Tag: health care

How to repeal Obamacare

After all, Republicans didn’t vow to replace it, they vowed to repeal it:

In a simple two-page document, an Alabama congressman has filed a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to repeal Obamacare.

Or, as it is stated in the bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, introduced the bill Friday.

“This Act may be cited as the ‘Obamacare Repeal Act,'” the bill states.

And the bill uses just one sentence to do it.

“Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted,” the bill states.

And that’s it – one sentence.

Needless to say, the cuckservatives and moderates are probably far too stupid to get behind it. But it would certainly be a slick move by the God-Emperor if he did.

The core problem with Republicans is that they feel the need to posture and affect “responsibility”. But they didn’t pass Obamacare. They’re not responsible for it. So, kill it as cleanly and completely as possible, without worrying about the inevitable repercussions. Deal with them as they come, don’t try to anticipate and pre-manage them, and in doing so, fail to accomplish the primary objective.

Ryancare goes down in flames

Not even the God-Emperor’s intervention was enough to save it:

Following a day of drama in Congress yesterday, Friday was another nail-biter until the last moment, and after Trump’s Thursday ultimatum failed to yield more “yes” votes, the embattled bill seeking to replace major parts of Obamacare was yanked Friday from the floor of the House.

As a result, Trump suffered a second consecutive blow as opposition from within his own party forced Republican leaders to cancel a vote on healthcare reform for the second time, casting doubt on the president’s ability to deliver on other priorities.

The withdrawal pointed to Trump’s failure to charm republicans in the last minute, raising questions about whether he could unify Republicans behind his pro-growth legislative goals of tax reform and infrastructure spending.

NBC News reported that the President Donald Trump asked House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., to pull the bill. A source told NBC that Ryan during visit to Trump at the White House earlier Friday afternoon had “pleaded to pull” the bill after telling the president that the GOP leaders had failed to convince enough House Republicans to support the bill.

Trump personally told Washington Post reporter Robert Costa about the move to avoid an embarrassing loss in the House during a phone call, Costa tweeted. “We just pulled it,” Trump reportedly said to Costa.

A large number of GOP House members had declared their opposition to the bill since Thursday night. It was the second time in less than 30 hours that Republicans postponed a scheduled House vote on the American Health Care Act. Republicans could afford to lose at most 22 members of their caucus in the vote. But as of Friday afternoon, there were 34 GOP House member publicly opposing the bill.

Ryan visited Donald Trump at the White House at around 1 p.m. to inform him of the shortfall in support. The second delay was another humiliating setback for GOP leaders and Trump, who had thrown his weight behind the bill.

Trump on Thursday night demanded that the House vote on the plan on Friday, and said he would not agree to change the bill further than he already had in an effort to persuade wavering Republicans to back it.

Shortly after the president drew that line in the sand, GOP leaders amended the bill further to allow states, as opposed to the federal government, to mandate what essential health benefits have to be part of all insurance plans.

But as was the case on Thursday, GOP leaders knew Friday that if the vote occurred as scheduled, the bill would be defeated.

I think the key thing here is that the God-Emperor learns who his allies are. He should have been working with the conservative element in the House that voted against the act, not the Ryan-led mainstream element that was the core Republican opposition to him in the primaries.

This is going to be a little counterintuitive for a centrist negotiator like Trump, but he’s just experienced the same thing that George W. Bush did whenever immigration reform was proposed. The core Republican power in the House is the conservatives, not the moderates. To get anything done, Trump has to work with them first.

Ultimately, this should be a good thing, because Trump always learns from his failures. That’s why I don’t put any stock in the “fatal blow to Trump’s political capital” narrative that the opposition media will inevitably be pushing.

Putting it on the line

Thanks to you all, we already hit our goal and I am running the Color Run in a tutu. With only 36 hours to go, Spacebunny has decided to throw down in case the original goal is doubled.

If we get to $10k by Saturday night I’ll run in a bikini and tutu….. it’s for a great cause.

