Jay Culter: "Glad we signed Roy, sad to see Greg go, and Sully really is an ass."

Among other things, he told Dave Haugh he was glad the November 7 game in Philedelphia is a night game so he has “time to rest after finding Iram of the Pillars.”

Thanks to the Chicago Tribune for the break. You can read the real story here.

But don’t take the Cubs for suckers. In exchange for two no-name minor league guys, they also get to pay 83% of Kosuke’s contract. So there’s that.

**update** According to the Chicago Cubs press release, Abner Abreu is in his fifth professional season. So if he continues this blistering move to the majors, we will be fortunate enough to see him strikeout 30% of the time at Wrigley in about 2021. I’m waiting with bated breath.

What’s worse, politics has become less of what people believe, and more and more what’s wrong with what other people believe.  It’s no longer necessary to present your own real ideas and solutions; rather you can win much more easily by just saying how terrible the opponents’ is.  This is all to apparent in the “we love the Constitution, and you’re not us, so logic follows you hate the Constitution” talking points of the Tea Party.  But the far right is nary the sole offender; indeed there is some truth to the GOP rhetoric in Congress that Obama and the Democrats, if they hate their budgets so much, should publicly release a counter budget.  Of course, that doesn’t make any political sense.  If most Americans hate, for example, that Ryan’s budget is going to shred Medicaid and that is a boon to your poll numbers, why release a budget proposal which undoubtedly is also going to contain some unpopular proposals?

I hesitate to say politics is the worst it’s ever been, or the most toxic, or the least functioning.  The predominance of extraordinary hyperbole and complete loss of context is part of what’s created this environment.  But it does seem to be that politics has mostly devolved into, “My position is . . . wait, what’s your position?  I’m against that.”

Perhaps the most disheartening truth is that releasing a budget would not be bad for the right and the center . . . but bad for the base.  By showing what they want to do, they’re in effect conceding to all the things they had to give up.  And in today’s hyper-partisan political makeup, compromise is no longer a satisfactory option.  A perfect example is this past year’s budget.  A compromise was reached, money was saved, a shutdown was averted.  Everybody should have been happy.  Instead nobody was, because even though everybody got something they wanted, nobody got everything they wanted.

This isn’t unique to the budget; it permeates American politics.  The starting points have moved from what we agree with to what we disagree with, whether it be the budget, or tax subsidies, or environmental issues, or abortion.  Ideas opponents agree on are actually more toxic than those mostly favored by the minority extremes of both wings.

Maybe this year will be different.  Maybe this year political ideology will play an important role in pragmatic compromise, instead of dictating the end result of any debate.  Because if we can’t do something as basic as making sure we’re able to pay the bills we’ve already voted to pay, how long can we honestly continue to blindly accept the nationalistic mythology of historical exceptionalism?

So far, I’ve really enjoyed Google Music.  The website streams music with impressive speed, and the operation is intuitive.  The initial upload, while an exceptionally easy process to undertake, takes a long time – a very long time, actually – and that might be a concern to some people.  However, you can begin using the service while the upload is still taking place, and it didn’t have any noticeable impact on Netflix’s streaming service or my wi-fi speed at home.  Once the songs are available from music.google.com, the connection and playback was very, very fast; much faster than I had anticipated.  The Google Music program you must install on your Android is smooth and pretty, but otherwise pretty average with a few annoyances (which I’ll address in the Android section); more than adequate for what it does, but nothing to get excited about.  Playback was only marginally slower than on my laptop when using a wi-fi connection, although very poor with Sprint’s 3G service; the song has to completely download before playing, sometimes taking a minute or longer, and more often than not it wouldn’t play at all.  That being said, the cache and offline features seemed to work very well, so while that obviously limits the service to a great extent, it does provide more than adequate playback capabilities for what’s available off-line.

There are some alternatives to Google’s cloud music service (which I get into at the end of the article), and if you don’t live in a thorough 4G area – or aren’t lucky enough to never seem to be out of wi-fi range – it’s not going to completely replace physical storage for portability.  However, at a storage capacity of 20,000 songs (which doesn’t seem to be dependent upon file size; wonderful for people who prefer minimal compression), it’s a very sexy option if you want to have access to your library anywhere there’s an internet connection.

Now for the fun stuff . . . 

The Setup

Google Music, if you don’t know, works as a streaming music service to provide you with the music you already own.  In the past, there have been services which scan your music folders, then cross-reference them with digital copies of songs on file (which is the premise of Apple’s matching service due out this fall).  That sounds awesome, but it’s not how GM works.  Instead, you have to actually upload all the songs you wish to store on their servers, which can take quite a long time, and then you stream the copies you’ve uploaded to your computer.

The upload process works with Google Music’s PC client, Music Manager (Google is nothing if not clever about naming conventions).  The program installed both very easily and very quickly, and really makes the upload process about as painless as possible.  During the installation process it asks where you want the program to point to – My Music, iTunes, or Windows Media’s library – and will automatically start uploading the first 20,000 songs from that location.  It will also start uploading any new songs as soon as you rip them to your computer.  So if you have less than 20,000 songs all stored in the same place, you’re done.

I do not have less than 20,000 songs and really didn’t care to upload the first 20,000 alphabetically, so I had a perfect excuse to get my hands dirty.   The biggest problem with the program was initially discovering it; though you can find it in Windows Start Menu, the program resides in the Taskbar while running.  It’s actually a nice feature . . . once you find it.

Upon opening, Google’s minimalist philosophy makes use very transparent; there are literally two functional screens and no menus.  To start uploading, I moved a “first wave” of priority music into a temporary folder and pointed Music Manager to it.  This was easy enough, but not really necessary; the Music Manager has a very convenient drag-and-drop feature.

The first page of Music Manager, which allows you to point to the path you wish to upload from.

As I said, if you do have a folder you want it to point to continuously, it will upload newly added songs automatically.  However, you can also set it up to upload in pre-specified time intervals (hourly, daily, or weekly) or manually.  So while it can take autonomous control of the uploading process as a matter of convenience, it does allow a high level of user control if that’s your preference.

The second page of Music Manger.

