Tidbits Political Quotations
To Accompany the October 28, 2016 edition of Tidbits
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2016/tidbits102816.htm       
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University




It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.

Babe Ruth, Historic Home Run Hitter
What's sad is to witness what Syria has become because nobody will give up.

And "because they're nonstate actors, it's hard for us to get the satisfaction of [Gen.] MacArthur and the [Japanese] Emperor [Hirohito] meeting and the war officially being over," Obama observed, referencing the end of World War II.
President Barack Obama when asked if the USA of the future will be perpetually engaged in war.
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-on-americans-being-resigned-to-live-in-a-perpetual-war-2016-7

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot

Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Margaret Wheatley

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton

If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there.
Yogi Berra

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David Thoreau

Yes, Bob Dylan deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature (even if he is a white male Christian from the USA) ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/yes-bob-dylan-deserves-the-nobel-prize-1476383729?mod=djemMER
Also see http://www.openculture.com/2016/10/bob-dylan-wins-nobel-prize-in-literature.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan

Donald Trump's Politics is All Spectacle and No Substance ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-all-spectacle-no-technique-2016-10

Television news ran a module showing where an entire high school team stayed on its knees while the National Anthem was played
Commentators failed to mention that there was not a single fan in the stands supporting that team.

Elizabeth Warren Torched the USA Department of Justice ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-asks-if-epipen-settlement-is-accurate-in-letter-2016-10
She's also trying to get the Director of the SEC fired for not doing more to put bankers in jail.

Scientists Accidentally Discover Method to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Ethanol ---
http://time.com/4536708/carbon-dioxide-ethanol/?xid=newsletter-brief

Democratic operatives discussing how they paid people to incite violence at Republican nominee Donald Trump's rallies, among other claims ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/james-okeefe-video-dnc-trump-rallies-2016-10
Jensen Comment
This is just Republican Party whining. Trump supporters are deplorables. Democrats should be allowed to pay thugs to beat the Hell out of these deplorables.

The Atlantic:  The First Broken Promise of the Hillary Clinton Presidency ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/hillary-clinton-national-debt-presidency/504905/

Yale Believes In Free Speech—According to the University's President ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/yale-believes-in-free-speechand-so-do-i-1476745961?mod=djemMER
Universities where political correctness restrains freedom of speech ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness

ACLU: Honoring Police Officers is Not Politically Correct ---
ACLU: School’s Salute to Cops Sends “Ominous, Frightening Message” ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2016/10/24/aclu-schools-salute-to-cops-sends-ominous-frightening-message-n2236425?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Political Correctness Still Dominates University Filters for Speakers
University of New Haven Disinvites Sheriff David Clarke From Speaking ---
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2016/10/06/university-of-new-haven-disinvites-sheriff-david-clarke-from-speaking-n2228900?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
It's just not politically correct to let a police chief speak on a college campus in the USA even if he is African American

Kneel before the Director of Diversity Investigations and Title IX Enforcement.
http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/13/cuny-prof-accused-of-sexual-harassment-b
Jensen Comment
Although I don't concur with the way this investigation was conducted, I nevertheless question giving up to 10% of a great for effort, especially when this is "selectively applied." It seems ludicrous that that when students both have a B+ in terms of academic performance that a student seemingly working harder can be bumped up to an A-. What this professor is really inviting is a lot of brown nosing in the course.

Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States: A Short, Scathing Essay from 1980 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/10/isaac-asimov-laments-the-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-united-states.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

At the end of the day the flag is just a piece of cloth and I am not going to value a piece of cloth over people's lives. That's just not something I can do, it's not something I feel morally right doing and my character won't allow me to do that.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick
http://www.westernjournalism.com/kaepernick-white-people-in-power-dont-understand-protests-american-flag-is-just-a-piece-of-cloth/

Tsundoku is the stockpiling of books never consumed. Sahoko Ichikawa, a senior lecturer in Japanese at Cornell University, explains that tsunde means “to stack things” and oku is “to leave for a while.”
http://lisnews.org/there_s_a_word_in_japanese_for_the_literary_affliction_of_buying_books_you_don_t_read

As ISIS's Caliphate Crumbles, Jihadist Tactics Are Evolving ---
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/21/beating-isis-caliphate-terrorism-jihadism-508559.html

 

Elizabeth Warren:  Obama Needs to Fire the Head of the SEC
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-senator-warren-urges-obama-to-replace-head-of-sec-2016-10
Harry Truman is credited with saying:  "The buck stops here."

Time Magazine:  Bill Clinton Accusers Tell Their Stories to Sean Hannity ---
http://time.com/4530968/bill-clinton-accusers-tell-their-stories-to-sean-hannity/?xid=newsletter-brief

First Lady not alone in encouraging woman to stand up against abuse --- |
http://keyetv.com/news/local/first-lady-not-alone-in-encouraging-woman-to-stand-up-against-abuse

Time Magazine:  Donald Trump Has a Grand Unified Campaign Conspiracy Theory ---
http://time.com/4530568/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conspiracy/?xid=newsletter-brief

Harvard:  Do you understand what accountability really is? ---
https://hbr.org/2016/10/do-you-understand-what-accountability-really-means?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Top 10 Things We Learned From Hillary Clinton Campaign's Emails ---
http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/19/top-10-things-hillary-clinton-emails

A Clinton ally reveals how the left played the Chief Justice Roberts on ObamaCare ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/rolling-justice-roberts-1476486260?mod=djemMER

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to arrange Pentagon and State Department consulting contracts for her daughter’s friend, prompting concerns of federal ethics rules violations. Clinton in 2009 arranged meetings between Jacqueline Newmyer Deal, a friend of Chelsea Clinton and head of the defense consulting group Long Term Strategy Group, with Pentagon officials that involved contracting discussions, according to emails from Clinton’s private server made public recently by the State Department. Clinton also tried to help Deal win a contract for consulting work with the State Department’s director of policy planning, according to the emails.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/06/clinton-sought-pentagon-state-department-contracts-for-chelseas-friend.html

The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton ---
https://newrepublic.com/article/137798/important-wikileaks-revelation-isnt-hillary-clinton

Rigged Elections Are As American As Apple Pie ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/jeffcrouere/2016/10/22/rigged-elections-are-as-american-as-apple-pie-n2235766?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Unlike Hillary’s relationship with Huma Abedin, her relationship with Chelsea is somewhat remote and cold.
Ed Klein
http://townhall.com/columnists/aryssadamron/2016/10/14/what-chelsea-clinton-is-afraid-of-n2230788?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

In a column published in Catholic Philly, Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. called on Hillary Clinton to repudiate the hacked emails revealing a strain of anti-Catholic bigotry in her campaign, and also referred to the candidate a "scheming, robotic liar."
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2016/10/13/archbishop-of-philadelphia-calls-clinton-a-scheming-robotic-liar-n2231928?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Wikileaks: Secret Speeches Show Clinton Supported Fracking, Called Efforts Against It A Russian Plot ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/aryssadamron/2016/10/14/what-chelsea-clinton-is-afraid-of-n2230788?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Summary of What Hilliary Clinton Sad to Wall Street Banks ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-emails-show-clinton-treading-lightly-with-wall-street-talks-2016-10
Here Are Hillary Clinton's Three Speeches To Goldman Sachs For Which She Was Paid $675,000 ---
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-15/here-are-hillary-clintons-three-speeches-goldman-sachs-which-she-was-paid-675000

