List of Obama's Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures

Ashe Schow - October 18, 2012

It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case.

The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would’ve found the financial support in the private market.

So far, 36 companies that have received federal support from taxpayers have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and are heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($69 million)*
5. AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
6. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
7. SunPower ($1.5 billion)
8. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
9. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
10. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
11. Amonix ($5.9 million)
12. National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
13. Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
14. Abound Solar ($374 million)*
15. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
16. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
17. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
18. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
19. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
20. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
21. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
22. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
23. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
24. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
25. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
26. Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)*
27. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
28. LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
29. UniSolar ($100 million)*
30. Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
31. GreenVolts ($500,000)
32. Vestas ($50 million)
33. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
34. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
35. Navistar ($10 million)
36. Satcon ($3 million)*

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

The problem begins with the issue of government picking winners and losers in the first place. Venture capitalist firms exist for this very reason, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding if they are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connected to the policymakers themselves or because it sounds nice to “invest” in green energy.

The 2009 stimulus set aside $80 billion to subsidize politically preferred energy projects. Since that time, 1,900 investigations have been opened to look into stimulus waste, fraud, and abuse (although not all are linked to the green-energy funds), and nearly 600 convictions have been made. Of that $80 billion in clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits, at least 10 percent has gone to companies that have since either gone bankrupt or are circling the drain.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/ 

Antarctic Sea Ice Hits Record High

Sea ice extent around Antarctica on September 26. Yellow line shows median September sea ice extent from 1979 to 2000.

Daniel Stone - National Geographic News - Published October 13, 2012

Despite frequent headlines about a warming planet, melting sea ice, and rising oceans, climate analysts pointed to a seeming bright spot this week: During Southern Hemisphere winters, sea ice in the Antarctic, the floating chunks of frozen ocean water, is actually increasing.

In fact, in late September, satellite data indicated that Antarctica was surrounded by the greatest area of sea ice ever recorded in the region: 7.51 million square miles (19.44 million square kilometers), the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center announced Thursday. Even so, it's a slow rate of growth—about one percent over last year—not nearly enough to offset melting in the Arctic, which broke records just weeks ago.

National Geographic asked Eric Rignot, a NASA researcher and earth systems professor at UC Irvine, whether the data is good news, and what it means for the rise of global sea levels, which are fueled by melting ice.

This Antarctic record seems counter to what we often hear about sea ice shrinking. How can we explain growing sea ice?

If the world was warming up uniformly, you would expect the sea ice cover to decrease in the Antarctic, but it's not. The reason for that is because the Antarctic is cooler than the rest of the world. It's warming up as well but not as fast as other places.

So you have the warming world and a cold Antarctica, and the difference between the two is increasing.
That makes the winds around Antarctica move a little bit faster. There's also a difference that comes from the depletion of ozone in the stratosphere in the Antarctic, which makes the stratosphere colder.

That's the leading explanation for what we're seeing in the Antarctic, but you have to acknowledge that the effect is very small.

How does this news relate to other studies showing that the melting of Antarctic continental ice is contributing to a rise in sea level?

[Growing sea ice] has no effect whatsoever on sea level, because sea ice is already floating on the ocean. It does not displace sea level. It's frozen seawater, so whether it's frozen or liquid, it doesn't change the sea level.

While Arctic sea ice is decreasing, the Antarctic is now slightly increasing. Why is there so much variation between Arctic and Antarctic ice?

Well we have a continent on the South Pole. On the North Pole we have nothing but ocean. In the Arctic you see full-fledged warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, plus increased ice transport [out of the region, which removes cold air and water]. So all of these effects contribute to reduce the sea ice cover in the Arctic.

In the Antarctic, you have to think of it as its own climate system. It's a big continent isolated from the rest of the world. It has ocean all around it. It has wind regimes that blow clockwise around it and isolate it. It acts differently from the Arctic, which is completely connected to the rest of the North Hemisphere.

Considering we regularly hear about the planet's stressed climate system, is this good news?

Really, it's consistent with our understanding of a warming world. Some of the regional details are not something we can easily predict. But the general trends of decay of the sea ice cover and decay of the Greenland ice sheets and ice caps is in line with what we expect.

The Antarctic has not been warming up as fast as the models thought. It's warming up, but slower. So it's all consistent with a warming planet.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121013-antarctica-sea-ice-record-high-science-global-warming 

Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago

• The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures

• This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

By David Rose

PUBLISHED: 16:42 EST, 13 October 2012 

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. 

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years. 

global temperature changes

Research: The new figures mean that the 'pause' in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. This picture shows an iceberg melting in Eastern Greenland

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued  quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.

This stands in sharp contrast  to the release of the previous  figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.

Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.

Some climate scientists, such as Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.

Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.

Even Prof Jones admitted that he and his colleagues did not understand the impact of ‘natural variability’ – factors such as long-term ocean temperature cycles and changes in the output of the sun. However, he said he was still convinced that the current decade would end up significantly warmer than the previous two.

Warmer: Since 1880 the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius. This image shows floating icebergs in Greenland

The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit.

Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.

Some scientists have claimed that this rate of warming is set to increase hugely without drastic cuts to carbon-dioxide emissions, predicting a catastrophic increase of up to a further five degrees  Celsius by the end of the century.

The new figures were released as the Government made clear that it would ‘bend’ its own  carbon-dioxide rules and build new power stations to try to combat the threat of blackouts. 

At last week’s Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister, John Hayes, promised that ‘the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need fuel for heat, light and transport – energy policies, you might say, for the many, not the few’ – a pledge that has triggered fury from green activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to wind-turbine firms.

Flawed science costs us dearly

Here are three not-so trivial questions you probably won’t find in your next pub quiz. First, how much warmer has the world become since a) 1880 and  b) the beginning of 1997? And what has this got to do with your ever-increasing energy bill?

You may find the answers to the first two surprising. Since 1880, when reliable temperature records began to be kept across most of the globe, the world has warmed by about 0.75 degrees Celsius.

From the start of 1997 until August 2012, however, figures released last week show the answer is zero: the trend, derived from the aggregate data collected from more than 3,000 worldwide measuring points, has been flat. 

Not that there has been any  coverage in the media, which usually reports climate issues assiduously, since the figures were quietly release online with no accompanying press release – unlike six months ago when they showed a slight warming trend.

The answer to the third question is perhaps the most familiar. Your bills are going up, at least in part, because of the array of ‘green’ subsidies being provided to the renewable energy industry, chiefly wind.

