If Babies Had Guns They Wouldn’t Be Aborted. April 13, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Women, Right Wing, Gun Control/Violence.Tags: roger hollander, abortion, right to life, gun control, abby zimet, steve stockman
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Why the Newest Psychiatric Diagnostic Bible Will Be a Boon for Big Pharma February 12, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Mental Health.Tags: allen frances, apa, big pharma, bruce levine, dsm-5, health, mental health, mental illness, over-diagnosis, over-medication, psychiatry, psychiatry history, roger hollander
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Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Spectral-Design
The DSM-5 (the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) will be released by the APA in spring 2013. However, Frances states, “My best advice to clinicians, to the press, and to the general public—be skeptical and don’t follow DSM-5 blindly down a road likely to lead to massive over-diagnosis and harmful over-medication.”
For mental health professionals, this advice from the former chair of the DSM-4 taskforce is shocking—almost as if Colin Powell were to advise U.S. defense and state department employees not to blindly follow all administration orders. Particularly upsetting for Frances is the DSM-5’s pathologizing of normal human grief. On Jan. 7, 2013 in “Last Plea To DSM-5: Save Grief From the Drug Companies,” Frances wrote, “Making grief a mental disorder will be a bonanza for drug companies, but a disaster for grievers. The decision is also self-destructive for DSM-5 and further undermines the credibility of the APA. Psychiatry should not be mislabeling the normal.”
In the DSM-4, which Frances helped create, there had been a so-called “bereavement exclusion,” which stated that grieving the loss of a loved one, even when accompanied by symptoms of depression, should not be considered the psychiatric disorder of depression. Prior to the DSM-5, the APA had acknowledged that to have symptoms of depression while grieving the loss of a loved one is normal and not a disease. Come this spring, normal human grief accompanied by depression symptoms will be a mental disorder. Psychiatry’s official diagnostic battle is over. Mental illness gatekeepers such as Frances who are concerned about further undermining the credibility of the APA have lost, and mental illness expansionists —psychiatry’s “neocons”— have won.
Other New DSM-5 Mental Illnesses
The pathologizing of normal human grief is not the only DSM-5 embarrassment for Frances. (See his December 2012 blog: “DSM 5 Is Guide Not Bible—Ignore Its Ten Worst Changes.”) Get ready to hear about a new mental illness diagnosis for kids: “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder” (DMDD). Frances concludes DMDD “will turn temper tantrums into a mental disorder.”
The APA, somewhat embarrassed by the huge increase of children diagnosed with “pediatric bipolar disorder” in the last two decades, wanted to give practitioners a less severe diagnostic option for moody kids. However, Frances’ fear is that DMDD “will exacerbate, not relieve, the already excessive and inappropriate use of medication in young children….DSM 5 should not be adding a new disorder likely to result in a new fad and even more inappropriate medication use in vulnerable children.”
The DSM-5 also brings us “minor neurocognitive disorder”—the everyday forgetting characteristic of old age. For Frances, this will result in huge numbers of misdiagnosed people, a huge false positive population of people who are not at special risk for dementia. And he adds, “Since there is no effective treatment for this ‘condition’ (or for dementia), the label provides absolutely no benefit (while creating great anxiety) even for those at true risk for later developing dementia. It is a dead loss for the many who will be mislabeled.”
“Binge eating disorder” has also now made it to the major leagues as an official DSM-5 mental illness (moving up from a non-official mental illness status in Appendix B in DSM-4). What constitutes binge eating disorder? Frances reports, “Excessive eating 12 times in 3 months is no longer just a manifestation of gluttony and the easy availability of really great tasting food. DSM 5 has instead turned it into a psychiatric illness called binge eating disorder.”
Frances’ “10 Worst Changes” in the DSM-5 also includes the following: “First-time substance abusers will be lumped in definitionally with hardcore addicts despite their very different treatment needs and prognosis and the stigma this will cause.” DSM-5 also introduces us to the concept of “behavioral addictions,” which Frances points out “eventually can spread to make a mental disorder of everything we like to do a lot.” Additionally, Frances reports that “DSM 5 will likely trigger a fad of adult attention-deficit disorder leading to widespread misuse of stimulant drugs for performance enhancement and recreation and contributing to the already large illegal secondary market in diverted prescription drugs.” And Frances adds that “DSM 5 obscures the already fuzzy boundary between generalized anxiety disorder and the worries of everyday life.”
Brief History of the DSM
The first DSM was published in 1952 and lists 106 disorders (initially called “reactions”). DSM-2 was published in 1968, and the number of disorders increased to 182.
Both the first DSM and DSM-2 included homosexuality as a mental illness. In the 1970s, coinciding with the heightened significance of the DSM was the rise of gay activism. Thus, the elimination of homosexuality as a mental illness became the most visible psychiatric-political issue. Gay activists staged protests at American Psychiatric Association conventions. The APA was fiercely divided on this issue, but homosexuality as psychopathology was ultimately abolished and then excluded from the DSM-3, published in 1980.
Though homosexuality was dropped from DSM-3, diagnostic categories were expanded in the DSM-3 to 265, with several child disorders added that would soon become popular, including “oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD).
DSM-4, published in 1994, has 297 disorders and over 400 specific mental illness diagnoses. L.J. Davis, in the February 1997 issue of Harper’s, wrote a book review of the DSM-4 titled “The Encyclopedia of Insanity: A Psychiatric Handbook Lists a Madness for Everyone,” wrote that the DSM-4 “is some 886 pages long and weighs (in paperback) slightly less than three pounds; if worn over the heart in battle, it would probably stop a .50-caliber machine-gun bullet at 1,700 yards.”
Mental illness expansionism in the DSM-5 is no laughing matter for Allen Frances who reminds us: “New diagnoses in psychiatry are more dangerous than new drugs because they influence whether or not millions of people are placed on drugs—often by primary care doctors after brief visits.” Though the APA claims that DSM-5 will not significantly add to the DSM-4 total of mental illnesses, by one DSM-5 declaration alone—eliminating the bereavement exclusion to depression—they will have created millions more mentally ill people.
DSM: Dogma or Science?
How exactly do certain human behaviors become a mental illness? It comes down to the opinion of a board of trustees of the American Psychiatric Association. Davis writes in Harper’s, “First, and primarily, the DSM-4 is a book of dogma, though as theology it is pretty pedestrian stuff.”
Is the DSM dogma or, as establishment psychiatry would claim, science?
