Venezuela Imploding and world media talks about ....

Caracas (AFP) - Crisis-hit Venezuela devalued its currency by 64 percent in a dollar auction that aimed to stabilize its foreign exchange market, officials said Wednesday.

Under an overhauled official exchange system, the government let investors bid for the dollars at a new higher rate in what President Nicolas Maduro said was an effort to undermine the black market.

But its great our media spend so much time on an inevitable and catastrophic collapse in Venezuela.

So responsible.

 

Tax the Rich and Save the Poor

---

August 7, 2012

Indigestion for ‘les Riches’ in a Plan for Higher Taxes

By LIZ ALDERMAN

PARIS — The call to Vincent Grandil’s Paris law firm began like many others that have rolled in recently. On the line was the well-paid chief executive of one of France’s most profitable companies, and he was feeling nervous.

President François Hollande is vowing to impose a 75 percent tax on the portion of anyone’s income above a million euros ($1.24 million) a year. “Should I be preparing to leave the country?” the executive asked Mr. Grandil.

The lawyer’s counsel: Wait and see. For now, at least.

“We’re getting a lot of calls from high earners who are asking whether they should get out of France,” said Mr. Grandil, a partner at Altexis, which specializes in tax matters for corporations and the wealthy. “Even young, dynamic people pulling in 200,000 euros are wondering whether to remain in a country where making money is not considered a good thing.”

A chill is wafting over France’s business class as Mr. Hollande, the country’s first Socialist president since François Mitterrand in the 1980s, presses a manifesto of patriotism to “pay extra tax to get the country back on its feet again.” The 75 percent tax proposal, which Parliament plans to take up in September, is ostensibly aimed at bolstering French finances as Europe’s long-running debt crisis intensifies.

But because there are relatively few people in France whose income would incur such a tax — perhaps no more than 30,000 in a country of 65 million — the gains might contribute but a small fraction of the 33 billion euros in new revenue the government wants to raise next year to help balance the budget.

The French finance ministry did not respond to requests for an estimate of the revenue the tax might raise. Though the amount would be low, some analysts note that a tax hit on the rich would provide political cover for painful cuts Mr. Hollande may need to make next year in social and welfare programs that are likely to be far less popular with the rank and file.

In that regard, the tax could have enormous symbolic value as a blow for egalité, coming from a new president who has proclaimed, “I don’t like the rich.”

“French people have an uncomfortable relationship with money,” Mr. Grandil said. “Here, someone who is a self-made man, creating jobs and ending up as a millionaire, is viewed with suspicion. This is big cultural difference between France and the United States.”

Many companies are studying contingency plans to move high-paid executives outside of France, according to consultants, lawyers, accountants and real estate agents — who are highly protective of their clients and decline to identify them by name. They say some executives and wealthy people have already packed up for destinations like Britain, Belgium, Switzerland and the United States, taking their taxable income with them.

They also know of companies — start-ups and multinationals alike — that are delaying plans to invest in France or to move employees or new hires here.

Whether many wealthy residents will actually leave and companies will change their plans, of course, remains to be seen. Some of the criticism could be political posturing, aimed at trying to dissuade the government from going through with the planned tax increase.

But some wealthy people left after Mr. Mitterrand raised taxes in the 1980s. And more recently, the former Victoria’s Secret model Laetetia Casta, the restaurateur Alain Ducasse and the singer Johnny Hallyday caused a stir by moving to countries just across the border to escape the French treasury’s heavy hand.

There is no question Mr. Hollande is under fiscal pressure. He has pledged to reduce France’s budget deficit, currently 4.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, to 3 percent by next year, to meet euro zone rules.

The matter of how best to hit that target, though, is as much a political question as a fiscal one. Mr. Hollande was elected in May on a wave of resentment against “les riches” — company executives, bankers, sports stars and celebrities whose paychecks tend to be seen as scandalous in a country where the growing divide between rich and poor touches a cultural nerve whose roots predate Robespierre.

Half the nation’s households earn less than 19,000 euros a year; only about 10 percent of households earn more than 60,000 euros annually, according to the French statistics agency, Insee.

There is currently no plan to change the tax rates for most people, which is 14 percent for the poorest and 30 percent for the next rung. For higher earners — people with incomes above 70,830 euros a year — the tax rate will soon rise to 44 percent, up from 41, in a change that was already set before Mr. Hollande’s election.

A tax accountant in Paris with many wealthy clients, Steve Horton, has calculated that a two-parent, two-child household with taxable annual income of a bit more than 2.22 million euros ($2.75 million) now has after-tax take-home pay of about 1.1 million euros ($1.35 million) under France’s current tax system.

That household would end up with 780,000 euros, or $966,000, if the Hollande tax took effect, Mr. Horton says. (The same family, with comparable income in Manhattan, would take home $1.55 million, the dollar equivalent of 1.25 million euros, after paying federal, state and city income taxes, he calculated.)

Taxes are high in France for a reason: they pay for one of Europe’s most generous social welfare systems and a large government. As Mr. Hollande has described it, the tax plan is about “justice,” and “sending out a signal, a message of social cohesion.”

That struck a chord with voters angry about the wealth divide. And it is supported by some economists, including Thomas Piketty, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, who has conducted studies indicating that high earners will not work less hard if taxed more. But some say France could send out the wrong signal.

“People have an acceptable amount of taxes they are willing to pay,” said Mr. Horton, the accountant, “and if it goes above that, they will move somewhere that’s more reasonable.”