The Press Buries Hillary Clinton’s Sins:  As reporters focus on Trump, they miss new details on Clinton’s rotten record ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-press-buries-hillary-clintons-sins-1476401308?mod=djemMER

Al Gore's Extra-Marital Affairs Before His Divorce ---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/15/al-gore-cheating-scandal-erupts/

Montana man admits to raping 12-year-old daughter; gets 60 days in jail ---
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/montana-man-admits-to-raping-12-year-old-daughter-gets-60-days-in-jail/

The southwest border has cracked open over the last year as illegal immigrants into the U.S. spiked some 23 percent, according to the latest Homeland Security numbers released Monday. Nearly 409,000 illegal immigrants were nabbed at the border in fiscal 2016 — up from about 331,000 a year earlier — and Homeland Security officials say the increased arrests also means an increase in the number that are sneaking by them ---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/17/illegal-immigration-surged-23-percent-last-year/

Six Border Walls Being Built Around the World ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-border-wall-global-immigration-security-2016-9
Jensen Comment
There's also a wall Mexico intends to build on its southern border and a mall part of a wall the US built on its southern border. The most serious walls built in the world were the Great Wall of China and the Iron Curtain in East Germany (that walled people in rather than out). Walls really aren't very effective unless they're supplemented by guards with guns willing to shoot.

 

Animated map shows the most dangerous countries in the world for tourists ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-map-dangerous-countries-world-tourists-terrorism-2016-7

Well, the rifleman’s stalking the sick and the lame
Preacherman seeks the same, who’ll get there first is uncertain
Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain
False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin
Only a matter of time ’til night comes steppin’ in

Bob Dylan




Why distrust data? ---
http://claudiasahm.postagon.com/51em12wt5

Jensen Comment
One reason I distrust data is that when the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was still under consideration in the USA Congress the supposedly bipartisan House Budget Committee made enormous errors that can hardly be considered innocent and independent. Now the chickens are coming home to roost in terms of a shortage of medical insurance alternatives and enormous rate increases in 2017 not anticipated by the inept House Budget Committee. The HBO ignored competent statisticians on the right and on the left.


The Atlantic:  The First Broken Promise of the Hillary Clinton Presidency ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/hillary-clinton-national-debt-presidency/504905/

The Atlantic:  She Created This Mess and She Knows It
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/hillary-clinton-foundation-morocco-wikileaks/505043/

Top 10 Things We Learned From Hillary Clinton Campaign's Emails ---
http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/19/top-10-things-hillary-clinton-emails

The Atlantic:  What is Rodrigo Duterte Trying to Achieve? ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/10/duterte-us/505001/
Jensen Comment
As socialism fades in Cuba and Venezuela, Duterte tries to resurrect it in the Philippines. Thus far all he's shown is that China will pay for his cutting military ties with the USA. That paid for a time in Cuba, but the economy of Cuba has not prospered in the long haul under socialism. As China makes its gains in Asia, Australia, and Africa the USA's global power and prestige has fallen off a cliff.


How to drive some big corporations out of your state and raise the prices for consumers if the corporations don't move out|
Proposed Measure 97 in Oregon would tax corporate gross receipts rather then income
New York Times Summary
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/measure-97-seeking-to-raise-corporate-taxes-splits-oregon-voters.html?_r=0
Also see
Tax Foundation Summary
http://taxfoundation.org/article/oregon-measure-97-everything-you-need-know


Apple: You can have $14.5 billion or jobs, not both ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-eu-tax-ruling-profound-harmful-effect-investment-job-creation-2016-8
The EU does not have the last laugh in it's quest to rip off USA companies
Apple makes a lot of computers Ireland, but there are other choice sites in the world wanting those jobs

Apple might not be able to build its €850 million Irish data centre after all ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/apples-850-million-irish-data-centre-hangs-in-the-balance-2016-10
Jensen Comment
It appears that Ireland, if not the EU, does not want thenew Apple  jobs anyway.


Watch Online Every Presidential Debate Since 1960–and Revisit America’s Saner Political Days ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/10/watch-online-every-presidential-debate-since-1960.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29


Ballot Pox:   It's time to stop pretending that there's such a thing as a rational voter ---
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Ballot-Pox/238131?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=a6346da6eaf84b188bd1e02ced3491b9&elq=a155e52af2cc46f6bb29e623a790e885&elqaid=11226&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4333

Jensen Comment
It also means coming to terms with the fact that we (political scientists) don’t think for ourselves; we think together. And maybe that’s fine. Democratic Party loyalties are inevitable, and they can even be good things if they can help us realize shared populist interests. Given the centrality of identity politics in the 2016 election, the evidence is clearly on the side of Achen and Bartels. The big question is whether the deplorable electorate will finally learn.


What Affects Our Trust in Government?
http://daily.jstor.org/what-affects-our-trust-in-government/

Jensen Comment
One thing that affects are trust in government is lenient prison sentences that do little to deter white-collar  fraudsters in both the public and private sectors ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays i

Another thing that affects our trust in government is the coziness of the private and public sector such as when government bureaucrats are given fabulous incentives to bail out of government jobs into high paying jobs in the industries they preciously regulated. Generals hope to become defense contractor executives. FDA regulators hope to become executives in the pharmaceutical industry. SEC, FBI, and Department of Justice employees hope to get plush jobs and offices in big accounting and law firms. It did take long before industries eventually owned the government agencies that regulated and investigated those industries. What government agency is truly independent and highly respected?

The SEC Racket of Defending Companies You Previously Investigated
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on September 6, 2016

Government parachute
The former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program is joining a law firm that represents those same tipsters—an unusual turn of the revolving door that highlights the potential profitability of legal work that didn’t even exist a few years ago. Government officials typically go into private practice to defend the companies they previously might have investigated. Sean McKessy, who left his post as the first chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower in July, is taking the riskier path of the plaintiffs’ bar by joining Washington-based Phillips & Cohen LLP.

Jensen Comment
The Regulator to Regulated racket is not confined to the SEC. Is there a government agency where the top regulators don't become employees of the companies they regulated?
Exhibits A, B, and C are attorney generals, military generals, and health regulators in the FDA, NIH, etc.

Another thing that affects our trust in government is when current or former bureaucrats and legislators are given $250,000 or more for a short speech.
Goldman Sachs gave a former Secretary of State $675,000 for three speeches.
Those must've been some inspirational/informative speeches! Yeah right!

Our legislators are not trusted by the public for good reason. They are trusted even less when they leave office to become high-paid lobbyists.

How many mayors and governors went to prison when the loot they stashed can't be found? Three recent governors of Illinois, for example, went to prison.  Don't expect them to be clerking at convenience stores when they're released.

Can you become a mayor of most of the USA's major cities without doing under-the-table business with corrupt municipal labor unions?

The bigger the government program the bigger the piñata for fraud! Exhibit A is the Department of Defense. Exhibit B is Medicare. Exhibit C is Medicaid. And on and on and on.

