Conservatives View of Humanity - dividing people by their values and behavior."
Submitted by Chuck Lehmann
Monday, November 2, 2009
Conservative Quote of the Day
" Liberals View of Humanity - dividing people by their race, gender, and class.
Conservatives View of Humanity - dividing people by their values and behavior."
Submitted by Chuck Lehmann
Conservatives View of Humanity - dividing people by their values and behavior."
Submitted by Chuck Lehmann
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The King of Pork
Watch this short Video, ABC News Reports On John Murtha's Pork Laden Airport.
What would you say if a Congressman was able to steer over $200 million from the U.S. Treasury to build an airport that has virtually no passengers? This is the Pennsylvania version of the “Bridge to Nowhere”, I kid you not!
Located outside a small Pennsylvania city, John Murtha Airport may not see many passengers, but it has seen plenty of arrivals of tax dollars from Washington, most recently economic stimulus funds (an additional $800,000 from the Obama stimulus plan). This “extremely necessary” airport offers 3 commercial flights per day. To Wash. D.C. and back to the John Murtha Airport. I guess this airport has few security and boarding problems and very little wait time to be processed by the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration). A traveler’s nirvana, if you happen to be in Johnstown, Pa.
“When the flights are arriving, there are people, other than that, it’s empty”, said Scott Voelker, Manager of the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport. In fact, the lone rent-a-car Hertz booth is empty most of the time.
Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), is considered one of the “Kings of Pork, so named by the taxpayer watchdog groups. Murtha is right up there with the octogenarian Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), to lay claim to that title. Age has taken its toll on ole Sen. Byrd so Rep. Murtha has gotten the title by default. Quite an accomplishment.
Most of the $200 million that has been received by the airport has come in the form of “earmarks” that are attached to bills in Congress put in by Rep. Murtha.
This is a continuation of the “Culture of Corruption” column I wrote a few weeks ago, just the name is different.
This is the same John Murtha who stated in 2006 that Marines, in the city of Haditha, Iraq, had killed civilians in “cold blood”. This statement was made before the accused Marines were tried in a military court. All have been acquitted and one of the ex-Marines has sued John Murtha in court for slander.
The “Airport to Nowhere” isn’t the only sleazy project That Rep. Murtha has had unethical dealings with. The good fortune that Johnstown has found comes at the expense of taxpayers everywhere. Defense contractors have found that if they open an office in or around Johnstown and if they hire the “right” lobbyist, they can get lucrative defense contracts. By the way, Rep. Murtha happens to be the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee. Gee, I guess that’s just a coincidence?
Over the past decade, Concurrent Technologies, a defense research firm that employs 800, got hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to Rep. Murtha despite poor reviews by the Pentagon auditors. In another “fishy” deal, the National Drug Intelligence Center, now located near Johnstown, with 200 workers, got $509 million even though the White House has tried for years to shut it down as wasteful and unnecessary. What a country!
Of course, all this “pork” translates into generous campaign contributions by the very companies who are the beneficiaries of these “earmarks”. Is this a quid pro quo of a “pay-to-play” scheme on the part of Rep. Murtha? You make the call!
Where is Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and what has happened to her pledge of ending the “culture of corruption” in Washington? I guess if you believe her pledge then you’ll believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you?
The “King of Pork” really has no clothes on, but then again, who cares?
Written by Chuck Lehmann
Friday, October 30, 2009
Conservative Quote of the Day
"As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, but that America gave him the White House based on the same credentials."
By Newt Gingrich
By Newt Gingrich
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Treating Seniors as 'Clunkers'
Written by Betsy McCaughey
Everyone knows that if you don't pay to maintain and repair your car, you limit its life. The same is true as human beings age. We need medical care to avoid becoming clunkers -- disabled, worn out, parked in wheelchairs or nursing homes.
For nearly a half century, Medicare has enabled seniors to get that care. But ObamaCare is about to change that, by limiting what doctors can provide their aging patients.
The Senate Finance Committee health bill released last week controls doctors by cutting their pay if they give older patients more care than the government deems appropriate. Section 3003(b) (p. 683) punishes doctors who land in the 90th percentile or above on what they provide for seniors on Medicare by withholding 5 percent of their compensation.
This withhold provision forces doctors to choose between treating their patients and avoiding government penalties. HMOs used the same cost-cutting device in the early '90s until it was deemed dangerous to patients and outlawed. Now, lawmakers want to use it against the most vulnerable patients, the elderly. This bill and four others under negotiation also would slash about $500 billion from future Medicare funding.
President Obama and his budget director, Peter Orszag, have told seniors not to worry, claiming that Medicare spending could be cut by as much as 30 percent without doing harm. They cite the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare 2008, which tries to prove patients who get less care -- fewer hospital days, doctors' visits and imaging tests -- have the same medical "outcomes" as patients who get more care. But read the fine print.
