%), and Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, i.e. ISIS, (78%).
All of these were close to or more than twice as important to Americans than Kerry’s climate change concerns.
Also having more importance and being of more concern than climate change were equal pay for women (75%), the federal budget deficit (73%), foreign affairs (69%) and taxes (69%).
Getting closer to climate change but still way ahead of it were immigration (65%), Obamacare (64%), income and wealth distribution in the U.S. (64%), abortion and access to contraception (50%), followed finally by climate change (40%).

Despite these findings and the poor showing of climate change in the poll, Kerry still insists that climate change is “the most serious challenge we face on the planet.” Maybe on the planet where he lives but certainly not on this planet or in this country.

Even if he is right, and the odds of that being a reality continue to shrink as we look at ALL of the available science and realities. Until he can convince India, China, and others to follow his concern, anything the U.S. does relative to climate will be wiped out by the growth of fossil fuel use such as coal in these other countries. Until he can be a real Secretary of State and convince others to follow his lead, he needs to get out of our way to fix the other, more pressing problems that Gallup identified.

2) Earlier this month, Kerry issued the following statement: “The bottom line is that our planet is warming,” Secretary of State John Kerry said that the same day he attended a cold and snowy football stadium to watch the New England Patriots play football in his home state of Massachusetts. The reason why issuing that statement was such poor timing is that the snow storm that day up in Massachusetts was the strongest early-November snowstorm in over a century.

Talk about bad timing, wrongly insisting that the earth was currently warming while looking at a once in a century snow storm. We have shown scientific data many times in this blog which shows that the earth stopped warming about 18 years ago:

As he was saying, “The bottom line is that our planet is warming due to human actions, the damage is already visible, and the challenge requires ambitious, decisive and immediate action," Massachusetts was trying to get through a storm that brought “the most snow recorded on any November 2 in 120 years,” according to the Boston Globe.

Bad priorities, insanely bad timing, not the characteristic anyone wants in its top diplomat.

3) While weather is not climate, they are related. That is why one would think that someone like John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, would know something about both. That it is why noting how he went off in a recent CNN interview when he corrected the CNN talking head and insisted that he was a climate skeptic: “I’m a skeptic about climate change, not a denier. CNN has taken a very strong position on global warming that it is a consensus. Well there is no consensus in science. Science isn’t a vote. Science is about facts. …It has been become a big political point of the Democratic Party and part of their platform, but the science is on my side.”

I wonder if Al Gore would have the guts and arrogance to call John Coleman a racist or homophobe to his face? Mr. Coleman takes the same approach that we have taken through all of this series: look at ALL of the science before reaching a definitive conclusion. His performance on CNN can be viewed at:

http://conservativevideos.com/founder-weather-channel-destroys-cnn-hello-everybody-theres-global-warming/

4) I think that one of the things that ticks off global warming doubters the most, besides the insulting approach of Al Gore and his kind, is when ignorant news people try to tie everything to man made global warming and climate change. Wildfires out west? Must be global warming. A flood in Rhode Island? Must be global warming. Cold weather at a football game in Massachusetts? Must be global warming.

But one of the most inane attempts to try and tie something to global warming comes from a recent Huffington Post article, "Trick of Treat? The Frightening Climate Costs Of Halloween Candy," which tried to tie the use of Halloween candy to man made global warming and climate change.

How does one get from giving out Halloween at your front door for a few hours a year lead to “frightening climate costs?“ According to the article: “Many Halloween candies contain palm oil, the large-scale, monoculture production of which is driving deforestation, extinction, human rights abuses, and climate change!”

Let’s put a few pieces of candy in perspective:

China is implementing enormous energy infrastructure programs in the western part of the country to substantially expand its use of its western coal reserves to generate electricity to be shipped all over the country.
India continues to built coal powered power plants throughout its country.
Neither China or India attended the most recent UN meetings on climate change, basically telling the rest of the world it will do what it wants from a fossil fuel perspective.
Many European countries are reverting back to using dirty brown coal in their power plants as Russia starts to restrict the amount of natural gas it sends to western Europe from a political stalemate perspective.

There are a few more realities in this world relative to climate change that are more important than Halloween candy. To think other wise, to think that Halloween candy has frightening consequences for the climate relative to China, India, and Europe, is foolish, shoddy journalism, and makes the whole Al Gore crowd look even more desperate and out of touch with reality.

5) One more piece of global warming insanity for today. Rhode Island Senator, Sheldon Whitehouse falsely believes that global warming exists and that it will cause the oceans to rise so much that parts of his home state of Rhode Island will eventually be submerged under water on a permanent basis. As a result, he has fully supported the Obama and EPA drive to shut down as much use of coal in this country as possible, even if:

It will cause the cost of U.S. electricity to skyrocket.
No matter what Obama and the EPA do, it will little effect in the face of overwhelming increases in the use of coal by other countries.

Additionally, a recent paper by Tom Harris, the Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition and Bob Carter, a former professor and head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in Australia disputes all of Whitehouse’s claims and fears:

According to these scientists, the September 2013 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change states: “Sea-level rise is not accelerating. The global average sea-level continues to increase at its long-term rate of 1–2 mm/year [0.04-0.08 inches/year] globally” – or four to eight inches over the next century.
In reality, no global (atmospheric) warming has occurred for the last 18 years, even though CO2 levels have risen 9% during this time.
There has not been significant ocean warming since at least 2003.
As a result, the ocean is not expanding and cannot be causing extra sea-level rise.
According to the conclusions of Harris and Carter, the global rate of sea-level rise has actually decreased over the past ten years.
Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice fields have been expanding in recent years which significantly lessens the chances of Rhode island going under.

A more detailed analysis of their work can be found at:

http://joeforamerica.com/2014/10/ri-flooding-wvs-fault/

That will do it for this update to global warming doubting, a quick hitter of the latest doubting information. We have a Secretary of State who is now dabbling in science for no good reason while the rest of the world goes to pot, a weatherman tearing up a CNN host for his ignorance of global warming, and two scientists reviewing the realities of the Earth’s climate while tearing up the ignorance of a U.S. Senator. It is still perfectly logical and rationale to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science.