Two important aspects of a scientific instrument are validityand reliability. DSM scientific validity would mean that behaviors labeled as disorders and illnesses are in fact disorders and illnesses. And DSM reliability would mean that clinicians trained in DSM criteria agree on a diagnosis.
One historical example, a century before the first DSM, of a clearly invalid mental illness is drapetomania. Louisiana physician Samuel A. Cartwright was certain he had discovered a new mental disease. After studying runaway slaves who had been caught and returned to their owners, Cartwright concluded in an 1851 report to the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal that these slaves suffered from drapetomania, a disease causing them to flee.
While virtually all psychiatrists today rightfully mock the idea that fleeing slavery could be considered a valid mental illness, it was not until the 1970s that cultural upheaval and political protests persuaded the APA of the invalidity of homosexuality as a mental illness.
And while homosexuality was dropped from the 1980 DSM-3, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) was added, and ODD is now a popular child and adolescent diagnosis. The symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules” and “often argues with adults.” Is it any more valid to label teenage rebellion and anti-authoritarianism as a mental illness than it is to label runaway slaves as mentally ill?
Even if you believe that oppositional defiant disorder and all the other DSM disorders are in fact valid mental illnesses, for them to be considered scientific, they have to be able to be reliably diagnosed.
In a landmark 1973 study reported in Science, David Rosenhan sought to discover if psychiatry could distinguish between “normals” and those so “psychotic” they needed to be hospitalized. Eight pseudopatients were sent to 12 hospitals, all pretending to have this complaint: hearing empty and hollow voices with no clear content. All pseudopatients were able to fool staff and get hospitalized. More troubling, immediately after admission, the pseudopatients stated the voices had disappeared and they behaved as they normally would but none were immediately released. The length of their hospitalizations ranged from seven to 52 days, with an average of 19 days, each finally discharged diagnosed with “schizophrenia in remission.”
Psychiatry was embarrassed by Rosenhan and other critics and knew if the DSM wasn’t fixed, they would continue to be mocked as a science. The 1980 DSM-3 was dramatically altered to have concrete behavioral checklists and formal decision-making rules, which psychiatry hoped would solve its diagnostic reliability problem. But did it?
Herb Kutchins and Stuart A. Kirk are coauthors of two books investigating this claim of “new and improved” reliability of the DSM-3 and DSM-4: The Selling of DSM: Rhetoric of Science in Psychiatry (1992), and Making Us Crazy, DSM: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders(1997).
Kutchins and Kirk detail a major 1992 study done to examine the reliability of the supposedly new and improved DSM-3. This reliability study was conducted at six sites in the United States and one in Germany. Experienced mental health professionals were given extensive training in how to make accurate DSM diagnoses. Following this training, pairs of clinicians interviewed nearly 600 prospective patients. Because of the extensive training, Kutchins and Kirk note, “We would expect that diagnostic agreement would be considerably lower in normal clinical settings.” The results showed that the reliability of the DSM-3—even with this special training—was not superior to the earlier unreliable editions of DSM, and in some cases it was worse. Kutchins and Kirk summarize:
What this study demonstrated was that even when experienced clinicians with special training and supervision are asked to use DSM and make a diagnosis, they frequently disagree, even though the standards for defining agreement are very generous….[For example,] if one of the two therapists….made a diagnosis of Schizoid Personality Disorder and the other therapist selected Avoidant Personality Disorder, the therapists were judged to be in complete agreement of the diagnosis because they both found a personality disorder—even though they disagreed completely on which one!…Mental health clinicians independently interviewing the same person in the community are as likely to agree as disagree that the person has a mental disorder and are as likely to agree as disagree on which of the…DSM disorders is present.
Kutchins and Kirk report there is not a single major study showing high reliability in any version of the DSM, including the DSM-4.
Is there any good news about the DSM-5? The APA just announced that its price for the DSM-5 will be $199 a copy, and this is good news for Allen Frances who reacted: “People are not likely to rush out to buy a ridiculously expensive DSM-5 that has already been discredited as unsafe and scientifically unsound…The good news is that its lowered sales and lost credibility will limit the damage that can be done by DSM-5.”
A Fetus Is Not a Person if it Costs us Money, Says Catholic Church January 24, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Religion, Women.Tags: catholic church, fetus, kaili joy gray, religion, roger hollander
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You know how the Catholic Church is always going on and on … and on and freakin’ on … about the sanctity of life and also a bunch of vague concepts about liberty ‘n stuff? We can’t have abortion because every sperm is sacred. We can’t have insurance coverage for women’s health care because something about Taco Bell and freedom. We can’t even fund cancer screening because apparently Jesus was cool with women dying of undetected breast cancer.
And all of this—all of it—goes back to the Church’s insistence that life begins with your very first hell-worthy dirty thought and must be protected at all costs, despite all consequences, including, of course, the consequence of dead women, whose lives are not nearly as valuable as the “life” of an unborn fetus. In just the past year, the Church has called upon its faithful followers to march, to starve themselves, to go to jail, to even take up arms—all to protect those fetuses. No exceptions. None. Not if the fetus is already dead inside the womb. Not if the fetus is going to kill the actual living woman carrying it. No goddamned exceptions EVER.
Well, except for one: when it’s going to cost the Church money.
Turns out, when a man sues a Catholic hospital for malpractice because his wife and the twins she was carrying inside her died when she turned up in the emergency room and her doctor never bothered to answer a page—well, things get a little tricky. Yes, the Catholic hospital adheres to the strict Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church, as set forth by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And yes, those directives include the claim that “[t]he Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn” and a mandate to uphold “the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death.’” But come on. That obviously does not apply when Catholic Health Initiatives, the Church-affiliated organization that runs the Church-affiliated St. Thomas More Hospital where a young woman and her two unborn fetuses died, is the lead defendant in a lawsuit:
Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.
As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”
Thank you, counselor, for totally undermining everything the Catholic Church has ever said about women and health care and fetuses and the “sanctity of life,” just to save a buck, thereby confirming how very empty and meaningless all that rhetoric really is. Praise the Lord.
Walmart Relentless as Thousands Set to Lose Out in New Health Care Policy December 2, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Labor.Tags: health, health care, health insurance, healthcare, labor, labor rights, labor violations, labour, roger hollander, walmart, walmart wdarehouse, worker rights
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Box store implicated in federal wage-theft lawsuit
Walmart will continue to disappoint workers and labor rights activists in the coming months as it continues to ignore the current widespread workers’ strike and protest movement against its labor policies and implements a new health insurance program that will deny healthcare coverage to employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.