“The thing French politicians don’t seem to understand or care about is that when you tax away two-thirds of someone’s earnings to appeal to voters, productive people who can enrich businesses and the economy won’t come — or they will just leave,” said Diane Segalen, a corporate headhunter.

She said she had been close to sealing a deal for a seasoned executive in London to join one of France’s biggest companies earlier this year, when Mr. Hollande made his 75 percent vow.

“When the guy heard that, he said, ‘I’m not coming,’ and withdrew from the process,” said Mrs. Segalen, the head of the Segalen et Associés, a consulting firm.

For Mrs. Segalen, the proposal is the latest red flag in a country that has long labored under the image of being a difficult place to do business. France has a 33 percent corporate tax rate — the euro zone’s second-highest, after Malta’s 35 percent. That contrasts with the 12.5 percent rate in Ireland, which has deliberately kept a lid on corporate taxes as a lure to businesses.

“It is a ridiculous proposal, but it’s great for us,” said Jean Dekerchove, the manager of Immobilièr Le Lion, a high-end real estate agency based in Brussels. Calls to his office have picked up in recent months, he said, as wealthy French citizens look to invest or simply move across the border amid worries about the latest tax.

“It’s a huge loss for France because people and businesses come to Belgium and bring their wealth with them,” Mr. Dekerchove said. “But we’re thrilled because they create jobs, they buy houses and spend money — and it’s our economy that profits.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 7, 2012

Obamacare: Running Out of Doctors?

Burning Question

Is America running out of doctors?

ObamaCare is set to expand the number of insured Americans, but an apparent shortage of doctors could make it difficult to treat them all

Published July 31, 2012, at 7:54 AM

The primary objective of President Obama's overhaul of the health-care system is to extend coverage to the tens of millions of Americans currently without insurance. "But coverage will not necessarily translate into care," because there may not be enough doctors to treat everyone, say Annie Lowrey and Robert Pear at The New York Times. The U.S. is already facing a severe shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas of the country, and the problem is only expected to get worse as more Americans gain insurance. Here, a guide to America's dearth of doctors:

Why aren't there enough doctors?
The pool of new doctors hasn't kept pace with several factors boosting the number of people seeking care: Population growth, the ObamaCare expansion, and an aging Baby Boomer generation that requires additional medical attention. Enrollment in Medicare, the government-run insurance program for the elderly, is expected to swell to 73.2 million in 2025, up from 50.7 million in 2012. Furthermore, the U.S. is facing an acute shortage of primary-care physicians, leaving many patients without access to general practitioners, pediatricians, family doctors, and other providers of basic medical care.

How will the shortage affect patients?
"A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients," say Suzanne Sataline and Shirley S. Wang at The Wall Street Journal. The shortage will likely most affect those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor and disabled, since Medicaid's rolls are expected to expand significantly under ObamaCare. The shortfall of doctors could reach 100,000 by 2025. (There are currently about 1 million doctors in America.)

Why do so few doctors choose to go into primary care?
The main reason is money. Medical school graduates can expect to make an average of $3.5 million more over the course of their careers if they choose to enter a specialized field, such as anesthesiology or radiology. The difference in pay is enough that primary-care physicians carry a stigma within the medical community of being less talented and intelligent. The trend has huge implications for ObamaCare: "It is no exaggeration to say that the success of the health-care law rests on young doctors choosing to do something that is not in their economic self-interest," says Sarah Kliff at The Washington Post.

What can we do about it?
ObamaCare contains modest provisions increasing Medicaid primary-care payments and incentives for medical students to become primary-care physicians. The number of primary-care residencies climbed 20 percent between 2009 and 2011, but it's still not enough. Communities have been encouraged to create more walk-in clinics, and to allow more nurses to provide primary care. In addition, the U.S. could alter its immigration policies to attract doctors from overseas, "which should be very easy to do since doctors in the U.S. earn on average about twice as much as their comparably trained counterparts in Western Europe and Canada," says Dean Baker at Business Insider.

Sources: Business Insider, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post

obama

Obamacare: Running Out of Doctors Before We Begin

The New York Times

July 28, 2012

DoctorShortage Likely to Worsen With Health Law

By ANNIE LOWREY and ROBERT PEAR

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — In the Inland Empire, an economically depressed region in Southern California, President Obama’s health care law is expected to extend insurance coverage to more than 300,000 people by 2014. But coverage will not necessarily translate into care: Local health experts doubt there will be enough doctors to meet the area’s needs. There are not enough now.

Other places around the country, including the Mississippi Delta, Detroit and suburban Phoenix, face similar problems. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care. Even without the health care law, the shortfall of doctors in 2025 would still exceed 100,000.

Health experts, including many who support the law, say there is little that the government or the medical profession will be able to do to close the gap by 2014, when the law begins extending coverage to about 30 million Americans. It typically takes a decade to train a doctor.

“We have a shortage of every kind of doctor, except for plastic surgeons and dermatologists,” said Dr. G. Richard Olds, the dean of the new medical school at the University of California, Riverside, founded in part to address the region’s doctor shortage. “We’ll have a 5,000-physician shortage in 10 years, no matter what anybody does.”

Experts describe a doctor shortage as an “invisible problem.” Patients still get care, but the process is often slow and difficult. In Riverside, it has left residents driving long distances to doctors, languishing on waiting lists, overusing emergency rooms and even forgoing care.

“It results in delayed care and higher levels of acuity,” said Dustin Corcoran, the chief executive of the California Medical Association, which represents 35,000 physicians. People “access the health care system through the emergency department, rather than establishing a relationship with a primary care physician who might keep them from getting sicker.”