Now, as for upload times:  I started with a “priority list” of a few less than 9000 songs.  Using my home’s wi-fi (approx. 3 Mbps average upload rate), this took about a week to finish off.  This wasn’t a continuous week, mind you, but probably at least a solid 100 hours.  So not too quick.  (Part of that can be attributed to bottlenecking from my wireless router; a positive from this experience is I finally got enough motivation to replace it.  But I digress.)  As I implied earlier, this didn’t bother me . . . too much.  Netflix (Ethernet to PS3) wasn’t affected at all, and browsing the internet on my laptop (which was also handling the uploading responsibilities) via wi-fi didn’t seem to have any noticeable speed degradation.  In fact, I would venture to say using the internet and Netflix had a much greater impact on my uploading speed than vice-versa.  Further, Music Manager seamlessly starts and stops the upload as the computer or network is turned on or off.  So unless you’re the type that just can’t get past the knowledge that your computer is still uploading your music (which isn’t entirely unjustified), I don’t think it’s more than a minor inconvenience.

One final thought on the setup, and I really saved the best for last . . . at the end of the installation it asked if I wanted any free music.  It offered a nice list of genres to check, of which I selected probably about eight thinking I’d get some up-and-coming or indie stuff which was begging for extra exposure.  You know, the type of stuff that comes with your cell phone.  Much to my surprise, Google Music provided me with 140(!) songs, many of which were quite well known with extensive radio play (“Champaign Supernova” and “Chop Suey”, for example).  Awesomesauce.

Accessing Your Music Online Via a Computer

The interface for listening to your Google Music at music.google.com.

Once the music is on Google’s servers, it works extremely well.  I tried accessing music at home and at work, and in both locations the quality of playback was very good and the delays were minimal to non-existent.  I expected there to be some decent gaps between when I selected an album and when I could select a song, and then anther gap before the song would actually play.  Much to my surprise, the response time was actually comparable – maybe even a bit faster – than my computer’s hard drive (which is no slouch).  There often is a slight delay with the first song once booting up the website – we’re talking one or two seconds here – but as soon as it gets going selecting new songs or albums, sorting through the lists, and even searching your library is pretty much instantaneous.

Aside from the quality of playback, the actual client is pretty slick, especially considering what it’s trying to accomplish.  The client conforms to Google’s minimalist tradition, but the layout is intuitive and attractive (though hopefully in the future it allows the option of customizing the color scheme).  It imports playlists automatically, creates some “intelligent” lists, and the search feature is fast and accurate.  It maintains a “New and Recent” list of recently added material; one of my favorite features of Windows Media Player for XP which Microsoft inexplicitly decided to eliminate in its otherwise far superior Win 7 player.  The layout of music is actually quite similar to WMP; artists and albums are shown with the multiple album covers, while your complete collection of individual songs takes a list form.  Definitely not as aesthetically impressive as iTunes, but you’re not surrounded by all the arbitrary mucky-muck, either (can you imagine trying to load iTunes as a webpage?).

In all, I think the online experience is superb; a definite A.  Only two complaints would hold it back from an A+ score:  First, the resolution of the album covers leaves a bit to be desired.  I totally get why you’d want smaller resolution pictures when you’re trying to load a bunch from the internet, so I hate to complain about it, but . . . Secondly, some cleanup was required.  There were a few instances where albums were split up into two or three “separate” albums, even though all the information seemed to be the same.  Fortunately, pulling the album up under the “Artist” tab seems to correct the issue, so playback isn’t affected.  And upon closer inspection using the “Edit album info” menu I was able to locate some small difference which caused the splitting to occur.  Sometimes that happens with WMP, so I’ll chalk that up to meta-data inconsistencies.  However, with WMP you can sync up the albums by manually forcing an automatic update (if you can forgive the oxymoron); since you can’t do this with Google Music you have to go in and manually find and fix the problem.  Further, many albums with the “problems” were read just fine in other music applications, so that’s something that needs to improve going forward.

Your Android and Google Music

Google Music uses a proprietary app on your Android device to access Google Music called . . . wait for it . . . Google Music (though, in theory at least, it should work via your phone’s web browser).  It’s a free download from the Android Market.  I was a little disappointed there wasn’t a bar code on the PC website to scan with your phone to automatically start the download.  You would think someone in the supply chain would’ve thought of it; I guess they’d prefer you actually visit the market.  Not a big thing, really, but it would’ve been nice.

Google Music works very well with Google Music.  The app is actually a full music player for your phone, so it’s available and completely functional without the cloud service.  As I said in the beginning, it works very well if you’re connected to wi-fi.  The service is a touch slower than on a PC; though album information pops up on the screen almost immediately, there is a second or two delay before a song starts to play once it’s selected.  When you skip from song to song you also experience this delay, but once started the songs play all the way through with no interruptions, and move fluidly and delay free song-to-song when listening to an album or playlist.

I, unfortunately, have not had a lot of opportunity to try it with Sprint’s 4G service; based upon the experience I have to this point with browsing, I would expect a slightly longer delay (maybe an additional one to two seconds) before a song starts playing, but would be surprised if there was any interruptions or delays before the next song once it starts going.

However, as I said, with 3G the streaming is poor at best and non-existent at worst.  For all practical purposes it just doesn’t work.  Android does cache songs which have recently been streamed, and you can select albums for off-line availability.  These allow for quick and seamless play when you don’t have wi-fi or 4G available.  In all, however, this service is definitely going to be much more enjoyable on your phone tomorrow than today.

The ability to play the music I’ve uploaded is, in my opinion, far and away the important part of Google Music.  As long as the app isn’t a train wreck I’d be pleased if it simply worked.  That being said, I do have a few words about the application itself.

First, as a basic music player, it’s pretty good.  The backgrounds, pretty much just a collage of similar colors which alternate as you progress through screens, is basic enough to avoid any strains on your phone’s resources but nice enough to make the app look good.  There are some features I like; most noticeably the ability to use a single screen touch to backtrack either to the album, artist, or main menu once you’re in a song.  The phone panel’s native “Back” button is never more than two presses from your Home page, which took some getting used to but is a pretty good idea.  And it has a search function; vitally important when you’re trying to scan through a few thousand songs to listen to, say, “Wasted” by Zebrahead.

