In U.S., Child Poverty and Hunger Rates Remain Alarmingly High
Alarming
statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of
Agriculture earlier this month revealed that hunger and poverty rates in
the country remain high, particularly among African-American children.
One in four Americans think Obama may be the antichrist, survey says
Poll asking voters about conspiracy theories reveals alarming beliefs – including 37% believing global warming to be a hoax
Barack Obama – according to a new poll, one in four Americans suspect him to be the anti-Christ. Photograph: Reuters
About one in four Americans suspect that President Barack Obama might be the antichrist, more than a third believe that global warming is a hoax and more than half suspect that a secretive global elite is trying to set up a New World Order, according to a poll released on Tuesday.
The survey, which was conducted by Public Policy Polling, asked a sample of American voters about a number of conspiracy theories, phrasing the questions in eye-catching language that will have the country's educators banging their heads on their desks. The study revealed that 13% of respondents thought Obama was "the antichrist", while another 13% were "not sure" – and so were at least appeared to be open to the possibility that he might be. Some 73% of people were able to say outright that they did not think Obama was "the antichrist".
The survey also showed that 37% of Americans thought that global warming was a hoax, while 12% were not sure and a slim majority – 51% – agreed with the overwhelming majority view of the scientific establishment and thought that it was not. The survey also revealed that 28% of people believed in a sinister global New World Order conspiracy, aimed at ruling the whole world through authoritarian government. Another 25% were "not sure" and only a minority of American voters – 46% – thought such a conspiracy theory was not true.
Sen. Feinstein Blames NRA, Gun Makers For Derailing Assault Weapons Ban
Health Care
Obamacare Incompetence
U.S. President Barack Obama at Port Miami on March 29, 2013.
This is a really bad sign. There will be those who argue that it’s not the Administration’s fault. It’s the fault of the 33 states that have refused to set up their own exchanges. Nonsense. Where was the contingency planning? There certainly are models, after all—the federal government’s own health benefits plan (FEHBP) operates markets that exist in all 50 states. So does Medicare Advantage. But now, the Obama Administration has announced that it won’t have the exchanges ready in time, that small businesses will be offered one choice for the time being—for a year, at least. No doubt, small business owners will be skeptical of the Obama Administration’s belief in the efficacy of the market system to produce lower prices through competition. That was supposed to be the point of this plan.
Certainly, the Republicans who have stood in the way of these exchanges—their own idea, by the way, born in the conservative Heritage Foundation—deserve a great deal of the “credit” for the debacle. But we are now seeing weekly examples of this Administration’s inability to govern. Just a few weeks ago, I reported on the failure of the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to come up with a unified electronic health care records system. There has also been the studied inattention to the myriad of ineffective job training programs scattered through the bureaucracy. There have been the oblique and belated efforts to reform Head Start, a $7 billion program that a study conducted by its own bureaucracy—the Department of Health and Human Services—has found nearly worthless. The list is endless.
Yes, the President has faced a terrible economic crisis—and he has done well to limit the damage. He has also succeeded in avoiding disasters overseas. But, as a Democrat—as someone who believes in activist government—he has a vested interest in seeing that federal programs actually work efficiently. I don’t see much evidence that this is anywhere near the top of his priorities.
One thing is clear: Obamacare will fail if he doesn’t start paying more attention to the details of implementation, if he doesn’t start demanding action. And, in a larger sense, the notion of activist government will be in peril—despite the demographics flowing the Democrats’ way—if institutions like the VA and Obamacare don’t deliver the goods. Sooner or later, the Republican party may come to understand that its best argument isn’t about tearing down the government we have, but making it run more efficiently.
Sooner or later, the Democrats may come to understand that making it run efficiently is the prerequisite for maintaining power.
Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.
Ralph
V. Boccia of the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders runs a cancer
clinic that is in danger of losing funding due to the sequester cuts.
(Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.
Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.
Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.
“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”
After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients.
“A lot of us are in disbelief that this is happening,” he said. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business.”
Some who have been pushing the federal government to spend less on health care say this is not the right approach.
“I don’t think there was an intention to disrupt care or move it into a more expensive setting,” said Cathy Schoen, senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, which recently released a plan for cutting $2 trillion in health spending. “If that’s the case, we’re being penny-wise and a pound-foolish with these cuts.”
Legislators meant to partially shield Medicare from the automatic budget cuts triggered by the sequester, limiting the program to a 2 percent reduction — a fraction of the cuts seen by other federal programs.
But oncologists say the cut is unexpectedly damaging for cancer patients because of the way those treatments are covered.