In the Inland Empire, encompassing the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, the shortage of doctors is already severe. The population of Riverside County swelled 42 percent in the 2000s, gaining more than 644,000 people. It has continued to grow despite the collapse of one of the country’s biggest property bubbles and a jobless rate of 11.8 percent in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro area.

But the growth in the number of physicians has lagged, in no small part because the area has trouble attracting doctors, who might make more money and prefer living in nearby Orange County or Los Angeles.

A government council has recommended that a given region have 60 to 80 primary care doctors per 100,000 residents, and 85 to 105 specialists. The Inland Empire has about 40 primary care doctors and 70 specialists per 100,000 residents — the worst shortage in California, in both cases.

Moreover, across the country, fewer than half of primary care clinicians were accepting new Medicaid patients as of 2008, making it hard for the poor to find care even when they are eligible for Medicaid. The expansion of Medicaid accounts for more than one-third of the overall growth in coverage in President Obama’s health care law.

Providers say they are bracing for the surge of the newly insured into an already strained system.

Temetry Lindsey, the chief executive of Inland Behavioral & Health Services, which provides medical care to about 12,000 area residents, many of them low income, said she was speeding patient-processing systems, packing doctors’ schedules tighter and seeking to hire more physicians.

“We know we are going to be overrun at some point,” Ms. Lindsey said, estimating that the clinics would see new demand from 10,000 to 25,000 residents by 2014. She added that hiring new doctors had proved a struggle, in part because of the “stigma” of working in this part of California.

Across the country, a factor increasing demand, along with expansion of coverage in the law and simple population growth, is the aging of the baby boom generation. Medicare officials predict that enrollment will surge to 73.2 million in 2025, up 44 percent from 50.7 million this year.

“Older Americans require significantly more health care,” said Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, the president of the Association of American Medical Colleges. “Older individuals are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions, requiring more intensive, coordinated care.”

The pool of doctors has not kept pace, and will not, health experts said. Medical school enrollment is increasing, but not as fast as the population. The number of training positions for medical school graduates is lagging. Younger doctors are on average working fewer hours than their predecessors. And about a third of the country’s doctors are 55 or older, and nearing retirement.

Physician compensation is also an issue. The proportion of medical students choosing to enter primary care has declined in the past 15 years, as average earnings for primary care doctors and specialists, like orthopedic surgeons and radiologists, have diverged. A study by the Medical Group Management Association found that in 2010, primary care doctors made about $200,000 a year. Specialists often made twice as much.

The Obama administration has sought to ease the shortage. The health care law increases Medicaid’s primary care payment rates in 2013 and 2014. It also includes money to train new primary care doctors, reward them for working in underserved communities and strengthen community health centers.

But the provisions within the law are expected to increase the number of primary care doctors by perhaps 3,000 in the coming decade. Communities around the country need about 45,000.

Many health experts in California said that while they welcomed the expansion of coverage, they expected that the state simply would not be ready for the new demand. “It’s going to be necessary to use the resources that we have smarter” in light of the doctor shortages, said Dr. Mark D. Smith, who heads the California HealthCare Foundation, a nonprofit group.

Dr. Smith said building more walk-in clinics, allowing nurses to provide more care and encouraging doctors to work in teams would all be part of the answer. Mr. Corcoran of the California Medical Association also said the state would need to stop cutting Medicaid payment rates; instead, it needed to increase them to make seeing those patients economically feasible for doctors.

More doctors might be part of the answer as well. The U.C. Riverside medical school is hoping to enroll its first students in August 2013, and is planning a number of policies to encourage its graduates to stay in the area and practice primary care.

But Dr. Olds said changing how doctors provided care would be more important than minting new doctors. “I’m only adding 22 new students to this equation,” he said. “That’s not enough to put a dent in a 5,000-doctor shortage.”

Annie Lowrey reported from Riverside, and Robert Pear from Washington.

obama

Obamacare: Prescription Rationing

It has begun already, but more details will become available more readily in greater numbers as the countdown to a cataclysmic failure begins.

Rationing Begins: States Limiting Drug Prescriptions for Medicaid Patients

By Melanie Hunter

July 30, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – Sixteen states have set a limit on the number of prescription drugs they will cover for Medicaid patients, according to Kaiser Health News.

Seven of those states, according to Kaiser Health News, have enacted or tightened those limits in just the last two years.

Medicaid is a federal program that is carried out in partnership with state governments. It forms an important element of President Barack Obama's health-care plan because under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--AKA Obamcare--a larger number of people will be covered by Medicaid, as the income cap is raised for the program.

With both the expanded Medicaid program and the federal subsidy for health-care premiums that will be available to people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level, a larger percentage of the population will be wholly or partially dependent on the government for their health care under Obamacare than are now.

In Alabama, Medicaid patients are now limited to one brand-name drug, and HIV and psychiatric drugs are excluded.

Illinois has limited Medicaid patients to just four prescription drugs as a cost-cutting move, and patients who need more than four must get permission from the state.

Speaking on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Monday, Phil Galewitz, staff writer for Kaiser Health News, said the move “only hurts a limited number of patients.”

“Drugs make up a fair amount of costs for Medicaid. A lot of states have said a lot of drugs are available in generics where they cost less, so they see this sort of another move to push patients to take generics instead of brand,” Galewitz said.

“It only hurts a limited number of patients, ‘cause obviously it hurts patients who are taking multiple brand name drugs in the case of Alabama, Illinois. Some of the states are putting the limits on all drugs. It’s another place to cut. It doesn’t hurt everybody, but it could hurt some,” he added.

