Missing The Point On Medicaid

It’s not about who might abuse the system, although that is actually a shared concern I have with Republicans,

More than a decade ago, Arkansas Rep. Josh Miller (R) was in a catastrophic car accident that broke his neck and left him paralyzed. Medicare and Medicaid paid the $1 million bill for his hospitalization and rehabilitation.

But this week, as the Arkansas legislature has debated continuing its privatized Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, Miller has remained steadfast in his opposition.

which I think is better addressed through other mechanisms,

The difference, he said, is that some of the 100,000 people who have gained coverage through Arkansas’s Medicaid expansion don’t work hard enough or just want access to the program so they can purchase and abuse prescription drugs.

“My problem is two things,” Miller said. “One, we are giving it to able-bodied folks who can work … and two, how do we pay for it?”

Always with the negative waves, man.

First off I think prescription drug abuse is a larger problem than Medicaid, and in fact Medicaid abuse may alleviate some of the ancillary thefts and fraud of prescription drug abuse by middle class Americans, but over all I think prescription drug abuse needs to be addressed by legislation dealing with doctor shopping, and physician abuses of privilege.

The solution is not to make life more miserable for those who actually need medical services so you can prevent the few from abusing the system. By that logic all intersections should be four way stops. That won’t stop the abusers, but it will impress upon the honest drivers the need to address the scofflaws with their own inconvenience.

As for paying for it, I would suggest expanding the economy, through jobs programs if necessary, thus reducing the pool of those eligible for government assistance, while increasing the revenue of state and local governments due to the velocity.

I am rather dubious of public servants whose primary public service is serving the needs of private interests, and while I am becoming inured to Republicans throwng cow chips as political rhetoric, it was rathe unsettling to see them actually wallowing in their own manure.

Making Sense

It’s A Perk John

Blogging has its’ benefits too!

This story is for everyone who has laughed at me the last decade or so because I always cover the camera on my laptops with tape.

You know for deficit hawks that just can’t find the money to take care of citizens train wrecked by Wall Street, but can find the money to bail them out, and can’t find the money for veterans but can borrow $trillions to maim and kill them, it’s a wonder they have time and money for spying on people minding their own business.

But then, these are Very Serious People.

Yeah There Is Bill

Listening to you whine about it for the next four or eight years.

GOP Screws Veterans Again

We love America,

AP reports on the GOP’s successful filibuster of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ veterans benefits bill:

Senate Republicans have blocked a Democratic bill that would enrich health, education and job-training programs for the nation’s 22 million veterans.

And why did Republicans—who “won” the vote because “only” 56 senators voted in favor of moving forward with the bill—decide to block it?

Republicans complained that the bill was too expensive. And they were upset that Majority Leader Harry Reid prevented a vote on a GOP amendment cutting the bill and adding sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program.

You would think the patriots of the latrines would want to take care of the veterans of the last two wars before provoking another one as unnecessary as the war on Iraq.

Understatement You Can Believe

Sheesh

But for the deficit fetishists, the 2013 deficit is $139 billion lower than Simpson-Bowles promised to deliver.

That’s actually bad news, and of course it won’t even be seen as good news by people who claimed it was the most important thing ever. Because nobody cares about the deficit.

They damn sure don’t care about the millions of people they put through the wringer for thier ideological horse manure.

I Said Baby, Baby, Baby You’re Out Of Time

I wish that I could eat your cancer, when it turns black.

Boomers, please believe that we are not trying to be cruel. We simply urge you to assess your music in the harsh light of reality. Of today.

And, on a personal note, we mean to cause no lasting pain when we report that the person to whom we first pitched this essay, an editor at The Post born in the 1980s, didn’t recognize the lyrics. At all.

I could go on and on with what Post editors don’t recognize, so don’t get me started, honey don’t, say you will when you won’t, oh oh honey don’t. Yet I digress. Including one person speaking for an entire generation, as though you were me, and I were you, and we were all in this together.

All we are saying, is give peace a chance. War children, is just a shot away, shot away, shot away. To avoid all that, all you need is love, sweet love, love is all you need.

I have not yet begun to sing, but I do know John Paul Jones was more than a bassist, sailor and some guy living down the street with that name, whom everyone calls Bubba.