Private sector fraud goes hand-in-hand with public sector fraud.

Name some of our government servants who became multimillionaires even though they were always on the public payroll? LBJ is not an exception. He's the rule.

The real world is not a Disney movie where goodness always wins over evil.

Bob Jensen's Rotten to the Core threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm


What affects the police trust in Walmart and Sam's Club

Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-walmart-crime/?cmpid=BBD081716_BIZ
But Walmart is not saying thank you to the police

Walmart Employee Refused To Make Retirement Cake For Police Officer, Said 'Blue Lives Matter' Could Be Racist ---
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/09/28/walmart-employee-refused-to-make-retirement-cake-for-police-officer-said-blue-lives-matter-could-be-racist-n2224388

Walmart:  Black Lives Matter Call to Action
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Why-Black-Lives-Matter-Too-A-Revolutionary-Call-to-Action/52286702

Police Officer Refused Service At Walmart ---
http://bluelivesmatter.blue/police-officer-refused-service-walmart/
This is an isolated incident by two employees and is not Walmart policy.

A boycott is being organized against Sam’s Club after racist, sexist comments by its far left CEO (Rosalind Brewer)---
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/americans-boycott-sams-club-after-ceos-racist-comments-about-white-males/

On top of ensuring that minorities get priority in the hiring process at Sam’s, Brewer also said that she favors female employees and encourages Sam’s Club partners to do the same.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/americans-boycott-sams-club-after-ceos-racist-comments-about-white-males/ 


Countries around the world are pouring billions of dollars into France's revolutionary nuclear fusion reactor ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/iter-international-thermonuclear-experimental-reactor-fusion-reactor-revolutionize-energy-2016-10

The fusion reactor everyone is anticipating is currently under construction in France. It's called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and could be the fusion reactor to lead a new era of clean energy. Fusing atoms together generates energy but it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make the fusion happen in the first place. Consequently, engineers have failed to build a fusion machine that generates more energy than it consumes, but ITER is the first machine designed to do just that. If it succeeds, it could change the world.

Jensen Comment
Anything to get these ugly bird killing windmills off our backs.


Presidential Access to Taxpayer Information (on political opponents) ---
http://causeofaction.org/assets/uploads/2016/09/CoA-Institute-Report-on-Presidential-Access-to-Confidential-Taxpayer-Information-4831-7961-5027-v.13.pdf


The Economist Magazine:  The Remarkable Resilience of Private Equity
Private equity has prospered while almost every other approach to business has stumbled. That is both good and disturbing ---
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21709007-private-equity-has-prospered-while-almost-every-other-approach-business-has-stumbled?cid1=cust%2Fednew%2Fn%2Fbl%2Fn%2F20161020n%2Fowned%2Fn%2Fn%2Fnwl%2Fn%2Fn%2FNA%2F7915593%2Fn


The collapse of the EU/Canada landmark deal shows how the EU sets itself up for failure ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ceta-brexit-eu-canada-belgium-wallonia-trade-expert-analysis-2016-10


Companies That Violate (Accounting) Rules Grant More Worker (Stock) Options, Study Says ---
http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2016/10/18/companies-that-violate-rules-grant-more-worker-options-study-says/

Companies that violate financial reporting rules are far more generous than their peers when granting stock options to rank and file employees, possibly reflecting an attempt to discourage whistleblowing, according to a new study.

By giving employees a monetary incentive to keep quiet, they will do just that, according to  Shivaram Rajgopal, a co-author of the study.

“It’s a straightforward story,” said Mr. Rajgopal, a professor of accounting and auditing at Columbia Business School. “Companies compensate you for not speaking up.”

Companies that violated financial reporting rules granted stock options to rank and file employees that amounted to an average of 2.49% of their total shares outstanding during the period from when the misreporting began until when it was discovered. That compares to option grants that totaled just 1.62% of total outstanding shares for a control group of companies.

The study, Rank and File Employees and the Discovery of Misreporting: The Role of Stock Options, examined 784 cases at 663 different companies that were subject to class action shareholder litigation from 1996 to 2011. The study is expected to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Accounting and Economics.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
I did not read the underlying JAE study that reports this implication that the companies are paying bribes for employees to not blow the whistle on the breaking of accounting rules. However, if and when I do read the study I will look for possible implications of causality from spurious correlation. There may be missing variables that cause both more stock options and accounting rules violations.

In the roaring 1990s tech companies were doing all sorts of creative accounting to dress up financial statements to appeal to potential investors/creditors. At the same time those companies were also granting boatloads of stock options, because tech labor was inordinately expensive and rising tech companies were almost always low on cash (and legitimate GAAP earnings). For example, Stanford's computer science graduates were given low starting cash salaries and million-dollar stock option awards due to cash shortages amidst feverish needs for top computer science graduates.

I suspect this is one of the many, many accountics science studies disparately in need of replication by alternate research methodologies such as interviews with company employees.

But accountics scientists usually abhor going off campus to gather their own data.

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


The Atlantic:  The Hidden Economics of Porn ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/pornography-industry-economics-tarrant/476580/

Jensen Comment
This article totally confuses me. It seems to ignore that the porn industry in more international than domestic with Russia and the former Soviet Bloc nations leading the industry on the Internet.

What the Internet did is turn an oligopoly of porn into millions of sleazy small business shops for pictures, video, games, "dating" sites, etc.

It's an industry out of control that was once mostly controlled by organized crime.

I think this article mistakenly tries to convince us that the industry is under corporate control. I don't believe that.


How to Mislead With Statistics:  The crime wave is a myth ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/crime-wave-myth-2016-10

Jensen Comment
I agree with most of the opinions voiced in the above article. However, on the other side fo the coin police enforcement of some types of crime is down. If police continued or increased enforcement of those crimes the total crime would be up in the USA. I'm talking first about drug crimes where police are often no longer arresting people for drug possession, especially marijuana and heroin. One reason is that arrests for such crimes are futile since punishment for such crimes is nearly zero.

Also in our larger cities I think all the bad publicity of blacks being persecuted by police is leading to weaker enforcement of crimes where blacks are the victims. This is a an unfortunate negative effect of "Black Lives Matter" movement. Black lives are no longer being protected as well as they used to be by police, especially in our larger cities. That, however, is my opinion that will be hard to back up with facts since so many black-victim crimes such as rapes, prostitution, and extortion are not even reported to get into the crime databases.


