That edge we are all walking along

We are all walking closer to the edge than we realize.  We never know when some event in our life will push over that edge.

What in your life caused you the most pain, what in your life still haunts you? From the time we are born who we are and how we react is being formed.  This starts when you are very young even before you are even able to speak.  You are starting to learn, reacting and adapting to everything around you.  Your life becomes a game of survival. 

It starts with how you are comforted, how you are fed, how people talk to you. 

 

Did your parent give you a bottle when you were crying, did mom give you a cookie every time you were upset.  Did your parents buy you that pony when you got bullied or tease to make up for it?  Did your dad tell you to stop crying and grow up?  Or did they say stop crying or I will give you something to cry about? 

All of this started to shape you for the future, develop your emotions and how to deal with them.  It began to form you understanding about how to handle relationships.  

Today when your wife or girl friend is upset with you do you rush out and buy her flowers or even better diamond earrings.  Who learned or was taught this behavior? Did she learn it or were you taught it?  Has it become expected?  On the other side of that coin, when your wife cries because of something that happened do you say oh just get over it it's not a big deal?  Or do you comfort her?

Women, when your husband or boy friend comes home from work and it is obvious he has a had a bad day, because  he snaps at the kids, snaps at you.  Do you say how was your day and he says it was fine, I don't want to talk about it, don't worry I can handle it.  Where did he learn this behavior?

Where did we get this behavior, these responses, this way of feeling and communicating?

Think about your life and look back at what happened when you were four, when you were ten or even sixteen.  Look around you and remember what you saw, what you were told about how you should respond.  For me I can trace me and my sibling’s behavior back to things we heard and were told as a kid.

For my sister she was told she had to be responsible for me and my brother and even to this day she talks about my brother’s crib being put in her room within days of his birth.  As an adult she became the fixer and co-dependent member of the family, she felt like she had to fix everyone's lives.   

My brother he was told he was worthless and was called the baby of the family and coddled.  He became just what he was told, he never held a job, was completely dependent on my parents until the day he died from the long term effects of drug and alcohol.

Me, I became the one who had to try to prove everyone wrong and could do anything and never ask for help.  I had to go out and conquer the world to get the approval I missed out on.  My mom would say "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about".  My dad would say " I skinned my lip worse than that and never quit whistling".   I broke both wrist and drove myself to the hospital and thought that was something to be proud of. As a consequence of this I never asked for help and always waited for the disappointment to happen, never looking at my part in all of it.  We all know where that got me.

Now we raise our kids the opposite way most of us were raised.  We hold their hand when they cross the street until they are too embarrassed to be seen with us.  We don't discipline them for bad behavior instead we on reward for what we were expected to do.  Every kid gets a trophy for showing up for baseball or soccer.  When kids get bullied we make more rules and the bullies never get their butts kicked like they should.  The parents protect the bullies, oh Johnny would never do that or they lie to cover it up.  Just look at the recent example of the girl who committed suicide after being bullied, after the suicide the bullies were back on FB telling the world they just don’t care another human died because of what they did.  Who is at fault here, the parents, the girls, society for coddling this type of behavior?

Look at the school in Kentucky who just stopped the post-game handshakes because of fights.  What about teaching them proper behavior?  Did they learn that behavior from the parents in the stands?  Come on we have all seen it.

Look at what this is doing to our kids.  Are we doing them any favors?  Where is the respect for their parents, for other adults?  They grow up to think the world owes them something; they get paid for showing up.   They want to start at the top at any job; the boss is always an idiot, they say “I am not working for minimum wage”.  “I am worth more”.   What happened to earning your way, showing you deserve it? 

 

Why is it we seem to have more people just snap?  Are there more or do we just hearing about them more often?  I think people are snapping more often because of the new way society operates.  It is just like we are now raising our children, without accountability or purpose.  If people lose hope they lose everything; there self-respect, value for human life, and the sense of right and wrong.  They simply fall off that edge. 

That edge we are all walking along.  How close is someone you know to the edge and who will save them from going over?  How many have to go over the edge before we do something?