(PS I would have used Michelle – very French sounding.) Now get off of my cloud.

Yeah, But What About The Mic In The Fan?

The best thing about the technology revolution is no one knows where the bullets will stop.

FBI agents arrested a Mexican tycoon named Jose Susumo Azano Matsura at his Coronado, California, home on Wednesday as part of a political bribery investigation based on captured e-mails, seized banking records, and covertly recorded conversations.

The unfolding scandal is soaked in irony: Azano is a surveillance evangelist whose company won a secret, no-bid contract with the Mexican military for computer and mobile phone hacking and spying technology in 2011. He is chairman of a company called Security Tracking Devices SA de CV, and he is now chained to a tracking device—on house arrest. . . .

In one piece, “Trickle Down Technology,” Azano expresses contempt for American concepts of privacy:

For the average citizen, the cell phone now serves the purpose of both tracker and wireless data collection devices, as well as the less important function of phone. It is the perfect tool for a society that has come to depend more and more on surveillance, whether we like it or not…

The government, it should be noted, did not hand out smart phones to American citizens and demand they keep detailed logs of their every move. Americans did that themselves. People were excited about doing it, constantly seeking new ways to advertise where they were, what they were doing, and with whom. Can people really blame governments and advertisers for taking advantage of their actions? Or do people accept that these are the repercussions of naïveté and a nation caught up in a love affair with new technology?

You think the bullet stops there? Bwahahahah

If you thought NSA snooping was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet: online criminals have also been watching and should soon be able to copy the agency’s invasive surveillance tactics, according to security guru Bruce Schneier.

See? “goto fail” is a feature, not a bug.

Experts Predict Winter Weather To Continue Through Winter

Experts say the forecasts would indicate pockets of winter weather in North America, even into early Spring, to be followed by summer weather later in the year.

Also too.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

Restuarant offers changed menu!!

!!! BREAKING NEWS !!!

Meanwhile, major media outlets are reporting that a cat has been recovered from a tree, sans bird.

Does anyone really expect me to pay for that crap? I mean seriously.

A Nation Of Laws

Indeed.

WASHINGTON — A Senate subcommittee investigation accused Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse of using elaborate “cloak and dagger” methods to hide the accounts of 22,000 wealthy American citizens with a total of up to $12 billion in assets from U.S. authorities so they could avoid paying taxes.

The bipartisan probe also sharply criticized the Justice Department for being lax in using subpoenas and other legal tools to pressure the bank to reveal most of the names of account holders, which have been withheld as part of a long Swiss tradition of bank secrecy.

Sticking to their principles, I can hear conservative media howling about this affront to their principals, this lack of Justice Department action, and the conspiracy that drives this sort of stuff.

Yep, monkees will be flying out of FOX’s butt.

Death By A Thousand Cuts

Supreme Court rules Constitution is dead,

In the past, the court has frowned upon most searches of residences except in the case of an emergency or if the police had a warrant from a judge.

But Alito said police were free to search when they get the consent of the only occupant on site.

“A warrantless consent search is reasonable and thus consistent with the 4th Amendment irrespective of the availability of a warrant,” he said in Fernandez vs. California. “Even with modern technological advances, the warrant procedure imposes burdens on the officers who wish to search [and] the magistrate who must review the warrant application.”

That was the point of the amendment sir. Not pulling convenience out of your ass.

So much for conservative values.

Walking Without God

A reasonable man explains that he is an atheist. Those of faith should read it, not because it will challenge your faith, but because it will challenge you to think about your assertions and understand them in a reasonable way, and in so doing, hopefully, to explain them to others in a reasonable way.

Mt Gox Bitcoins Rumored To Have Eloped With Privacy

Honeymoon in null marriage reported in Goldberg Polyhedra Inn.

I don’t know what to make of all of this so it must be a poem.

Apple Issue Knicker Knotter Fix

All is well in user land

While it’s good to have a fix for the goto fail bug, the decision to patch it as part of a more-than-400MB update might cause some trouble for IT shops or other organizations that need to test and validate new OS X point releases before rolling them out to their Macs. A smaller standalone update that fixed only the goto fail bug would be a better fit for businesses that need to fix the flaw but don’t want to have to test their applications against all of OS X 10.9.2’s other changes first.

Always with the negative waves, man.