Wednesday, February 27, 2013

What is Insurance?


Insurance:
Writing from the USA:

 What is insurance intended to accomplish?  What is insurance actually doing?

Purpose of insurance:  Pay the insured for losses incurred as specified in the contract.  This prevents loss of assets and possible impoverishment of the family incurring the losses.  The idea is to have a 'pool' of people who pay into it and who then take turns using the fund as losses occur.  The theory is that the fund will remain solvent.  Originally, insurance purchase was voluntary. 

Problems with this voluntary insurance design:

Insurance funds do go bankrupt due to thievery or stupidity. 

Thievery can come from many directions, from bogus medical claims, through the denial of legitimate claims and gambling clients' money while calling their activities 'investments'.  Medical personnel have been known to bill for no visits, or to milk the number of visits like an overripe cow.  The biggest problem is that these insurance schemes 'insure' more value than they have, so if there is a flood of claims, money is lacking to pay the claims.  I know of one 'insurance' scheme that was drained while paying for a political campaign.

The voluntary insurance plans were competitive in the marketplace, which tended to bring costs down.  The unions pushed for 'benefits' and employers were forced to buy insurance for their workers, again without any mechanism to keep costs down.   

And this was before even more insurance schemes became mandatory.   When insurance became mandatory, several more problems surfaced like pond scum.

Mandatory auto insurance was instated in Arizona by one of the most crooked legislatures on record.  The prices for insurance immediately rose and the insurance people went out and bought new Cadillacs.  Their income is so secure, the police are even notified if a driver does not buy insurance.  The state takes away your license to drive if you do not pay these insurance people.  It was suggested that this insurance be voluntary, that individuals insure themselves if they so desire, but we were told that these insurance brokers are the best people to handle our money, and if you were lucky enough never to use it, you just lost the money.  You are not permitted to save this money in a special account so if you do not use it, you could have it.  These insurance people get richer and richer because actual price controls were never instituted.  Insurance prices are so high, people struggle to make the payments. 

I see a huge new problem when mandatory health insurance is instituted.  The medical profession protests low government payments for services for the insured while they pad the bills.  Exorbitant charges are foisted off on the uninsured and 'costs' are out of control.  They say that about 60-70% of all personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills while the patient has insurance.  Thus the insurance is expensive, does not cover the hospital costs  yet the patient is forced to buy it while the medical costs rise unchecked.  The cost of the insurance has few controls, so people must pay more and more every year.  Some attempts have been made to cut administrative costs of the insurance companies, forcing them to spend on the insured instead of their second yacht.

The main gripe with mandatory insurance is that the free market is not working when individuals are forced to buy anything.  The lack of controls on charges while forcing individuals to buy creates inflation in the health care market and a further drain on other sectors of the economy.  Anybody who calls this capitalism is foolish.  The politicians have merged the indigent care problem with the private market and then expanded it to include more people, displacing church and traditional family based care systems, while subsidizing some private businesses paying CEOs huge sums . 

My second question:  What is insurance actually accomplishing? 

Medical care was already available for the indigent but is expensive for the ordinary individual needing specialty treatment.  Express medical care clinics are located all over town and are reasonable in cost.  So the question was never if medical care is available.  The real question is who could be forced to buy insurance, which would then increase the size of the insurance pool money.  So now the IRS is leading the charge to punish those who do not buy insurance, whether or not they make a claim on the health care system.  They will be charged whether they use it or not and they will never see their money again.  I think it is a function of individual rights not to be forced to buy.  The insurance companies and the government are now taking a sizeable chunk of income from consumers, who cannot now spend it on the economy.  More and more money is tied up in insurance every year, which drains the rest of the economy.  Unions have negotiated exorbitant benefit plans that are bankrupting local governments and more and more money is controlled by the insurance brokers.

So the majority of the people in the USA have good medical care but at exorbitant escalating costs to themselves now mandated by the government.  Indigent care has always been freely given.  The health care charge forced by the IRS is justly called a tax by the Supreme Court.   All this is not the quality of the health care, but is about the scramble to collect and hold the money mandated from the taxpayers.  Current insurance systems are larded with bureaucracy, high operating costs and administrative perks, all at the expense of the insured.  Our health care money is being spent on expensive administration costs and resort vacations.  I think the system needs reform.