Other than the speed on 3G, I do have some complaints about the software.  The app seems to want to repeat songs you select by default.  If I skip ahead to the second song it will start playing the whole album, so at least you don’t have to skip after each song.  But you shouldn’t have to at all.  Also, the problem with multiple album listings for the same album (referred to earlier) is present, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to combine the songs excepting making a playlist; you have to go to the website to fix the issue.  As a person who prefers to listen to an album, in order, beginning to end, this is a grave offense.

A relatively minor inconvenience is it doesn’t allow you to skip or pause songs on the phone’s welcome screen.  You have to unlock the phone to do anything with the program.  Being a program written by Google, this absolutely baffles me.  Since there’s at least two other programs which give you basic controls without unlocking the phone, this should have been a given from a Google app.

One final complaint is the app doesn’t recognize music you have already saved on your memory card; music from your card appears exactly like music from the cloud, and if they are present in both locations they show up in duplicate.  Ideally, if you have the same song on your card and in the cloud, it should only show said song once and play from the card by default.  That may be an unreasonable request at this point, but it would be nice if they threw some sort of symbol up next to music which is accessed from your phone to differentiate.

Comparisons to Other Cloud Services

Google Musics main competitors are iTunes Match and Amazon Cloud.  All three offer different attributes, and will work best for different people depending on their needs.  It’s not really possible to compare price point because Google hasn’t released that information yet.  However, it’s probably a good bet it will be free for a certain amount of storage, and increase to a price comparable to Apple’s iTunes Match at 20,000 songs, which is $24.99 per year.  A lot of the following comparisons might become a moot issue in the near future; I strongly doubt Google has given up on working out licensing deals with the publishers just because they decided they’ve waited long enough to release their cloud service.  But in the meantime you’ve got to go with what they offer, and this is it.

The benefit of Apple’s service is three-fold; since it scans your iTunes folder and then matches the music to its database the amount of uploading required is minimal, the storage is essentially unlimited (more correctly, non-existent), and lesser quality music is automatically “upgraded” to the better AAC format iTunes uses.  If you’re already an Apple person with iTunes and an iPhone and whatnot, this service is probably the way to go.  However, there are a few downsides which may make Google Music a better alternative.  First, obviously, for it works only with Apple portable products; if you have an Android you’re out of luck.  Secondly, though iTunes Match works with “any computer”, it really works with your iTunes account on a computer.  Personally, the fact that you have to use iTunes at all is a big negative.  Aside from my own biases, if you’re on a computer without iTunes you can’t use it – and good luck getting your company’s IT people to allow you to install it at work.  Since Google Music works off a website and not a program, it can be accessed on any device with a browser – including, in theory, an Apple product (I tried it on my boss’s iPad; it logged on but wouldn’t play music, which could be caused by a range from a temporary hiccup to a side effect of Apple’s neutered internet capabilities.  But it did look like Google Music was trying to play, so while a playback problem could certainly be Google’s fault I doubt it was intentionally blocked from their end.).  My overall feeling on iTunes Match is it’s a great service if you already use iTunes a lot, but not necessarily worth starting if you don’t.

In terms of Amazon’s cloud service, there are four positives:  First, it’s free up to 5 GB, 20GB for one year if you buy an album from their .mp3 service.  Second, any .mp3′s you purchase directly from Amazon will automatically be available from your cloud without counting towards your storage limit.  Third, it’s available anywhere you have an internet connection.  Finally, and this is actually the thing that really sets it apart from the other two, the storage is good for any kind of files, which is great if you want to back up your computer or access other types of files remotely.  However, this service does not come cheap; the cost is a rather astonishing $10/GB.  At 20,000 songs, and no other types of files, you’re looking at least $50 per year, which isn’t too expensive in the grand scheme of things but twice the cost of iTunes’ unlimited service (which is probably much closer to Google’s cost than Amazon).  You can store up to a TB, but that comes at an absurd $1000 a year.  For that cost, you can buy ten 1 TB hard drives and just haul one around with you.  Though I really, really like where Amazon is going, what you get for free and what you have to pay after that places their service a distant third.

My biggest issue with iTunes Match and Amazon is if you’re going to pay for online access and for individual downloads, why not just purchase an unlimited subscription-based service like MOG or Rdio?  (I suppose the same argument might be made against Google Music, depending on what their subscription costs end up being.)

Conclusion

Mind you, this is a beta, and many of the issues I pointed out may be fixed by the time the service comes out of beta mode.  (If so, I’ll update the review to reflect that.)  In fact, assuming Google isn’t just resting on this release, Google Music should be a monster service going forward, and a real boon to both the company and cloud computing as a whole.  In the meantime, it’s still a great service if your biggest concern is remote access to your library, especially if you have ready and nearly universal access to high-speed internet.  And despite the shortcomings on an Android device, I do think this is a very decisive and positive step towards making Android a better platform for portable music.  Highly recommended for all but the heaviest iTunes users.

You Cut is, evidently, over a year old, so I guess I’m a little late to the game.  Though I’m not exactly its target demographic.  Still, I signed up for Judy Biggert’s twitter feed for a reason, so I guess I should pay more attention.

Anyway, this, er, “round” there are three options on the table.  They all mostly sound like partisan political fodder at first glance, but one of them – eliminating the Economic Development Administration – was recommended by Obama’s Bowles-Simpson Fiscal Commission, making it a bit hard to argue against; while the other – terminating the Weatherization Assistance Program – is presented as a way to eliminate fraud and misuse in the federal government, which I think everybody can agree is a goodly goal.  Of course, one could argue it’s possible to eliminate the fraud and misuse without terminating an otherwise useful program, but I digress.

The third option was to “reduce the number of federal employees by 10 percent through attrition”.  Not saying that this, um, “round” is fixed, but this option was not only listed first, it claims a savings of over 30 times the other two options combined.  So the more cynical amongst us might ever so subtly suggest that this was the preferred, uh, “winner”.  And why wouldn’t it be?  After all, “the failed 2009 stimulus bill showed that government-funded employment is no substitute for real market-driven private sector job creation”.  I guess that’s debatable, but what’s not debatable is that the private market has not been able to create jobs, whereas the federal government has provided much needed relief to the nation’s unemployed.  How do I know this?  Because Eric Cantor said so:

“Since the economic downturn began in December of 2007, the private sector workforce has shrunk by more than 6 percent. Over the same period, the federal government’s workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) grew by nearly 12 percent, adding 230,000 new federal employees, to a total of more than 2 million workers.”

