Examiner Editorial: Government-run health care could be the ultimate SNAFU | WashingtonExaminer.com

But Obamacare is only in the start-up phase. The VA department has been directly providing health care to millions of veterans for decades and evidence is growing that relying on the system can literally be a fatal decision. The Washington Examiner's Mark Flatten reported May 12 that a Texas VA clinic implemented a cost-cutting measure in 2010 that required a patient to undergo three positive bloody stool screens before the government would approve a colonoscopy. Dr. Paul Krugman, who protested the policy while serving in the VA facility, told Flatten that "by the time that you do the colonoscopies on these patients, you went from a stage 1 to a stage 4 [colorectal cancer], which is basically inoperable."

http://washingtonexaminer.com/examiner-editorial-government-run-health-care-could-be-the-ultimate-snafu/article/2548880

A federal bureaucracy that is wasteful and ineffective - truly situation normal.

The VA’s socialist paradise?

The VA system worked for everyone but the patients — and the whistle-blowers. The daughter-in-law of a Navy vet in Phoenix who died after never getting follow-up for his "urgent" case was told, in lines that perfectly capture the spirit of socialized medicine: "It's a seven-month waiting list. And you're gonna have to have patience."

But the bureaucracy acted with alacrity when its reporting scheme was at risk. In St. Louis, the former chief of psychiatry says he was put under administrative investigation when he complained about wait lists. A whistle-blower who worked in Fort Collins, Colo., alleges that she and a colleague were transferred when they refused to hide wait times.

http://nypost.com/2014/05/25/the-vas-socialist-paradise-the-left-used-to-love-it/

Don't we all know this is inevitable with federal bureaucracies?  If not - kindly remove your head from the sand.

Here's the part we should all take offense to - they will pontificate about how unacceptable this is, then they'll make some pretty little speeches, then they'll turn their attention to the next little whatever, then all the same problems will be there to be rediscovered in ten years - at which point the cycle starts over.  They know it, I know it, you know it.  Why bother with the charade.

Poppop, Uncle Henry Clay, Glen Delong, Uncles Thad and Ellery

Remembering those we've lost and who have served - the ones that I knew where men I admired, men who I aspired to be like.  Space engineers, rocket scientists, priests, aviation professionals, and business builders/owners - they came back and got it done for themselves, their families, and the folks who employed them.

Thank you!  Fair winds and following seas on your journey, warriors!  I will do my best to savor the liberty you gave me, and teach my children to savor it also.

VA Scandal - Predictable (Sigh)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/under-fire-for-va-scandal-eric-shinseki-faces-grilling-from-congress/

Shinseki, a retired four-star Army general who has led the VA since 2009, is prepared to tell the committee about the VA's response so far to reports that at least 40 veterans died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA Health Care system. The Phoenix facility reportedly worked to cover up patients' long wait times by creating a secret waiting list and later destroying the evidence.
"If these allegations are true, they are completely unacceptable--to Veterans, to me, and to our dedicated VHA employees," Shinseki's prepared opening statement says. If they are substantiated by the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG), the agency's independent watchdog, Shinseki says that "responsible and timely action will be taken."

Totally predictable - and still outrageous.  Of course the VA is a disaster of efficiency and truthfulness, the relationship between client and payer is broken.

"Americans have to break the 'choice habit'"

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-insurer-says-americans-have-to-break-the-choice-habit/article/2548386
In a line that says a lot about where health care is heading under Obamacare, an insurance executive offering plans through the law was quoted in the New York Times on Tuesday as saying, "We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has."

Marcus Merz, the chief executive of PreferredOne, made the remark in an article describing the trend toward narrow networks in health care plans. The article notes, "In the midst of all the turmoil in health care these days, one thing is becoming clear: No matter what kind of health plan consumers choose, they will find fewer doctors and hospitals in their network -- or pay much more for the privilege of going to any provider they want."

Before the health insurance exchanges opened last October, I had written about a looming issue for Obamacare that I called "access shock." As many liberal commentators boasted that offerings on the insurance exchanges were going to be priced lower than expected, I pointed out, to the extent that this was true, the reason was that insurers were stripping down their plans so they covered fewer providers.

I need to do more homework - it's not obvious why having a smaller circle of providers is cheaper.  On the other hand, giving people the change to choose from more providers should be a political winner and a real winner.

Mitt Romney, the 'Say Anything' Pol of the Republican Party

Considering the Republican Party itself, members of it should view the 2012 results with relief. Not only were Romney's promises about what he would do about China easily more economically crippling than anything President Obama proposed, it should also be said that Obama's re-election was the best thing that ever happened to the freedom movement. Indeed, the electorate got to see up close the horrors of big government in the form of Obamacare's implementation, and the long-term result will be a more skeptical electorate about politicians who define themselves through promises made with the money of others.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2014/05/13/mitt_romney_the_say_anything_pol_of_the_republican_party_101048.html

A la George Will - it it axiomatic that anyone running for the job is too mentally ill to be qualified,and if anyone was willing to take the job but not willing to do what is required to get it (lie cheat or steal) - we wouldn't vote for them.

Climate McCarthyism: The Scandal Grows

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/16/Climate-McCarthyism-the-scandal-grows

The paper, which Prof Bengtsson wrote with four co-authors, suggested that climate is probably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than is admitted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and that more research needs to be done to "reduce the underlying uncertainty". However, when submitted for publication in the leading journal Environmental Research Letters, the paper failed the peer-review process and was rejected.
One of the peer-reviewers reportedly wrote:

'It is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of "errors" and worse from the climate sceptics media side.'

This, Prof Bengtsson told the Times, was "utterly unacceptable" and "an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views."
He added:

'The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist.'

In truth, to anyone familiar with the Climategate emails there will be nothing surprising or unusual in this incident or this claim. As the emails leaked in 2009 made abundantly clear, the organised suppression of sceptical papers in learned journals by the alarmist establishment has long been rife within the field of climate science.

Science influenced by politicians with funding ... yawn.  Duh.  Of course.