My View

Random ruminations from your resident curmudgeon...

In what has to be the most delicious irony in recent memory, Democrat John Larson, a Representative from Connecticut has said that subjecting members of Congress and their staff to coverage under Obamacare is "simply not fair". Now you may recall that when Congress was ramming socialized medicine down the throats of unwilling Americans, that legislative body exempted themselves from coverage under Obamacare. This gave opponents ample ammunition to point out the hypocrisy of Congress in addition to the inferiority of the coverage under this disaster. Congress eventually relented and added a provision to the bill mandating that members of Congress and their staff would get their coverage through Obamacare. Now that it is time to sign up for socialized medicine, Rep. Larson says that it is simply just not fair that they have to be subjected to the same shoddy healthcare that was foisted on all Americans. Not only is this beautifully ironic, but it sadly points to one of the great problems that we have in our country today- a ruling elite that have the belief that they are above the laws and regulations they dump on the American public. So here is a question that I would ask any lawmaker that voted for the travesty of Obamacare: if it is "not fair", if it is so bad, then why did you vote to impose this debacle on the American public?

Show me someone that can neatly fold a fitted sheet and I will show you a witch.

Because of the onerous burdens of Obamacare and the maze of insurance regulations and requirements, there is emerging a new trend among some doctors that practice family medicine. That trend is to dump all insurance companies and bill patients directly for services. That practice is called "concierge" medicine where the physician charges the patient a flat monthly fee that gives them unlimited access to the doctor for any services that the family physician can provide. Dr. Doug Nunamaker of Wichita, KS, converted his practice to this model, and he charges adults a flat fee of $50 per month up to age 44; $100 per month for adults 45 and over; and $10 per month for children. He has also negotiated for outside services that his office cannot provide. For example, an MRI costs $400 as opposed to the more than $2,000 billed to an insurance company. Cholesterol screening tests cost $3 versus the $90 billed to insurance companies. Most of Dr. Nunamaker's patients carry a high deductible health insurance policy for emergencies or serious illness, but you can see the cost savings by not having to deal with insurance and government red tape. This is indicative of the overhead, not to mention the onerous reporting requirements, that insurance companies and the government place on physicians and how it contributes to the rising cost of health care in this country.

I quit my relationship with the gym. We were just not working out.

This past week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona cannot impose citizenship verification requirements as part of the federal voting registration form. Proponents of election integrity are concerned that they lost this decision, but that is far from reality. The decision actually grants more power to each state to determine the procedures for voting in local, state, and federal elections. While the Supremes ruled that Arizona, or any state, cannot change the federal requirements, which is what Arizona's proof of citizenship requirement did, they allowed each state to set their own state standard. There is a federal voter registration form, and there is a voter registration form for each state. States now have the right to keep those federal forms stored and only use their state registration form if they so desire. And if a state requirement is to provide proof of citizenship, then that is perfectly legal according to the court. What I find most interesting about this is how those on the left have fought tooth and nail against citizenship and identification requirements for those that vote in our elections. Fortunately, the Supreme Court said that each state can enforce those requirements as they see fit. Now it will be interesting to see which states do exactly that.

I have a condition that prevents me from losing weight. I get hungry.

And that, my friends, is my view.