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2011
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April
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- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 30 & May 1, ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 29, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 28, 2011
- The NYT Never Ceases To Amaze
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 27, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 26, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 25, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 23 & 24, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 22, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 21, 2011
- Gang, I'm Not A Happy Camper
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 20, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 19, 2011
- Sarah Palin Sure Sounds Smart To Me!
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 18, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat, & Sun., April 16 & 17, 2011
- Does Anyone Still Watch C.S.I. - The Original... L...
- Senate Vote Tally re: HR 1426 - The Budget "Compro...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 15, 2011
- HR 1473 - The Budget "Compromise"
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 14, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 13, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 12, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 11, 2011
- Calling Rush Limbaugh - Rush Hudson Limbaugh III
- I Feel Betrayed By John Boehner and Nan Hayworth
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 9 & 10, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 8, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 7, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 6, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 5, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 4, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., April 2 & 3, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, April 1, 2011
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April
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
8 comments:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576244790420274226.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Where else do people buy insurance for their insurance?
* ONE MORE TIME...
Where else do people buy insurance for their insurance?
* PRETEND YOU'RE A CONTESTANT ON JEOPARDY... (*PAUSE*)... (*HIT THE BUZZER*)... "WHAT IS MEDICARE?"
* CORRECT...!!!
Forty-five million Medicare beneficiaries enjoy the security of "free" health care and its no-questions-asked payments.
Still, the entitlement is stuck in a Great Society time warp.
It offers no protection against catastrophic expenses, the most basic function of insurance. Coverage doesn't keep up with medical progress; prescription drugs weren't added until 2003. Seniors are docked a $1,000 deductible for a single hospital stay, though nine of 10 buy medigap coverage to backfill these and other holes.
Where else do people buy insurance for their insurance?
(*SIGH*)
Liberals seem delighted that Paul Ryan and the GOP have decided to charge the fixed bayonets of Medicare reform, denouncing the new House budget as a crime against seniors, humanity, and so on. Republicans are taking a huge political risk, but they are now setting the reform agenda, and their honesty may even oblige a national debate about the future of an entitlement state that can't survive in its current form.
The GOP plan - known as premium support - would rationalize Medicare's burden on taxpayers, while introducing market competition to control costs.
As Democrats build their re-election bids around Mediscare demagoguery, they're pretending that the choice is between "privatization" and a free lunch. Mr. Ryan has done a service in exposing this illusion. Nothing will sooner finish off "Medicare as we know it" than to continue its present march into insolvency. His is the first credible plan endorsed by either party for preserving the safety net.
(*NOD*)
Today traditional Medicare is the largest buyer of health care in America. It is also the worst buyer. The government sets prices for thousands of services, then pays nearly any doctor or hospital that a patient visits. The same arbitrary fee schedule applies to the best hospital and the worst hospital, regardless of the quality or value of the care delivered, and the bills are sent to taxpayers.
This deliberate suppression of the price mechanism has helped to turbocharge U.S. health costs. Providers who find ways to deliver better medicine at a lower cost aren't rewarded, as they would be in any other industry. Medicare spending is growing at a 7.2% annual clip, far faster than the economy. Spending is due to double over the next decade, feeding on more and more of the federal fisc and national wealth.
* YES, YES, I KNOW THAT YOU - MY BELOVED READERS - ARE AWARE OF ALL THIS. THE PROBLEM IS... MORE AMERICANS AREN'T. AND THE MEDIA? THE MSM WOULD RATHER SIMPLY "REPORT" THE LEFT'S TALKING POINTS AND MEDISCARE SOUNDBITES.
(*SIGH*)
* FOLKS... FOLLOW THE LINK (OR GOOGLE THE PIECE'S TITLE "Medicare for a New Century") AND READ THE FULL PIECE FOR YOURSELVES.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_LIBYA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-07-07-45-41
Rebel fighters claimed NATO airstrikes blasted their forces Thursday in another apparent "mistake..."
* GREAT. JUST GREAT.
At least two rebels were killed and more than a dozen injured, a doctor said.
The attack - near the front lines outside the eastern oil port of Brega - would be the second accidental NATO strike against rebel forces in less than a week...
* FOLKS... THE AGE OF OBAMA IS A F--KING NIGHTMARE.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/7/senate-leader-reid-government-headed-shutdown/
The White House has vowed to veto the short-term spending bill House Republicans will vote on this afternoon, taking away the safety net that could have given both sides another week to avert an immediate government shutdown.
* AND THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS. (*SHRUG*) HOW THE NETWORKS, CNN, PBS, NPR, MSNBC PLAY THIS... (*SHRUG*)... I THINK WE ALL KNOW THE ANSWER.
* STILL... BETTER THIS THAN TO ALLOW THE DEMS TO PRECEDE APACE WITH NO BREAK APPLIED TO OBAMA'S THE THEIR SPENDING GOALS.