Health care goals are being met but the financial cost is crippling other segments of the economy as the people struggle under the burdens of mandatory auto and health insurance costs, high fuel prices, and guaranteed inflation of at least 2% a year, which devalues the money and raises consumer prices. 
                                              Washington D.C. Grand Central Station

 

 

 

 

 

 

          

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Asteroid Aftermath


Unite the world in an effort to ward off future threats from asteroids.  I think all the effort and expense now spent on war, vengeance, turf battles and other violent activities should be spent on the space effort, which would include an elaborate setup designed to protect the planet from future asteroid hits. 

Financial enticements from possible mining strikes on other planets or asteroids could result in huge profits for entrepreneurs, working out there with national government sponsored businesses.  A new source of metals and minerals could transform the economy.  Freefall businesses like the molecular construction of new compounds, hydroponics, aquaculture and other life support could aid the construction of the watching stations and the interception equipment.  We are not so primitive that we do not have the capability to stand watch over our home.

Now that we know the danger is real, it is imperative that we get started on the project now.  I suggest a symposium of politicians and scientists to discuss the feasibility of ideas, project costs and location of the major assemblage and launch areas.  I believe that all nations must be involved, even the 'renegade' nations.  This has to be a worldwide project designed to protect the whole world. 

Project costs must be shared and the resultant employment should reflect the portion of the project costs contributed.  If the USA contributes x of the cost of the project, then the USA gets that much employment.  This would encourage the nations to contribute.  Private entrepreneurship is needed on the supply side, the mining interests, and other commercial possibilities. 

We as a species can protect our world.  Scientists think an asteroid exterminated the dinosaurs but I know we have more sense than to allow it to happen to us.  Let us unite in the face of adversity and create a web of early warning protection around our planet.  Just think of all the positive outcomes from an investment in outer space infrastructure:

·         employment

·         investment opportunities

·         development of new technologies

·         satellite maintenance programs

·         protection of the planet

·         cooperation among nations

·         national investment

·         new mineral resources

I call for an international meeting to discuss the need for an early warning system and asteroid deflection mechanism to protect the Earth.   

     

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Sentence Structure

 
 To All My ESL Friends
I see you way far away,
dreaming under a pink sky.
English learners many word order patterns for sentences.
Here is one basic pattern:
 
'What the sentence is about' or 'subject' is first
then 'what action' is happening (verb)
then the action is happening 'to what or when or who'?
 
Create simple sentences like:
I am here.
You are there.
China is 'in the southern latitudes.'
USA is 'in the northern latitudes.'
I drive to Mexico.
Asteroid 2012DA14 comes close Friday.
I write 'novels and essays'.
You write a blog.
You are a blogger. 
You enjoy blogging.
It is high noon.
I hear a rooster.
He crows all day.
Eastern Europeans sell crystals here.
Iranian rugs are beautiful.
German schnitzel is good.
Gobekli Tepe is the oldest. 
Homo Erectus bones were found in China.
Homo Erectus bones were lost at sea during World War II.
You could find them.
 
Much can be expressed using this elemental sentence pattern.  The punctuation marks are not necessary, and are only there to illustrate that these parts may consist of more than one word.   This pattern limits the thoughts that can be developed, so one must learn other patterns.......
Sorry about the deviation from the usual topics but I wanted to talk ESL for a few minutes.  Sentence diagramming in English is a good source for sentence patterns.
 
                                               Eclipse of the Sun 2012
 

Friday, January 25, 2013

Gun Control


So we are an armed nation with a tradition of freedom to go how we want, where we want, carrying what we want.  The recent social engineering talk indicates a willingness to tinker with the basic social structure by further controlling what can be purchased by individuals.  Limiting the size of sodas that can be purchased is futile unless the numbers purchased per day are also controlled, which also requires identification and recordkeeping and punishments for violating the law and so on.  When does it end?  When will people consider that the society already has a basis and that basis is important to preserve?  Changing society is no small thing and any change has far reaching consequences.  I prefer education to blatant control.   

I was a child when the civil rights demands began to be heard in the 1950s.  I can remember the black and white TV and the images of the small black girl walking up the school steps while being taunted by white men.  My father said it was wrong for those men to be there and that they were probably hypocrites who went to church every Sunday.  It took 60 years for true civil rights to manifest, exemplified by the election of President Obama.  Our society is much more homogeneous than it used to be. 

Those who advocate for the cessation of 2nd Amendment rights do not realize that an insurrection would result if confiscation were attempted.  A congresswoman has introduced a bill banning over a hundred types of firearms, all while saying this control over your choices is good for you.  If they control that, what else will they try to control?  Some liberals want the people to have no firearms, which would reduce them to subjects rather than citizens, to paraphrase a friend. 