Galewitz said the move also puts doctors and patients in a “difficult position.”

“Some doctors I talked to would work with patients with asthma and diabetes, and sometimes it’s tricky to get the right drugs and the right dosage to figure out how to control some of this disease, and just when they get it right, now the state is telling them that, ‘Hey, you’re not going to get all this coverage. You may have to switch to a generic or find another way,’” he said.

Arkansas, California, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have all placed caps on the number of prescription drugs Medicaid patients can get.

“Some people say it’s a matter of you know states are throwing things up against the wall to see what might work, so states have tried, they’ve also tried formularies where they’ll pick certain brand name drugs over other drugs. So states try a whole lot of different things. They’re trying different ways of paying providers to try to maybe slow the costs down,” Galewitz said.

“So it seems like Medicaid’s sort of been one big experiment over the last number of years for states to try to control costs, and it’s an ongoing battle, and I think drugs is just now one of the … latest issues. And it’s a relatively recent thing, only in the last 10 years have we really seen states put these limits on monthly drugs,” he added.

obama

Greece and the Contiunued Spiral Downward

The effects of the collapse are still being negotiated.  When the slavers come, they will start taking Greek children who will be available for the taking.

Children 'dumped in streets by Greek parents who can't afford to look afterthem any more'

By Lee Moran

11th January 2012

Children are being abandoned on Greece's streets by their poverty-stricken families who cannot afford to look after them any more.

Youngsters are being dumped by their parents who are struggling to make ends meet in what is fast becoming the most tragic human consequence of the Euro crisis.

It comes as pharmacists revealed the country had almost run out of aspirin, as multi-billion euro austerity measures filter their way through society.

Athens' Ark of the World youth centre said four children, including a newborn baby, had been left on its doorstep in recent months.

One mother, it said, ran away after handing over her two-year-old daughter Natasha.

Four-year-old Anna was found by a teacher clutching a note that read: 'I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry.'

And another desperate mother, Maria, was forced to give up her eight-year-old daughter Anastasia after losing her job.

She looked for work for more than a year, having to leave her child at home for hours at a time, and lived off food handouts from the local church.

She said: 'Every night I cry alone at home, but what can I do? It hurt my heart, but I didn’t have a choice.' She now works in a cafe but only make £16 per day and so cannot afford to take her daughter back.

Centre founder Fr Antonios Papanikolaou told the Mirror: 'Over the last year we've had hundreds of parents who want to leave their children with us. They know us and trust us.

'They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need.'

Further evidence of Greeks feeling the pinch of austerity measures is the lack of aspirin and other medicines now available in the country.
Pharmacists are struggling to stock their shelves as the Greek government, which sets the prices for drugs, keeps them artificially low.

This means that firms are turning to sell the drugs outside of the country for a higher price - leading to stock depletion for Greeks.

Mina Mavrou, who runs one of the country's 12,000 pharmacies, said she spent hours each day pleading with drug makers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients.

And she said that even when drugs were available, pharmacists often must foot the bill up front, or patients simply do without.

Meanwhile, talks about private sector creditors paying for part of a second Greek bailout are going badly, senior European bankers said tonight.

That raises the prospect that euro zone governments will have to increase their contribution to the aid package.

'Governments are mulling an increase of their share of the burden,' said one banker, while another said 'Nothing is decided yet, but the bigger the imposed haircut the less appetite there is for voluntary conversion.'

A third senior banker told Associated Press: 'Private sector involvement is going badly.'

There are suggestions in euro zone government circles that ministers are coming to the realisation they may need to bolster Greece's planned second bailout worth 130 billion euros if the voluntary bond swap scheme, which is a key part of the overall package, falls short of expectations.

Stumping up yet more money would be politically difficult in Germany and other countries in the northern part of the currency bloc.

greece

Obama's America

In Obama's America, we are all equal.  No one has too much - we are the same.

In Obama's America, our nation is equal to all others.  No one is better - we are all the same.

In Obama's America - we are not exceptional, we are the same as everyone else.


There is a chasm between the path of history and Obama's America, so one question would be - how to reconcile his America with the reality of America as a unique and exceptional land, filled with people who share and care about the world.


Drain every cent from the US.

The Obama administration has made history by presiding over the first-ever downgrade in the U.S. credit rating. President Obama has outdone all his predecessors in wrecking America’s good name. His answer to this problem: Spend even more.

If we have no money, if we are no longer outstanding in our economic future or unique - we are the same as others, struggling, fearful, doubtful ... and these economic fears will soon give sway to questions about how exceptional we are, how great we are.

Once he accomplishes this psychological game of switch and bait, in an effort to reign in the power of the US, weaken us, force us to be no better ... is to continue weakening the US economically to a point where nearly everyone will call for cuts to the military - dramatic cuts.  Cuts which will place us in line with other countries - equally as weak.

That is his plan.  The next block we see up for chopping will be a massive overhaul of the military - probably sponsored by a commission he sets up.  He would have tens of billions he could cut immediately, look good, and end the reign of the US as the most powerful country.  His Marxist perspective - that views the world through the prism of Marxist thought, has wanted to see the US weakened for decades.  It has never been possible until now.  He must be elated when he is in private.

He is accomplishing what no army on earth has ever been able to do, what no war has managed ... to end the dominance of the United States on a world stage.

Bloodbath - coming soon. 

 
 
 
 
Obama

Obama Care = Obama Death Plan. Wait and Priority Lists

He stated, categorically - that no panel or committee would exist that would determine your care or lack of - except they have them in England, and have to, because everyone can't get the same care.  It is just not feasible and they know it.  Everyone knows it.  And so, we will have death panels deciding our care.  I sure hope the Obama voters are the group most in need of serious medical care - and get denied.

Cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils: NHS begins rationing operations

Almost two-thirds of trusts affected as cuts bite

 

By Oliver Wright, Whitehall Editor

Thursday, 28 July 2011

The Independent


ANDREW HASSON

Anne Ball, 71, a retired business consultant: 'I have bilateral cataracts and under the original NHS criteria I was entitled to have at least one of mine treated - but then the West Sussex health authorities decided to change the threshold level to save money'

Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money.

Two-thirds of health trusts in England are rationing treatments for "non-urgent" conditions as part of the drive to reduce costs in the NHS by £20bn over the next four years. One in three primary-care trusts (PCTs) has expanded the list of procedures it will restrict funding to in the past 12 months.

Examples of the rationing now being used include:

* Hip and knee replacements only being allowed where patients are in severe pain. Overweight patients will be made to lose weight before being considered for an operation.

* Cataract operations being withheld from patients until their sight problems "substantially" affect their ability to work.

* Patients with varicose veins only being operated on if they are suffering "chronic continuous pain", ulceration or bleeding.

* Tonsillectomy (removing tonsils) only to be carried out in children if they have had seven bouts of tonsillitis in the previous year.

* Grommets to improve hearing in children only being inserted in "exceptional circumstances" and after monitoring for six months.

* Funding has also been cut in some areas for IVF treatment on the NHS.

The alarming figures emerged from a survey of 111 PCTs by the health-service magazine GP, using the Freedom of Information Act.

Doctors are known to be concerned about how the new rationing is working – and how it will affect their relationships with patients.

Birmingham is looking at reducing operations in gastroenterology, gynaecology, dermatology and orthopaedics. Parts of east London were among the first to introduce rationing, where some patients are being referred for homeopathic treatments instead of conventional treatment.

Medway had deferred treatment for non-urgent procedures this year while Dorset is "looking at reducing the levels of limited effectiveness procedures".

Chris Naylor, a senior researcher at the health think tank the King's Fund, said the rationing decisions being made by PCTs were a consequence of the savings the NHS was being asked to find.

"Blunt approaches like seeking an overall reduction in local referral rates may backfire, by reducing necessary referrals – which is not good for patients and may fail to save money in the long run," he said. "There are always rationing decisions that have to go on in any health service. But at the moment healthcare organisations are under more pressure than they have been for a long time and this is a sign of what is happening across many areas of the NHS."

According to responses from the 111 trusts to freedom-of-information requests, 64 per cent of them have now introduced rationing policies for non-urgent treatments and those of limited clinical value. Of those PCTs that have not introduced restrictions, a third are working with GPs to reduce referrals or have put in place peer-review systems to assess referrals.

In the last year, 35 per cent of PCTs have added procedures to lists of treatments they no longer fund because they deem them to be non-urgent or of limited clinical value.

Some trusts expect to save over £1m by restricting referrals from GPs.

Chaand Nagpaul, a member of the British Medical Association's GPs committee, said he was concerned about PCTs applying different low-priority thresholds and rationing access to treatments on the basis of local policies.

He said the Government needed to decide on a consistent set of national standards of "low priority" treatments to help remove post-code lotteries in provision. "Patients and the public recognise that with limited resources we need to make the maximum health gains and so there needs to be prioritisation. What is inequitable is that different PCTs are applying different thresholds and criteria," he said.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "Decisions on the appropriate treatments should be made by clinicians in the local NHS in line with the best available clinical evidence and Nice [National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence] guidance. There should be no blanket bans because what is suitable for one patient may not be suitable for another."

Bill Walters, 75, from Berkshire, recently had to wait 30 weeks for a hip operation instead of the standard 18. "I believe that the Government is doing this totally the wrong way," he said.

Case study: 'They changed the rules to save money'

Anne Ball, 71, is a retired business consultant who used to work in electronics

"I have bilateral cataracts and under the original NHS criteria I was entitled to have at least one of mine treated – but then the West Sussex health authorities decided to change the threshold level to save money.

"It's like looking through gauze. Everything is foggy, and I've got quite a large 'floater' in my left eye. The consultant was as distressed as me, having to tell me, and he thought with my eyesight he wouldn't be able to function.

"I've appealed because the cataracts are having a significant impact on my quality of life and it's left me depressed and fearful about my low vision, which will continue to deteriorate. The new guidelines mean that people who fall below the standard set by the DVLA still do not qualify to have surgery. My vision is not good enough to drive at night.

"I'm not a cranky old lady. I'm the chair of a local village charity and I do a lot of computer work that is affected.

"It will just store up costs for future years, putting a strain on resources as more patients will end up in falls clinics. The longer you put it off the more complex the operation becomes and the riskier it is for the patient."

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
health care

Potpourri of Random Stuff

A sign things are getting bad - eagles, protected birds, and in California, the animal rights protection people, guard the safety of these birds vociferously.  Except from wind turbines - those eco-friendly things that save the world.  The eagles are being killed off, soon to go on the near extinct list.

In England - the IMF has told the government, CUT TAXES.  Amazing.  An outside entity telling a government to lower taxes (or raise them).  It 1) tells us how high they are in Britain (very), 2) how bad off Britain is financially.   Greece and Ireland took the plunge, Portugal followed, Austria is following up, Spain is about to fall over, and apparently ... England is on the horizon.