Photo via Facebook / Overpass Light Brigade.
Walmart is known for employing many of its workers part time and less than 30 hours per week, meaning a large majority of its employees is set to lose insurance through their employer.
In response to the Huffington Post, Walmart declined to disclose how many of its roughly 1.4 million U.S. workers will lose their insurance under the new policy, which is set to begin in January. Company spokesman David Tovar told Huffington that Walmart had “made a business decision” not to respond to questions from the paper.
“For Walmart employees, the new system raises the risk that they could lose their health coverage in large part because they have little control over their schedules. Walmart uses an advanced scheduling system to constantly alter workers’ shifts according to store traffic and sales figures,” the Huffington Post reports.
The discovery comes shortly after thousands of Walmart workers across the country walked off the job over the course of the week leading up to the national shopping day Black Friday. Workers continue to organize and speak out against the company’s attempts to silence employees’ complaints regarding the “company’s manipulation of hours and benefits, efforts to try to keep people from working full-time and their discrimination against women and people of color.”
In other Walmart labor news, Walmart warehouse workers in Southern California filed a petition in court this week in a bid to sue Walmart in a federal wage-theft lawsuit.
Walmart’s warehouses in California and Illinois have accused their employer of labor violations in the past; however, Friday’s filing was the first time Walmart has been directly implicated in the claims of abuse, rather than the company’s warehouse subcontractors, the Huffington Post reports.
“Walmart’s name does not appear on any of these workers paychecks, and the Walmart logo does not appear on the t-shirts they’re required to wear,” Michael Rubin, the workers’ lawyer, said on Friday. “But it has become increasingly clear that the ultimate liability for these workplace violations rests squarely on the shoulders of Walmart.”
Comments
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oldblue63
A) Why does anyone shop at Walmart? We shoppers could bring them around in a few weeks if we all just QUIT shopping there. They need our business …we are in the driver’s seat if we use our power. B) This is a perfect example of why health care should not be provided through employers. Part-time employment is extremely common and it makes the employee constantly up in the air about health care benefits…and many employers do not begin coverage until 3-6 months of employment anyway, so people are going without insurance for long periods. We are all FULL-TIME citizens and that is where we should be getting our health care benefits.
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gardenernorcal
We weren’t offered national health care.
Many people are forced to shop Walmart because when they move in many local shops close up. Before Walmart moved into my town we had a Wards, Penneys, KMart and Sears store and assorted small shops like dime stores. Today we have Walmart a couple high end furniture stores, 1$ Store, a Staples and a Home Depot.
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BuddhaNature
Your story is very similar to our town with one exception. Our town refused a Wal-Mart, so they built in everytown around us and sucked the business away. We too had a JC Penneys, and Sears. And they try and tell you that capitalism is about competition? I won’t shop in there. They keep their wages down to assure themsleves of a customer base.. Henry Ford paid his workers the then good wage of $5.00 dollars a day so that could afford to buy the car they were producing, Wal- Mart on the otherhand, under pays their workers to assure they can’t afford to shop anyplace else.
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natureschild3
“Henry Ford paid his workers the then good wage of $5.00 dollars a day so that could afford to buy the car”
yes! he expressed the opinion that assembly line workers should earn enough to buy an auto. also he insisted the employees show up in a christian church…and never, ever drink a beer or any alcohol–even at home.
then one day ford had a great business idea–”I can grow my own tires in honduras!” there, too, henry made sure the brown people of honduras appeared his his church, but adequate pay? “naw. we don’t need a bunch o’ darkies driving cars!” if you can, watch or read transcript here:
“Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City”
http://www.democracynow.org/20…
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Amurkan
Henry Ford was obliged to pay his workers $5 hr because they quit in droves when they realized that they would be demeaned by his new assembly line. He didn’t do this from the kindness of his heart. No one seems to know this.
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natureschild3
yes! and doesn’t that $5 an hour allowing his faithful to buy a model t speak volumes about the ongoing devaluation of the paper dollar?
“you load 16 tons of #9 coal and what do you get? “anothe day older and deeper in debt. “lord, don’tcha call me ’cause i can’t go…
“i owe my so-o-oul. . . to the company store!”
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gardenernorcal
Yeah Ford was not quite the big stalwart supporter of labor as he’s painted today.
But for years Ford also resorted to legal as well as thug tactics to prevent workers in Ford plants from unionizing.
In December 1937, the company was found in violation of the Wagner Act and was ordered to cease interfering with workers’ efforts to unionize. In 1941, when wages at Ford were in fact lower than the average wage for the industry, Henry Ford continued to insist that “we do not intend to submit to any union.”
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Yunzer
That’s what you get for living in Kalifornia. Even the pre-Wal-Mart stores you listed are big-box chains! Is there ANY part of you state that isn’t totally dominated by big chain-crap? The Summer of Love ended 43 years ago, and the last Doobie Brothers hit was 35 years ago. You should consider moving back here to the unfashionable mid-atlantic/northeast.
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gardenernorcal
But consider this pre Walmart my community of approximately 500,000 supported 4 large chain stores, whose employees were organized and received full benefits including health care and retirement. People had choices. I know I shopped Penneys for clothes, Wards for furniture, Sears for tools and KMart for miscellaneous little stuff. Today I have basically one choice Walmart and they say they can’t pay their employees a living wage or provide them with health care and other benefits. Why is that? They are one of the largest and most profitable US corporations.
And I was born in California. It’s my home. I wouldn’t be moving back to anywhere.
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nveric
You being Snobbish? Don’t you know the oceans are rising?
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Lorenzo LaRue
….And your only entry here is smart ass? Don’t you know that everyone doesn’t live on the beach?
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Yunzer
Fortunately all Wal-Marts are out in the public transit-hostile suburban sprawl-land and require a car, or incredibly crappy bus service to get there. I’ve sworn off all car use except for the occasional long-haul intercity, hiking or hang gliding trip.
The only reason I would set foot in a Wal-Mart of Sam’s Club would be to burn one to the ground. Don’t worry, I’d give plenty of warning to evacuate first.
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Dem. Socialism
“Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Share”.
(Wal-Mart’s new slogan.)
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N30rebel
Perhaps better?: “Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Shame.”
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Matthew Grebenc
Too immortal to care.