They will cost the average household about £100 this year. This is set to rise steadily higher – yet it  is being imposed for only one  reason: the widespread conviction, which is shared by politicians of all stripes and drilled into children at primary schools, that, without drastic action to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, global warming is certain soon to accelerate, with truly catastrophic consequences by the end of the century – when temperatures could be up to five degrees higher.

Hence the significance of those first two answers. Global industrialisation over the past 130 years has made relatively little difference.

And with the country committed by Act of Parliament to reducing CO2 by 80 per cent by 2050, a project that will cost hundreds of billions, the news that the world has got no warmer for the past 16 years comes as something of a shock.

It poses a fundamental challenge to the assumptions underlying every aspect of energy and climate change policy.

This ‘plateau’ in rising temperatures does not mean that global warming won’t at some point resume. 

But according to increasing numbers of serious climate scientists, it does suggest that the computer models that have for years been predicting imminent doom, such as  those used by the Met Office and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are flawed, and that the climate is far more complex than the models assert.

‘The new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming,’ Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at America’s Georgia Tech university, told me yesterday.

‘Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural variability  [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming effect.

‘It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.’

Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who found himself at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandal over leaked emails three years ago, would not normally be expected to agree with her. Yet on two important points, he did.

The data does suggest a plateau, he admitted, and without a major El Nino event – the sudden, dramatic warming of the southern Pacific which takes place unpredictably and always has a huge effect on global weather – ‘it could go on for a while’.

Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’

Yet he insisted that 15 or 16 years is not a significant period: pauses of such length had always been expected, he said.

Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate emails: ‘Bottom  line: the “no upward trend” has to  continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’

But although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadn’t changed his mind about the  models’ gloomy predictions:  ‘I still think that the current decade which began in 2010 will be warmer by about 0.17 degrees than the previous one, which was warmer than the Nineties.’

Only if that did not happen would he seriously begin to  wonder whether something more profound might be happening. In other words, though five years ago he seemed to be saying that 15 years without warming would make him ‘worried’, that period has now become 20 years.

Meanwhile, his Met Office  colleagues were sticking to their guns. A spokesman said: ‘Choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system.’

He said that for the plateau to last any more than 15 years was ‘unlikely’. Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009 – that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature record – he made no comment. With no sign of a strong El Nino next year, the prospects of this happening are remote.

Why all this matters should be obvious. Every quarter, statistics on the economy’s output and  models of future performance have a huge impact on our lives. They trigger a range of policy responses from the Bank of England and the Treasury, and myriad decisions by private businesses.

Yet it has steadily become apparent since the 2008 crash that both the statistics and the modelling are extremely unreliable. To plan the future around them makes about as much sense as choosing a wedding date three months’ hence on the basis of a long-term weather forecast.

Few people would be so foolish. But decisions of far deeper and more costly significance than those derived from output figures have been and are still being made on the basis of climate predictions, not of the next three months but of the coming century – and this despite the fact that Phil Jones and his colleagues now admit they do not understand the role of ‘natural variability’.

The most depressing feature  of this debate is that anyone who questions the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate change ‘denier’, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity.

So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy implications.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html

Did RNC "Scripted" Rules Change Start A Civil War In The Republican Party?

I hope the war doesn't start until after the election. Defeating obama is critical for this country. Either way, I wouldn't count on this battle going away.

In U.S., Private Schools Get Top Marks for Educating Children

Public schools score lowest in terms of perceived education quality

by Jeffrey M. Jones - August 29, 2012

Seventy-eight percent of Americans say children educated in private schools receive an excellent or good education, more than say that about four other types of U.S. schooling. At least 6 in 10 say parochial schools or charter schools provide a quality education, while far fewer say that about home schooling or public schools.

These results are based on Gallup's annual Work and Education poll, conducted Aug. 9-12. For the first time Gallup asked Americans to rate -- based on what they have heard or their own experiences -- the quality of education U.S. children receive in various schooling situations.

Public schools get a relatively poor rating, even though the vast majority of American children are educated in public schools. The poll finds 83% of parents with children in grades kindergarten through 12 saying their oldest child attends public school, compared with 9% who say private school, 4% home school, and 2% parochial school. The poll did not assess the percentage of children attending charter schools, a relatively new type of school.

Parents of school-aged children generally rank the various school types in the same order, although they are somewhat more positive about the quality of public school education -- 47% say it is excellent or good -- than the broader adult population (37%).

Democrats More Upbeat About Public Schools

There are political differences in how respondents rate the quality of certain types of schooling, with Republicans much more positive about home schooling and, to a lesser extent, parochial schools, than are Democrats. In turn, Democrats are more positive about public schools than are Republicans.

The net result of these differences is that Democrats are slightly more positive about the educational quality of public schools than of home schooling. However, Democrats still view private, parochial, and charter schools as providing better education than public schools.

Americans' Continue to Be Dissatisfied With K-12 Schooling in U.S.

The relatively low rating for public schools is likely an extension of Americans' broader dissatisfaction with kindergarten through grade 12 education in the United States. The Aug. 9-12 poll finds 44% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the quality of education U.S. students receive; 53% are dissatisfied. Only once in the 13-year history of this question, in 2004, have more Americans been satisfied than dissatisfied.

But American parents are always far more positive when asked to rate their own child's school -- with 75% this year saying they are satisfied. Seventy-five percent of public school parents are also satisfied with their child's schooling.

The percentage satisfied with their own child's education has never been lower than 68% since 1999, compared with a maximum satisfaction level of 53% for U.S. education more generally.

Implications

Americans are much more inclined to believe students in private, parochial, or charter schools receive a high-quality education than to say this about students in public schools and those who are home schooled. Americans in general are not highly satisfied with the state of public schooling in the United States, although that is probably not a commentary on their own child's school and schools in their local area because Americans have historically been quite satisfied with each of those. Rather, Americans may just have a general sense that U.S. public education is not where it needs to be, perhaps due to news media reports that American students lag behind students in other countries in basic academic skills.

Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Aug. 9-12, 2012, with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

For results based on the total sample of 236 parents with children in grades kindergarten through 12, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±8 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

View methodology, full question results, and trend data.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/156974/private-schools-top-marks-educating-children.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication

Mutiny Planned at GOP Convention Over Rules Changes

I wonder how many votes this will cost the GOP in November?! What should have been a positive convention that garnered a national spotlight and the opportunity to pick up lots of new votes is turning into anything but. I've been saying for quite some time now...it's time to come together!!! Paul should be speaking for the Ron Paulers, Palin should be speaking for the Tea Party, Herman Cain should be speaking, Col. Allen West should be speaking! Imagine the votes the GOP could have secured. This just doesn't seem very strategic to me. Giving up this election to shield the party from Ron Paulers in the future?