Libya - remember when it all started.  Obama told us 'days, not weeks' and weeks have turned into months and we are still there, for what reason I seriously do not know.  I supported Iraq and Afghanistan because there were serious issues in both.  Kadahfi had given up his nuclear and biological weapons to George W Bush after Bush told the world we would come and find you wherever you hid (if you had weapons of mass destruction), and Kadaffi called Bush up and asked him to come by and take his WMDs.  So why we are in Libya is truly beyond me.  It isn't that Kadaffi is a bad man, for all we need do is look at Robert Mugabe for a BAD man, and we are not invading Botswana or Congo or ...   And the cost is now hundreds of millions.

Why?

And health coverage - Firms to cut health plans as reform starts - 30% of companies say they’ll stop offering coverage. 

Brilliant.  More unemployed and more uninsured.

Bigger and bigger government health care. 



I am at a loss.


















loss

UN: Led by Bolivia jumps over the edge

United Nations

Very unhealthy.  The UN typically deals with three issues - the inane and unnecessary, condemnations of Israel, and wasteful and unhelpful. 




U.N. Prepares to Debate Whether 'Mother Earth' Deserves Human Rights Status



By Jonathan Wachtel
April 18, 2011
FoxNews.com



United Nations diplomats on Wednesday will set aside pressing issues of international peace and security to devote an entire day debating the rights of “Mother Earth.”


A bloc of mostly socialist governments lead by Bolivia have put the issue on the General Assembly agenda to discuss the creation of a U.N. treaty that would grant the same rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Mother Nature.

Treaty supporters want the establishment of legal systems to maintain balance between human rights and what they perceive as the inalienable rights of other members of the Earth community -- plants, animals, and terrain.

Communities and environmental activists would be given more legal power to monitor and control industries and development to ensure harmony between humans and nature. Though the United States and other Western governments are supportive of sustainable development, some see the upcoming event, “Harmony with Nature,” as political grandstanding -- an attempt to blame environmental degradation and climate change on capitalism.

“The concept ‘Mother Earth’ is not universally accepted,” said a spokesman from the British Mission to the U.N. about Bolivia’s proposal. “In general, our view is that we should focus on tackling important sustainable development issues through existing channels and processes.”

The General Assembly two years ago passed a Bolivia-led resolution proclaiming April 22 as “International Mother Earth Day.” The measure was endorsed by all 192 member states. But Bolivian President Evo Morales envisioned much more, vowing in a speech to U.N. delegates that a global movement had begun to lay “out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.”

Morales, who repeatedly says “the central enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism,” called for creating a charter that defends the right to life for all living things. Morales, who was named World Hero of Mother Earth by the General Assembly, has since made great strides in his campaign.

In January, Bolivia became the world’s first nation to grant the natural environment equal rights to humans. Bolivia’s Law of Mother Earth is heavily influenced by the spiritual indigenous Andean world outlook that revolves around the earth deity Pachamama, roughly translated to Mother Earth.

The Bolivian law establishes 11 rights for nature that include: the right to life and to exist; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered; the right to have nature’s processes free from human alteration. The law also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth to act as an ombudsman, which will ensure nature is “not being affected my mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.”

Emboldened by this triumph, Morales’ goal is to emulate his domestic achievement as a U.N. treaty. In a 2008 address to a U.N. forum on indigenous people, he said the first step in saving the Earth is to “eradicate capitalism” and to force wealthy industrialized countries to “pay their environmental debt.” Morales presented 10 points, or Evo’s Ten Commandments, as they are affectionately called by devotees, to save the planet.

Among them is a call to end the capitalist system, and a world without imperialism or colonialism. Respect for Mother Earth is Commandment 6. U.N. critics slammed the decision to devote an entire day debating Mother Earth legislation as not only a waste of time and resources, but a major blunder.

“The UN is a one-act show,” said U.N. watchdog Anne Bayefsky, of Eye on the U.N., in which “Western democracies are responsible for the world’s ills and developing countries are perpetual victims.”

Bayefsky said the General Assembly’s focus on Mother Earth distracts from more pressing issues and problems at the U.N.

“The rights of inanimate objects violated by developed countries are considered a useful focal point this month,” she said, adding that, “Syria is scheduled to be elected next month to the U.N.’s top “human” rights body, and Iran is on the U.N.’s top women’s rights body.” Syria is one of the sponsors of the “Mother Earth” treaty.

Bolivia’s ambassador to the U.N., Pablo Solon, who will represent Morales at the debate and ‘expert’ panel discussions at U.N. headquarters, said, “Presently many environmentally harmful human activities are completely legal,” including those that cause climate change.

“If legal systems recognized the rights of other-than-human beings,” he says, such as mountains, rivers, forests and animals, “courts and tribunals could deal with the fundamental issues of environmental contamination.”

It is not clear if Bolivia’s new tough environmental laws will actually go as far as to protect life forms like insects, but the legislation does include all living creatures.



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
UN

Obama's Health Care

Amazing what we learn each day, drip drip ... it isn't about health care for all, it is about refilling the treasury for the unions and supporters of the Democratic party.  How?  Those companies and unions are exempt from having to provide the health care we are all supposed to have.  They get waivers on taxes and waivers on required coverage ... one after another thee entities walk away from the White House with the waiver card signed.

Most recently it is SEIU.

More than 700 companies have been given waivers. 

Translated that means - those companies and entities do not have to do what the rest of us have to do.  Isn't that fair and a refreshing change.














obama

NHS: English Health Care

What the woman in the article is a little off on, is a massive entity like the NHS doesn't feel a change in expenditures in a week or month, and the funding for NHS went through December 31, 2010, under budgets set forth by Mr. Brown.  David Cameron has not ruined NHS as his efforts are yet to be felt and I doubt an entity the size of NHS opts to fall apart pre-implementation, just for fun.