The Corporate Tax Mess:  Some Companies Pay Little or No Tax While Others Pay Billions
http://taxprof.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4eab53ef01b8d22edf9c970c-popup


Arctic Cities Crumble as Climate Change Thaws Permafrost ---
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/thawing-permafrost-destroying-arctic-cities/




  •  

    Finding and Using Health Statistics --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm

    Bob Jensen's threads on economic statistics and databases ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics

    Medicare Fraud is Rampant ---
     http://townhall.com/columnists/stevesherman/2016/02/05/medicare-fraud-is-rampant-n2115375?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
     


    Something you will never hear in a speech by President Obama
    Major hospitals in Obama's home town of Chicago will no longer serve patients insured in Obamacare exchanges (except in true emergencies) ---
    http://beta.hotair.com/archives/2016/10/24/chicago-hopenchange-major-hospitals-bail-obamacare-2017/?utm_source=hadaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

    Nation's Top Hospitals Refuse Obamacare-Insured Patients ---
    http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Obamacare-hospitals-plans-coverage/2013/11/01/id/534327/

    “You’ve got this crazy (Obamacare) system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half,” Mr. Clinton told voters. “It’s the craziest thing in the world.”For years I've been a proponent of a national healthcare plan supplemented with discretionary private insurance much like the system in Germany. Some other national healthcare plans are falling apart
    Bill Clinton (former President of the USA)
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/3/bill-clinton-bashes-obamacare-as-crazy-system-whil/?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb


    Colorado is Poised to Double Taxes and Spending
    Post-ObamaCare Preview in Colorado -
    --
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/post-obamacare-preview-in-colorado-1477091912?mod=djemMER

    Democrats are already looking beyond ObamaCare’s slow-motion failure, and Colorado is showing where many want to go next: Premiums across the state are set to rise 20.4% on average next year, and some have concluded that the solution is more central planning and taxation. Voters will decide on Nov. 8 whether to try the single-payer scheme that blew up in Vermont.

    Amendment 69 would alter the state’s constitution to create a single-payer health system known as ColoradoCare. The idea is to replace premiums with tax dollars, and coverage for residents will allegedly include prescription drugs, hospitalization and more. Paying for this entitlement requires a cool $25 billion tax increase, which is about equal to the state’s $27 billion budget. Colorado would introduce a 10% payroll tax and also hit investment income, and that’s for starters. California would look like the Cayman Islands by tax comparison.

    Every other detail is left to the discretion of a 21-member panel. The board of trustees would determine what benefits are offered—say, whether your pricey cancer drug makes the cut. The board would also set reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals, as well as patient co-payments.

    Trustees would be elected to four-year terms and not subject to recall elections. In other words, ColoradoCare would evade nearly all democratic accountability. Amendment 69 stipulates that the entity is “not an agency of the state and is not subject to administrative direction or control by any state executive, department, commission, board bureau or agency.” ColoradoCare could bust constitutional limits on tax increases and spending.

    No one thinks this project will float on its planned $38 billion budget. An analysis from the Colorado Health Institute found that ColoradoCare would post a $253 million loss in its first year and would then “slide into ever-increasing deficits in future years unless taxes were increased.” The other options are reducing benefits or cutting payments to doctors—assuming providers haven’t fled the state. ColoradoCare will have evicted whatever remains of the private insurance market, so residents may have nowhere to turn.

    The best independent study on single payer is Vermont, which abandoned the idea in 2014: Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, dumped his signature campaign issue once he figured out it’d require an 11.5% payroll tax and an individual levy as high as 9.5%. Mr. Shumlin admitted that “the risk of economic shock is too high at this time to offer a plan I can responsibly support.”

    Remarkably, Colorado has managed to build on Vermont’s failures. For one, the plan aspires to cover more than five million people, not Vermont’s 625,000. Anyone who claims to live in Colorado qualifies, so get ready for a crush of beneficiaries who don’t pay anything. ColoradoCare would be enshrined in the constitution, which is much harder to scrap than legislation.

    The good news is that Amendment 69 has created a rare moment of bipartisanship: Former Democratic Governor Bill Ritter is working with Colorado’s Republican Treasurer, Walker Stapleton, to defeat the measure. Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper is also opposed. Voters hate the idea the more they learn: A September poll showed only 27% support, down from 43% in January.

    Then again, Bernie Sanders supports it, and Hillary Clinton

    Jensen Comment

    Jensen Comment
    I hardly think that the $25 billion billion budget will come anywhere close to paying the tab.

    I'm in favor of a national health care plan that is well thought out in the USA, hopefully one that's modeled somewhat like the combination of public and private coverage in the German health care system ---
    http://www.toytowngermany.com/wiki/Health_insurance
    This would entail legislating savings such as taking punitive damages out our the malpractice insurance costs.

    I followed the saga of how the bluest state in the Union, the Vermont home of Bernie Sanders, looked into a state funding plan much like the one being proposed by Colorado. Then Vermonters eventually came to their senses and concluded the state could not afford to go it alone in funding medical coverage for everybody.

    Any state is going to have trouble going it alone when funding medical coverage.
     For one thing think of the tens of thousands or people with expensive medical problems (who do not qualify for Medicaid) might move to Colorado because of this free medical coverage. Thousands of new lawyers will chase ambulances all around the state as people discover ailments they never knew they had before their medical coverage was "free."

    Colorado is already a relatively high taxation state. If it doubles its taxes it will be the highest taxation state in the USA per capita. Think of the business firms that will leave because of this and the business firms who will not move to Colorado because of high taxes.

    A single state like Colorado does not have the bargaining power of the federal government in controlling pharmaceutical pricing.

    I could go on and on, but I think you get my point about how states should not go it alone.

    Before he the USA government seriously contemplates a national medical and drug coverage plan it needs to competently look into why most other national health care plans are now in a crisis circumstances ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/nationalized-healthcare-is-not-all-its-cracked-up-to-be-2016-9


    Emergency Room (ER) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_department

    Emergency departments have many of the best doctors in the USA. It's common to outsource those doctors to ER practicing partnerships.  In the USA ERs, especially urban trauma centers, in hospitals are being stressed to the point of breaking. Much, albeit certainly not all, of the blame falls on the Affordable Care Act.

    American College of Emergency Room Physicians
    The Uninsured: Access to Medical Care Fact Sheet ---
    http://newsroom.acep.org/fact_sheets?item=30032

    Jensen Comment
    Here are a few tidbits in the above report.:

  • Emergency care is the safety net of the nation’s health care system, caring for everyone, regardless of ability to pay.

    Emergency physicians provide the most uncompensated care for uninsured and underinsured patients of all physicians.

    America’s emergency departments are under severe stress, facing soaring demands. They are essential to every community and must have adequate resources.

    Having health insurance does not mean you have access to medical care.

    . . .

    The federal government estimates that the number of uninsured in the United States has declined by about 15 million since 2013[iii].  In the first three months of 2015, 29 million people were uninsured.  That was seven million fewer than in 2014. While the uninsured are expected to drop to about 23 million by 2023 as a result of the ACA, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, many American will still not be able to afford their healthcare needs. [iv]

    24.3 percent of the uninsured are Hispanic

    15.9 percent are black

    9.8 percent are white

    9.8 percent of children younger than 19 in poverty

    7 percent of children under 19 who are not in poverty

    . . .

    Hospitals and physicians shoulder the financial burden for the uninsured by incurring billions of dollars in bad debt or “uncompensated care” each year. Hospitals provided over $50 billion in uncompensated care in 2013.

    In the past, hospitals shifted uncompensated care costs to insured patients to make up the difference. However, cost shifting no longer is a viable option because managed care and other health plans have instituted strict price controls, leaving little margin to shift costs. More than one-third of emergency physicians lose an average of $138,300 each year from EMTALA-related bad debt, according to a May 2003 American Medical Association study.]

    . . .