Power mad city councilmen want the power to control gun ownership within the city limits.  As a first step they want to control gun sales within the city.   Being disarmed in the city of Tucson is like being naked on a city bus.  This attempted power grab by city councilmen should be thwarted.  Petty city officials should not attempt to breach constitutional rights.  What's next?  A computer check of every beer you drink with dinner?  A limit on salsa servings because it might cause heartburn?  A limit on the amount of candy you can buy?  These council people should get back to doing their jobs, which is to keep the city maintained and solvent, neither of which they are doing. 

 If their liberal goal is social engineering, perhaps a longer perspective is needed before attempting to destroy self reliance in our society, of which the possession of personal firearms is the most important manifestation.   Since the liberals feel free to design a future based on restrictions imposed on the populace now, perhaps an alternative vision is imperative.  How about a future where people are held accountable for their actions and possessions?  Swift accountability and punishment.  Remember McVeigh?  He didn't hang around long.  The delay in punishment creates a perception of no punishment but restraint, which seems a relief to these punks and failures who now are cared for at public expense.   

Rather than try to change the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, it would be better to deal with the practical problems of gun ownership by the citizenry.  That could be done now without opposition.  Try and think of how to address the physical problem of guns being used by juveniles and lunatics to kill people.   The gun owner should be held libel for crimes committed by household members using the firearm.   In plain terms, adults who own firearms are responsible for securing them.  Punish adults who let juveniles and lunatics access firearms.  A minor should not own a gun.  Autistics, retarded people, suicidal people, people who have been convicted of assault and so on should not be allowed to legally own a gun.  It's already a crime to buy a gun for a criminal.  Let the behavior of the individual dictate gun accessability.  Don't punish the many for the sins of a few. 

Friday, January 11, 2013

Gun Control and the Establishment Press


The eastern establishment press is touting gun control because the demented are using firearms to kill, yet laws on the books were designed to prevent the incompetent from obtaining guns.  Parents allow access to firearms, trusting their children to be responsible.  Why are the parents not charged with child endangerment, by leaving guns available for juveniles to use?  Why are murderers let out of jail?  Should the actions of a few criminals dictate a national response of negating the second amendment?  The answer to curbing violence is not disarming the populace and making more victims possible.   

Now the gun control advocates preach from the safety of guarded premises that others should disarm just because they have, and just look at them all safe and warm and protected proselytizing against those of us who live on the economy having adequate firearms to protect ourselves.  I think Wayne La Pierre is correct when he brought out the point that celebrities are guarded, the banks are guarded, but nobody is guarding our children.  The shooting in California occurred because the armed guard didn't show up and the school didn't get a substitute.  So I should give up gun rights because of this? 

The national news is united in presenting very little coverage of those who would protest more anti gun legislation.  Famous for overkill on stories where they can push a political agenda, the press are surely going to feature a massacre a day on TV, where they can highlight a new massacre every day because I'm sure that in our long world history a massacre or battle has occurred for every day of the year.  The fools are deluded if they think that disarming the populace would produce world peace:  in the history of the world disarming the populace has led to pogroms, genocide, economic oppression and the Holocaust.

I cannot help but think about that guy who hammered his grandmother to death in New York, was convicted, let out by the liberal establishment, and then killed his sister and two firefighters with an illegally obtained gun.  So why did they let this murderer out?  Nobody in the press is dealing with this issue.  Cuomo gets up on the bully pulpit to preach gun control and even mentions confiscation of guns as a realistic goal, but still the NY legal edifice let the guy who hammered his grandmother to death out of jail.  Where is Cuomo's responsibility now?

I see light sentences for violent crime and vicious criminals let out of jail to prey on society, yet the screaming gun control advocates target taking away gun rights from citizens as a cure for this problem.  I see murdering punks like Loughner saved from the death penalty by the liberals while a good example of justice in the form of execution for murderers might be a deterrent for copycats.  We are a nation gone mad where innocent law abiding citizens are punished for the sins of a few madmen.  Yes, punished.  When my gun rights are taken away, I am punished for what others did.  I have had access to guns my entire life, yet never pulled one. 

The mother of the autistic shooter of children must have known that her son was not normal and as such should not have had access to firearms nor should he have been introduced to shooting, sort of not teaching a retarded child to swear by avoiding those words.  The woman cannot speak for herself so further speculation is futile. 

Another issue is the arming of the citizen militia and the need for a citizen militia.  If all these purposed bans on firearms come true, the citizens will be effectively reduced in the power to arm themselves on a par with police and military, not to combat them, but to complement them.  Volunteer search and rescue, volunteer posses and neighborhood watch groups are respected in our communities.   It is the right and the responsibility of citizens to be members of an effective civilian militia, if they so choose.