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gardenernorcal
“But it has become increasingly clear that the ultimate liability for these workplace violations rests squarely on the shoulders of Walmart.”
No actually the responsibility lies with all of us that worry more about the DOW every morning than we do the moral and humane treatment of every worker on this planet. When Reagan fired those air traffic controllers it wasn’t victory for anyone but big finance and Wall St..
I remember a time when the financial news was the last thing reported on and only given a few moments at that. We also didn’t have our TV waves saturated with ads by big pharma or attorneys. And is it just me or am I seeing more and more alcohol ads as well? Weren’t they outlawed? How is it some companies are allowed to campaign but Spuds Mckensey was torpedoed into oblivion.
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69Tuscany
The US and New Zealand are the only countries in the world who allow pharmaceutical advertising.
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adiantum
I think NZ recently disallowed it.
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Dem. Socialism
Also, gardenernorcal, have you noticed the amount of smoking done in movies lately? Rather blatant.
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Amurkan
The excuse given for smoking actors is the ‘in character’ thing. It’s baloney. The studios are complicit in the death later by millions of kids who start smoking because their film heroes do it. Disgusting and criminal.
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Richard_William_Posner
Let’s not overlook the amount of advertising being done by the military. It’s sickening.
There’s also more than one show that is being used as a propaganda tool to reinforce acceptance of the phony war on terror.
Additionally, the existence of chemtrails is being normalised through increasing visibility in programming and ads. Pay attention to scenes with nice blue skies in them.
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gardenernorcal
There’s a lot of infuriating advertising I didn’t mention like BP’s telling how their actions have improved life on the Gulf.
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Richard_William_Posner
Not being critical gardener, just reinforcing your observations.
The Bernaysian ministries of propaganda, both commercial and political (is there really any difference?) are manufacturing every aspect of our reality.
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gardenernorcal
I didn’t take it as a criticism. I find the additions to my list kind of interesting.
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Richard_William_Posner
I’m glad. Wasn’t really sure. And by the way, yes, I find those BP ads really outrageous and infuriating.
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Holygeezer
The whole stock market thing is pretty criminal. If one is honest and thinks about it at all, there is no way you can “earn” money by doing nothing, unless you are in effect stealing it from others somehow. The others in this case being workers. Some may say this is too simplistic of a view, but in essence, earning money from investments is glorified stealing.
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nveric
The 1970s changed reason into insanity.
Reagan was the tipper, not the gipper.
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gardenernorcal
Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.Under the policy, slated to take effect in January, Walmart also reserves the right to eliminate health care coverage for certain workers if their average workweek dips below 30 hours — something that happens with regularity and at the direction of company managers
…
Labor and health care experts portrayed Walmart’s decision to exclude workers from its medical plans as an attempt to limit costs while taking advantage of the national health care reform known as Obamacare. Among the key features of Obamacare is an expansion of Medicaid, the taxpayer-financed health insurance program for poor people. Many of the Walmart workers who might be dropped from the company’s health care plans earn so little that they would qualify for the expanded Medicaid program, these experts said.
How convenient the US’s largest employer can now foist off their overhead on the US taxpayer while receiving tax breaks and subsidies.
Interesting chart on this site:
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Doug_Terpstra
Yep, this was a predictable outcome of Obamacare, better known as “The Death Panel Profiteers Bailout Act.” WalMart employees (or rather, taxpayers) will now be forced to buy a defective-by-design product from protection racket extortionists that some call insurance companies. The full damage of this monstronsity won’t be understood until well after 2014, when its more onerous dictates are implemented.
Thanks, Obama.
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gardenernorcal
Not just that. Taxpayers will be subsidizing Walmart labor by providing them with medicaid, food stamps etc.. With their profits you’d think they could afford to pay their employees a living wage.
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Doug_Terpstra
Good point. The next logical step will be to lower corporate taxes even further and then repeal the Emancipation Proclamation.
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Mike_Strong
Yup! Repealing the Emancipation Proclamation is definitely on the agenda. Just slightly different job descriptions and this time with a paycheck. Sort of an upgrade on sharecropping.
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natureschild3
don’t just thank obama. top honors should go to lloyd blankfein, ceo of goldman sachs. lloyd is the real man behind the curtain pulling all sorts of political strings!
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Donna M Crane
Since my 41 year old son is already on ObamaCare for his pre-exisiting condition, I can assure you it is in no way defective, and is affordable. He is able to pay his monthly fee of $188 and co-pays even though he is only working about 30 hours a week currently. The excellent RX Plan that is included (unlike Medicare) allows him to get his medications at an affordable price that keeps him out of the hospital and able to work. In fact, as far as I can see, it works just like, and just as well as, my Medicare which I love. And in point of fact, we are already paying for all Walmart’s employees, even the full time ones who still qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Most WalMart employees already don’t have health insurance thru the company. In fact pretty much only the top levels have it. ObamaCares is already benefiting many people like my son and here in AZ we are using the Federal Government Set Up Exchange, since AZ isn’t going to set up its own Exchange…I consider this a benefit for us as I’m sure AZ wouldn’t do as well. Before you start kicking around ObamaCare, you should talk to some people who are on it.
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Inspector47
Thank you! As far as Walmart being thieves they are the free market, capitalism at it’s best! The republicans are crying about the four people who were killed overseas, four thousand Americans die monthly due to the lack of health care. My daughter wreaked on her bike, she is a college student, at 23, she was able to be on our health ins for her injuries thanks to Obama care.
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Doug_Terpstra
Thanks. I’m glad it’s working for you, at least for now. Most of the perceived good provisions of the 2,000-page bill were implemented upfront, pre-election, by design. 2014 is when the kickers come, too late, by design.
[Adding: Walmart is the post-election coalmine canary. Dropping employeer-provided healthcare will become a corporate rush by 2014. Obamacare did nothing to cap runaway drug and sickcare costs. Enjoy the good times.]
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Inspector47
Like the 80/20 law that forces insurance companies to spend 80 percent of premimuns on the policy holder or return it?
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Doug_Terpstra
Not quite. The rebate does not apply to individual policy holders as you imply, but to collective policy holders within a state. IOW, you don’t get a refund as an individual customer if you’re healthy and the company spends little or no money on you. This is why Obama’s Death-Panel Profiteers Bailout Act is more than 2,000 pages of lobbyese. It’s designed to confuse most people while enriching the investor class that Obama really works for.