    With projections that health care costs will double the nation is faced with how it will continue to provide care for all Americans, not just the disadvantaged. Emergency departments provide an essential community service, similar to fire departments, police departments, and public utilities. The nation cannot afford to allow the emergency care system to collapse because of a lack of funding. It is too high a price to pay in terms of public health effects and human suffering.

    Medicaid patients are having Analysis of hospital financial reporting and member surveys from hospital associations indicates that, through 2014, payer mix is shifting in ways that will likely reduce hospital uncompensated care costs, according to the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS). Moreover, a projection model developed by ASPE suggests that the large observed declines in the uninsured and increases in Medicaid coverage have led to substantial declines in hospital uncompensated care in 2014.

    Medicaid expansion states account for $5 billion of the estimated $7.4 billion reduction in uncompensated care costs attributed to ACA coverage expansions.

    . . .

    Most undocumented immigrants are unable to obtain health insurance and this means many are
    unable to pay – contributing to uncompensated care, especially in Border States, such as California,
    Texas and Arizona. Billions of dollars of uncompensated care has resulted in the closure of hundreds
    of emergency departments in America, which is reducing capacity and threatening everyone’s access
    to lifesaving care.

    . . .

    People who cannot afford physicians’ fees and who do not have health insurance are often turned away from private offices and urgent care clinics. With no other options, they turn to emergency departments, which serve as a vital part of America’s health care safety net. Emergency departments are mandated by law to medically evaluate and provide stabilizing treatment of emergency conditions for everyone. Language and economic barriers also often limit undocumented immigrants’ access to health care. Furthermore, many undocumented immigrants become migrant farm workers and their transient living arrangements jeopardize residency requirements for some community health clinics.  In addition, fear of detection by immigration authorities may account for why as few as one-fourth of them use other health services.  ACEP opposes initiatives to require physicians or health care facilities to report suspected, undocumented persons to immigration authorities

    . . .

    See the reference links at the end of the article

    Jensen Comment
    The above report judiciously avoids mentioning that one of the major stresses on ER departments and their doctors is the high cost of malpractice insurance now being heavily funded by the middle class. You need only watch the constant stream of advertisements on television of law firms seeking medical punitive damages to know that some law firms are totally depend on punitive damages settlements, except in Texas. Early on the many lawyers in the USA Congress warned that the Affordable Healthcare Act would never pass if the ACA messed with the law firm gravy train of punitive damages. National healthcare plans such as those in Canada and Scandinavia limit malpractice settlements to actual damages. This greatly reduces the cost of malpractice insurance in those national plans. But this will never happen in the USA (except for Texas where punitive damages unbelievably are limited by a constitutional amendment) ---
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/us/05doctors.htm

    Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas. “It was hard to believe at first; we thought it was a spike,” said Dr. Donald W. Patrick, executive director of the medical board and a neurosurgeon and lawyer. But Dr. Patrick said the trend — licenses up 18 percent since 2003, when the damage caps were enacted — has held, with an even sharper jump of 30 percent in the last fiscal year, compared with the year before. Ralph Blumenthal, "More Doctors in Texas After Malpractice Caps," The New York Times, October 5, 2007.

    Canadian Malpractice Insurance Takes Profit Out Of Coverage," by Jane Akre, Injury Board, July 28, 2009 ---
    Click Here

    The St. Petersburg Times takes a look at the cost of insurance in Canada for health care providers.

    A neurosurgeon in Miami pays about $237,000 for medical malpractice insurance. The same professional in Toronto pays about $29,200, reports Susan Taylor Martin.

    A Canadian orthopedic surgeon pays just over $10,000 for coverage that costs a Miami physician $140,000. An obstetrician in Canada pays $36,353 for insurance, while a Tampa Bay obstetrician pays $98,000 for medical malpractice insurance.

    "Sen. Chuck Schumer: Obamacare Focused 'On The Wrong Problem,' Ignores The Middle Class" by  Avik Roy, Forbes, November 26, 2014 ---
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/11/26/sen-chuck-schumer-obamacare-focused-on-the-wrong-problem-ignores-the-middle-class/

    Despite the enduring unpopularity of Obamacare, Congressional Democrats have up to now stood by their health care law, allowing that “it’s not perfect” but that they are proud of their votes to pass it. That all changed on Tuesday, when the Senate’s third-highest-ranking Democrat—New York’s Chuck Schumer—declared that “we took [the public’s] mandate and put all our focus on the wrong problem—health care reform…When Democrats focused on health care, the average middle-class person thought, ‘The Democrats aren’t paying enough attention to me.’”

    Sen. Schumer made his remarks at the National Press Club in Washington. “Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them…Now, the plight of uninsured Americans and the hardships caused by unfair insurance company practices certainly needed to be addressed,” Schumer maintained. “But it wasn’t the change we were hired to make. Americans were crying out for the end to the recession, for better wages and more jobs—not changes in health care.”

    “This makes sense,” Schumer continued, “considering 85 percent of all Americans got their health care from either the government, Medicare, Medicaid, or their employer. And if health care costs were going up, it really did not affect them. The Affordable Care Act was aimed at the 36 million Americans who were not covered. It has been reported that only a third of the uninsured are even registered to vote…it made no political sense.”

    The response from Obama Democrats was swift. Many, like Obama speechwriters Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau and NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor, took to Twitter. “Shorter Chuck Schumer,” said Vietor, “I wish Obama cared more about helping Democrats than . . .

    Bob Jensen's threads on the health care mess are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm


    PwC Study Maligned by Liberals in 2009 is Vindicated by Events of 2016

    From the Left-Leaning Website Called Vox
    "Obamacare was built to fail," by Avik Roy, Vox, October 7, 2016---
    http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/10/7/13191250/obamacare-exchanges-crisis-arrogant-progressives

    . . .

    In October 2009, analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers published a report estimating that by 2016, the Senate Finance Committee bill would increase individual-market health insurance premiums by 47 percent. Today, we would describe that figure as a lowball estimate. In fact, cumulatively, median premiums for "silver plans" have nearly doubled in the ACA’s first four plan years (49 percent in 2014, 7 percent in 2015, 11 percent in 2016, and a projected 10 percent in 2017).

    But in 2009, the ACA’s cheerleaders described it in much different terms.

    "We couldn’t stop intellectual saboteurs from introducing new lies into the debate," wrote Cohn. "But I think we were able to expose those lies just a little more quickly." Cohn and others slammed the PwC report as the work of corrupt health insurance lobbyists seeking to sink reform — as an example of "the insurance industry declaring war." In the Washington Post, Ezra Klein, who went on to found Vox.com, compared the PwC report to lies promulgated by the tobacco and oil industries.

    What was remarkable about all this controversy is that PricewaterhouseCoopers' findings were quite reasonable. The ACA’s insurance market regulations were going to drive up the underlying cost of individually purchased insurance.

    For example, forcing insurers to charge their youngest customers no less than one-third of their oldest customers meant that premiums for young people would double, because on average, 19-year-olds consume one-sixth as much health care as 64-year-olds. Mandating that insurers cover a federally-prescribed suite of health care services, regardless of whether enrollees need coverage for those services, meant that premiums would go up. Requiring that insurers charge the same prices to the healthy and the sick meant that healthy people in particular would pay more.