I hope someone is listening

Belief... It's what's for dinner...

Off limits.. Politics and Religion

Have you heard “never talk about religion and politics at the dinner table”?  Why?  Are they afraid of hearing a new point of view and they may have to concede it is a good point of view?

No, we are afraid of upsetting someone and we cannot have a conversation and express our opinion.  

The problem here is we have all lost or abandoned our convictions about what we believe.  Can you image what America would look like if those before us were afraid to talk about their convictions?   

• We would have never read these words " Give me liberty or give me death"
• Would the Statue of Liberty be standing in the New York Harbor?
• We would never have stopped the slaughter of millions of Jews by Nazi Germany
• No one would give it a second thought when they heard the saying" I have a dream"
• Susan B. Anthony would have never said “Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.” 

  

We hear many leaders, celebrities and those in the media calling out those who don’t believe as they do. These may be people they don't know and have not spoken to but it doesn't stop them from repeatedly calling them stupid, evil, and worse. 

Does this reflect who we have become as a society? 

Have you thought about how this affects the minds of our young people, especially when you hear Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and even Oprah spewing hatred?  How do you think this impacts the lives of those in real need of leadership and motivation?  It certainly does not help the situation, it holds them back, deepens the racial divide in America. 

Take a look back in history and listen to the messages of leaders who shaped our nation and you begin to understand they had true passion.  Jefferson, Henry, and Lincoln to name a few.  When you hear Martin Luther King, whether you agree with him or not, you hear a man who held a deep convictions in his beliefs and goals.  His goal was to lift the black community up and out of the depths of despair and true oppression.  Today, when you listen to those who claim to have the same goals you hear a different message.  One that is all about them and is only meant to lift them up, using those they claim to speak for, as a pedestal to stand upon.

I see many people sitting on the sidelines waiting for their neighbor to do it for them.  While you are sitting on the sideline your world and freedoms are being taken away.  What rights have you begun to lose, those rights others gave their life for?  What other rights and freedoms are you willing to give up?

Have we already lost parts and piece of the first, second and fourteenth amendment?

The First Amendment

In the United States, the religious civil liberties are guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Second Amendment 

(Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms from infringement.

The Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the religious civil rights. Whereas the First Amendment secures the free exercise of religion, section one of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination, including on the basis of religion, by securing "the equal protection of the laws" for every person.

”Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.” Ben Franklin

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”   Henry David Thoreau 

Are you OK with these right being taken away, altered, amended, and infringed on?

You are giving away your rights and liberties for the perception of safety.  You now have all of your phone calls captured, your emails, we have drones in our skies, cameras on every corner, police departments with patrol cars in your neighborhood scanning license plates. 

 H.R. 347 (112th) Does this restrict your ability to protest?

‘(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

‘(3) knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds;

‘(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or

‘(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and

It's like a magician; while you are watching one hand he picks your pocket with the other.  We are not paying attention and we do not understanding the world around us.  We let others make decisions for us and tell us how to think; politicians, the news, advertisers, and paid spokesman.  Do you think they are going to tell you both sides so you can make an educated choice?   

The media is not the only place they are influencing our thinking and we are getting hit from all sides and at all ages.  Look at our education system and ask who is creating the curriculum your sons and daughters are being taught?  The people who are getting rich because of your blood, sweat and tears.  These are the very same people our forefathers fought against and warned us about.  Are they trying to shape the minds of our sons and daughters?  Why else would they want to control the education process instead of empowering teachers to design the curriculum?        

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.  John Lubbock

It does not matter what religion you are or if you are an atheist you have the freedom to believe what you believe without those rights being infringe on. Those are the principles our nation was founded on.

A police officer at Modesto Junior College in California told a patriotic libertarian student that it was against college rules for him to hand out copies of the U.S. Constitution on campus.