Texas delegates planning floor mutiny over RNC rules changes

By Liz Goodwin - 8/27/2012

TAMPA--On Monday morning, at a meeting of more than 100 Texan delegates and alternates at the Saddlebrook Resort 20 miles north of Tampa, one topic got the crowd more fired up than any other. Delegate Melinda Fredricks read aloud a letter condemning recent changes to the national Republican party's rules that would allow the GOP presidential candidate to veto and replace state delegates.

"Our delegates are in shock that such an amendment even would be presented before the Rules Committee much less passed into rule," Fredricks said. "Please know from the Texas delegation standpoint that the only way a floor fight can be avoided is for this rule to be stricken."

At that point, the entire Texas delegation stood up and applauded.

Texans don't necessarily want to have an ugly floor fight on the same day the party officially nominates Mitt Romney. But they're willing to do it if their concerns about the rule aren't satisfied. The changes, which Mitt Romney's top lawyer put forward last week and Gov. Haley Barbour along with some other Romney supporters have embraced, are seen by opponents as intended to significantly weaken the power of grassroots politics and insurgent candidates such as Ron Paul. Many against the move worry that it would give national candidates the power to replace delegates--often grassroots party faithfuls--with big-time donors or friends.

"We truly consider that an infringement on our rights," Fredricks, a member of the rules committee, told Yahoo News of the changes. Today, states generally choose their delegates at state conventions, and then those individuals travel to the national convention to cast their vote for a candidate based on the share the candidate won of the primary or caucus vote of each state. But, the changes could allow a candidate such as Mitt Romney to boot out any delegates who are assigned to vote for him and replace them.

While opposition to the rules began with Ron Paul supporters, it has spread to the entire Texas delegation and significant portions of those from South Carolina, Colorado, Virginia and Louisiana too. Mitt Romney's campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg proposed the rule last week, but even some Romney supporters are staunchly opposed to the changes. Indiana delegate and Romney supporter James Bopp wrote in an email to RNC members that it's "the biggest power grab in the history of the Republican Party." Fredricks, a Romney supporter, says only 30 people of the more than 300 Texan alternates and delegates support Ron Paul, yet the delegation is "united" in its opposition to the rule.

At 2pm on Tuesday, the Rules Committee members will debate whether the new rule should be struck down. Fredericks thinks she has the 29 members necessary to start a debate about the change, and is hopeful she can resolve the issue before the committee adjourns and joins the larger convention floor.

"We like to fight behind closed doors...Most of us are reluctant to do a floor flight," Fredricks said.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told Salon Monday that he does not expect a floor fight, though he did not explain why.

Paulites are among the staunchest opponents of the new rule. It would prevent insurgent candidates such as Paul from raking up delegate votes in caucus states where party conventions instead of the statewide vote determine how many delegates are awarded. ABC's Chris Good points out that Paul would not have won a plurality of delegates in four states if this rule had been in effect during this primary.

Paul supporter Karen Skrill, an alternate delegate from Vermont, said she and her husband Stewart, a delegate, are upset about the changed rules.

"If this is how it's going to be, I don't want to be a Republican," Skrill told Yahoo News in a discussion on the floor Monday. The Skrills are retired farmers.

"Texas in general doesn't believe the national level should be picking delegates," added Jon Burgin, an alternate delegate from San Antonio who supports Paul. "It's pretty egregious."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/texas-delegates-planning-floor-mutiny-over-rnc-rules-225837647.html 

The following is a copy of the statement that was read in regard to the rule changes:

"We strongly oppose recently proposed changes to the party rules which would give the Republican National Committee unprecedented centralized authority over the presidential nomination process, overriding the autonomy of the states and their long established electoral traditions. We also object strenuously to new rules which would empower the Republican National Committee to change the rules under which it operates between conventions without approval of the body of delegates representing the party membership. These proposed rule changes are tyrannical, contrary to the principles of republican governance and hostile to the interests of the grassroots of the party. Together they constitute an attempt to shift the power in the party from the state parties and their members to an elite establishment which answers primarily to special interests and powerful politicians, a corruption of our party which we believe all true Republicans will find unacceptable."

Issued 8/27/2012

Catholicism and the Poor

Acts coerced by government, no matter how beneficial or well-intentioned, cannot be moral.

By: ANTONY DAVIES AND KRISTINA ANTOLIN - August 17, 2012

Someone is twisting the Catholic Church's teachings on caring for the poor, but it isn't Paul Ryan. His controversial budgetary ideas demonstrate that he has a better grasp of Catholic social thought than do many of the American Catholic bishops.

The culmination of centuries of theological and philosophical thought, the church's teachings cannot simply be satisfied by a government edict to "feed the poor." Commanding "Let there be light!" works fine for God, but for mortal beings, edicts don't carry the same punch.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has long supported government interference in the economy as a means to help the poor. But we suspect the bishops haven't fully thought this through: If God really did favor a top-down approach to poverty reduction, why wouldn't He establish a government with the power to wipe away poverty on demand instead of leaving things to chance and the possibility that someone like Mr. Ryan would come along and mess up His plans?

Perhaps we dehumanize the poor when we treat them as nothing more than problems to be solved, and we dehumanize the rich when we treat them as wallets to be picked.

Wealth and poverty are catalysts for bringing the rich and the poor together in community, and community is the hallmark of the church's mission on Earth. Government is not community. Government is one of community's tools, a coercive one we use when it is necessary to force people to behave in ways they would not otherwise behave voluntarily.

But that word—voluntarily—is key, and it's where Mr. Ryan's religious detractors go awry: Charity can only be charity when it is voluntary. Coerced acts, no matter how beneficial or well-intentioned, cannot be moral. If we force people to give to the poor, we have stripped away the moral component, reducing charity to mere income redistribution. And if one really is as good as the other, the Soviets demonstrated long ago that it can be done far more efficiently without the trappings of church and religion.

All people have the moral obligation to care for those who are less fortunate. But replacing morality with legality is the first step in replacing church, religion and conscience with government, politics and majority vote. Coercing people to feed the poor simply substitutes moral poverty for material poverty.