    By contrast, the law’s individual mandate, forcing consumers to buy that costlier insurance, was going to be phased in over time. As a result, premiums would spike and enrollment would suffer.

    But Obamacare’s cheerleaders, fearing that this information might sink the bill’s fate in Congress, decided to shoot the messenger. They brought in Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist, to assure everyone that "what we know for sure the bill will do is that it will lower the [underlying] cost of buying non-group health insurance" — that is, the cost before any subsidies.

    As a political matter, the aggressive critiques of PwC worked. "Within hours of [the report’s] publication," Cohn recounted, "several blogs, including this one, had published critiques … [they] circulated in Washington and provoked a backlash against the insurers. Wavering Democrats said they were offended by the effort at political sabotage; the Finance Committee went on the pass the bill, as it had originally planned."

    The exchanges punish middle-income Americans

    But as a matter of policy, PwC was right and the cheerleaders and Democratic policymakers were wrong. The ACA’s exchanges were designed poorly, and premiums did become unaffordable for millions. It is true that many people with incomes near the poverty line, whose premiums were nearly fully subsidized by other taxpayers, gained coverage through the law, many through the deeply flawed Medicaid program, whose health outcomes are no better than those of people without health insurance.

    But millions of uninsured, taxpaying Americans don’t qualify for Medicaid or the ACA’s exchange subsidies. Still others — typically those with incomes between 250 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level — qualify for partial subsidies that don’t make up for the fact that ACA exchange insurance costs so much more. As Bill Clinton put it, "You’ve got this crazy system where … people that are out there busting it —sometimes 60 hours a week — wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half." That’s why ACA exchange enrollment has fallen 9 million short of initial estimates.

    The people who implemented the markets were ignorant and arrogant, too

    And Obamacare didn’t suffer only from a flawed blueprint. It was also implemented by people with poor knowledge of how health insurance markets worked.

    Continued in article


    PwC Study Maligned by Liberals in 2009 is Vindicated in 2016

    "Brouhaha erupts over PwC private health insurance report," AccountingWeb, October 21, 2009 ---
    http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/cfo/brouhaha-erupts-over-pwc-private-health-insurance-report

    PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has found itself at the center of a controversy over its estimates of cost increases in private health insurance premiums if certain provisions of the heath care reform bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee become law.  PwC was engaged to conduct the study, "Potential Impact of Health Reform on the Cost of Private Health Insurance Coverage," by the American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).  Critics have questioned the methodology used by PwC, saying it does not take into consideration some of the cost containment measures in the bill and potential behavioral responses that could affect premium increases. 

    AHIP president and CEO Karen Ignagni told ABC News, "One of the most important things that should be done is for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a world class firm, to speak for itself about methodology."

    PwC defends its analysis and conclusions in a statement provided to AccountingWEB, citing the specific parameters of the study, saying that "America's Health Insurance Plans engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to prepare a report that focused on four components of the Senate Finance Committee proposal:

    * Insurance market reforms and consumer protections that would raise health insurance premiums for individuals and families if the reforms are not coupled with an effective coverage requirement.
    * An excise tax on employer-sponsored high value health plans.
    * Cuts in payment rates in public programs that could increase cost shifting to private sector businesses and consumers.
    * New taxes on health sector entities.

    The study concluded that collectively the four provisions would raise premiums for private health insurance coverage.  As the report itself acknowledges, other provisions that are part of health reform proposals were not included in the PwC analysis."

    By 2019, the study says, after analysis of these four provisions, the cost of single coverage is expected to increase by $1,500 more than it would under the current system and the cost of family coverage is expected to increase by $4,000 more than it would under the current system.  This amounts to an additional 18 percent increase in premiums by 2019. The overall 18 percent increase is a composite of increases by market segment as follows:

    * 49% increase for the non-group (individual) market;
    * 28% increase for small employers (those firms with fewer than 50 employees);
    * 11% increase for large employers with insured coverage; and,
    * 9% increase for self-insured employers.

    The highest increase would be for individuals covered by private insurance.

    In its discussion of a "Strong Workable Coverage Requirement," the study acknowledges it methodology as it does elsewhere in the report.  "The reform packages under consideration have other provisions that we have not included in this analysis.  We have not estimated the impact of the new subsidies on the net insurance cost to households.  Also, if other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated."  The analysis of the coverage requirement shows the potential impact on premiums for individuals without a broad coverage requirement."

    PwC says that impacts identified in the study assume payment of tax on high-value plans, cost-shifting of cuts to public programs, and full pass-through of industry taxes. 

    The PwC study also states that it factored in the excise tax but not any anticipated behavioral changes:  "We have estimated the potential impact of the tax on premiums," the study says.  "Although we expect employers to respond to the tax by restructuring their benefits to avoid it, we demonstrate the impact assuming it is applied."

    In an earlier study based on AHIP data, PwC estimated that structural reforms, such as improved wellness and prevention, disease management, value based payment reform, improvements in health information technology, comparative effectiveness, and malpractice reform, could mitigate growth in healthcare costs by between 0.5 and 1.0 percent per year after an initial investment period.  See PricewaterhouseCoopers "A Review of AHIP Savings Estimates" in Appendix to AHIP, "A Shared Responsibility," 2008.

    Bob Jensen's threads on the health care mess are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm


    "Sen. Chuck Schumer: Obamacare Focused 'On The Wrong Problem,' Ignores The Middle Class" by  Avik Roy, Forbes, November 26, 2014 ---
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/11/26/sen-chuck-schumer-obamacare-focused-on-the-wrong-problem-ignores-the-middle-class/

    Despite the enduring unpopularity of Obamacare, Congressional Democrats have up to now stood by their health care law, allowing that “it’s not perfect” but that they are proud of their votes to pass it. That all changed on Tuesday, when the Senate’s third-highest-ranking Democrat—New York’s Chuck Schumer—declared that “we took [the public’s] mandate and put all our focus on the wrong problem—health care reform…When Democrats focused on health care, the average middle-class person thought, ‘The Democrats aren’t paying enough attention to me.’”

    Sen. Schumer made his remarks at the National Press Club in Washington. “Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them…Now, the plight of uninsured Americans and the hardships caused by unfair insurance company practices certainly needed to be addressed,” Schumer maintained. “But it wasn’t the change we were hired to make. Americans were crying out for the end to the recession, for better wages and more jobs—not changes in health care.”

    “This makes sense,” Schumer continued, “considering 85 percent of all Americans got their health care from either the government, Medicare, Medicaid, or their employer. And if health care costs were going up, it really did not affect them. The Affordable Care Act was aimed at the 36 million Americans who were not covered. It has been reported that only a third of the uninsured are even registered to vote…it made no political sense.”

    The response from Obama Democrats was swift. Many, like Obama speechwriters Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau and NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor, took to Twitter. “Shorter Chuck Schumer,” said Vietor, “I wish Obama cared more about helping Democrats than . . .


    From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on October 19, 2016

    We’re starting to see the reverse edge of the sword that is the Affordable Care Act. Finalized rates for big health-insurance plans around the country show the magnitude of the challenge facing the Obama administration as it seeks to stabilize the insurance market under the president’s signature health law during his remaining weeks in office. Several states have allowed insurers to jack up rates by 30% or more, and in New Mexico that figure stands at a 93% hike.