There is more information about the event on her page, but to summarize, she is raising funds for a prospective cure for Crohn’s Disease that is in the testing stage.  And yes, I will post the pictures here.

Hillary appears to have Parkinson’s Disease

That is the conclusion of a a board-certified Anesthesiologist with 36 years of experience, backed up by the observations of a) a victim of Parkinson’s Disease and b) a registered nurse who cares for patients with Parkinson’s Disease.

HRC probably has PD.

She has had clinical symptoms for a minimum of 4 years, and probably much longer, given that the fall leading to her head injury required a significant progression of the disease. All of her bizarre physical actions since that time fit nicely into the spectrum of signs that we expect in PD. And since PD explains all of them, we have a high probability of a correct diagnosis. It has almost certainly been treated with levodopa. Some of her symptoms may be related to this drug treatment.

It is most curious that all of the bizarre physical signs seem to be in 2016 videos. HRC was a public figure in 2015, with a lot of campaign work underway. Yet all of the oddities seem to be within the last several months. This suggests a significant progression of her PD. We also know that her contact with the public has been rigidly controlled. She has not done news conferences during the campaign. These would be highly stressful to a PD sufferer and would elicit many PD signs.

PD is a chronic disease with a downhill prognosis. HRC’s instability and frequent cough suggest that her PD is advanced. This is not a good outlook for someone running for the Presidency. The office of the President is one of the highest stress jobs in the world. Stress sets off PD episodes, which render the sufferer incapable of proper response.

At this point, a bit of speculation seems appropriate. HRC talks about her yoga sessions. But no one we know of has ever documented one. It is possible that this is cover for sessions designed to teach her coping mechanisms for PD or for rest breaks. Exhaustion makes PD worse.

HRC’s coughing suggests that her swallowing disorder is advanced, placing her closer to an aspiration pneumonia that would disable or kill her. That’s bad enough, but PD has one more, even more dangerous step in its progression.

Read the whole thing at Mike Cernovich’s place. This is more than a meme, it is a medical observation by an expert. It is increasingly obvious to even the most casual observer that something is seriously wrong with Hillary Clinton, and given what appears to be her rapid decline, it’s probably not something that the media can conceal for much longer the way they did with Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and John F. Kennedy.

Mike also noted on Twitter that the treatment for dysphagia is the use of thickened liquids, which explains why Hillary has been observed refusing bottles of water in favor of specially prepared glasses.

The Tutu Threat

No, that’s not a forthcoming book from Simon Hawke, it is what Spacebunny has promised she will make me do if we are able to hit her $5k for 5k target for research for the Crohn’s MAP vaccine as part of the Color Run in which we are participating next month.

Personally, I thought it was bad enough to have to be dragged out of bed at some obscenely early hour and then forced to embark upon some hellish modern Trail of Tears while people yell at you, and apparently, dye you like an Easter Egg somehow; apparently they were inspired by Cersei’s walk of shame from A Game of Thrones or something.

I tried to point out that running a 5k is something I have done precisely once in my life, and that perhaps a 100-meter sprint for charity might be more in order, but I was outvoted as my treacherous spawn sided with her. Then Spacebunny promised that if the $5k for 5k was raised, both of us would not only run the race, but do so in tutus as well. And that she would post the pictures on Twitter. And that I would post them here.

So, if you are either a) interested in supporting scientific research that may bring an end to the ongoing torture that is Crohn’s Disease or b) looking to have a pretty good laugh at my expense, you can do so by supporting Spacebunny’s Color Run Page at Justgiving. I have spoken with several members of the research team, it is a lean and efficient organization, and the funds will not be wasted.

Prof. Hermon-Taylor, together with Dr. Tim Bull and other members of the team at St George’s University of London and scientists at the Jenner Institute University of Oxford, developed a modern DNA vaccine against MAP, which is the bacteria suspected of being the primary catalyst for Crohn’s Disease. Developing this vaccine took 10 years and cost around £850,000, much of it donated by the families of Crohn’s patients, without whom this new vaccine would not exist.