So how does that stump speech go?

“Remember how the economy sucks and people can’t get jobs?  Private sector jobs decreased by six percent.  Six percent!!  About the only place where it’s been easier to get a job is the government, which has actually increased its work force, providing much needed employment to 230,000 workers.  That just doesn’t seem right.  After all, with the budget crisis being what it is, it’s simply more responsible to pay unemployment premiums than full salaries for the nation’s out-of-work.”

Of course, Eric Cantor would never actually say that.  I mean, can you see the second in command of the House Republican majority using the word “sucks” in a speech?  Oh, my whimsy has once again gotten the better of my sensibilities.

These are not lower-income, underpaid, scratching-to-survive jobs perpetuated by the “food stamp President,” either.  These are solid, middle class jobs with good benefits.  The kind that support the backbone of America.  The kind that provide real spending power to boost the American private industry while also contributing meaningfully to US tax revenues.  These are jobs people want and can’t find.  I know there’s an argument that maybe these jobs are too middle class, though that evidently doesn’t apply to people who work for Eric Cantor.  And certainly I don’t mean to imply that the federal government should overtake the private sector as the main engine for job growth; it shouldn’t even come close.  But one has to wonder how, with all the employment problems we already have, the US economy could handle arbitrarily jettisoning one of the best job markets.

Now, in fairness to Eric Cantor, he says he wants to lower the employment by attrition, so it’s not like he’s proposing to lay a lot of people off.  At least not directly; “reductions can be made . . . by hiring only one new federal employee for every three federal workers who retire or leave federal government”.  The “leave federal government” part is open to interpretation.

And he does stake a pragmatic claim alongside the overtly partisan rhetoric:  “Government spending to support federal jobs has a crowd-out effect on private employment.”  Which is true.  As any captain of industry will tell you, it’s just so hard finding good help these days, what with the federal government eating up so much of that 9% unemployment rate.

So the article is titled “Why Rush to Cut Nukes?”  And immediately I’m thinking this would be some fun dissertation on the security that nuclear warheads provide.  For the record, I disagree with the sentiment, but also recognize the historical veracity of the claim and find the argument quite fascinating.  However, his sole argument against nuclear disarmament, whose brevity cannot be overstated, is that Russia still has quite a bit more than the United States.  He ignores that America’s nuclear weapons are stronger and far more numerous than we could reasonably use, but that’s not an especially damning omission.

No, that would be his arguments against the Senate’s “resolution of ratification” adopted by the Foreign Relations Committee.  Evidently, “the Obama administration’s main strategy is likely to emphasize . . . that resolution, which supposedly addresses concerns about missile defense and modernization of the nuclear arsenal.

“The Foreign Relations Committee’s resolution contains various ‘conditions,’ ‘understandings’ and ‘declarations’ holding that New Start doesn’t ‘impose any limitations on the deployment of missile defenses’ or dilute Congress’s aspiration to defend the nation from missile attack. A second understanding exempts conventional weapons systems with a global reach. A third affirms Congress’s commitment to the safety and reliability of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.”

The problem, according to John Bolton, is that this doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.  The language is what the language is, and these are “mere policy statements that attempt to influence future treaty interpretation.”

Fair enough, except, in the next paragraph, he tells us that the President’s “understandings and interpretations of treaties typically have (and should) predominate.”

Got that?  So we shouldn’t enact the treaty because the interpretations which Obama has endorsed don’t mean anything, and Obama is free to act upon the treaty in whatever way he chooses.  Evidently, the interpretations he endorses are different from those he, you know, endorses.  I believe in the world of international diplomacy they call that the “Pants on Fire Colloquy”.  Of course, Bolton could be saying that, constitutionally, Obama can’t do what he wants when it means ensuring adequate national defense, but he’s given free reign over all the stuff he wants to do to weaken it.  Glad to know.

As an interesting side-bar, the Senate and the President can’t interpret a treaty anyway they want (except when they can), but Bolton is evidently free to do so.  He contends, “Its preamble accepts an unspecified ‘interrelationship’ between nuclear weapons and defensive systems.  Politically, even if not in treaty language, the Russians get what they want:  no significant United States efforts on missile defense.”

Nice.

By the way, another reason to be fearful of New START’s long term effect on the country’s defense capabilities?  “[A future] President can, after all, completely withdraw from a treaty on his own.”  Not sure how that proves his case, but I guess if he’s willing to throw me a bone I might as well take it.

Oh, and evidently the Continental Congress of 1789 specifically warned us against nuclear non-proliferation.

To be fair, he thinks the treaty could be amended to make it palatable; but first it needs to eliminate restrictions on nuclear launching devices and Congress should approve the development of additional nuclear warheads.

However, in its current state, this piece of legislation is a travesty of international diplomacy (something which I think we can assume he is very, very familiar with), and “the Senate should heed the will of the voters and either reject the treaty or amend it so that it doesn’t weaken our national defense.”  Which is fair.  I don’t know about you, but if I heard one more political campaign rant about New START last October I was going to have a fit.

What a complete tool.

I think anyone who claims Hitler would be better than Obama should visit a concentration camp.  Then stay there.

The struggle in America seems to be less and less a political struggle, and more and more a cultural one.  I get tired of fighting a group of people (and this in no way extends to all on the right) who would prefer to turn back the clock 100 years (in some cases, 138 years) and attempt to continue America’s global dominance merely by strict militarism (ironically, a view much more in common with the USSR’s global strategy than anything the “socialist” left might propose).  A group of people whose politics is governed by hate; hatred of the poor, hatred of the blacks, hatred of the gays, hatred of those who may want to come to America from the south for economic prosperity (while in the same breath complaining that the evil commie left would destroy the desire of those same people to come here in the first place).

A whole segment of our population has political motives whose best strategy for staying in power are the economic oppression of their citizens and the suppression of minority (read:  black) votes.  Meanwhile, while forcing Constitutional dogma which never existed, they willingly engage in a massive religious autonomy movement.  Personally, I’m becoming intolerant of the intolerant.