Medications for seniors are usually covered under the optional Medicare Part D, which includes private insurance. But because cancer drugs must be administered by a physician, they are among a handful of pharmaceuticals paid for by Part B, which covers doctor visits and is subject to the sequester cut.
The federal government typically pays community oncologists for the average sales price of a chemotherapy drug, plus 6 percent to cover the cost of storing and administering the medication.
Since oncologists cannot change the drug prices, they argue that the entire 2 percent cut will have to come out of that 6 percent overhead. That would make it more akin to a double-digit pay cut.
“If you get cut on the service side, you can either absorb it or make do with fewer nurses,” said Ted Okon, director of the Community Oncology Alliance, which advocates for hundreds of cancer clinics nationwide. “This is a drug that we’re purchasing. The costs don’t change and you can’t do without it. There isn’t really wiggle room.”
Okon’s group has sent letters to legislators urging them to expempt cancer drugs from the sequester or, as a back-up, only shave 2 percent off the money they receive to administer the medications.
Doctors at the Charleston Cancer Center in South Carolina began informing patients weeks ago that, due to the sequester cuts, they would soon need to seek treatment elsewhere.
“We don’t sugar-coat things, we’re cancer doctors,” Charles Holladay, a doctor at the clinic, said. “We tell them that if we don’t go this course, it’s just a matter of time before we go out of business.”
Cancer patients turned away from local oncology clinics may seek care at hospitals, which also deliver chemotherapy treatments.
The care will likely be more expensive: One study from actuarial firm Milliman found that chemotherapy delivered in a hospital setting costs the federal government an average of $6,500 more annually than care delivered in a community clinic.
Those costs can trickle down to patients, who are responsible for picking up a certain amount of the medical bills. Milliman found that Medicare patients ended up with an average of $650 more in out-of-pocket costs when they were seen only in a hospital setting.
It is still unclear whether hospitals have the capacity to absorb these patients. The same Milliman report found that the majority of Medicare patients — 66 percent — receive treatment in a community oncology clinic, instead of a hospital.
Non-profit hospitals will likely have an easier time bearing the brunt of the sequester cuts. A federal program known as 340B requires pharmaceutical companies to give double-digit discounts to hospitals that treat low-income and uninsured patients.
Eastern Connecticut Health Network began preparing for additional volume after a local oncology practice sent out notice that it would stop seeing certain cancer patients.
“What we’re trying to do in the hospital is prepare for this,” ECHN spokesman Eric Berthel said. “We’re making sure we have access to the pharmaceutical companies and that we have appropriate staff on hand. We’re hoping the oncology practice will be successful in renegotiating this. It’s so fresh, so we’re pretty unsure.”
Some cancer clinics are counting on the federal government to provide relief, and continuing to see patients they expect to lose money on.
“We’re hoping that something will change, as legislators see the impact of this,” Ralph Boccia, director of the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders in Bethesda, Md., said. “I don’t think we could keep going, without a change, for more than a couple of months.”
An analysis prepared by his clinic estimates that, if the full 2 percent cut takes effect, between 50 and 70 percent of the drugs it administers would become money losers.
Boccia estimates that 55 percent of his patients are covered by Medicare, making any changes to reimbursement rates difficult to weather.
“When I look at the numbers, they don’t add up,” he said. “Business 101 says we can’t stay open if we don’t cover our costs.”
April 03, 2013
Poet Maya Angelou Blasts Gun at Home Intruder
Fire it up
48
Question begins at the 3:00 minute mark
Obama supporter and famous poet Maya Angelou was asked by Time Magazine if she had ever fired a gun in her life.
Her answer was surprising — “Of course!” Angelou then recounted a time in which she fired upon a home intruder.
TRANSCRIPT:
Obama supporter and famous poet Maya Angelou was asked by Time Magazine if she had ever fired a gun in her life.
Her answer was surprising — “Of course!” Angelou then recounted a time in which she fired upon a home intruder.
TRANSCRIPT:
TIME:
Your mother — she was your protector. She often carried a gun, she
seemed to be very fond of guns. Did you inherit your mother’s fondness
for guns?
MAYA ANGELOU: Well,
I do like to have guns around, I don’t like to carry them. But I like
-- if somebody is going to come into my house and I have not put out the
welcome mat, I want to stop them.
TIME: Have you ever fired a weapon?
ANGELOU: Of course!
TIME: At a person?
ANGELOU: I’ve fired it period, not at a person I hope!
I was in
my house in North Carolina. It was fall. I heard someone walking on the
leaves. And somebody actually turned the knob. So I said, "Stand four
feet back because I'm going to shoot now!" Boom! Boom! The police came
by and said, "Ms. Angelou, the shots came from inside the house." I
said, "Well, I don't know how that happened." Read Here
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