The Crohn’s MAP Vaccine is a modern, therapeutic vaccine against MAP. Preliminary studies in animals have shown it is safe and effective. Now a trial in humans is needed to take the vaccine from lab to clinic. If effective, the vaccine will not only protect people from developing Crohn’s Disease, but will also serve as an effective cure for those already suffering from it.

The money will go to helping pay for the human trial of the vaccine which has already been developed.

SJW is anti-science and anti-mathematics

SJWs are against more than mere fun. They also oppose science as well as math in the form of probability. Mike Cernovich drops relevant statistics on those who have attempted to attack him over daring to mention scientific hate facts.

In a post about HIV I observed, “Straight men do not contract HIV.” I did not push a narrative. I did not share what I heard on some news channel or learned from a nit-wit teacher.

Rather, I analyzed data from the United States Center for Disease Control. When you look at CDC data, you notice something.

Where are all of the straight white male HIV infections?

Relying on CDC data is considered racist and homophobic, as morons believe a scientific judgment is a moral one. Zealots are simply unable to look at scientific questions with a scientific lens and moral questions with a moral lens.

Cernovich points out that even in the impossible event that every single man with HIV is honestly reporting his sexual activity (impossible because we already know it is not true), “According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, men almost never get HIV from women. A healthy man who has unprotected sex with a non drug-using woman has a one in 5 million chance of getting HIV. If he wears a condom, the odds drop to one in 50 million.”

To put it in perspective:

  • Killed by a Dog:     1 in 103,798
  • Killed by Lightning: 1 in 136,011
  • Contracting HIV: 1 in 5,000,000

The point isn’t that this means straight men should run around freely fornicating, it is that one can NEVER, EVER trust anything an SJW says about ANYTHING. They are all about the narrative, not the truth, not the science, not the statistics, not the probabilities and most certainly not the history.

Medical extortion

Pediatricians are increasingly behaving in an openly unethical manner:

With California gripped by a measles outbreak, Dr. Charles Goodman posted a clear notice in his waiting room and on Facebook: His practice will no longer see children whose parents won’t get them vaccinated.

“Parents who choose not to give measles shots, they’re not just putting their kids at risk, but they’re also putting other kids at risk – especially kids in my waiting room,” the Los Angeles pediatrician said.

It’s a sentiment echoed by a small number of doctors who in recent years have “fired” patients who continue to believe debunked research linking vaccines to autism. They hope the strategy will lead parents to change their minds; if that fails, they hope it will at least reduce the risk to other children in the office.

The tough-love approach – which comes amid the nation’s second-biggest measles outbreak in at least 15 years, with at least 98 cases reported since last month – raises questions about doctors’ ethical responsibilities.

Any doctor who attempts to force a treatment on a patient against the will of the patient or an underage patient’s parents should lose his medical license. It is absolutely unethical for a medical professional to behave in this outrageous manner, and those who stupidly think that this would be a great idea should stop and think about the obvious consequences for a few seconds.

Measles is not a major health risk to anyone; statistically speaking it is considerably lower down the risk chain than obesity, smoking, homosexuality and even gun ownership. If the “tough love” approach is deemed to be permissible, then doctors will be able to use any of those factors to cull patients from their list, and given the way in which Medicare now influences how they are compensated, there are entire patient classes that they would love to be able to stop serving. The sword always cuts both ways.

The very minor risk to other children in the office is easily managed; a doctor can have “unvaccinated” days in which those children who are not vaccinated according to the presently recommended schedule are seen. (Which in reality is almost everyone; I know very few parents who have managed to stick to the complete schedule, not even the strongly pro-vaccination ones.) Furthermore, some children cannot be vaccinated because they, or their siblings, have had sufficiently negative reactions to their first vaccinations. Are they going to be barred from all medical treatment simply because one specific treatment is harmful to them?