As I was watching the typical Martin Luther King Day fare, it occurs to me the 1960’s were a study in contrast between both the great things and the terrible things this country is capable of.  The civil rights movements were inspiring, but only necessary due to the immoral behavior of our people.  The ability to send men to the moon was the greatest technological achievement in human history, but that technology was used to massacre a people across the world in a war which meant nothing and protected nothing.  And though movements against such a war were noble and legitimate, they were capped by the desecration of the men and women whose only crime was fighting for their right to produce it.  And the three people who could most likely take us to a very special place in civilization’s history were assassinated in the same year:  LBJ figuratively, RFK and MLK literally.

I’m getting tired of this cultural fight.  I’m tired of hearing the banalities of the opposition, and I’m tired of seeing its effects (from my side as well as theirs).  Most of all, I’m tired of feeling like I have to engage in it.  For a country supposedly founded on the ideals Christ exemplified, we seem to be ignoring much of His teachings.

In the spirit of honesty, I should point out that this doesn’t necessarily mean they think the death penalty is a bad idea; merely that the US sucks at it.  Furthermore, they stopped short of stating a specific position against the death penalty in general.  (Glad that’s off my chest, now I can ignore it without guilt.)

Most people’s position on capital punishment is ideological and not really rooted in any objective premise one way or the other.  For example, many people who are interested in “justice” are really more motivated by revenge.  This became all too apparent in 2000, when then-Governor of Illinois George Ryan put a moratorium on all executions and commuted those on death row to life sentences.  The mantra coming from the anti-moratorium crowd was, “What about the victim’s families?”  Which is a very good slogan.  Ryan’s response was that while he was sympathetic to the families, they don’t own the issue; rather this is a legal issue and should be treated as such.  Which is very good logic.  Besides, if the criminal is brought to what is legally recognized as appropriate justice, the families should be satisfied, correct?  Well, no.  Evidently satisfaction is only given through execution:  it gives closure, and ensures a murderer no longer lives.  While I’m absolutely certain this would be my thought should I ever be unlucky enough to formulate a first-hand opinion on the subject, I also feel this is a position borne in vengeance, and not what is best serving justice.

That being said, I must admit my primary beliefs against the penalty reside somewhere between God’s commandment not to kill (which seems exceptionless) and the seemingly obvious irony in killing people to show that killing people is wrong.  While it’s obvious to me that the reasoning “two wrongs don’t make a right” is preferential to “an eye for an eye”, I also recognize that these are every bit as much ideological arguments as those I retort.

However, I think that the objective evidence does show that capital punishment is not a deterrent.  The death penalty had a four year hiatus in this country, and looking at this hiatus it’s apparent that the death penalty really didn’t have much of an effect, one way or the other.  Further, the “fixed” capital punishment system didn’t have much, if any, improvement over the “broken” one the Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional.  According to data given by the Justice Research and Statistics Association (pg. 38-39), the US murder rate was quite low in 1900, but around 1905 started to dramatically increase, leaving a murder rate well above 9% at the height of the Great Depression; started to decrease to below 5% in the 1950s; then started to hike again during the Vietnam War.  Reaching a peak over 10% in 1980, the murder rate did not begin to significantly decrease again until 1993.  1993 was Clinton’s first year in office, which is only relevant because he was the fourth President following the reinstatement of capital punishment by the Supreme Court in 1976.

The insignificance of the death penalty on murder rates can be seen in the following graph, derived from The Disaster Center data.  I used this graph because the data syncs up better with US Census Data.  That’s my official explanation.  The real reason is because I like making graphs:

Murder Rates Are Ambivalent About the State of Capital Punishment



So I got to thinking, what is the murder rates of the US versus other countries who do or do not have capital punishment?  You can certainly make the argument that, in general, countries without the death penalty have lower murder rates.  In fairness, that does seem too general.  While Europe, which as a continent has almost anonymously eliminated the death penalty, has some of the lowest murder rates in the world, both Mexico and Russia have abolished the death penalty and their murder rates are higher than the US.  China has a relatively low murder rate of 2.36 per 100,000 people (less than half the US level), and executions run rampant (of course, those are official numbers, which in China may not necessarily mean accurate, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt).

So I decided to go the easier route and compare the rates by state (see below).  Fifteen of the US states have abolished the death penalty (Washington D.C. makes sixteen).  According the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, of these states thirteen have murder rates in the best half, and nine of the lowest fifteen murder rates in the country come from this list.  (In fairness, six of lowest ten states have the death penalty, but then the next five are all sans executions.)  In fact, when taking population into account, the murder rate of these states is almost 35% lower than from death penalty states – 3.8% vs. 5.7%.  Even if you include Washington DC, which has no death penalty but a shocking 31.4% murder rate, the total murder rate for all states without capital punishment is 4.0%; still 30% lower than in states with the death penalty.  Even more damning, a study by the FBI showed that the high murder rates in the South, which is almost completely a capital punishment friendly zone, are a major factor in the whole country’s high murder rate.

At best, the list points to complete ambivalence about the whether the death penalty is effective or not.  However, I do believe a little bit of Pascal’s Wager is appropriate here.  The death penalty may or may not be immoral, and it may or may not work.  We should ask ourselves if the bet that it works is worth the payoff, as the sum collected should we lose could very well end up being our souls.

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And this coming only one week after I received my new “machine-readable health plan beneficiary card” in the mail.  Those commie bastards!!

By the by, did you read the text for Obama’s “school speech” to be delivered today?  Obviously a ploy to indoctrinate our children into his evil socialist agendas.  The only thing a President should be reading to our children is The Pet Goat.

I see he has expanded upon his tweeter feed to include the last couple hundred or so pages of the bill.  The email I got was only good up to page 500.  Still, this post seemed long enough . . .

Now, I don’t want to give too much credence to this Fleckman.  But he obviously spent a lot of time reading the bill and coming up with his, ahem, “interpretation”, and I appreciate that.  Plus, it gives a very handy outline of all the myths, misinformation, and downright lies which will be spread about the bill.  (Some of it reads like he copy and paste sound bites from the newest Gingrich primer.)  So hopefully when somebody starts talking about all the rotten things this bill is going to do, you’ll be able to give them a factual account of its actual verbiage.