The Florida Atlantic University professor who reportedly told his students to write "Jesus" on a piece of paper and stomp on it
The Florida Atlantic University professor who reportedly told his students to write "Jesus" on a piece of paper and stomp on it

Sharon Sweet, a tenured professor at Brevard Community College in Melbourne, Florida, was placed on an unpaid leave of absence after allegations that she forced students to sign a "Vote for Obama" pledge

Michigan State University is investigating a video that purportedly shows a professor telling his class that Republicans were a bunch of “dying white people” who “raped this country” and wanted to prevent black people from voting.

What will the future look like for your children and your grandchildren?  We have lost our way and our freedom, we we have $17 trillion of debt, which means every man women and child owes $53,554 or $148,225 per tax payer, not counting the unfunded liabilities.  Now we all want more and more stuff, but at what cost.  Are you willing to pay that cost for that stuff and pass the cost on?  Can you imagine if the debt increases at the current rate where will we be in 10 year or 20 years?

So what can you do at this point or is it too late?

It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty, for yourselves, and not for me. I desire they shall be constitutionally preserved.  ― Abraham Lincoln

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”  ― George Bernard Shaw

I say it is never too late until it is, but it will take all of us and we must be accountable for the condition of our society and nation.  We are the cause and it starts and stops at the dinner table, start talking again, regain your passion and convictions.   Put down the cell phone, stop tweeting, and updating your status and talk, to each other.  Exchange ideas, thoughts, and passions.  Do you even know what the people sitting at your family dinner table believe?   Do you care more about those fake friends on Facebook; you know the ones, those are the people you don’t want to offend because they may not share your views and unfriend you.  Who cares, they are fake just like you views and updates.

I just read this post a few days ago and had to applaud her.  I guess she has finally had enough…

“Yup, gonna lose some people on my FB. Good riddance. I do NOT want to be associated with ANYONE who believes that childish, bullish behavior is an acceptable response to a constitutional, ethical, moral, and appropriate action by the House of Representatives.”

Do you have this type of conviction?

We have created a Goliath and we have become sheep and not David..   Are you the shepherd or the sheep?

Proverbs 13.4 The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

“No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.”    Anthony Bourdain

Don't let yourself be the pillar others stand on unless you are willing to give up your rights in place of theirs.   If you do not stand up for your convictions and beliefs soon you will be asked to follow others down a road of despair

We all have the same goals in mind, to prosper and leave our children a better place.  It should not matter is you are republican or a democrat, conservative or blue dog, tea party or liberal.  We can have a discussion, a respectful discussion, not a hateful discussion.  

Be the example... show our children and the world how to act and be the Cause and Effect.

So what's for dinner tonight?

Is our healthcare system broken or just....

Uh-oh it's broken.. 

Is our healthcare system broken more now than it was 10 years ago? If so will the Affordable Care Act fix it or make it worse?

Yes it is, and this is why.

The biggest problem is we have a shortage of doctors right now and the problem is getting worse. According to AAMC estimates, the United States faces a shortage of more than 90,000 physicians by 2020—a number that will grow to more than 130,000 by 2025. 

Congress capped the number of federally supported residency training positions 15 years ago with the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.  As a result of ongoing budget discussions, cuts to doctor training will worsen the physician shortage and jeopardize the health of patients around the nation.  It takes years to train a doctor.  For more doctors tomorrow, there must be increased funding for doctor training today.

If someone chooses to become a doctor and go to medical school it will take eight years to complete and then you have residency, you are looking at about ten years before you start making more than minimum wage.  By this time run up a bill of $419,738.  Then you spend the next 30 years paying it back. 

Note: My previous blog outlines how to pay for this increase in education funding.

Then imagine you are a doctor, with a huge debt, and you have the government or insurance companies telling you how much you can charge, what services you can perform and bill for.    

Next, will we have enough Hospital beds? 

No we do not have the infrastructure to support the projected 20 million people to be brought into the healthcare system all at once.  Our hospitals are already overburdened and many are having to cut back staff to meet the cost cutting guidelines outline by the ACA.

One example is the Cleveland Clinic is the region's largest employer which has roughly 42,000 workers.  The Clinic has told workers they will be laying off an unspecified number of employees as part of an overall, sweeping cost-reduction plan.  