The House bill would extend the shutdown deadline by another week, to April 15, while funding defense needs for the rest of this year so that troops’ paychecks would not be endangered by a shutdown.
* AND OBAMA AND REID HAVE REFUSED THIS RESPONSIBLE OFFER. (*SHRUG*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576246740907565666.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
In the White House Press Room on Tuesday, President Barack Obama did what comes naturally - scold others; in this case the Congress.
Mr. Obama complained that a budget agreement "could have gotten done three months ago."
What [Obama the hypocritical lying scumbag] didn't say was that the budget should have "gotten done" six months ago, before the current fiscal year started last Oct. 1.
* JUST OF THE TOP OF MY HEAD... (*SHAKING MY HEAD*)... MY GUESS IS THAT A LARGE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS ARE UNAWARE THAT WHEN DEMS CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS LAST YEAR WHILE OBAMA SAT AT HIS OVAL OFFICE DESK, THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO BRING A PROPOSED BUDGET UP FOR A VOTE.
(*SIGH*)
Our government's failure to have a budget in place halfway through the fiscal year is the president's responsibility. He and his party dominated Congress by wide margins when the budget was supposed to be put in place.
Also on Tuesday, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan did what the president has not. Demonstrating leadership and more than a little courage, Mr. Ryan laid out a thoughtful, ambitious blueprint for the next decade.
The president will instruct his party to demagogue the House Republican budget, labeling it as an assault on the poor and a windfall for the rich that will rip America's social safety net to shreds. (Never mind that these charges are false and irresponsible.)
Mr. Ryan would have the government spend $40 trillion over the next 10 years, $6.2 trillion less than Mr. Obama's budget plan of $46 trillion.
http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/04/07/senator_obama_may_have_planned_shutdown_last_year_with_malicious_intent.html
Freshman GOP Senator Mike Lee (Utah) says President Obama's inability to get a budget passed last year may have been "deliberate."
* "INABILITY" MY ASS. REMEMBER, FOLKS, DEMS CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS; NANCY PELOSI WAS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. THERE'S SIMPLY NO QUESTION THAT OBAMA, PELOSI, AND REID ALL COOPERATED SO AS TO DELIBERATELY LEAVE THE UNITED STATES WITHOUT A BUDGET. I MEAN, JEEZ... DOES ANYONE RECALL THE PRESIDENT TAKING THE ISSUE TO THE NATION, GOING ON TV BEFORE A NATIONAL AUDIENCE TO DEMAND THAT THE THEN TOTALLY DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED CONGRESS DO THEIR JOB AND PASS A BUDGET? NO. THE REASON YOU DON'T IS BECAUSE IT NEVER HAPPENED.
"It was either irresponsible on one hand or deliberate and malicious on the other with intention to bring about a sequence of events that would culminate inevitably in a government shutdown," Senator Mike Lee said on the Senate floor today.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/7/democrat-white-house-low-balling-costs-libya-missi/
Last week, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates testified that the nation’s initial involvement in establishing a no-fly zone over the skies of Libya - Operation Odyssey Dawn - carried a $550 million price tag and that the cost of the support role to NATO going forward would be about $40 million a month.
Mr. Gates also assured lawmakers that he had enough money in his budget to absorb the costs, though he wasn’t ready to reveal the source of the money.
* THOUGH HE WASN'T READY TO REVEAL THE SOURCE OF THE MONEY...?!?! AND CONGRESS FINDS THIS SOMEHOW ACCEPTABLE...?
Army Gen. Carter F. Hamm, the U.S. general in charge of Africa Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the ongoing civil war between Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and rebel forces had reached a stalemate, which is “not the preferred solution.”
* REALLY... DO TELL!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576247300936116610.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_newyork
New York's state-run institutions for the mentally disabled are billing the Medicaid program nearly $2 million per patient a year—a rate that goes far beyond the cost of caring for the patients and is attracting the scrutiny of federal regulators.
The state spends $700 million a year to house about 1,400 disabled people in the facilities. But it bills Medicaid more than three times that amount.
* FOLLOW THE MONEY, MY FRIENDS... FOLLOW THE MONEY. (*SHRUG*) AND DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW THE POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS!
By taking advantage of federal matching funds, the state pockets approximately $1 billion extra every year - and uses it to subsidize other areas of the budget.
* POLITICS AS USUAL...? (*SMIRK*) IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR PEOPLE WOULD BE GOING TO JAIL FOR COMMITTING FRAUD.
A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal body that administers Medicaid, said the agency is in talks with the state officials about changing the way New York sets the rates.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Federal officials haven't accused the state of any wrongdoing.
* NO... OF COURSE NOT... (*JUST ROLLING MY EYES*)
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa who has pushed for a more vigorous oversight of state Medicaid programs, questioned whether New York is exploiting the reimbursement system.
* YA THINK...?!?!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576248432237980472.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_markets
Light, sweet crude for May delivery settled up $1.47, or 1.4%, to $110.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange...
* HOPE... CHANGE... HOPE... CHANGE...
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