The theoretical rebate would be a share of whatever amount your insurer spends on health care that is less than 80% of aggregate premiums paid in by all of its customers in that state, and you can imagine how corporate attorneys will game that one).
So, if your employer (like Walmart) drops you—as many or most will do in the next year or two—forcing you (or taxpayers for you) to pay thousands in out-of-pocket in premiums (no choice under the mandate), you might get a $158 rebate at the end of the year like the lucky lottery winners of North Carolina ($7 in Utah). Partly, this depends on how successful the death-panel gatekeepers are at rationing care or denying claims in a particular state.
http://www.examiner.com/articl…
See also: Welcome to the Future of Your Health Insurance. It Sucks.
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Inspector47
Death panels in the affordable care act, Sarah Palin won lie of the year with that one.
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Doug_Terpstra
Thank you. Apparently, my use of the term for private versus public was unclear. Palin’s use of the term for her GOP handlers referred to government “death panels”, to scare people away from universal coverage by single-payer (for the same people waving signs reading “keep your government hands off my Medicare”). My use of the term refers to the private profiteers (insurance racketeers), whose gatekeepers are a far worse form of “death panel” — denying claims and rationing care for profit only.
The denial of coverage by for-profit gatekeepers is routine and far worse here than what occurs in civilized countries with single-payer universal coverage like Sweden, Canada and the UK. And Obamacare rejected single-payer and any public option thus institutionalizing profiteering by private racketeers with a captive market — with almost no limits on escalating costs, including prescription drugs that are explicitly protected from market competition (free trade is remarkably selective). It is the worst form of crony capitalism endorsed by the conservative Supine Court.
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wildcarrots
Well said.
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wildcarrots
I’m really glad it is working for your son, no doubt it will work better than standard insurance for some groups. Just remember that the system you are comparing it with really sucks. If you really think it is good try comparing it to one of the other systems in the world that deliver better care at half the cost.
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Kenneth C. Fingeret
Hello gardenernorcal,
Walfart has been doing this for decades. As I understand it part of the paperwork when you are hired is getting government assistance due to your lack of a living wage salary that does not include much if anything in the way of benefits. This makes you eligible for different programs such as Medicade, AFDC, etc. A special Walfart tax of 500% of all government payments that are made to Walfart employees due to lack of salary and benefits given to their employees. should be the minimum required for Walfart to pay. I call them Walfart because they leave a bad odor wherever they are located!
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nveric
Blood sucking death mongers run Walmart, their oozing puss filled sores covering their faces, acidic drool plops from their crusted puffy lips burning holes to the center of the Earth, necks as short as their ‘other’ parts and as wide as their hips, and below are stubby trunk-like legs incapable of independent motion.
You see, there’s no body and no heart for these Borg-like little people spawned from Sam Walton and an unknown surrogate, most likely an alien life-form kept in an undisclosed location in Nevada.
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wildcarrots
The U.S. is going to be a very unhealthy place to live and shop when you consider the number of people that do not have access to healthcare. Disease does not respect ideological boundaries. .
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Gubdeb
Look around. It already is.
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Poet
I don’t know who designed the portable lit sign, but it gives the graffiti of protest an entirely new frontier (drive through territory after or just before dark) and flexibility (how difficult would it be to change the message to “Tax the Wealthy for a Change”, or “Shrink the Pentagon Not Social Security”?).
It can be easily moved and, depending on the time, and location reach many people with a simple message they cannot avoid. Flash mobs just got an entirely new twist unique to the US motoring culture!
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69Tuscany
Great idea.
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d9rich
It’s been done with hand-made signs for over a decade or more.
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Poet
If by “hand made signs” you mean electrically lit like the one in the picture, then great–I have never seen any such example before the above photo.
What I meant to convey was that most “hand made signs” are invisible after dark to all but the cars slowing to a stop at a traffic light.
That one in the picture cannot be missed by passing motorists on their way to nowhere and as such expands both the potential audience and time of exposure to whatever message an activist wishes to present.
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81 comments
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41 reactions
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oldblue63•a day ago A) Why does anyone shop at Walmart? We shoppers could bring them around in a few weeks if we all just QUIT shopping there. They need our business …we are in the driver’s seat if we use our power. B) This is a perfect example of why health care should not be provided through employers. Part-time employment is extremely common and it makes the employee constantly up in the air about health care benefits…and many employers do not begin coverage until 3-6 months of employment anyway, so people are going without insurance for long periods. We are all FULL-TIME citizens and that is where we should be getting our health care benefits.
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gardenernorcal oldblue63•a day ago We weren’t offered national health care.
Many people are forced to shop Walmart because when they move in many local shops close up. Before Walmart moved into my town we had a Wards, Penneys, KMart and Sears store and assorted small shops like dime stores. Today we have Walmart a couple high end furniture stores, 1$ Store, a Staples and a Home Depot.
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BuddhaNature gardenernorcal•11 hours ago Your story is very similar to our town with one exception. Our town refused a Wal-Mart, so they built in everytown around us and sucked the business away. We too had a JC Penneys, and Sears. And they try and tell you that capitalism is about competition? I won’t shop in there. They keep their wages down to assure themsleves of a customer base.. Henry Ford paid his workers the then good wage of $5.00 dollars a day so that could afford to buy the car they were producing, Wal- Mart on the otherhand, under pays their workers to assure they can’t afford to shop anyplace else.
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natureschild3 BuddhaNature•9 hours ago “Henry Ford paid his workers the then good wage of $5.00 dollars a day so that could afford to buy the car”
yes! he expressed the opinion that assembly line workers should earn enough to buy an auto. also he insisted the employees show up in a christian church…and never, ever drink a beer or any alcohol–even at home.
then one day ford had a great business idea–”I can grow my own tires in honduras!” there, too, henry made sure the brown people of honduras appeared his his church, but adequate pay? “naw. we don’t need a bunch o’ darkies driving cars!” if you can, watch or read transcript here:
“Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City”
http://www.democracynow.org/20…
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Amurkan natureschild3•7 hours ago Henry Ford was obliged to pay his workers $5 hr because they quit in droves when they realized that they would be demeaned by his new assembly line. He didn’t do this from the kindness of his heart. No one seems to know this.
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natureschild3 Amurkan•6 hours ago yes! and doesn’t that $5 an hour allowing his faithful to buy a model t speak volumes about the ongoing devaluation of the paper dollar?