The bishops dance with the devil when they invite government to use its coercive power on their behalf, and there's no clearer example than the Affordable Care Act. They happily joined their moral authority to the government's legal authority by supporting mandatory health insurance. They should not have been surprised when the government used its reinforced power to require Catholic institutions to pay for insurance plans that cover abortions and birth control.

To paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien (a devoted Catholic), the government does not share power. Paul Ryan knows this. The bishops would be wise to listen to him.

Mr. Davies is professor of economics at Duquesne University. Ms. Antolin is a Catholic theologian.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444375104577592892933747400.html 

The Role of Government

The following is my post on The Political Insiders Report today:

“Sometimes you fall off of the ladder…there is a safety net there…liberals tend to believe that the safety net is a hammock, so you can stay there the rest of your life,” Rep. Allen West

It’s hard for me to find fault with the folks taking advantage of the government hammock. Whether it’s the generations of families living off of welfare, capable persons drawing unemployment longer than they need, or the wealthy taking advantage of tax loopholes; it is entirely legal, and human nature after all. The true fault lies with those who make it possible to live at other’s expense. Those who savor the “slavery” of making voters completely dependent for their basic needs because it equates to guaranteed votes.

What is the proper role of government? 

Objectivists believe the only role of government is to protect its citizens. A police to protect from criminals, an army to protect from foreign invasion, and courts to protect property and contracts from breach or fraud. However, altruists believe the role extends to caring for those citizens who aren’t capable of caring for themselves. This noble view pervades most of American politics today.

The structure of philanthropy in government.

Two primary beliefs exist on how to go about helpingAmerica’s needy. One side believes in charity while the other in a redistribution of wealth often to fund entitlement programs. The two contrast each other.

As Davies and Antolin state in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, “Charity can only be charity when it is voluntary. Coerced acts, no matter how beneficial or well-intentioned, cannot be moral. If we force people to give to the poor, we have stripped away the moral component, reducing charity to mere income redistribution.”

Certainly, redistributing wealth to the needy in the form of entitlements is an effective form of philanthropy, but what happens when the government runs out of wealth to redistribute?  This belief system eventually leads to a nation of poverty.  There is an inherit danger in viewing wealth as a finite resource that must be shared.  The “trickle down” philosophy is accurate.  Just as wealth can be and is created, so too can it be destroyed.  Progressive taxation aimed at redistributing wealth to the needy is well intentioned, but eventually succeeds only in destroying wealth and creating poverty.

The private sector does not flourish under high taxation.  As Sen. Marco Rubio stated, “I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business.” And as goes the private sector, so goes the economy. As is evident, the needy suffer more under a poor economy. Unemployment is up, and with it the need for more welfare. Food stamp rolls have met record highs as has “real unemployment”.

The creation of wealth is vital to caring for our needy. As former Omaha Mayor Hal Daub stated, “You need wealth to have charity.” Economic policies that lead to wealth creation, combined with social policies encouraging charitable giving through tax credits not only lead to more effective social assistance, but guarantee the sustainability of that assistance. They do so while respecting the potential of the individual and encouraging the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

While entitlement programs destroy personal accountability and breed generations of dependence, charities encourage and motivate the individual to strive to reach their full potential rather than enabling dependence. They provide a true safety net for America’s needy.

To Read more on the topic, visit my post here.  

"Only 30% of government “welfare” spending goes to the needy. Private charity is the opposite, with over 70% going to the needy. That means private charity is 150% more efficient than the welfare state.

GOP Suckered Into Surrendering Checks and Balances in Constitution

August 4, 2012 - by: Michael Patomson

On Tuesday, Congress voted to suspend the rules and pass legislation that removes checks and balances from the Constitution. The separate branches of government were designed to protect us from outright Tyranny and Dictatorship that the rest of the world lives under. Tuesday, those protections were surrendered by those occupying our own Congress.

This treasonous act known by the deceptive title, "the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011", was quietly passed and given no media coverage or attention. This legislation now allows the president to appoint most key positions in the federal government without the Advice and Consent of the Senate as required under Article 2 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Among those positions are;

• The Treasurer of the United States,
• The Rural Utilities Service Administrator,
• The Chief Scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration,
• The Deputy Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration,
• Members of the National Security Education Board,
• The Director of Selective Service,
• Four key officers in the Department of Homeland Security, and
• Five high-level Directors in the Department of Justice.

This bill is all the more dangerous because some of the officers that it exempts from Senate scrutiny are highly sensitive. The Rural Utilities Services Administrator would likely serve on the Rural Council. Obama formed that Council to carry out UN Agenda 21.

Among the Co-Sponsors of this bill were Senators Mike Johanns (R-NE), Harry Ried (D-NV), Jon Kyl (AZ), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Congressmen Tom Latham from Iowa and Paul Ryan from wisconsin were among the representatives to vote for this abomination. In the name of "streamlining" the executive branch, all they have done is made it easier for a Tyrannical Dictatorship to grow and the national government to become more powerful. HOW THEY VOTED

Maybe they should have taken it as a clear indication that the national government has become massively unwieldy and out of control. Perhaps those charged with defending our liberties and freedom that the Constitution was designed to protect should have been trying to streamline the size of this massive overhanging government instead of widening the door so they can get through it.

http://www.meetup.com/the912project/ 

Doctor Shortage In America

July 31, 2012 

ObamaCare is set to expand the number of insured Americans, but an apparent shortage of doctors could make it difficult to treat them all. 

The primary objective of President Obama's overhaul of the health-care system is to extend coverage to the tens of millions of Americans currently without insurance. "But coverage will not necessarily translate into care," because there may not be enough doctors to treat everyone, say Annie Lowrey and Robert Pear at The New York Times. The U.S. is already facing a severe shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas of the country, and the problem is only expected to get worse as more Americans gain insurance. Here, a guide to America's dearth of doctors:

Why aren't there enough doctors?
The pool of new doctors hasn't kept pace with several factors boosting the number of people seeking care: Population growth, the ObamaCare expansion, and an aging Baby Boomer generation that requires additional medical attention. Enrollment in Medicare, the government-run insurance program for the elderly, is expected to swell to 73.2 million in 2025, up from 50.7 million in 2012. Furthermore, the U.S. is facing an acute shortage of primary-care physicians, leaving many patients without access to general practitioners, pediatricians, family doctors, and other providers of basic medical care.