The Dartmouth authors arrived at their dubious conclusion by restricting their study to patients who died. They examined what Medicare paid to care for these chronically ill patients in their last two years. By definition, the outcomes were all the same: death. The Dartmouth study didn't consider patients who recovered, left the hospital and even resumed active lives. It would be important to know whether these patients survived because they received more care.
The journal Circulation addresses that question in its latest issue (Oct. 16) and disputes the Dartmouth conclusion. Examining patients with heart failure at six California teaching hospitals, doctors found that hospitals giving more care saved more lives. In hospitals that spent less, patients had a smaller chance of survival. That's the opposite of what Obama is claiming and Congress is proposing. The Senate Finance bill establishes a formula that penalizes hospitals for high "Medicare spending per beneficiary" (Section 2001, p. 643). That may save money, but the California study suggests it will cost lives.
When Medicare started in 1965, the law forbade the federal government from interfering in treatment decisions. Doctors decided what patients needed, and Medicare paid for each treatment on a fee-for-service basis. Though this protection from government interference has been whittled away a bit, doctors and patients in Medicare still decide what state-of-the-art medical care they want.
The results are huge improvements in longevity and seniors' quality of life. Life expectancy at age 65 has jumped from 79 years to 84, while disability has steadily declined. Seniors enjoy more active lives than their parents owing to hip and knee replacements, angioplasty and bypass surgery, according to James Lubitz and Ellen Kramarow of the National Center for Health Statistics (Health Affairs, Sept./Oct. 2007). Obama adviser Dr. David Cutler reports that the heart medications and procedures Medicare patients have received over the last 20 years have been a "wise investment" resulting in "excellent value" (Health Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2007).
Cuts in future Medicare funding -- what Obama calls "savings" -- will mean less help in coping with aging and possibly shorter lives. Do we really want to treat our seniors like clunkers?
Betsy McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths .
Everyone knows that if you don't pay to maintain and repair your car, you limit its life. The same is true as human beings age. We need medical care to avoid becoming clunkers -- disabled, worn out, parked in wheelchairs or nursing homes.
For nearly a half century, Medicare has enabled seniors to get that care. But ObamaCare is about to change that, by limiting what doctors can provide their aging patients.
The Senate Finance Committee health bill released last week controls doctors by cutting their pay if they give older patients more care than the government deems appropriate. Section 3003(b) (p. 683) punishes doctors who land in the 90th percentile or above on what they provide for seniors on Medicare by withholding 5 percent of their compensation.
This withhold provision forces doctors to choose between treating their patients and avoiding government penalties. HMOs used the same cost-cutting device in the early '90s until it was deemed dangerous to patients and outlawed. Now, lawmakers want to use it against the most vulnerable patients, the elderly. This bill and four others under negotiation also would slash about $500 billion from future Medicare funding.
President Obama and his budget director, Peter Orszag, have told seniors not to worry, claiming that Medicare spending could be cut by as much as 30 percent without doing harm. They cite the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare 2008, which tries to prove patients who get less care -- fewer hospital days, doctors' visits and imaging tests -- have the same medical "outcomes" as patients who get more care. But read the fine print.
The Dartmouth authors arrived at their dubious conclusion by restricting their study to patients who died. They examined what Medicare paid to care for these chronically ill patients in their last two years. By definition, the outcomes were all the same: death. The Dartmouth study didn't consider patients who recovered, left the hospital and even resumed active lives. It would be important to know whether these patients survived because they received more care.
The journal Circulation addresses that question in its latest issue (Oct. 16) and disputes the Dartmouth conclusion. Examining patients with heart failure at six California teaching hospitals, doctors found that hospitals giving more care saved more lives. In hospitals that spent less, patients had a smaller chance of survival. That's the opposite of what Obama is claiming and Congress is proposing. The Senate Finance bill establishes a formula that penalizes hospitals for high "Medicare spending per beneficiary" (Section 2001, p. 643). That may save money, but the California study suggests it will cost lives.
When Medicare started in 1965, the law forbade the federal government from interfering in treatment decisions. Doctors decided what patients needed, and Medicare paid for each treatment on a fee-for-service basis. Though this protection from government interference has been whittled away a bit, doctors and patients in Medicare still decide what state-of-the-art medical care they want.
The results are huge improvements in longevity and seniors' quality of life. Life expectancy at age 65 has jumped from 79 years to 84, while disability has steadily declined. Seniors enjoy more active lives than their parents owing to hip and knee replacements, angioplasty and bypass surgery, according to James Lubitz and Ellen Kramarow of the National Center for Health Statistics (Health Affairs, Sept./Oct. 2007). Obama adviser Dr. David Cutler reports that the heart medications and procedures Medicare patients have received over the last 20 years have been a "wise investment" resulting in "excellent value" (Health Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2007).
Cuts in future Medicare funding -- what Obama calls "savings" -- will mean less help in coping with aging and possibly shorter lives. Do we really want to treat our seniors like clunkers?
Betsy McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths .
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