“you load 16 tons of #9 coal and what do you get? “anothe day older and deeper in debt. “lord, don’tcha call me ’cause i can’t go…
“i owe my so-o-oul. . . to the company store!”
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gardenernorcal natureschild3•6 hours ago Yeah Ford was not quite the big stalwart supporter of labor as he’s painted today.
But for years Ford also resorted to legal as well as thug tactics to prevent workers in Ford plants from unionizing.
In December 1937, the company was found in violation of the Wagner Act and was ordered to cease interfering with workers’ efforts to unionize. In 1941, when wages at Ford were in fact lower than the average wage for the industry, Henry Ford continued to insist that “we do not intend to submit to any union.”
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Yunzer gardenernorcal•21 hours ago That’s what you get for living in Kalifornia. Even the pre-Wal-Mart stores you listed are big-box chains! Is there ANY part of you state that isn’t totally dominated by big chain-crap? The Summer of Love ended 43 years ago, and the last Doobie Brothers hit was 35 years ago. You should consider moving back here to the unfashionable mid-atlantic/northeast.
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gardenernorcal Yunzer•11 hours ago But consider this pre Walmart my community of approximately 500,000 supported 4 large chain stores, whose employees were organized and received full benefits including health care and retirement. People had choices. I know I shopped Penneys for clothes, Wards for furniture, Sears for tools and KMart for miscellaneous little stuff. Today I have basically one choice Walmart and they say they can’t pay their employees a living wage or provide them with health care and other benefits. Why is that? They are one of the largest and most profitable US corporations.
And I was born in California. It’s my home. I wouldn’t be moving back to anywhere.
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nveric Yunzer•14 hours ago You being Snobbish? Don’t you know the oceans are rising?
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Lorenzo LaRue nveric•6 hours ago ….And your only entry here is smart ass? Don’t you know that everyone doesn’t live on the beach?
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Yunzer oldblue63•21 hours ago Fortunately all Wal-Marts are out in the public transit-hostile suburban sprawl-land and require a car, or incredibly crappy bus service to get there. I’ve sworn off all car use except for the occasional long-haul intercity, hiking or hang gliding trip.
The only reason I would set foot in a Wal-Mart of Sam’s Club would be to burn one to the ground. Don’t worry, I’d give plenty of warning to evacuate first.
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Dem. Socialism•a day ago “Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Share”.
(Wal-Mart’s new slogan.)
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N30rebel Dem. Socialism•6 hours ago Perhaps better?: “Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Shame.”
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Matthew Grebenc Dem. Socialism•15 hours ago Too immortal to care.
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gardenernorcal•a day ago “But it has become increasingly clear that the ultimate liability for these workplace violations rests squarely on the shoulders of Walmart.”
No actually the responsibility lies with all of us that worry more about the DOW every morning than we do the moral and humane treatment of every worker on this planet. When Reagan fired those air traffic controllers it wasn’t victory for anyone but big finance and Wall St..
I remember a time when the financial news was the last thing reported on and only given a few moments at that. We also didn’t have our TV waves saturated with ads by big pharma or attorneys. And is it just me or am I seeing more and more alcohol ads as well? Weren’t they outlawed? How is it some companies are allowed to campaign but Spuds Mckensey was torpedoed into oblivion.
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69Tuscany gardenernorcal•a day ago The US and New Zealand are the only countries in the world who allow pharmaceutical advertising.
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adiantum 69Tuscany•8 hours ago I think NZ recently disallowed it.
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Dem. Socialism gardenernorcal•a day ago Also, gardenernorcal, have you noticed the amount of smoking done in movies lately? Rather blatant.
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Amurkan Dem. Socialism•7 hours ago The excuse given for smoking actors is the ‘in character’ thing. It’s baloney. The studios are complicit in the death later by millions of kids who start smoking because their film heroes do it. Disgusting and criminal.
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Richard_William_Posner gardenernorcal•7 hours ago Let’s not overlook the amount of advertising being done by the military. It’s sickening.
There’s also more than one show that is being used as a propaganda tool to reinforce acceptance of the phony war on terror.
Additionally, the existence of chemtrails is being normalised through increasing visibility in programming and ads. Pay attention to scenes with nice blue skies in them.
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gardenernorcal Richard_William_Posner•6 hours ago There’s a lot of infuriating advertising I didn’t mention like BP’s telling how their actions have improved life on the Gulf.
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Richard_William_Posner gardenernorcal•5 hours ago Not being critical gardener, just reinforcing your observations.
The Bernaysian ministries of propaganda, both commercial and political (is there really any difference?) are manufacturing every aspect of our reality.
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gardenernorcal Richard_William_Posner•4 hours ago I didn’t take it as a criticism. I find the additions to my list kind of interesting.
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Richard_William_Posner gardenernorcal•43 minutes ago I’m glad. Wasn’t really sure. And by the way, yes, I find those BP ads really outrageous and infuriating.
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Holygeezer gardenernorcal•a day ago The whole stock market thing is pretty criminal. If one is honest and thinks about it at all, there is no way you can “earn” money by doing nothing, unless you are in effect stealing it from others somehow. The others in this case being workers. Some may say this is too simplistic of a view, but in essence, earning money from investments is glorified stealing.
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nveric gardenernorcal•14 hours ago The 1970s changed reason into insanity.
Reagan was the tipper, not the gipper.
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gardenernorcal•a day ago Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.Under the policy, slated to take effect in January, Walmart also reserves the right to eliminate health care coverage for certain workers if their average workweek dips below 30 hours — something that happens with regularity and at the direction of company managers
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Labor and health care experts portrayed Walmart’s decision to exclude workers from its medical plans as an attempt to limit costs while taking advantage of the national health care reform known as Obamacare. Among the key features of Obamacare is an expansion of Medicaid, the taxpayer-financed health insurance program for poor people. Many of the Walmart workers who might be dropped from the company’s health care plans earn so little that they would qualify for the expanded Medicaid program, these experts said.
How convenient the US’s largest employer can now foist off their overhead on the US taxpayer while receiving tax breaks and subsidies.
Interesting chart on this site:
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Doug_Terpstra gardenernorcal•a day ago Yep, this was a predictable outcome of Obamacare, better known as “The Death Panel Profiteers Bailout Act.” WalMart employees (or rather, taxpayers) will now be forced to buy a defective-by-design product from protection racket extortionists that some call insurance companies. The full damage of this monstronsity won’t be understood until well after 2014, when its more onerous dictates are implemented.