How will the shortage affect patients?
"A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients," say Suzanne Sataline and Shirley S. Wang at The Wall Street Journal. The shortage will likely most affect those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor and disabled, since Medicaid's rolls are expected to expand significantly under ObamaCare. The shortfall of doctors could reach 100,000 by 2025. (There are currently about 1 million doctors in America.)

Why do so few doctors choose to go into primary care?
The main reason is money. Medical school graduates can expect to make an average of $3.5 million more over the course of their careers if they choose to enter a specialized field, such as anesthesiology or radiology. The difference in pay is enough that primary-care physicians carry a stigma within the medical community of being less talented and intelligent. The trend has huge implications for ObamaCare: "It is no exaggeration to say that the success of the health-care law rests on young doctors choosing to do something that is not in their economic self-interest," says Sarah Kliff at The Washington Post.

What can we do about it?
ObamaCare contains modest provisions increasing Medicaid primary-care payments and incentives for medical students to become primary-care physicians. The number of primary-care residencies climbed 20 percent between 2009 and 2011, but it's still not enough. Communities have been encouraged to create more walk-in clinics, and to allow more nurses to provide primary care. In addition, the U.S. could alter its immigration policies to attract doctors from overseas, "which should be very easy to do since doctors in the U.S. earn on average about twice as much as their comparably trained counterparts in Western Europe and Canada," says Dean Baker at Business Insider.

http://theweek.com/article/index/231267/is-america-running-out-of-doctors 

A Physician’s Solution to Healthcare

Written by  Alieta Eck, M.D. - 26 July 2012

Whatever happened to Healthcare? Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center, a hospital in central New Jersey, recently closed its doors after 130 years of operation. Though this seemingly equated to a failure in private provision of healthcare, this actually represented a colossal failure of government, as mandates coupled with inadequate funding for Medicare, Medicaid, and “charity care” left this hospital with an apparently unsolvable dilemma: It could not pay its bills.

How did we get there? Muhlenberg’s website explained that the hospital emerged from the efforts of seven volunteers who were deeply touched by a local train accident in 1876. After a physician had to perform surgery by candlelight at a nearby freight house, these individuals set out to build a community hospital. They raised funds from their neighbors, friends, and philanthropists who cared about the well-being of area families. The government had nothing to do with it, except to make things as easy as possible for these good people to succeed in their mission.

In the 1950s, the future looked bright. Unemployment was as low as two percent, and most families had private insurance. Hospitals were full of volunteers, providing training for medical and nursing students. Communities held fundraisers, and hospitals were major recipients of private charity. The poor were cared for, as physicians donated their time in hospital-based clinics.

City and county hospitals were built, set up by local governments. Outpatient visits to charity facilities rose some 310 percent from 1944 to 1965. Each indigent patient typically was charged $5 for a visit, the community rallied, and expenses were met. Once their economic lot improved, the poor were happy to transition out of the public hospitals, as there were fewer amenities than existed in the private hospitals. Public hospitals were clean, though not luxurious.

Everything was local — the way healthcare should be. Health insurance was a way to shield one’s assets from sudden depletion and was reserved for major medical events. Patients hoped they would not need to use it any time soon. Then, due to a quirk in the tax laws, health insurance became deductible, though only if it was purchased by one’s employer. So unlike any other insurance, it became an employee “benefit” rather than a personal responsibility.

Downward Spiral

In 1965, Congress enacted the huge Medicaid and Medicare programs. The idea was to enroll the poor and elderly into these large federal programs and thus provide equal access to all citizens. It was perceived that the poor no longer should be “stigmatized” and segregated into county or city hospitals, but should receive all the amenities that were given to those who paid. Efficient 12-bed wards gave way to two-bed rooms with the concomitant increase in personnel needed to staff them. Local control by municipalities was taken away, and the hospitals were sold to medical schools and private corporations.

From the very beginning, Medicaid and Medicare never covered more than half the cost of the care these programs promised. Yet the care was provided, and the costs were shifted. While the consumer price index rose 300 percent between 1960 and 1980, the per diem cost of hospital beds rose by 900 percent. The big government programs and employer-purchased insurance contributed to the steep, spiraling inflation of healthcare costs, for no one is as frugal when he is spending other people’s money.

In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure public access to emergency services — emergency services only — regardless of ability to pay. This led to a great overuse of the emergency rooms for non-urgent care. The uninsured public learned that they could show up with sore throats and earaches and receive treatment because the emergency rooms learned that it was easier to just care for the people than to spend the time trying to determine the urgency of the patient’s illness.

Few could have imagined the unintended consequences that would creep in and eventually destroy our hospitals. Before government intervention, the laws of the marketplace set hospital charges. Patients usually paid their own bills, based upon ordinary, understandable receipts. Hospitals were run by administrators who came out of the medical profession. After all, who would understand what was needed better than a recently retired surgeon? His pay would be similar to any one of his colleagues, not the multiples of millions of dollars now awarded to the professional medical executive class.

Rather than our medical facilities and hospitals remaining local efforts — with many hands working together to create a better community — presidents, governors, judges, and legislators were not able to resist the urge to exert top-down control. Over-regulation, government mandates, and inadequate payments from government programs made Muhlenberg and every other hospital struggle to keep afloat.

As an example, imagine what would happen if a grocery store were mandated to provide food for every hungry person, regardless of ability to pay. People would show up, plate and fork in hand, and demand the highest quality gourmet food, never considering the bill. Politicians would win elections by promising food for all, while reassuring the stores that they would be reimbursed for “uncompensated charity food.” But tax rates can only be increased so much, and there would never be quite enough to cover the ever-increasing demand. The store would make a valiant attempt to go on, cutting corners, always aware that lawsuits would be the ultimate result when it could no longer keep up.

Any sane storeowner would simply shrug and close the doors rather than listen to the angry demands of hungry patrons who must wait longer and longer for food and complaints of overworked employees, while being pressured by government bureaucrats and annoyed politicians. Then again, generous campaign donations might ensure that legislators appropriated plenty of tax dollars in the direction of well-connected supermarkets — a recipe for corruption.

The Beginning of the End

The final straw in New Jersey, where this writer practices medicine, was the enactment of the Individual Health Coverage Program of 1992, which actually forms a template for the goals set forth in Obama­Care. With this law we have “guaranteed issue,” where no pre-existing conditions can be excluded from insurance coverage. The government dictates what needs to be covered on every policy, and what deductibles or co-pays can be chosen. Each insurance company regularly updates the website with its monthly premiums. This law led to the tremendous increase in the cost of health insurance in New Jersey, and the unacceptably large numbers of uninsured. Families find they must pay $2,000-$3,000 per month for even the most basic plans.