    Most of the 10 million people who currently get coverage through an insurance exchange such as HealthCare.gov don’t pay the full premiums because they receive subsidies from the federal government that are pegged to insurance prices in their area. As many as nine million people currently buy individual coverage without using the site, but at similar prices, and most of them aren’t eligible for subsidies. We’ll be in a holding pattern, more than likely, until the next president takes office in January.


    From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on September 29, 2016

    Why the $600 EpiPen costs $69 in Britain
    The EpiPen allergy shot costs less than its leather case in Britain, Bloomberg reports. The price of an EpiPen two-pack has surged to more than $600 in the U.S., sparking a political outcry. While the manufacturer, Mylan NV, says it takes home about $274, in the U.K. a similar pair of injectors costs the state-funded National Health Service $69. The numbers highlight the stark differences in the way drugs are priced in the U.S. and Britain, where the government negotiates with pharmaceutical companies to limit costs.

    Jensen Comment
    Such pricing would never work worldwide because somebody has to pay for Mylan's corporate jets and conferences in Ritz hotels around the world. "Cost Plus" pricing all depends upon what outlays are included in what you call "cost." Accountants are notoriously creative when it comes to "measuring" cost.

    From The Wall Street Journal on September 27, 2016
    "Mylan Clarifies EpiPen's Profit"

    . . .

    Testifying before a congressional committee last week, CEO Heather Bresch said Mylan's profit was $100 for a two-pack of injectors, despite a $608 price in the USA (versus $69 in the U.K.)

    Continued in article

    Jensen Comment
    As usual USA prices include all the allocations of corporate jets, conferences in luxury hotels, factory depreciation, equipment depreciation, R&D, etc. Screwing USA customers and third parties (think Aetna, Blue Cross, Medicare, and Medicaid) is the name of the game in the USA.


    Healthcare Kickbacks
    From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on October 4, 2016

    Tenet agrees to kickbacks fines
    Tenet Healthcare Corp. said it would pay states and the federal government $514 million to settle allegations that its hospitals in Georgia and South Carolina paid kickbacks for obstetric referrals of low-income patients. Under the settlement, which must be approved by a court, two Tenet subsidiaries will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate federal kickback laws, the company said. The agreement settles a criminal investigation and civil litigation.


    USA Today: The Cascade of 2017 Obamacare Premium Hikes Has Arrived ---
    http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/10/20/usa-today-the-cascade-of-obamacare-premium-hikes-has-arrived-n2234719?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=

    . . .

    Based on that chart, only a small handful of states will have the supposed 'good fortune' of experiencing single-digit hikes.  The vast majority will experience cost surges in the double-digits, with roughly half of all states getting slammed with increases of at least 20 percent.  Time magazine reviews the eight states where consumes will suffer the most next year, where regulators have imposed rate jumps of at least 30 percent.  The piece's opening sentence says it all: "The Affordable Care Act is getting a lot less affordable for many Americans."  Meanwhile, many Arizonans find themselves in Obamacare's crosshairs, getting rocked by the double-whammy of soaring costs and dwindling-to-nonexistent choices:

    Continued in article


    Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Obamacare) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act

    Probably the worst whore economists was Johathon Gruber of MIT --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Gruber_(economist)

    Jensen Comment
    In addition to the dire predictions of PwC in 2009, some respected leftist-leaning media were warning against the lousy numbers of the Obama-Controlled House Budget Committee. I mean warnings from one of my favorite statistician named John Cassidy who writes for The New Yorker. Robert Pear also voiced warnings in The New York Times.

    "ObamaCare by the Numbers: Part 2," by John Cassidy, The New Yorker, March 2010 ---
    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2010/03/obamacare-by-the-numbers-part-2.html

    . . .

    Does Santa Claus live after all? According to the C.B.O., between now and 2019 the net cost of insuring new enrollees in Medicaid and private insurance plans will be $788 billion, but other provisions in the legislation will generate revenues and cost savings of $933 billion. Subtract the first figure from the second and—voila!—you get $143 billion in deficit reduction.

    The first objection to these figures is that the great bulk of the cost savings—more than $450 billion—comes from cuts in Medicare payments to doctors and other health-care providers. If you are vaguely familiar with Washington politics and the letters A.A.R.P. you might suspect that at least some of these cuts will fail to materialize. Unlike some hardened skeptics, I don’t think none of them will happen. One part of the reform involves reducing excessive payments that the Bush Administration agreed to when it set up the Medicare Advantage program in 2003. If Congress remains under Democratic control—a big if, admittedly—it will probably enact these changes. But that still leaves another $300 billion of Medicare savings to be found.

    The second problem is accounting gimmickry. Acting in accordance with standard Washington practices, the C.B.O. counts as revenues more than $50 million in Social Security taxes and $70 billion in payments towards a new home-care program, which will eventually prove very costly, and it doesn’t count some $50 billion in discretionary spending. After excluding these pieces of trickery and the questionable Medicare cuts, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the C.B.O., has calculated that the reform will actually raise the deficit by $562 billion in the first ten years. “The budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed,” he wrote in the Times. “So fantasy in, fantasy out.”

    Holtz-Eakin advised John McCain in 2008, and he has a reputation as a straight shooter. I think the problems with the C.B.O.’s projections go even further than he suggests. If Holtz-Eakin’s figures turned out to be spot on, and over the next ten years health-care reform reduced the number of uninsured by thirty million at an annual cost of $56 billion, I would still regard it as a great success. In a $15 trillion economy—and, barring another recession, the U.S. economy should be that large in 2014—fifty or sixty billion dollars is a relatively small sum—about four tenths of one per cent of G.D.P., or about eight per cent of the 2011 Pentagon budget.

    My two big worries about the reform are that it won’t capture nearly as many uninsured people as the official projections suggest, and that many businesses, once they realize the size of the handouts being offered for individual coverage, will wind down their group plans, shifting workers (and costs) onto the new government-subsidized plans. The legislation includes features designed to prevent both these things from happening, but I don’t think they will be effective.

    Consider the so-called “individual mandate.” As a strict matter of law, all non-elderly Americans who earn more than the poverty line will be obliged to obtain some form of health coverage. If they don’t, in 2016 and beyond, they could face a fine of about $700 or 2.5 per cent of their income—whichever is the most. Two issues immediately arise.

    Even if the fines are vigorously enforced, many people may choose to pay them and stay uninsured. Consider a healthy single man of thirty-five who earns $35,000 a year. Under the new system, he would have a choice of enrolling in a subsidized plan at an annual cost of $2,700 or paying a fine of $875. It may well make sense for him to pay the fine, take his chances, and report to the local emergency room if he gets really sick. (E.R.s will still be legally obliged to treat all comers.) If this sort of thing happens often, as well it could, the new insurance exchanges will be deprived of exactly the sort of healthy young people they need in order to bring down prices. (Healthy people improve the risk pool.)