Otherwise, the rest of the article about covers it.  Given the two dozen or so other postings about the NHS - none pose any different scenario than this, it is probably a very accurate reflection of the health services in England.




Sickening horror of how health cuts are affecting patient care revealed

by Krissy Storrar, Daily Mirror 22/01/2011


Debbie Pope is so desperately worried about the care her sick dad is receiving she spends all day by his hospital bed.

The 47-year-old former council worker has witnessed some horrific scenes while tending to her father Fred Corbett, 71 – and blames the devastating ConDem cuts for the misery she witnessed on the front line.

After he was admitted to Darent Valley Hospital, in Dartford, Kent at Christmas with a urinary infection, ex-carpenter Fred has lost three stone, his condition has worsened and he has developed an abscess on his spine.

In that time, Debbie, from nearby Northfleet, has seen a terminally-ill cancer patient left in a makeshift bed with no light or TV point, naked dementia patients wandering around and dedicated staff nearing exhaustion. She also said her dad spent a day lying next to two dead bodies.

She said: “It is sickening. Everyone should know what is happening in our hospitals. It is so distressing to see a hospital brought to its knees. My dad and other patients are suffering because the place is overcrowded and the staff are rushed off their feet. Often there is no one to put in drips or change catheters. Dad is in so much pain he often can’t speak. He wrote on his leg ‘help me’ and said he wants to die.

“The promises of the Government can be seen for what they are. It must be happening all over the country.” Darent Valley has been over-stretched since the A&E ward at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup was closed last November. It is also facing making more cutbacks over the next three years.

Mrs Pope added: “I’m very concerned about what is happening to this hospital, the pure lack of staff and the cutbacks.

“One nurse said to me, ‘This hospital is bursting with sick people and not enough help’. We’re heading for more tragedies.”

A hospital spokesman apologised for the presence of dementia patients on the wards and added that one of the deceased bodies stayed on the ward to allow relatives to pay their last respects. The terminally-ill cancer patient has now been moved.





















nhs

Kidney Transplants

They are not ... exactly, telling the truth.  In the US the average waiting time is 1121 days (3 years).   This number is and can be misleading.  If my kidney fails and I wait six months and receive a new one, and after a year, the new one fails, I go back on the waiting list and the six months gets tacked back on ... so the 2nd time I wait a year.  Now my time is 1.5 years waiting for a new kidney.   The time on a US waiting list is, on average, 3 years.  In Canada it is 2.5 years.  Now, introduce into this mix a new medical system that will weigh the costs and benefits of you receiving the kidney just made available.  Under the old system (current) it is all based on time - under the new system, it would be based on more than just time on the list.  It would also include your age and the benefit of you receiving the kidney versus someone who is 13.

Perhaps these sorts of lists should be based upon need - those in most critical need first followed by those in less critical need. 


Oh and one more thought - as we age, we find ourselves in need of new parts.  Lungs, hearts, kidneys.  Unless we begin manufacturing these items, we tend to receive them from younger people (if a 50 year old gets hit by a bus and his kidneys are not damaged, there is a good chance they may already be worn by 50 years of living and may not end up as a permanent replacement).  yet our populace in the US and Canada is getting OLDER and there are FEWER younger people taking their place ... ... ... ... do we see a problem brewing ... ... ... you should!!










Albertans dying while waiting for kidney donors



Transplants could save lives, dollars. 2.5 year wait.


21 Jan 2011
Calgary Herald
MATT MCCLURE
CALGARY HERALD



People are dying on the waiting list.

Calgarian Didja Nawolsky sets up a dialysis machine at her home Thursday. She spends five hours a day hooked up to the unit that cleanses her blood. And giving the Calgary mother and 430 other Albertans on the waiting list a new organ would save the province $21.5 million a year in health-care costs, according to a new report.

A Canadian Institute for Health Information study released Thursday finds Albertans with failing kidneys are more likely to get a transplant than most Canadians, but a shortage of donated organs means they still wait an average of 2.5 years for surgery.

“People are dying on the waiting list,” Nawolsky says.

“I want to be there for my daughter’s graduation, to grow old with my husband, but instead we all live each day with my mortality.”

While most cases of endstage organ failure are caused by undiagnosed high blood pressure and untreated diabetes, Nawolsky suffered irreversible kidney damage after falling ill in 2002 from a rare auto-immune disease.

Since a failed transplant in 2005 of a kidney donated by her sister, Nawolsky has been forced to spend five hours a day hooked up to a home dialysis unit that cleanses her blood and removes excess fluid from her body.

“You can have all the money in the world, but time is a gift,” she says.

“I spend a lot of it hooked up to a machine.”

The report estimates the annual cost of dialysis is approximately $60,000 per patient, while the average cost of a one-time kidney transplant is $23,000, plus $6,000 a year for the medication necessary to keep the organ working.

Over five years, the savings per patient with a transplant would be $250,000. If the 3,000 people on waiting lists across Canada received a new kidney, it would result in savings of $150 million annually, the report concluded.

But performing more transplants on patients like Nawolsky requires more donated organs, something scarce.

To that end, Dr. Nairne Scott-Douglas, a Calgary nephrologist, says Canada should consider implied consent legislation — similar to laws in Sweden and Spain — that would make a deceased person’s organs available for transplant unless they opted out in writing.

In spite of ethical concerns by some physicians, Scott-Douglas says Alberta should also follow the lead of other provinces that are transplanting organs from patients who have had heart attacks as well as those who are brain-dead.