Please note that this is not a compilation of articles written in support of the bill; rather responses were given by actually reading the portions of the bill he addresses.

Finally, I don’t want to imply that I feel this is a perfect bill.  I don’t.  But it’s a good compromise between single-payer and individual plans which will allow universal coverage.  And it’s leaps and bounds over that status quo.  If people don’t like this method to universal coverage, then fine.  But I can’t stand by and let it be defeated by blanket propaganda and irrelevant claims based upon scare tactics or hot-button issues completely unrelated to the topic.

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!

The government is not proposing to “audit books”.  They will examine the “financial solvency and capital reserve levels of employers that self-insure by employer size.”  This information is already provided to the government (the IRS and SEC).  The purpose of this examination is to complete a report looking into the ability of self-insured companies to meet the obligations they assign themselves by being self-insured.  This report is to be submitted “not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act.”  The above statement implies that the government will be conducting additional accounting oversight, and on a long-term scale, neither of which is accurate.

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill – THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benes u get

The government committee will not decide what treatment or benefits you get.  The panel, which is mandated to represent both the medical field and employers, will recommend (i.e. not mandate) two things:  an ”essential benefits package” (that is, minimum coverage), and cost-sharing levels for “enhanced plans and premium plans” (which would ensure a maximum individual medical expense).  Not only would this committee not mandate the coverages in those plans, it would not mandate which plan is offered or which plan a person must buy.  This in no way effects choice of the individual, only attempts to ensure standards under which an individual is guaranteed a certain level of care.

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill – YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!

Page 29 deals with cost-sharing.  This does not ration healthcare, it sets maximums for the amount an individual has to pay for medical under an insurance plan ($5000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family, with automatic increases based upon increases in the Consumer Price Index).  Either this guy doesn’t know what cost-sharing is, or he is being intentionally misrepresentative.

Pg 42 of HC Bill – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose UR HC Benefits 4 you. U have no choice!

Commission sets standards for minimum coverage.  It does not mandate specific coverage.

PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill – HC will be provided 2 ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

Talk about grasping at straws.  Here’s the exact verbiage of the text:  “Except as otherwise explicitly permitted by this Act and by subsequent regulations consistent with this Act, all health care and related services (including insurance coverage and public health activities) covered by this Act shall be provided without regard to personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related service.”  Oh my God!  Those evil bastards!!

Pg 58HC Bill – Govt will have real-time access 2 individuals’ finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued!

This says nothing about access to an individual’s finances, it’s an individual’s “financial responsibility at the point of service.”  Not even close to the same thing.  Obviously disingenuous here.  It does not mandate a national ID health card, but “may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card”, which is already provided by most insurers.  Nowhere does it say that these cards would stop being issued by the insurer and begin being issued by the government.  (Talk about paranoid.)

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access 2 ur banks accts 4 elect. funds transfer

This does state the desire to enable EFT’s “to allow automated reconciliation with the related health care payment and remittance advice.”  However, it does not stipulate the government’s access to bank accounts, and EFT’s would not be required.  There’s a difference between “enable” and “allow” and “required.”  The wording seems to imply a vehicle to allow people to pay via EFT, which most people are all to happy to do online with a variety of vendors.

PG 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan 4 retirees and their families in Unions & community orgs (ACORN).

Section 164 is a temporary subsidized reimbursement plan to help off-set costs of insuring retirees who participated in employment-based insurance plans, which would include any plan “maintained by one or more employers, former employers, or employee associations, or a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association, or a committee or board of individuals appointed to administer such plan.”  Technically he’s right that it will help people in unions and community organizations, though it will also pay money to employers who do not hire union workers.  Obviously, the purpose of his line was to prey on the negative connotations some people have of unions or ACORN, specifically, even though the language is not targeted towards these groups.

Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating an HC Exchange 2 bring priv HC plans under Govt control.

This will create a health care exchange, and would include a public health insurance option.  You can debate the merits of such a policy, but that’s a far cry from bringing private health care plans under government control.

PG 84 Sec 203 HC bill – Govt mandates ALL benefit pkgs 4 priv. HC plans in the Exchange

This says nothing about mandating benefits packages in the health care exchange.  It merely states that in order to be in the exchange, an insurer must offer a basic plan in the exchange.  In order to offer an enhanced plan, an insurer must offer a basic plan, and in order to offer a premium plan, an insurer must offer an enhanced plan.  This increases a consumer’s choice by ensuring there are less expensive basic plans a person can buy, instead of being forced into a higher priced plan at the sole discretion of the insurance company.

PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration ur Healthcare!

Standards within the plans will be mandated, meaning a guaranteed minimum level of coverage.  However, standards do not limit the amount of insurance above these minimums which a company may offer.  So if you wish to purchase more insurance than the standards offered, you would still have that option.  This is the exact opposite of rationing.

PG 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill – Govt mandates linguistic approp svcs. Example – Translation 4 illegal aliens

A more appropriate example – translation for legal residents.  I guess the theory is that if you don’t speak English you don’t deserve adequate health care.  The author is using the “illegal immigrant” debate to scare people away from a completely unrelated topic.  Common, but no less inappropriate or bigoted.

Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps 2 sign up indiv. for Govt HC plan

This section does stipulate the use of outreach programs to educate “vulnerable populations” about health care options.  While, in theory, this could include groups such as ACORN, he’s again obviously using a completely unrelated hot-button topic to evade the health care issue.  Besides, why is it so bad that ”vulnerable populations, such as children, individuals with disabilities, individuals with mental illness, and individuals with other cognitive impairments” be educated about this health care?  I guess if a quadriplegic with a learning disability doesn’t take the initiative to learn the finer points about the program then that’s his concern.

PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members – U Health care WILL b rationed

He already mentioned this three examples ago . . . not sure why he brought it up again.

-PG 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill – Medicaid Eligible Indiv. will b automat.enrolled in Medicaid. No choice

The exact wording is:  “an individual who is described in section 202(d)(3) and has not elected to enroll in an Exchange-participating health benefits plan (emphasis added) is automatically enrolled under Medicaid.”  So there is a choice.  Unless, of course, the choice is whether or not to be insured.

pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No “judicial review” against Govt Monop

There is no judicial review for premiums or pay rates established for the public health insurance plan.  Technically, the above statement would be correct, if one assumes that the government is going to set up a public plan with the sole intention of losing enough money to drive private insurance companies out of business.

pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill – Doctors/ #AMA – The Govt will tell YOU what u can make.