Thanks, Obama.
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gardenernorcal Doug_Terpstra•a day ago Not just that. Taxpayers will be subsidizing Walmart labor by providing them with medicaid, food stamps etc.. With their profits you’d think they could afford to pay their employees a living wage.
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Doug_Terpstra gardenernorcal•20 hours ago Good point. The next logical step will be to lower corporate taxes even further and then repeal the Emancipation Proclamation.
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Mike_Strong Doug_Terpstra•4 hours ago Yup! Repealing the Emancipation Proclamation is definitely on the agenda. Just slightly different job descriptions and this time with a paycheck. Sort of an upgrade on sharecropping.
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natureschild3 Doug_Terpstra•9 hours ago don’t just thank obama. top honors should go to lloyd blankfein, ceo of goldman sachs. lloyd is the real man behind the curtain pulling all sorts of political strings!
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Donna M Crane Doug_Terpstra•16 hours ago Since my 41 year old son is already on ObamaCare for his pre-exisiting condition, I can assure you it is in no way defective, and is affordable. He is able to pay his monthly fee of $188 and co-pays even though he is only working about 30 hours a week currently. The excellent RX Plan that is included (unlike Medicare) allows him to get his medications at an affordable price that keeps him out of the hospital and able to work. In fact, as far as I can see, it works just like, and just as well as, my Medicare which I love. And in point of fact, we are already paying for all Walmart’s employees, even the full time ones who still qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Most WalMart employees already don’t have health insurance thru the company. In fact pretty much only the top levels have it. ObamaCares is already benefiting many people like my son and here in AZ we are using the Federal Government Set Up Exchange, since AZ isn’t going to set up its own Exchange…I consider this a benefit for us as I’m sure AZ wouldn’t do as well. Before you start kicking around ObamaCare, you should talk to some people who are on it.
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Inspector47 Donna M Crane•14 hours ago Thank you! As far as Walmart being thieves they are the free market, capitalism at it’s best! The republicans are crying about the four people who were killed overseas, four thousand Americans die monthly due to the lack of health care. My daughter wreaked on her bike, she is a college student, at 23, she was able to be on our health ins for her injuries thanks to Obama care.
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Doug_Terpstra Donna M Crane•9 hours ago Thanks. I’m glad it’s working for you, at least for now. Most of the perceived good provisions of the 2,000-page bill were implemented upfront, pre-election, by design. 2014 is when the kickers come, too late, by design.
[Adding: Walmart is the post-election coalmine canary. Dropping employeer-provided healthcare will become a corporate rush by 2014. Obamacare did nothing to cap runaway drug and sickcare costs. Enjoy the good times.]
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Inspector47 Doug_Terpstra•6 hours ago Like the 80/20 law that forces insurance companies to spend 80 percent of premimuns on the policy holder or return it?
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Doug_Terpstra Inspector47•5 hours ago Not quite. The rebate does not apply to individual policy holders as you imply, but to collective policy holders within a state. IOW, you don’t get a refund as an individual customer if you’re healthy and the company spends little or no money on you. This is why Obama’s Death-Panel Profiteers Bailout Act is more than 2,000 pages of lobbyese. It’s designed to confuse most people while enriching the investor class that Obama really works for.
The theoretical rebate would be a share of whatever amount your insurer spends on health care that is less than 80% of aggregate premiums paid in by all of its customers in that state, and you can imagine how corporate attorneys will game that one).
So, if your employer (like Walmart) drops you—as many or most will do in the next year or two—forcing you (or taxpayers for you) to pay thousands in out-of-pocket in premiums (no choice under the mandate), you might get a $158 rebate at the end of the year like the lucky lottery winners of North Carolina ($7 in Utah). Partly, this depends on how successful the death-panel gatekeepers are at rationing care or denying claims in a particular state.
http://www.examiner.com/articl…
See also: Welcome to the Future of Your Health Insurance. It Sucks.
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Inspector47 Doug_Terpstra•3 hours ago Death panels in the affordable care act, Sarah Palin won lie of the year with that one.
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Doug_Terpstra Inspector47•2 hours ago Thank you. Apparently, my use of the term for private versus public was unclear. Palin’s use of the term for her GOP handlers referred to government “death panels”, to scare people away from universal coverage by single-payer (for the same people waving signs reading “keep your government hands off my Medicare”). My use of the term refers to the private profiteers (insurance racketeers), whose gatekeepers are a far worse form of “death panel” — denying claims and rationing care for profit only.
The denial of coverage by for-profit gatekeepers is routine and far worse here than what occurs in civilized countries with single-payer universal coverage like Sweden, Canada and the UK. And Obamacare rejected single-payer and any public option thus institutionalizing profiteering by private racketeers with a captive market — with almost no limits on escalating costs, including prescription drugs that are explicitly protected from market competition (free trade is remarkably selective). It is the worst form of crony capitalism endorsed by the conservative Supine Court.
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wildcarrots Doug_Terpstra•an hour ago Well said.
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wildcarrots Donna M Crane•an hour ago I’m really glad it is working for your son, no doubt it will work better than standard insurance for some groups. Just remember that the system you are comparing it with really sucks. If you really think it is good try comparing it to one of the other systems in the world that deliver better care at half the cost.
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Kenneth C. Fingeret gardenernorcal•7 hours ago Hello gardenernorcal,
Walfart has been doing this for decades. As I understand it part of the paperwork when you are hired is getting government assistance due to your lack of a living wage salary that does not include much if anything in the way of benefits. This makes you eligible for different programs such as Medicade, AFDC, etc. A special Walfart tax of 500% of all government payments that are made to Walfart employees due to lack of salary and benefits given to their employees. should be the minimum required for Walfart to pay. I call them Walfart because they leave a bad odor wherever they are located!
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nveric gardenernorcal•14 hours ago Blood sucking death mongers run Walmart, their oozing puss filled sores covering their faces, acidic drool plops from their crusted puffy lips burning holes to the center of the Earth, necks as short as their ‘other’ parts and as wide as their hips, and below are stubby trunk-like legs incapable of independent motion.
You see, there’s no body and no heart for these Borg-like little people spawned from Sam Walton and an unknown surrogate, most likely an alien life-form kept in an undisclosed location in Nevada.
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wildcarrots•a day ago The U.S. is going to be a very unhealthy place to live and shop when you consider the number of people that do not have access to healthcare. Disease does not respect ideological boundaries. .