The clinic spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said personnel represent 60 percent of the Clinic's budget.  She said early retirement would be offered to 3,000 eligible employees. Most vacant jobs are not being filled.  She attributed most of the budget reductions to looming changes accompanying the start of the Affordable Health Care Act.

 

Is it the Affordable Care Act the solution?

The problem we have here is the huge bureaucracy is being created to support it, which increases the cost of the ACA.  Now remember when the President said this will be self-funded by the cost savings?  Well that went out the window.  The CBO now say the net cost is now estimated to be $2.6 trillion over a true 10-year period

Do you also remember they said it will drive your cost down because the risk will be spread across the entire population?  They were banking on those 18 to 34, the problem is this group does not believe they need insurance, they are invincible.  Now we are left with those 35 and up, many in this group already had health insurance, now they are the group who will be footing the bill for everyone.  Keep in mind; most of your life-time medical expenses are in the last 5 years of your life.

A recent study by the National Center for Public Policy Research shows that:

About 3.7 million of those ages 18-34 will be at least $500 better off if they forgo insurance and pay the penalty.  More than 3 million will be $1,000 better off if they go the same route.

"President Obama promised a joint session of Congress in 2009 to spend $900 billion over ten years on his health care law: 'Now, add it all up, and the plan that I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.'  A Senate Budget Committee analysis (based on CBO estimates and growth rates) finds that that total spending under the law will amount to at least $2.6 trillion over a true 10-year period (from FY2014–23)—not $900 billion, as President Obama originally promised."

“In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500, (now they say you will pay $7,500 more) for a typical family per year….. We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States”.   

The ACA will also play a role in the slowdown in 2014, with hospitals working to hold down expensive re-admissions (or face the law’s penalties) and employers being given greater power to influence employee behavior through increased or discounted premiums—up to 50% in some cases.

What we have created a system that tells doctors what they can charge for and what services they can provide.  Then to pay for it the government taxes the medical equipment needed to deliver these services.  So that cost gets passed on to the doctor, he just has to eat that cost because he can't charge any more than the government tells him he can.

Can the US government be successful in healthcare?  That is easy, just look at the failure of the VA system and how so many patients go without treatment for years.

Today, more than 865,000 veterans around the nation waiting to receive disability benefits from the VA. Of those veterans, almost 576,000 are considered part of the VA backlog, meaning that they have been waiting for a decision for more than 125 days.

Yet you hear the media, politicians and others touting other countries, including the UK of having socialized medicine, how great it is, saying we should do the same.  They never seem to tell you the whole story.  Europe is bankrupt and their unemployment rate is higher than America.

In 2009 a report was release in the UK stated:

A UK health and social care watchdog has warned that the country’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse, and that many patients – particularly the elderly – are going to hospital for emergencies when they should have been seen much earlier.

“If we don’t start closing acute beds, the system is going to fall over. Emergency admissions through Accident and Emergency (A&E) are out of control in large parts of the country. That is totally unsustainable,” Prior said.

“The patient or resident is the weakest voice in the system. It is classic market failure. We can talk about competition until the cows come home but if you live in Norwich there is one hospital,” said Prior, the former chairman of Norwich University Hospitals foundation trust.

The Mid Staffordshire NHS trust is now in administration following reports of “appalling” care that led to the deaths of 400 patients between 2005 and 2008.

Can you afford this?  Are you starting to see how crazy this is?

  

Were there other options?

Yes...  and none of them involve the government.

The easiest and most cost effective solution is to use the system we already have in place. 

It would be pretty easy to change and use the competitive nature of business to drive down cost.  The only thing required is to ensure the state to state regulations are uniform and monitor compliance.

You open up the borders to insurance companies and let companies compete border to border for your business.  You may have thought that was already in place. Nope. 

Insurance firms in each state are protected from interstate competition by the federal McCarran-Ferguson Act (1945), which grants states the right to regulate health plans within their borders. Large employers who self-insure are exempt from these state regulations. The result has been a patchwork of 50 different sets of state regulations; the cost for an insurer licensed in one state to enter another state market is often high.