“Society has become a safer place with fewer teenagers dying in motorcycle accidents,” he said.

“Alberta has a very high organ donation rate for deceased persons of around 26 per million population, but if it weren’t for the increase in living donors we wouldn’t have been able to keep pace with the need.”

Indeed, the study found that fully half the 3,723 patients in Alberta with kidney disease had received a transplant, compared to just 41 per cent nationally.

In the last decade, 744 Albertans have received a kidney form a deceased donor, while another 494 got a transplanted organ from a living donor.

“We need more people out there to know that if they’re interested there is a real need that can be filled by making a gift of one of your kidneys,” say Joyce Van Deurzen, executive director of the Kidney Foundation of Canada’s Calgary office.

“Studies have shown that people who donate live long lives with few or no complications.”

The study also found that Alberta had the lowest rate of end-stage renal disease in the country at 989 cases per million population.

Scott-Douglas says the low prevalence is due to the province’s relatively young population and programs begun in the 1990s that proactively screen and treat thousands of patients in Calgary and Edmonton who are prone to developing diabetes and hypertension.

“If a patient comes to you with 20 per cent kidney function, there’s not much you can do because that scar tissue doesn’t heal,” he said.

“Catching people early is the key.”





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
health care

The French: Always Willing to Stand Up and Fight Against Oppression and Evil

It really does sum it up pretty well.




French strike to save 'birthright' of privileges


Associated Press
October 21, 2010

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Battling for benefits is a tradition in the Gilly family, passed from generation to generation — as it is for families across the country. And that goes some way toward explaining why the protests against plans to raise France's retirement age have shown such determination and ferocity.

For Gilly and many other Frenchmen and women, social benefits such as long vacations, state-subsidized health care and early retirement are more than just luxuries: They're seen as a birthright — an essential part of the identity of today's France.

[THAT is the problem.  Who will pay you when you are on your vacation for two months, and when you retire at 60 and ... dumb bunnies.]


The protest against a government plan to raise the retirement age to 62 has special meaning for five members of the Eric Gilly clan who are demonstrating in the streets of Marseille.

"We want to stop working at 60 because it's something our parents, our grandparents and even our great-grandparents fought for," says Gilly, 50, a union representative at Saint-Pierre Cemetery, the largest in this bustling Mediterranean port city.

"And over the years ... you can see that we're losing everything they fought for. And that's unacceptable."

In Marseille, strikes to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's planned retirement reform have shut down docks, left tons of garbage putrefying on sidewalks and drawn tens of thousands into the streets for each of six protest marches since early September.

Gilly, with huge drums strapped over his shoulders, led the parade for the Workers' Force union Monday. His sister, two daughters and a nephew weren't far behind.

"Unionism, it's in the skin," Gilly said in an interview with Associated Press Television News. "It's more than a passion. When something is wrong or things aren't right, they have to be changed."

The nation usually watches with care over its citizens, who for decades have used street power to help shape French policy, sometimes pulling the rug from under politicians' feet.

Retirement benefits are coveted, by some, perhaps even more than a higher salary, making the issue particularly sensitive. Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age hits a nerve deep in the French psyche.

"France is showing some of its old cultural reflexes," said Etienne Schweisguth of the Center for European Studies at the Foundation for Political Science. "When there is something we aren't pleased with we must protest."

Trying to undo what the state wants dates back to an anarchist tradition of the 19th century, when unions first led a struggle against capitalism and a refusal to align with political parties, said Schweisguth. One wing of the hard-core CGT union, which is leading many of today's protests, still looks to that tradition.

Despite the anti-government protests, it is the French state that has for centuries been charged with protecting individuals and their rights.

"The state is the guarantor of the moral good," said Schweisguth, who studies changes in attitudes and values in society.

It was in 1982, under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, that the minimum age to stop working was lowered from 65 to 60. The measure, emblematic of the 14-year Mitterrand presidency, was adopted by a special ordinance that bypassed parliament.

Sixty has since become a golden number — and the battle cry for entire families fearful of losing benefits bestowed on grandparents, parents or colleagues at work. Including the Gillys.

"This is a family affair because unionism is our big family," said Stephanie, 22, who is among Marseille's striking garbage collectors. "Our elders fought for retirement at 60."

"We have all the generations represented," she said. "There's me, my little sister, Dad. There we go. And then there will be our children, too. We will teach them."

Schweisguth said, that despite the ruckus, strikers represent a minority of the population and that, while polls show backing for such actions, they do not measure the fervor of the backing, which he called "flaccid."

Sarkozy, a conservative, has made pushing the legal retirement age back up a priority.

[How far BACK up?????  You might think he wants it up to 70 with all the protests and rioting.  No, 62 is the age.]


"The French are moaners, sometimes grouches. But at the same time they're lucid, intelligent and responsible," the daily Le Figaro quoted him as saying in May, when he criticized Mitterrand's 1982 decision. "They will be able to acknowledge that there is no alternative to our reforms."

But Sarkozy is increasingly unpopular, and he may be off the mark.

Gilly, a burly man dressed in red from his baseball cap to his Workers' force union bib, pounds the huge drum hanging from his neck at a street protest against the retirement reform, keeping time to the chorus of voices singing "The International," the Communist anthem.

"You're not really going to push up the age of people who retire with this reform," says his nephew, Mathias Gilly, a retailer. "In reality, it's going to mean a smaller pension for people when they do retire."

Gilly packs up his drum for another day, vowing that he and his family will keep up protests — "for as long as it takes."

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
french