This is incredibly misleading.  The bill sets up payment terms for physicians under the public insurance plan, based upon whether they are preferred, participating, or other providers.  That’s what insurance companies currently do.  The government is not telling physicians what they can make any more than State Farm or Blue Cross currently does.

Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into pub opt plan. NO CHOICE

The auto-enrollement actually specifically legislates the choice of the employee to determine what plan they may enroll in.  The auto-enrollement is not designed to automatically enroll an employee into the public plan, but rather to enroll an employee into an insurance plan, specifically, “the plan option with the lowest applicable employee premium.”  This does not predicate enrollment into the public plan at all.  Further, the employee has an option to opt-out of automatic enrollment if they chose to enroll in another, more expensive employer plan or another plan not offered by the employer.  The employer must, by law, accept this opt-out and “under no circumstances” may automatically enroll the employee.

It should be noted that in cases where an employee is currently forced to enroll in a specific insurance plan as a condition of employment, this will actually increase the employee’s choice.  At any rate, it will not decrease the choice of another employee at all, unless (again) it is the choice of the employee to simply not have health insurance.

Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay 4 HC 4 part time employees AND their families.

This is actually on page 146.  This is accurate that the employer must provide health coverage for part time employees as well as full-time employees.  However, the employer is allowed to pro-rate the coverage for the employee based upon the difference between the hours they work and the hours of a full-time employee.  And as the purpose of the bill is to mandate universal coverage, this should not be surprising.

Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Emplyr w payroll 400k & above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll

This is disingenuous.  The 8% tax is required of any employer who does not offer insurance coverage.  While this includes the public plan, the statement makes it sound like an employer will be subject to this fine if they offer private insurance but not the public option.  This is a false statement.

pg 150 Lines 9-13 Biz w payroll btw 251k & 400k who doesnt prov. pub. opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll

This is the same as the above argument.  The bill allows for small employers to pay a smaller tax for not offering health insurance than larger ones.  But, again, this only pertains if they do not offer any coverage.  If they offer private insurance coverage they will be exempt from this tax, even if they do not provide the public option plan.

Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesnt have acceptable HC accrdng 2 Govt will be taxed 2.5% of inc

It is true that an additional tax will be levied on an individual for not having any health care coverage, as part of Congress’s decision that coverage be a shared responsibility between the government, the employer, and the individual.  However, it is not true that this tax will be levied against every individual.  There are exemptions.  In fact, in direct contrast to the above statement, he identifies one below:

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from indiv. taxes. (Americans will pay)

Nonresident aliens are already exempted from most taxes, including Social Security taxes, as they are generally not eligible for US Government services.  And the taxes that are levied are only for certain incomes.  Furthermore, many nonresident aliens don’t even preside in the United States, making it absurd that they should pay for services they won’t receive.  However, this isn’t really a fairness issue; this is a tax policy issue which extends far beyond the subject at hand.

Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access 2 ALL Americans finan/pers recs

This is not universal access.  It only applies to certain information (which is already provided to the IRS) which can be used to determine if a person is financially capable of paying for insurance.  And it’s not available for “all” Americans, only those whom have filed taxes.  This is so that people who cannot afford insurance are not subjected to the, we’ll call it, “punishment tax”.

PG 203 Line 14-15 HC – “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax” Yes, it says that

It actually says:  ”The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as a tax imposed by this chapter for purposes of determining the amount of any credit under this chapter or for purposes of section 55.”  Mildly amusing, but not absurd.

Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Govt will reduce physician svcs 4 Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected

This does not reduce anything.  This refers to the Social Security Act, and changes limitation already present from being effected under a target growth rate computation to a physician fee schedule.  In other words, it merely changes the calculation used to determine certain limitations.

Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill – Doctors, doesnt matter what specialty u have, you’ll all be paid the same

That’s not exactly true.  This establishes (or changes) conversion factors based upon service categories.  While it is accurate that these changes apply “without regard to the specialty of the physician furnishing the service,” certain service categories are going to apply either in whole or in general to certain specialties.  For example, though it would be technically accurate that conversion factors for treatment of cancer would be the same whether you’re a podiatrist or oncologist, there’s not really a very high likelihood of you getting treated for cancer by a podiatrist.  Unless, of course, it’s foot cancer.  But in that case, I think it’s fair that the podiatrist should be paid for treating your foot cancer the same as the oncologist would have. **note – this only applies to Social Security benefits (i.e. Medicaid or Medicare)

PG 253 Line 10-18 Govt sets value of Dr’s time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.

This applies to payment schedules of doctors providing Social Security benefits.  Remember what I said about State Farm and Blue Cross dictating doctor’s pay?  The same is applicable here.

PG 265 Sec 1131Govt mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries

Which do not already incorporate such improvements.  If you read the section, it’s a list of amendments to the Social Security law.  Most of the amendments seem to be regarding dates certain things take effect.

PG 268 Sec 1141 Fed Govt regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs

This is another amendment to the Social Security law.  It actually doesn’t change any regulation, just changes the verbiage from “power-driven wheelchair” to “complex rehabilitative power-driven wheel-chair recognized by the Secretary as classified within group 3 or higher.”  Those liberal bastards!!!

PG 272 SEC. 1145. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing!

I don’t think he actually read this section.  All this section does is set up a study to determine how much ambulance rides cost to the hospital.  Then, if it costs a certain hospital more money to send out an ambulance, then the government will increase Social Security payments to that hospital.  So far from “rationing” services, it actually would help ensure that hospitals are not losing money on ambulance rides for cancer patients covered under Social Security. Which actually sounds like the exact opposite of rationing.

Page 280 Sec 1151 The Govt will penalize hospitals 4 what Govt deems preventable readmissions.

I don’t understand this guy.  First he complains that the government wants to ration health care, then he complains when the government wants to ensure that people don’t go home from the hospital before they are supposed to.  Which is it, dude?

Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Drs, treat a patient during initial admiss that results in a readmiss-Govt will penalize u.

