Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc <[email protected]> Monday, Sept. 28, 2009
Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Rutan 2. Honduras 3. Humana 4. AARP 5. Regulations 6. Go to Jail 1. Rutan. I ran across a talk given by aircraft designer Burt Rutan at Oshkosh in August. Rutan’s life is gathering data, graphing that data, interpreting that data, and using it to design his aircraft. He is very, very good at what he does. He has applied those skills to what he has seen out of the manmade global warming crowd and comes up with a powerful analysis and not so surprising conclusions. You can find PDF versions of the briefing at the following URL: http://rps3.com/ Look on the left hand side of the page for “Climate Change Presentations” and follow the links. The briefings are large PDFs, about 7 meg for download. They are well worth your time. Rutan is a political agnostic who leans libertarian. (Note: this Item was previously published in The Alaska Standard). 2. Honduras. Someone, likely with the tacit support of the Obama administration, spirited deposed President Zelaya back into Honduras last week. He is now hiding out in the Brazilian embassy in the capital city. Over the course of the last couple months, Hillary Clinton’s Department of State has attempted to pressure Honduras to restore Zelaya back into power. That pressure has been rebuffed by the Honduran Supreme Court, in a series of rulings that reinstalling Zelaya would be a violation of the Honduran constitution. This doesn’t matter a lot to the Obama administration. Upon announcement of Zelaya’s return, a large mob of supporters turned out, surrounded the embassy and started tearing up the town. On one side, we have Obama, Ortega, Chavez and the Castro brothers. On the other we have the constitutional government of Honduras, fighting against the attempt to turn their nation into a Chavez-lite dictatorship. Fortunately, Zelaya obliged with a bizarre rant later on in the week claiming that Israeli mercenaries were poised to assault the embassy and kill him. He also claimed to be suffering from the effects of poison gas. This is not going to end well. 3. Humana. Max Baucus (D, MT) went after the Humana Corporation last week after Humana had the temerity to send out a mass mailer to its clients that the health care legislation in process would cut their medical coverage options. Humana is one of the Medicare Advantage contractors, and Medicare Advantage is being targeted for elimination because it is too expensive. The actual reason is that it gives choice to the patient, and works reasonably well. Baucus sent a complaint to HHS which immediately sent out a cease and desist letter to Humana and all other private insurers that deal with Medicare and Medicaid. The HHS letters accused Humana of providing false information to its clients and threatened legal action against all the insurers should they pass along their concerns about ObamaCare to their clients. The right of free speech does not apply to anyone that receives money from the Obama administration or congress any more – at least to the current group of fascists. And as the government under Obama and this fascist democrat majority ramps up its total spending to 30-40% of the GNP, there are going to be a lot more people and companies prohibited from speaking out in public. Be very wary of the tender trap of free money, for there are few things more expensive. Finally, it turns out that the threatening letter was written by a former Baucus staffer, Jonathan Blum who is now the acting director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is a regulatory office in HHS. Anyone else wonder how soon the letter was written following a phone call from Baucus’ office? Obama’s thugocracy continues to perform as expected. 4. AARP. Michelle Malkin wrote Wednesday about the Humana affair. She contrasted the very public suppression of commentary from the insurance companies regarding ObamaCare with the very public solicitation of support for Obama Care by other groups. One of those other groups is the AARP. Malkin believes that she has uncovered evidence that AARP is onboard with ObamaCare because it stands to make tens of millions of dollars yearly from its passage. The AARP offers a product called Medigap. It is similar to Medicare Advantage in that it covers the difference between what the doctor charges and what Medicare will reimburse. Revenues from these plans account for over 60% of its yearly revenues according to a Bloomberg analysis cited by Malkin. Under HR 3200, ObamaCare, Medicare Advantage plans require 85% of all premium revenues to be paid in claims. Medigap plans would only require 65%, giving organizations like AARP, which are heavily dependent on Medigap revenues a 20% incentive to support the legislation. In essence, the AARP has endorsed a huge cut in Medicare Advantage, which is a competitor with their product line, and stands to be able to take advantage of people moving to Medigap plans. In essence, this is a kickback. Like most organizations, it appears that the AARP has spent too many years headquartered inside the Beltway and has forgotten about its rapidly hemorrhaging membership. Malkin, Weds. 5. Regulations. Two researchers from Cal State, Sacramento released a study earlier this month describing the cost of regulations on businesses in California. The results are staggering. All numbers in the report appear to be yearly numbers. Ed Morrissey in Hot Air Saturday discussed the study. You can find the 85 page pdf by doing a search with the phrase: Cost of State Regulations on Small Businesses. According to the study, the costs of state regulations on small businesses, which constitute 99% of all employers in the state, are nearly $500 billion/year. That number is over four times the yearly California budget and nearly a third of the state’s yearly gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion in 2007. Yearly jobs lost due to the impact of all regulations are just under four million jobs, or about a tenth of the total state population. Conservatives and liberals have long argued over the impact of regulations of all kinds. This is one of the first comprehensive analyses of the cost of those rules and regulations at a state level I have come across. California probably has the worst regulatory environment of any state in the nation these days. Unfortunately too many states – Alaska included – are trying as hard as they can to emulate that regulatory structure. The Obama administration and the fascist majority in congress are doing everything in their power to implement this sort of crushing regulatory burden on the nation as a whole. We simply cannot keep traveling down this road, as it is the road to financial ruin. States that follow California are going to end up as economic basket cases like California has become. States that don’t will end up with vibrant, growing economies in the very worst of times like Texas has today. 6. Go to Jail. The Baucus version of ObamaCare creates at least eight new taxes while eliminating one of the few parts of Medicare that actually works – Medicare Advantage. It also creates a new crime – making it a criminal act to not have health care coverage. Under the Baucus version of ObamaCare, failure to have health care coverage will be a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $25,000 and up to a year in jail. The failure to buy health care insurance will initially be fined at $1,900/year. Failure to pay the IRS (which will be put in charge of administering and collecting the new taxes and fines) will get you the misdemeanor conviction. This is liberty and freedom under the democrat majority in congress. So much for Hope and Change. Perhaps it is better stated that we hope we can keep our change. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSuValley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com District 28 http://www.dist28.com/ subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