Government programs insisted on the best prices, so the “chargemaster” or sticker prices rose precipitously. Because government and insurance companies refused to pay bills in their entirety, physicians and hospitals were not clear on what they would be paid, and doctors tended to raise their bills to maximize reimbursement. When Medicaid and Medicare pay less than 50 percent of the actual cost of care, and state funds are inadequate to pay for state-reimbursed “charity care,” hospitals have attempted to charge the uninsured many multiples of the costs they incur. Today an uninsured new mother will get a hospital bill of $25,000 for the delivery of her baby. Blue Cross pays $5,700 for the same event because insurance companies contract with medical providers for reduced rates. (If government does not get the lowest rate, it claims fraud.)

Hospitals have morphed into revenue centers instead of places where people can serve those who are hurting. They began as places of mercy, where the poor would find kind care. But today we see fewer young people encouraged to volunteer as candy-stripers. Professional CPT coders, chart reviewers, and utilization reviewers plague the physicians with demands and pressures to order more or less tests. Which insurance company will pay more for which code becomes the driving factor in the operation of the hospital. Instead of focusing on the patients, pressures from payers determine care. Good medical care becomes secondary to the ways to obtain the best reimbursement.

Hospitals are required to care for every patient, regardless of ability to pay. Because of the burden of caring for the uninsured, hospitals are always seeking extra funds from the feds or the state to keep the operations afloat. Money flows, the taxpayers are fleeced, and no one seems to notice that the hospital executives are reaping ever-increasing reimbursement packages.

Subsidiarity and Bottom-up Care

Maybe it is time to think outside the box. It is time to unshackle the medical community so that it can get back to the simple task of caring for patients. It is time to restore the common-sense concept of subsidiarity, where those closest to the problem provide the greatest input in solving it. People ought to be responsible for their own medical care, paying for routine services with their own funds just as they would pay for the routine maintenance of their cars.

If there is a greater need — for a specialist consultation or an MRI — the family could chip in to help. The church or local community could have a fund to help those who cannot help themselves. If a medication is needed long-term, it would be wise to have the doctor find the best medicine at the lowest price. Shop around for the best deal. This way of thinking should be the norm.

In order for health insurance to become affordable, it needs to be rarely used and reserved for major medical events — like accidents or operations. Insurance should be a way to cushion one’s assets and bank accounts from sudden depletion. No one hopes to use his homeowner’s insurance, but maintains his home, to lessen the chance of it being needed. We do not plan to use our auto insurance, but drive carefully and maintain our vehicles so that accidents can be avoided and we will not need to make that phone call to collect from the insurance company. Additionally, plans with high deductibles could be selected, which would result in lower premiums.

Of course, some people who propose to maintain the status quo rightly claim that few ultimately escape the need for medical care; therefore, health insurance must be different from other forms of insurance. But this is no reason to make even the smallest of medical transactions the concern of some third party. As a matter of fact, in the Oath of Hippocrates, it was clearly understood that the very best care is rendered when done privately. Personal fears and issues can be addressed best when the patient is confident that his privacy will not be violated. New medical graduates recite these lines:

I do solemnly swear by that which I hold most sacred … that all that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

ObamaCare and the government programs are pushing for electronic medical records, where every transaction will be displayed online. But all the passcodes and safeguards in the world cannot possibly prevent the violation of privacy that will come. Those who are “entitled” to look at the record of any individual are ever growing in numbers.

Breaking Free

When my husband John and I started our medical practice in 1988, we learned early on that caring for the poor via the Medicaid program was a quick way to financial ruin. Reimbursement, which came months after the visit, was so low that it cost more money to process the claims than we received from the government. Yet, we wanted to care for the poor. It occurred to us that the poor would do well to have the benefit of the community when they found themselves sick and with no resources. A plastic Medicaid card was cold and impersonal, hardly what they needed, and the frustration of not being able to find a participating physician was rejection that would only compound their despair.

But more importantly, we wanted to enlist the help of people who would demonstrate compassion in a way that would provide a lasting impact. We had listened to caseworkers tell of their frustration in being trained to keep people trapped in poverty, since their jobs and the viability of the welfare programs required a constant pool of new sign-ups. One story tells of a caseworker instructing a young client to get pregnant, for this would instantly qualify her for Medicaid, and then she would be able to get braces to straighten her teeth.

My husband and I studied The Tragedy of American Compassion, by Dr. Marvin Olasky, enlisted the help of fellow parishioners in our church, and determined to open a non-government free clinic at our church. A 900-square-foot house on the church grounds had been flooded by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, and the church leaders agreed to allow us to configure the rooms in the most efficient way possible for a medical facility. Volunteers stepped up to help with time, skills, and money, so by the time we opened the doors of the Zarephath Health Center in 2003, it was debt free.

Today, despite being open only 14 hours a week, we see 300-400 patients per month utilizing a volunteer staff of physicians, nurses, and support personnel. We are amazingly efficient; we use no CPT codes, or ICD-9 codes, which define the type of illness a patient has and what medical procedure was done and can be billed for, and no billing of the patient or the government. The actual cost to provide care, including the money we need to pay for the utilities and office and medical supplies, amounts to just $15 per patient visit. A free-will offering box is located at the front desk to collect patient “donations,” and generous donors easily make up the difference between what patients pay and what the visits cost. When the patient leaves the premises, the transaction is complete. Both the giver and the recipient are ennobled, as the generosity of the physicians and nurses is met with genuine thankfulness by the patient.

Better yet, other volunteers take an interest in each individual, finding out more of their circumstances, seeking to find what has led them into their tight financial state, and what might be done to alleviate their pain. Support groups and practical help for single moms, church groups similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, drug addiction counseling, a clothes closet and food pantry, genuine friendship, and Bible study and prayer groups all contribute to a culture of caring that causes many people to return and get the help that eventually gives them hope and helps them out of poverty.

In the summer of 2011, the Zarephath Health Center moved out of the small house and into a newly configured 5,000-square-foot facility complete with five exam rooms, a large classroom, and ample storage for donated items.

Who Do We See?