    If the rules aren’t properly enforced, the problem will be even worse. And that is precisely what is likely to happen. The I.R.S. will have the administrative responsibility of imposing penalties on people who can’t demonstrate that they have coverage, but it won’t have the legal authority to force people to pay the fines. “What happens if you don’t buy insurance and you don’t pay the penalty?” Ezra Klein, the Washington Post’s industrious and well-informed blogger, asks. “Well, not much. The law specifically says that no criminal action or liens can be imposed on people who don’t pay the fine.”

    So, the individual mandate is a bit of a sham. Generous subsidies will be available for sick people and families with children who really need medical care to buy individual coverage, but healthy single people between the ages of twenty-six and forty, say, will still have a financial incentive to remain outside the system until they get ill, at which point they can sign up for coverage. Consequently, the number of uninsured won’t fall as much as expected, and neither will prices. Without a proper individual mandate, the idea of universality goes out the window, and so does much of the economic reasoning behind the bill.

    The question of what impact the reforms will have on existing insurance plans has received even less analysis. According to President Obama, if you have coverage you like you can keep it, and that’s that. For the majority of workers, this will undoubtedly be true, at least in the short term, but in some parts of the economy, particularly industries that pay low and moderate wages, the presence of such generous subsidies for individual coverage is bound to affect behavior eventually. To suggest this won’t happen is to say economic incentives don’t matter.

    Take a medium-sized firm that employs a hundred people earning $40,000 each—a private security firm based in Atlanta, say—and currently offers them health-care insurance worth $10,000 a year, of which the employees pay $2,500. This employer’s annual health-care costs are $750,000 (a hundred times $7,500). In the reformed system, the firm’s workers, if they didn’t have insurance, would be eligible for generous subsidies to buy private insurance. For example, a married forty-year-old security guard whose wife stayed home to raise two kids could enroll in a non-group plan for less than $1,400 a year, according to the Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator. (The subsidy from the government would be $8,058.)

    In a situation like this, the firm has a strong financial incentive to junk its group coverage and dump its workers onto the taxpayer-subsidized plan. Under the new law, firms with more than fifty workers that don’t offer coverage would have to pay an annual fine of $2,000 for every worker they employ, excepting the first thirty. In this case, the security firm would incur a fine of $140,000 (seventy times two), but it would save $610,000 a year on health-care costs. If you owned this firm, what would you do? Unless you are unusually public spirited, you would take advantage of the free money that the government is giving out. Since your employees would see their own health-care contributions fall by more than $1,100 a year, or almost half, they would be unlikely to complain. And even if they did, you would be saving so much money you afford to buy their agreement with a pay raise of, say, $2,000 a year, and still come out well ahead.

    Even if the government tried to impose additional sanctions on such firms, I doubt it would work. The dollar sums involved are so large that firms would try to game the system, by, for example, shutting down, reincorporating under a different name, and hiring back their employees without coverage. They might not even need to go to such lengths. Firms that pay modest wages have high rates of turnover. By simply refusing to offer coverage to new employees, they could pretty quickly convert most of their employees into non-covered workers.

    The designers of health-care reform and the C.B.O. are aware of this problem, but, in my view, they have greatly underestimated it. According to the C.B.O., somewhere between eight and nine million workers will lose their group coverage as a result of their employers refusing to offer it. That isn’t a trifling number. But the C.B.O. says it will be largely offset by an opposite effect in which employers that don’t currently provide health insurance begin to offer it in response to higher demand from their workers as a result of the individual mandate. In this way, some six to seven million people will obtain new group coverage, the C.B.O. says, so the overall impact of the changes will be minor.

    Continued in article

    "Senate Bill Sets a Plan to Regulate Premiums," by Robert Pear, The New York Times, April 20, 2010 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/health/policy/21healt

    . . .

    Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a research center that advocates free-market health policies, said the Democrats’ proposal was unlikely to succeed in lowering insurance costs.

    “Capping premiums without recognizing the forces that are driving up costs would be like tightening the lid on a pressure cooker while the heat is being turned up,” Mrs. Turner said.

    Mrs. Feinstein said her bill would close what she described as “an enormous loophole” in the new law. And she said health insurance should be regulated like a public utility.

    “Water and power are essential for life,” Mrs. Feinstein said. “So they are heavily regulated, and rate increases must be approved. Health insurance is also vital for life. It too should be strictly regulated so that people can afford this basic need.”

    The 6 Biggest Whoppers In Gruber's ObamaCare Comic Book ---
    http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-obama-care/120114-728618-the-6-biggest-whoppers-in-gruber-obamacare-comic-book.htm

    . . .

    What the reviewers failed to mention is that the book is also chock-a-block with misinformation and outright falsehoods about the law Gruber helped construct — many of which Gruber himself exposed later on. Among the most glaring:

    • Gruber claims that for individuals and small firms qualifying for a tax credit, "this bill will lower your health care costs." But Gruber would later go on to tell several states the opposite. One of them was Wisconsin, where he said fewer than 6% would see lower premiums, and 41% would get hit with hikes of 50% or more. Meanwhile, millions learned that Gruber's claim was a fantasy last year, when they confronted ObamaCare's sky-high premiums after seeing their existing plans canceled.

    • Gruber declares that the law doesn't raise taxes on anyone "with incomes below $200,000 per year." Yet several of the dozens of tax hikes stuffed into the bill hit the middle class, or soon will. Americans for Tax Reform counted seven big ones.

    • In the section on the Cadillac tax, which depicts Gruber tooling around in a Caddy, he claims this tax would apply "only to the top few percent of health insurance plans" and would hit more only if premiums climb faster than inflation.

    But in videotaped comments, Gruber explains that the tax was purposely designed to start small and then eventually hit all employer plans, "essentially getting rid of the exclusion for employer-sponsored plans."

    • Gruber emphatically declares that ObamaCare will cut the federal deficit by $1 trillion over its second decade because "the deficit-reducing effects of this legislation grow over time."

    But all the Congressional Budget Office said was that a "rough outlook" for ObamaCare's second decade resulted in deficit cuts "in a broad range of around one-half percent of GDP." And that assumed the law was enacted exactly as written, and worked exactly as predicted, both of which have already failed to come true.

    When the Government Accountability Office ran the numbers using more realistic scenarios, it found ObamaCare adding significantly to the long-term deficit. The CBO, meanwhile, has given up making even short-term forecasts of ObamaCare's impact on the deficit.

    • Throughout the book, Gruber cites CBO projections of ObamaCare's effects on premiums and coverage, calling it "the best independent source for evaluating bills like the ACA." What he doesn't mention is that when the CBO developed its health care forecasting model in 2007, Gruber had a role in creating it. It even credits Gruber for his "helpful comments and feedback ... throughout the model's development."

    And in a 2011 paper, Gruber himself said that his own health care model "mirrors the CBO approach to modeling health reform."

    • Gruber says that if the law's many cost-control measures work as expected, "the ACA will end up solving our cost problem in the U.S." But earlier this year Gruber told the Washington Post that it was "misleading" to say ObamaCare will save money. "The law isn't designed to save money," he said. "It's designed to improve health, and that's going to cost money."


    Read More At Investor's Business Daily:
    http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-obama-care/120114-728618-the-6-biggest-whoppers-in-gruber-obamacare-comic-book.htm#ixzz3KllqGGBp

     

    Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

     

     




    Bob Jensen's health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm 

    Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/