Posted in Book Reviews, Politics on Jan 25th, 2012
Last year my wife had a spat with our son and decided that I should be ferrying my son back to college from now on. Although it involves a lot of driving I prefer to complete the round trip in one day. With all of that time in the car I have taken advantage of [...]
Posted in Politics on Jan 22nd, 2012
Yesterday was cold and the ground was covered with ice. It was treacherous outside so I stayed inside and watched television. We eventually wound up watching CNN where we listened to campaign speeches by Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich. I was impressed with how both men appeared dramatically better in their public appearances compared to [...]
Posted in Politics on Oct 26th, 2011
Here are two sources for those trying to understand the Occupy Wall Street movement. Representing the left side of the political spectrum is the show by Charlie Rose with with journalist Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Charlie Rose – A discussion about Occupy Wall Street. Representing the right side of the political [...]
Posted in Politics on May 6th, 2011
This is interesting. By law the California state government must use its general fund to compensate the schools for the money that the redevelopment agencies(RDA) have diverted. Although Ohio has redevelopment agencies it appears that tax increment financing districts are the preferred method of financing these “redevelopment” projects. I looked at Ohio’s Tax Increment Financing [...]
Posted in Politics on May 2nd, 2011
There is something surreal about celebrating over a person’s death. The United States sought the death of Osama bin Laden for a long time and now we have our wish. Justice is bittersweet. It is time for everyone to move on.
Posted in Healthcare, Politics on Feb 2nd, 2011
I was wondering when someone would do something like this. I think many states will opt to not expand state Medicaid programs due to lack of funds. When it comes to laying off police officers or cutting Medicaid, Medicaid loses. The Individual Mandate and the federal mandate to determine what qualifies as an ‘acceptable’ health-insurance [...]
Posted in Politics on Jan 9th, 2011
Recently I became concerned with our country budgeting process and its possible abuse by county commissioners. In this case the county was planning to buy a shopping mall and lease it at an aggressive rate to encourage a grocery store to move in. There were some obvious questions why was the county jumping into the [...]
Posted in Healthcare, Politics on Jan 2nd, 2011
My biggest complaint with this new restriction on Health Savings Accounts is that it is a blatant attempt to make Health Savings Accounts less desirable by arbitrarily removing benefits. The combination of Health Savings Accounts with a high deductible health insurance represent a low cost competitor to ObamaCare. The primary political objective of ObamaCare was to limit health care alternatives and force everyone into one common but high cost comprehensive health care plan. The key to building support for the high cost health care plan is to hide the costs of the comprehensive plan and make the low cost plans less attractive. The government health plan had to be comprehensive to be acceptable to unions and large corporations. High health care costs have made some businesses uncompetitive and one solution is transfer their health care responsibilities to the government. Under this scenario control of the health care system is the primary objective. Controlling spiraling health care costs is a secondary consideration. Once control of the health care system is attained, then the government could force lower prices at will. It is hoped that the health care czars will be smart, benevolent dictators. The downside is that the proposed health care system could be an inefficient bureaucracy like Medicare or something much worse. Currently this particular scenario has such a dim political future that many large organizations have asked for exemptions from ObamaCare. With this deadly embrace of the status quo, the owners of these luxury health care plans having particularly dim future at controlling their spiraling health care costs and ultimately their product costs. If an individual believes that a low cost plan health plan is better for them, why should they be forced to bail out the high cost plans of unions and big businesses?
Posted in Healthcare, Politics on Dec 27th, 2010
One of the more interesting gambits that played out in the health care debate was the ardent support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) by unions and large companies. Despite the fact that these organizations are particularly at risk from rising health care costs, the focus of the debate centered around the [...]
Posted in Healthcare, Politics on Dec 18th, 2010
While Congress and most of the nation was caught in the melodrama of whether or not to extend the tax cuts this week, another drama was playing out. Politifact chose to announce, PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: ‘A government takeover of health care’, at the same time Judge Roger Vinson was hearing the case just [...]
On this day, the Virginia Tech community reflects on the vibrant lives of the 32 students and faculty who were tragically taken from us a year ago. Through light, art, and music we pay tribute to each and every person we lost. We gather to honor our friends, colleagues, and family members. We will never forget.