Eric Holder has a credibility problem in that he sponsored a 'program' where smugglers were allowed to buy large numbers of assault rifles, permitted to smuggle the rifles into Mexico and then these rifles were used in vicious murders in Mexico.  Money was even laundered for these criminals by our own justice department in order to facilitate this deal called Fast and Furious.  Border Patrol Agent Terry died, killed in the line of duty by a criminal using one of these guns.  Yet now the sanctimonious Holder is now smugly going to recommend that civilian rights to those same kinds of weapons should be denied to citizens of the United States after he condoned the export of these same kinds of weapons to Mexico.  This was done in Arizona, and these guns are still surfacing, the last at the murder of several people in Mexico City.  

Another interesting analyses of the spate of killings has related the consumption of various psychoactive drugs on the part of a huge percentage of killers.  They also hint that big pharma is preventing this discussion of psychiatric drugs they sell, but I think that a comprehensive discussion of the mental health issues involved in these killings will reveal the drug issue.  So possibly prescribed drugs are facilitating violence?  It's easy to blame guns when the actual cause of the behavior that resulted in violence is the individual.  Disarming citizens so they cannot defend themselves against insanity or drug induced rage will not stop the violence.       

 This data should elicit some graphs and perhaps a pattern will emerge.  If the data is accurate, there are patterns.  If guns are being blamed for murders, perhaps more blame lies with the individual who is in an insane state of mind due to prescription drugs. 

Here is the facebook post concerning the possible drugs killers were on if you want to look at the data presented:

”This is the last post John Noveske made on his Facebook page before he was killed:

Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold's medical records have never been made available to the public.

Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather's girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.

Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.

Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.

Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.

Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.

Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.

Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.

A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.

Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..

A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.

Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.

TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.

Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.

James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.

Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania

Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California

Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.

Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.

Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic's file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.

Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.

Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.

Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.

Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.

Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family's Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.

Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara's parents said ".... the damn doctor wouldn't take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil...")

Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002,
(Gareth's father could not accept his son's death and killed himself.)

Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family's detached garage.

Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.

Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.

Woody ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.

A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased.

Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and "other drugs for the conditions."

Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.

Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.

Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.

Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his
New York high school.

Missing from list... 3 of 4 known to have taken these same meds....

What drugs was Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21...... killed 6 people and injuring 14 others in Tuscon, Az

What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24..... killed 12 people and injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado

What drugs was Jacob Tyler Roberts on, age 22, killed 2 injured 1, Clackamas Or

What drugs was Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Ct
Roberts is the only one that I haven't heard about being on drugs of some kind.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038616_John_Noveske_mysterious_death_car_crash.html#ixzz2HazHVW9s

www.naturalnews.com
 
 
 

 
 

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Liar Liar Pants on Fire!



The future of the Pima GOP hangs in the balance between hosting the intolerant tricksters or hosting honest people who want to work for the good of the nation.  Anonymous slanderous e mails and anonymous 'ideology' green sheets at the big meeting are equally as undesirable inside an organization. 

These crass cowardly tactics bring hatred and anger to an organization that should have unity in order to accomplish goals like the protection of the 2nd amendment currently under fire. 

Happy New Year and I hope it is one for the GOP!


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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

GUN FREE UTOPIA?




I see people on TV speaking of the need to restrict guns because of the danger guns present if not secured and handled with responsibility.  I know the poor woman was murdered by her own son using her own gun, but why didn't she secure those firearms away from the reach of an 'autistic' son?  Therein is the responsibility of gun ownership. 

I see people who earnestly believe that guns are the reason there is so much violence in the world today and that the citizenry of the USA would be better off without them.  These people are fools looking for utopia.  Of course it would be nice if we all got along and no violence ever occurred but a normal human knows that violence is with us and has been with us in our long history.  The removal of guns from society does not quell violence but it does increase the chances for oppression. 

I am disgusted by some in the press who are blatantly exploiting a tragedy to achieve political ends.  Utopia is not achievable no matter what these people say.  The immediate solution to the problem of school safety is to arm school personnel and station an armed guard at every school.  This should be done immediately in order to prevent a copycat.  Hire returning veterans for these jobs.  Canvass school personnel for hidden carry cardholders for an immediate preventative measure.  Act fast and act now while the anti gun people threaten law abiding citizens with an ammunition squeeze and increased regulation.  I view our responsible gun owners as a valuable public resource, not a threat.