How dare the government expect doctors to appropriately diagnose a patient?  The nerve!!  This is not a penalty for when a doctor admits a patient and then they have to be readmitted.  This is a penalty when the originally admission is so errored that it results in a second medical problem required readmission.

Pg 317 L 13-20 OMG!! PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Drs. what/how much they can own.

What this section does is stipulate that referrals made by a doctor receiving Social Security payments to him or herself can not be used to increase any ownership in their hospital.  This seems to be a technique to stop a doctor from using self-referrals to increase his bill to Medicaid more than it would have been if he would have just preformed the procedure he referred himself to do.

Pg 317-318 lines 21-25,1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Govt is mandating hospitals cannot expand

The government is not prohibiting hospitals from expanding.  As I explained above, it is forbidding that doctors refer patients to themselves and use the extra money to expand hospitals.  It’s prohibiting doctors from ripping off the government.

pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have oppt to apply for exception BUT community input required. Can u say ACORN?!!

This provides for an exception to the above prohibition, provided the community supports the expansion.  He’s just looking for a tie-in to ACORN – jingling keys over here to take your attention off the subject over there.

Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 – Govt mandates estab. of outcome based measures. HC the way they want. Rationing

What are some of the outcome based measures, you might ask?  Rates of admission and readmission to a hospital, measures of prevention quality, mortality following surgeries, health functioning and survival for patients with chronic diseases, and measures of patient safety.  These measures are used to ensure that patients are getting adequate care to eliminate future complications while avoiding potentially dangerous care.  Insurance companies do this all the time.  And, again, this only applies to Social Security patients, which is a form of insurance.

Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Govt has authority 2 disqual Medicare Adv Plans, HMOs, etc. Forcing peeps in2 Govt plan

So, what the author is saying is that the government is trying to force people out of a federally subsidized plan so they are forced into a federally funded plan.  Okay, then.  At any rate, it doesn’t say anything about HMO’s.  Though it does disqualify Medicare Advantage plans which, you know, don’t work.

Pg 354 Sec 1177 – Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs ppl! WTF. My sis has down syndrome!!

This section does not restrict anything.  What it actually does is change the date of the Social Security law restricting certain enrollments from January 1, 2011 to January 1, 2013, or to January 1, 2016 for certain plans.  Plus, it grandfathers certain people in.  So it’s doing the opposite of restricting coverage – it’s increasing coverage times for special needs.  Your sister is safe.

Pg 379 Sec 1191 Govt creates more bureaucracy – Telehealth Advisory Cmtte. Can u say HC by phone?

Well, this section does create a Telehealth Advisory Committee, so I guess it’s hard to argue with the “creates more bureaucracy” statement.  But the committee doesn’t actually establish a telehealth program.  It merely exists to recommend policy regarding telehealth practices.  Telehealth already exists and is run by private industries.

PG 425 Lines 4-12 Govt mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life

This amends Social Security law to pay for advanced care planning consultations.  Which is technically what he says.  But his implication is clear – this will set up a system whereby the government decides what appropriate advanced care and end of life options are.  This is not even remotely accurate.  It only pays for services already available but currently not paid for.  And these services won’t be provided by the government, anyway.

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory!

Completely false.  The government will not instruct and/or consult regarding living wills and powers of attorney.  Social Security will merely pay for these services.  And these services are not mandatory.  Social Security payment for them if the patient desires them is.  There’s no way anybody who read this section could possibly come the the conclusion that the government will force government-provided consultations on people.  Not even by mistake.  He’s arguing for choice by arguing against it.

PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Govt provides apprvd list of end of life resources, guiding u in death

The “end of life resources” are not government approved; they are national and State-specific.  Big difference (as in, not even close to the same thing).  The practitioner has to give a list of resources which may further aid the patient; there’s no government “death guiding” involved here.  Again, arguing for choice by arguing against it.

PG 427 Lines 15-24 Govt mandates program 4 orders 4 end of life. The Govt has a say in how ur life ends

This is an especially ironic statement, because this particular piece of the legislation says that Social Security will only pay for advanced care or end of life consolations which include “a program for life sustaining treatments.”  So it’s really saying that the government should not have any say in how early your life ends.  The specific lines he addresses are a prequel to standards of such “life sustaining treatments,” which are virtually entirely left to the States to decide.  It does not force such life sustaining treatments on the patient, only forces their availability.

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An “adv. care planning consult” will b used frequently as patients health deteriorates

Again, Social Security will pay for them.  They are not required.

PG 429 Lines 10-12 “adv. care consultation” may incl an ORDER 4 end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOV

Again, the order is not from the government.  It’s an order from the patient.  The government merely pays for the consultation to legally formulate the order.  The government does not conduct the consultation, and does not require it.

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 – The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

This is a definition, not a limitation. It does not specify which doctors can write an end of life order, only that doctors must write an end of life order.  If that is not possible, certain other health practitioners, also defined in the section, may do so.

PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Govt will decide what level of treatment u will have at end of life

This does not stipulate what kind of treatment will be delivered, but (again) rather stipulates that Social Security will pay for a consultation as to what kind of treatment will be delivered.

Pg 469 – Community Based Home Medical Services=Non profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Svcs here!!?

So, every time the word “community” is mentioned we have to hear about ACORN?  What a weak argument.

Page 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment 2 a community-based org. Like ACORN?

Jesus Christ.

PG 489 Sec 1308 The Govt will cover Marriage & Family therapy. Which means they will insert Govt in2 ur marriage

Having the government pay for marriage and family counseling doesn’t mean anything other than people will be able to have coverage for marriage and family counseling.  Why is this a bad thing?  I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the ‘family party’, anyway?  They think the government can step in and say who can or cannot get married, but the government has no role in helping pay for services which might preserve marriage?

Pg 494-498 Govt will cover Mental Health Svcs including defining, creating, rationing those svcs

These pages actually sate that the government will pay for mental health counselor services and treatment.  In then defines whom an appropriate mental health counselor is (needs a masters or above, at least two years of supervised practice, and a State license or certification).  It doesn’t actually define the services, offers no guidance on creation of these services, nor does it place any limitations on the payment of those services, other than the fact that the services have to be performed in accordance with State law.