Before you leap to any conclusions or assume that this is personal, let me remind you that you have absolutely no idea what vaccinations my children have or do not have. My argument against this unethical and dangerous policy has absolutely nothing to do with my preference for limited and delayed vaccine schedules; even the most rabid pro-vaccine supporter should be capable of seeing the inherent danger in it.

Out-of-season shape

There are no two ways around it. I am getting old. I’m one of the two oldest guys on my veteran’s team and it’s not even close; the average age is more than ten years younger than me. In the weight room, I’m usually one of the three oldest guys there. And the gradual weight of age and injuries is accumulating to the point that there are days when there are more exercises that I can’t do at full weight than those that I can.

And yet, ironically, in some ways I’m in better shape than I’ve been for fifteen years. I started stretching regularly and I’m back up to 130 degrees on the leg machine, which isn’t as good as the 150 degrees it was when I could kick six-footers in the face, but it’s a lot better than the 90 degrees it was when I first broke it out again. I definitely recovered a modicum of my lost speed through increasing my stride length. I’m not only able to play complete games when necessary, but I’m also the only player that the captain feels able to take out and put back in again, knowing that I’ll still be at something close to full speed by the end of the game.

What I’ve done is back down on the heavier weight exercises, increase the lighter ones, and increase my running. I run at least one 5k per week, ideally one 40-minute session that covers between 5.5k and 6k, and if I can find the time, a second 20-minute session doing 2.5k to 3k. It’s the time that matters, not the distance; we play 40-minute halves and I’m trying to keep my body accustomed to that time frame.

Despite the running, I’m at 192 these days, and I’m topping out my curls with 5-rep sets using the 60-pound dumbbells. I think I need to get down to 185 to really get ripped, but that’s not too bad considering all the holiday feasting of the last six weeks.

Three lifting days, two running days, and seven stretching days per week seems to be doing the trick. There is no fooling Father Time, but at least one can hope to mitigate some of his more deleterious effects.

Last season ended pretty well, as I got our only goal in the last game and ended up on five in seven fall games. I’d likely have had a second goal if the ball hadn’t abruptly stopped in a mud patch in the area when I was breaking on goal again.  But I’d really like to make it to the ten-goal mark in a half-season, so I’m training hard in order to try and make that possible. At the very least, I’d like to be sure I end up in double-digits for the full season as it’s already clear that playing a spoiler role is the most we can do.

We’ve actually played very well against the better teams, garnering ties against two of the top three teams, but we’ve also been playing down to the level of the lesser teams and failing to put them away. I’d like to win one more championship before I stop playing for good, but it won’t happen this year.

Pity the poor professors

If this isn’t an excuse for well-justified schadenfreude, I don’t know what is:

“Deplorable, deeply regressive, a sign of the corporatization of the university.”  That’s what Harvard Classics professor Richard F. Thomas calls the changes in Harvard’s health plan, which have a large number of the faculty up in arms.

Are Harvard professors being forced onto Medicaid? Has their employer denied coverage for cancer treatment? Do they need to sign a corporate loyalty oath in order to access health insurance? Not exactly. But copayments are being raised and deductibles altered, making their plan … well, actually, their plan is still extraordinarily generous by any standard:

    The university is adopting standard features of most employer-sponsored health plans: Employees will now pay deductibles and a share of the costs, known as coinsurance, for hospitalization, surgery and certain advanced diagnostic tests. The plan has an annual deductible of $250 per individual and $750 for a family. For a doctor’s office visit, the charge is $20. For most other services, patients will pay 10 percent of the cost until they reach the out-of-pocket limit of $1,500 for an individual and $4,500 for a family.

The deepest irony is, of course, that Harvard professors helped to design Obamacare. And Obamacare is the reason that these changes are probably necessary.

Demonstrating, yet again, that nothing is more short-sighted than an activist rabbit. Give them exactly what they want, provide them exactly what they are agitating for, and they are outraged!

“When I demanded more comprehensive government services requiring more taxes, I didn’t mean that I wanted to pay for them myself!”

Is it any surprise that college educations are increasingly worthless, given that idiots like these are supposedly the creme de la creme of the professoriat?