It is 5:00 p.m. on a Wednesday evening. People are beginning to line up at the door of the free clinic, which opens at 7:00. Some have been at the clinic before, while others are coming for the first time. They strike up conversations, unloading their tales of losing jobs, struggling with homelessness, and wondering where their next meal will come from. Friendly volunteers work the lines, offering a compassionate ear. A clothing and food pantry are right next door, and the patients are invited to check them out. There is a certain camaraderie that comes from a common theme — life is hard.

One unemployed patient comes with diabetes and high blood pressure. We supply him with test supplies, medicines, and dietary advice and work to teach him ways to prevent complications of his diseases.

Another patient is sitting on the exam table, and his eyes light up when we come into the room. His story goes back three years or so, when he came into the office with such large nasal polyps he could barely breathe. He could not sleep and was exhausted, so he came with disability papers for me to fill out. He was in his 50s, and he doubted he could ever work again.

He had not been able to find a doctor to help him. He was marginally employed. He had qualified for charity care at the hospital, but the surgeon’s fee of $1,600 was more than he could handle. It occurred to me that all I needed to do was find a doctor, explain the situation, and offer to have the Zarephath Health Center pay a negotiated fee. Nine hundred dollars was agreed upon, and the man received exactly the help he needed.

Now he has cancer. The local hospital is getting him the oncology treatments he needs, but he cannot find a primary care physician who takes Medicaid. When he asked if he could still come to the Zarephath Health Center, his eyes filled with tears when we told him we would be honored to still see him.

We asked about his support system, and he said he has a few friends. But now he wants to come to the free men’s breakfast held monthly on a Saturday morning. He wants to meet more people who care — who will be there for him as times get harder. He will meet men who understand his plight — who have been in difficult spots but have found that there is hope and real practical help in the faith community. He will find friends with a genuine motivation to care.

As we see the next patient, she tells of the Lasik eye surgery she recently had in New York City. We gently explain to her that anyone who can pay for Lasik surgery ought not be coming to our free clinic. She sheepishly agrees and takes the information that directs her to the private practice of some of our doctors. Since these doctors take no third party insurance, she can be assured that the fees are similar to what she would pay to service her car.

A young woman in her early thirties was in tears as she told her tale of hardship. She has a job, but is about to lose her apartment. Her husband is in jail for six months for driving while intoxicated. The night before, her cousin collapsed on her living room floor, barely breathing from a heroin overdose. He was rushed to the emergency room.

“How is he doing?” we asked. “Oh, he got better. In fact, you will be seeing him next!”

That next patient, her cousin, denied using drugs, but claimed he went to the emergency room with a panic attack. We had the ER report, but it was useless to argue. Lying is a trait firmly established in drug addicts.

I was able to access the state narcotics website, which tells of the meds, the doctors, and the pharmacies utilized by individuals. I noticed that he had gotten 12 doses of Percocet, a narcotic painkiller, from different ER doctors on separate occasions. He said that his teeth are painful, and he cannot afford a dentist.

You can imagine his amazement when we invited him back to be the first patient seen by a dentist in our newly configured dental room. A donated chair and equipment had just been set up, and the dentists were ready to volunteer.

It is our hope that the woman and her cousin will get the help and support they need. We cannot solve all their problems, but we have the support groups to help them. They know that everyone is volunteering, and the kindness is palpable.

What Have We Learned?

Our experience at the Zarephath Health Center has taught us many things about the poor. First, we have learned that the causes of poverty are as numerous as the patients we see, so any large government programs will have guidelines that fail to address the real needs. These programs develop bigger and bigger bureaucracies that attempt to weed out fraud and abuse. But the inefficient use of taxpayer funds compounds the inherent inadequacy to address the real needs of the poor. In fact, welfare programs tend to trap people in poverty so that they have every incentive to remain on the government dole. People feel alone, disenchanted, hopeless, and often angry.

Back to the Future

Susan Olasky, WORLD magazine writer, visited the Zarephath Health Center earlier this year and made an insightful observation. She had recently read Cutting for Stone, a novel by physician Abraham Verghese, and saw something in our clinic that reminded her of this book. She saw something personalized.

She wrote:

Dr. Verghese concluded that today’s system is bad for budgets, doctors, and patients. Tending to the iPatient, he writes, “can’t begin to compare with the joy, excitement, intellectual pleasure, pride, disappointment, and lessons in humility that trainees might experience by learning from the real patient’s body examined at the bedside.” Verghese describes the careful physical exam as ritual, which “strengthens the patient-physician relationship and enhances the Samaritan role of doctors — all rarely discussed reasons why we should maintain our physical-diagnosis skills.”

Verghese concludes with a cry for better medical training to produce better clinicians, those who understand “the bedside is hallowed ground, the place where fellow human beings allow us the privilege of looking at, touching, and listening to their bodies. Our skills and discernment must be worthy of such trust.” But that’s unlikely to happen unless we make our medical system hospitable once again to doctors like the Ecks.

A Simple Plan

The Federal Tort Claims Act of 1996 provides free medical malpractice coverage for professionals while they are volunteering at a free clinic. Freed from the specter of frivolous lawsuits, the physician can offer common-sense care and expect compliance from the patients.

Why not devise a similar plan with state government involved as well? We could set up a system where the physicians donate, say, four hours per week in free care. A surgeon might be asked to take on one charity case per week. Then, to protect the professionals who donate their time and expertise, each state could agree to provide full medical malpractice protection for their entire practices. Such coverage is already provided for physicians who work or teach in medical school university hospitals. The state would not be laying out money for medical malpractice insurance, but just agree to pay the costs of litigation and payouts in the event of a true injury. If a patient wanted to sue his physician, he would find himself suing the state instead. Experience has proven that far fewer claims would be made and litigation would be far less common and less costly. Any physician who makes serious errors is dropped from the FTCA coverage, and the state would do the same thing.

The result? Poor patients would get care at no cost to the taxpayers. Physicians would be rewarded with lower office overhead, not having to pay expensive medical malpractice premiums. Taxpayers would not have to fund the enormous Medicaid bureaucracy or payments for actual office-based care to the poor. In this system, unnecessary defensive medical tests would be eliminated.

We are not proposing that all the current government programs like Medicaid or SCHIP be eliminated in the short term,  but we believe that all of these programs could eventually be replaced by a far more personalized and charitable network of non-government free clinics (NGFCs). As more and more physicians choose to become involved in the program and more and more churches and civic groups chose to start NGFCs, supply would meet demand. Health insurance premiums would drop for everyone. The number of lawsuits would diminish.