Let’s make your insurance portable and when you change jobs or states, your insurance can travel with you.  If the coverage is what you want and can afford, keep it, and if not start shopping.  Your employer would simply fund into your “Cafeteria Plan”, which already exist today, to pay for their contribution of your premium.  This would allow you to choose any level of insurance you want and give you control.  If you want the best, you would just pay more out of your pocket, is you only want the lowest you pay very little.

If you are self-employed you would access the same network as the large employers and this would spread the insurance risk even farther.

Privatize Medicare and Medicaid, creating an additional pool of insured to spread the risk across. These would be entry level programs to aid and cover those unable get coverage elsewhere.  This would be the same border to border insurance network and be the same HMO level many others in the market currently employed would choose. 

Enact tort reform so that attorneys are not filing frivolous lawsuits and therefore reduce the outrageous cost of malpractice insurance

·       The average expense of defending a physician against a medical liability claim in 2010 was $47,158—an increase of 62.7% since 2001.

·       In 2010, 63.7% of closed claims against physicians were dropped, withdrawn, or dismissed without any payment. Each of these claims costs an average of $26,851 to defend, accounting for more than one-third of the total annual defense expenses.

By doing so we would be able to cover every citizen with coverage we can all live with.  All this without the cost of the huge bureaucracy being created, keeping the government out of the insurance business.  Relieving the taxpayer of the $2.6 trillion tax burden.

Updates since original post

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359861/100-unintended-consequences-obamacare-andrew-johnson

Will Sheehan claims that when he tried to sign up for Obamacare and then register to opt out, he received an ominous warning. Sheehan’s full Facebook post reads;If true, the implementation of Obamacare is going to be a whole lot more draconian than Americans have been led to believe.

“I actually made it through this morning at 8:00 A.M. I have a preexisting condition (Type 1 Diabetes) and my income base was 45K-55K annually I chose tier 2 “Silver Plan” and my monthly premiums came out to $597.00 with $13,988 yearly deductible!!! There is NO POSSIBLE way that I can afford this so I “opt-out” and chose to continue along with no insurance.

DISTURBING REPORT — Obamacare Fines to be Seized From Bank Accounts?

I received an email tonight at 5:00 P.M. informing me that my fine would be $4,037 and could be attached to my yearly income tax return. Then you make it to the “REPERCUSSIONS PORTION” for “non-payment” of yearly fine. First, your drivers license will be suspended until paid, and if you go 24 consecutive months with “Non-Payment” and you happen to be a home owner, you will have a federal tax lien placed on your home. You can agree to give your bank information so that they can easy “Automatically withdraw” your “penalties” weekly, bi-weekly or monthly! This by no means is “Free” or even “Affordable.”

Citing the Heath and Human Services website, a report posted Wednesday at the Freedom Outpost says that under Obamacare, government agents can engage in “home health visits” for those in certain “high-risk” categories.

Those categories include:

• Families where mom is not yet 21;

• Families where someone is a tobacco user; • Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities, and • Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

According to HHS, the visits fall under what is called the “Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program” allegedly designed to “help parents and children,” and could impact millions of Americans.

Constitutional attorney and author Kent Masterson Brown said that despite what HHS says, the program is not “voluntary.”

“The eligible entity receiving the grant for performing the home visits is to identify the individuals to be visited and intervene so as to meet the improvement benchmarks,” he said. “A homeschooling family, for instance, may be subject to ‘intervention’ in ‘school readiness’ and ‘social-emotional developmental indicators.’ A farm family may be subject to ‘intervention’ in order to ‘prevent child injuries.’ The sky is the limit.”

Joshua Cook said that while the administration would claim the program only applies to those on Medicaid, the new law, by its own definition, has no such limitation.

“Intervention,” he added, quoting Brown, “may be with any family for any reason. It may also result in the child or children being required to go to certain schools or taking certain medications and vaccines and even having more limited – or no – interaction with parents. The federal government will now set the standards for raising children and will enforce them by home visits.”

I am listening