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Gubdeb wildcarrots•a day ago Look around. It already is.
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Poet•a day ago I don’t know who designed the portable lit sign, but it gives the graffiti of protest an entirely new frontier (drive through territory after or just before dark) and flexibility (how difficult would it be to change the message to “Tax the Wealthy for a Change”, or “Shrink the Pentagon Not Social Security”?).
It can be easily moved and, depending on the time, and location reach many people with a simple message they cannot avoid. Flash mobs just got an entirely new twist unique to the US motoring culture!
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Poet d9rich•8 hours ago If by “hand made signs” you mean electrically lit like the one in the picture, then great–I have never seen any such example before the above photo.
What I meant to convey was that most “hand made signs” are invisible after dark to all but the cars slowing to a stop at a traffic light.
That one in the picture cannot be missed by passing motorists on their way to nowhere and as such expands both the potential audience and time of exposure to whatever message an activist wishes to present.
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They Are Coming for Your Birth Control: Condoms are “Murder” and Contraception is “Rape” November 19, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Women.Tags: birth control, condoms, contraception, family planning, reproductive rights, robin marty, roger hollander, women health, women's rights
2 comments
Photo: 100 Red Flags.
by Robin Marty, Senior Political Reporter, RH Reality Check
November 16, 2012 – 10:00am (Print)
Note: Think that anti-choice politicians and activists aren’t trying to outlaw contraception? Think again. Follow along in an ongoing series that proves beyond a doubt that they really are coming for your birth control.
How do you make an extreme anti-choice advocate angry? Suggest that not being forced to have one child after another after another after another might be a positive goal toward which to work.
Human Life International is aghast at the idea that global groups might think it would be beneficial to both women and their families that they have some control over when they get pregnant, spacing children far enough apart to be able to recover physically between births and actually care for the children that they give birth to. In fact, the idea is so upsetting, they are up at arms with the assumption that their tax dollars might somehow go to fund this — despite the fact that it would save money in additional medical costs.
Via LifesiteNews:
Declaring birth control a right means “everyone else must pay for…the new right” Clowes told LifeSiteNews, “even if those forced to pay for it may object to it on moral grounds. This violates the more basic human right of freedom of conscience, which has for some time now been dispensed with by UN ‘human rights’ champions.”
The UNFPA estimates “222 million women have an unmet need for contraception” and that providing this “need” will cost $4.1 billion.
Providing such funds, the report states, “would save approximately $5.7 billion in maternal and newborn health services” – an argument similar to that made by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in the United States.
The article claims that IUDs and hormonal contraception both work to keep fertilized eggs from implanting, causing “abortions.” But even more interesting is the comments, where even barrier methods of contraception is considered “murder” of children. As one commenter stated, condom use is “murder in potential as much as a conceiveved [sic] fetus is human life in potential.”
The answer to avoiding all murder is still the same: sex only in marriage, and while using natural family planning. Anything else is “rape.”
Yes, you heard me, they are redefining rape again.
For those having sexual relations within natural marriage and want to regulate births, there is natural family planning. Those having sex outside of marriage, be prepared for an unfulfilled life where sexual intimacy is surrounded by unnatural, unreliable, and deadly methods of birth control and is typically an expression of consensual, mutual objectification- which, for all intents and purposes is a form of rape.
The only thing seem to enjoy more than defining rape? Apparently, coming up with new reasons to come for your birth control, of course.
Follow Robin Marty on Twitter, @robinmarty
Stop the covert attempt to criminalize abortion September 20, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Health, Women.Tags: abortion, anti-choice, Canada, pro choice, reproductive rights, Stephen Harper, women's health, women's rights
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I just signed on to this urgent campaign to defend women’s reproductive
rights in Canada. This is an important issue and I hope you’ll join me:
http://www.leadnow.ca/defend-our-reproductive-rights
In
just 48 hours, our MPs will debate a Conservative motion that the Canadian
Medical Association, representing 70,000 doctors, is calling a backdoor attempt
to criminalize abortion.
In 1988, the Supreme Court of
Canada ruled that the abortion provision of the Criminal Code was
unconstitutional. But this week, Parliament will be debating a motion
that would threaten our reproductive rights – and the rights of our friends,
daughters, mothers, sisters, and partners.
Prime Minister Harper has
chosen to allow this motion to go forward to a free vote in Parliament, so every
MP must decide whether or not they will stand up for the rights that women and
our allies have been fighting to protect for decades.
We need a
huge public outcry to show our MPs that Canadians will not tolerate this attack
on women’s rights. Please click here to send an urgent message to your MP to
defeat Motion-312 now – then forward this to
everyone.
http://www.leadnow.ca/defend-our-reproductive-rights
Thank
you,
Roger Hollander



![religion bigot[1]](http://rogerhollander.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/religion-bigot1.png?w=300&h=300)




Angelina Jolie’s Cancer Testing and Corporate Control of Human Genes May 14, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Women.Tags: andrea germanos, angelina jolie, bcra gene, brca, brca1, breast cancer, cancer, corporate control, double mastectomy, gene patents, genetic testing, human genes, myriad genetics, ovarian cancer, patent office, roger hollander, supreme court
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The BRCA tests the actress had may be unavailable to thousands because they are held under patents
Actress Angelina Jolie’s announcement on Tuesday that she underwent a double mastectomy following genetic testing underscores the broad implications of an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether corporations can own human genes.
Jolie announced that she had a double mastectomy after genetic testing revealed she carried “a ‘faulty’ gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases [the] risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.” The mother of six, whose own mother died after a nearly 10-year battle with cancer at 56, made the decision to have the surgery “to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much [she] could.”
In an op-ed in Tuesday’s New York Times, Jolie writes:
That testing is done only by Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics because they own the patents for those genes, patents the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) say are unconstitutional and invalid because “genes are the foundation of life” and should not be under corporate control. The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing in on that fight.
As we reported,
Thomas Hedges added that Myriad’s ownership of the genes “guarantees monopoly control over research into cancer. It discourages many other researchers from exploring treatment, something that could ultimately stunt our capacity for medical advances.” The monopoly also provides insured profits for Myriad.
Jolie references the high cost of the testing, and Ellen Matloff, director of cancer genetic counseling at the Yale Cancer Center, has said:
Yale Alumni Magazine adds:
A decision in the lawsuit in expected this summer.