It is time to think “outside the box,” come up with workable solutions, and lower the cost of healthcare for all. President Obama said he is willing to entertain any reasonable proposals. Let’s start the discussion. Congress, if it is serious, needs to work toward lowering costs and balancing budgets. Real charity care and real protection for the physician — a perfect combination!

Alieta Eck, M.D. is the current president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. She is a specialist in internal medicine and practices in Piscataway, New Jersey. She and her husband, John Eck, M.D., founded the Zarephath Health Center in 2003. 

http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/12157-a-physician%E2%80%99s-solution-to-healthcare 

Governments Don’t Build Roads and Bridges

July 24, 2012 by Gary DeMar

When President Obama said “You didn’t build that,” millions of Americans objected. But since there are fewer business owners than those who work for a business owner, the President most likely scored some points with the electorate. Everything he says is calculated to appeal to his base.

Conservatives didn’t help when they conceded to the lie that governments build roads and bridges. There aren’t any government road and bridge building companies. Roads and bridges are built by private companies that must hire engineers, electricians, heavy equipment operators, concrete and stone specialists, welders, and a whole host of other occupations.

Roads and bridges get built because government has the power and authority to take property through the constitutional provision of “eminent domain.” The most common uses of property taken by eminent domain are for public utilities, highways, and railroads, land that ordinarily would not be given up for sale.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution reads in part —

No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The mandated “just compensation” demonstrates that like everything the government does, it doesn’t have until it first takes. In order to get the land to build a road, the government must go to a land owner, a person who purchased or inherited the land. The money that’s paid for the “taking” is paid for with money that was first taken from the citizens.

The government doesn’t have any money, but it can confiscate it at will at any percentage determined by a group of elected representatives. Any private group of citizens could do as well if they had the power to force people to sell their land.

Government can do this because the Constitution gives it the power to apply eminent domain. There is no benevolence in the State’s action. The action of eminent domain is forced compliance.

The government doesn’t have any road or bridge building companies, so it must go to the private sector and contract with business owners to build roads, bridges, waterways, dams, and railroads that are needed for commerce to thrive.

Without the private sector, our nation’s infrastructure would not exist.
That’s why we can say to President Obama and any president, “You didn’t build that . . . We did.”

Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/6286/contrary-to-obama-governments-dont-build-roads-and-bridges/#ixzz21eAdRZEM

Obamacare Will Fall If States Refuse To Implement Exchanges

by Michael D. Tanner

One of the few bright spots in the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare was its 7–2 decision striking down the Obama administration’s attempt to blackmail states into going along with a massive and costly expansion of Medicaid. Barely a day later, Florida governor Rick Scott announced that his state would not expand Medicaid eligibility to 133 percent of the poverty level, which comes out to roughly $30,000 per year for a family of four, or allow single, childless men to participate in the program. Earlier, Scott had rejected another key component of Obamacare, refusing to establish a state insurance exchange. He had even returned grants and other funding that the previous governor had received to help implement the legislation.

Scott was quickly joined by at least six other GOP governors in rejecting the Medicaid expansion, including governors Branstad (Iowa), Brownback (Kansas), Haley (South Carolina), Heineman (Nebraska), Jindal (Louisiana), and, not surprisingly, Scott Walker (Wisconsin). At least seven other governors, including Bentley (Alabama), Bryant (Mississippi), Daniels (Indiana), Deal (Georgia), Fallin (Oklahoma), McDonnell (Virginia), Perry (Texas), and Jay Nixon (Missouri), a Democrat, had previously made statements suggesting that they were unlikely to expand their programs. Nevada had earlier passed regulations paving the way to participate in the expansion, but Governor Sandoval has since indicated he may reconsider.

In rejecting Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, these governors will be saving their state taxpayers billions of dollars. Initially, the federal government would have provided additional funding to cover the expansion, but those additional funds would have been phased down, starting in 2017. Eventually state taxpayers would have had to pick up much of the extra cost. For example, over ten years, the Medicaid expansion would have cost taxpayers in states such as Florida, Kansas, and Texas more than $20 billion each, while in New Jersey, for example, the expansion could cost as much as $35 billion. (In fairness, a few states such as California do emerge as net winners under the expansion formula, but they are clearly the exception, and there are plenty of other reasons why they should resist participating.)

On the other hand, if a state does not expand its Medicaid program, most of those who would have been eligible for Medicaid will now become eligible for subsidies through Obamacare’s health-insurance exchanges. Those subsidies are paid in full by the federal government. That much should be an easy call for any fiscally responsible governor, although the reasons to forgo the exchanges and the subsidies they entail are strong as well.

Beyond the Medicaid expansion, at least four governors have joined Governor Scott in explicitly refusing to set up a state-based insurance exchange: Jindal, Perry, and Walker, as well as Democratic New Hampshire governor John Lynch. Perhaps as many as 35 other states have simply not taken the actions necessary to establish exchanges. That may be less explicit a revolt, but it has the same result.

Of course, if states refuse to set up an exchange, Obamacare gives the federal government the authority to step in and operate an exchange itself in those states. But there is reason to doubt that the federal government has either the ability or the money to do so. Congress has not appropriated any funding for this purpose and seems unlikely to do so.

More important, as my colleague Michael Cannon has discovered, a little-discussed provision of Obamacare makes federal subsidies for insurance available only through those exchanges that the states set up themselves. So, while the federal government does have the power to create exchanges in states that refuse to do so, it cannot offer subsidies through those federally run exchanges.

Moreover, it is those subsidies that actually trigger the penalty under Obamacare for employers who fail to provide workers with insurance. Obamacare requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide health insurance or pay a tax, but only if at least one employee qualifies for subsidies under the exchange. Therefore, if subsidies can be provided only through a state-authorized exchange, a state could potentially block the employer mandate altogether, simply by refusing to establish an exchange.

The Obama administration and the IRS, unsurprisingly, have claimed that they have the right to unilaterally rewrite the law, yet again, to close this loophole. But, at the very least, this would be open to legal challenge. And perhaps next time the Supreme Court will get it right.

So, by refusing to go along with Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and by blocking state-run exchanges, governors are not just saving state taxpayers money. They are potentially reducing future federal spending by as much as $1.5 trillion over the next ten years.

While congressional Republicans have been reduced to taking symbolic repeal votes, and Mitt Romney struggles to determine whether or not the individual mandate is a tax, governors — and state legislators — have become the real heroes of the fight against Obamacare.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/states-resist-obamacare