Tuesday, October 26, 2004
The preacher's advice to the president
While you were wondering what to expect next from the Vietnamese Swift Boat Lesbians for Truth, Honor, Justice and the American Way, the people who know more than you do were talking with God about the current war.
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says he warned President Bush before U.S. troops invaded Iraq that the United States would suffer casualties, but that Bush responded, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
[Stop a minute for a Reality Check on Casualties: The total number of Americans killed in Iraq so far is more than 1,100. The number of wounded is approaching 8,000.]
Robertson, in an interview with CNN, said God had told him the war would be messy and a disaster. When he met with Bush in Nashville, Tenn. – before the war – Bush did not want to hear what Robertson was willing to tell the president about his conversation with God
"He was just sitting there, like, ‘I'm on top of the world,' and I warned him about this war," Robertson said.
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties," Robertson quoted the president as saying.
Do you suppose that Bush does not know that "casualty" means dead; means wounded, maimed for life? He has trouble with words sometimes.
Bush, the preacher said, didn’t believe him even though the information came straight from the deity. Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1988, said he supports Bush's re-election and believes that the president is blessed by God.
The president, in another context, told writer Bob Woodward that he, too, talks to a higher power. He says that he often asks for divine guidance and all the evidence is that he gets it – or believes he gets it.
If Bush and Robertson are talking to the same Supreme Being, you’d think they would get the same answers.
I have to admit that I get confused about who’s doing what to whom in our government:
Vice President Dick Cheney, who presides over the Senate, said he never met his opposite number, Sen. John Edwards, before their debate on television. But, Cheney says, if I understand correctly, that he knows that Osama bin Laden met Saddam Hussein. They worked together on an evil task. I don’t know how he knows that. Nobody else thinks that. Actually, Cheney said once that he never said it even though the TV people have film of his saying it. And after he said that he didn’t say it, he said it again.
As far as I know, Cheney never met Osama, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has met Saddam. The Bush family knows lots of rich Saudi Arabians, but probably not many of the rich Saudi Arabian bin Ladens. They don’t know many Husseins, either, since Saddam is in jail and we killed his two sons. Saddam once tried to bump off the current president’s father, George H. W. Bush, but they didn’t really know each other, as far as I know.
You don’t have to know somebody to kill them. Or inflict casualties upon them.
...kenmatthews@yahoo.com
While you were wondering what to expect next from the Vietnamese Swift Boat Lesbians for Truth, Honor, Justice and the American Way, the people who know more than you do were talking with God about the current war.
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says he warned President Bush before U.S. troops invaded Iraq that the United States would suffer casualties, but that Bush responded, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
[Stop a minute for a Reality Check on Casualties: The total number of Americans killed in Iraq so far is more than 1,100. The number of wounded is approaching 8,000.]
Robertson, in an interview with CNN, said God had told him the war would be messy and a disaster. When he met with Bush in Nashville, Tenn. – before the war – Bush did not want to hear what Robertson was willing to tell the president about his conversation with God
"He was just sitting there, like, ‘I'm on top of the world,' and I warned him about this war," Robertson said.
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties," Robertson quoted the president as saying.
Do you suppose that Bush does not know that "casualty" means dead; means wounded, maimed for life? He has trouble with words sometimes.
Bush, the preacher said, didn’t believe him even though the information came straight from the deity. Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1988, said he supports Bush's re-election and believes that the president is blessed by God.
The president, in another context, told writer Bob Woodward that he, too, talks to a higher power. He says that he often asks for divine guidance and all the evidence is that he gets it – or believes he gets it.
If Bush and Robertson are talking to the same Supreme Being, you’d think they would get the same answers.
I have to admit that I get confused about who’s doing what to whom in our government:
Vice President Dick Cheney, who presides over the Senate, said he never met his opposite number, Sen. John Edwards, before their debate on television. But, Cheney says, if I understand correctly, that he knows that Osama bin Laden met Saddam Hussein. They worked together on an evil task. I don’t know how he knows that. Nobody else thinks that. Actually, Cheney said once that he never said it even though the TV people have film of his saying it. And after he said that he didn’t say it, he said it again.
As far as I know, Cheney never met Osama, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has met Saddam. The Bush family knows lots of rich Saudi Arabians, but probably not many of the rich Saudi Arabian bin Ladens. They don’t know many Husseins, either, since Saddam is in jail and we killed his two sons. Saddam once tried to bump off the current president’s father, George H. W. Bush, but they didn’t really know each other, as far as I know.
You don’t have to know somebody to kill them. Or inflict casualties upon them.
...kenmatthews@yahoo.com
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Medicare: Hazardous to Your Health
To fellow old people, disabled people and citizens who expect to be old:
While you were watching the contenders for the job of U.S. president on television and trying to figure out what the bulge in the current president’s coat was all about, the federal government’s Medicare administration announced an increase in the amount of money you’ll have to pay.
This increase could be hazardous to your health.
This increase will be 17.4 percent to the Part B premium and will begin in January. It is the highest increase ever in the history of the Medicare program.
What’s more, the monthly Part B premium will increase again in 2006 and again in 2007.
Save your money, Granny.
If you listened to what was said in the televised "debates," you might be confused.
I now will speak the truth to you:
Anyone who suggests that the increase is due to the need to shore up the Part A Trust Fund and/or to pay for the new prescription drug benefit does not know what he’s talking about. Or if he does, he doesn’t want you to know.
The Part B premium funds only Part B, which largely pays for physician and outpatient services. It does not fund Part A, which is mostly hospital, inpatient and home-care services. Part B does not provide income to the Medicare Part A Trust Fund.
Another totally separate thing, the new prescription drug plan, doesn't begin until 2006 and will have its own separate monthly premium, now estimated to be about $35 per month. That will be on top of what you’ll already be paying by then.
So why is the Part B premium increasing so much? Certainly some of the answer is the overall rise in the cost of health care.
Here’s another big reason:
The increase also is due to windfall payments, called "bonus payments" in the new Medicare law, which were promised by the administration and Congress to private plans that join the Medicare program.
Get it, old people? Get it, crippled people? Next year you will be paying more every month to help pay bonuses to entice private plans into Medicare. Your payments could make the plans’ shareholders wealthier.
This will happen even though in the past, private plans have left Medicare beneficiaries high and dry and have not yet saved the program anything.
Medicare beneficiaries are not wealthy. In 2001, their median family income was only $20,600. They can’t afford these higher premiums and we haven’t even talked about higher deductibles and co-payments that also are part of the new plans.
One thing that troubles me in this thing is this:
I expect many folks now enrolled in Medicare may soon begin to drop out of Medicare Part B entirely to save money. They’ll elect to spend that money on groceries. In dropping out, they will largely forego health care.
They will do this because they believe that the first rule of healthcare is this:
Avoid starving to death whenever possible.
...kenmatthews@yahoo.com
To fellow old people, disabled people and citizens who expect to be old:
While you were watching the contenders for the job of U.S. president on television and trying to figure out what the bulge in the current president’s coat was all about, the federal government’s Medicare administration announced an increase in the amount of money you’ll have to pay.
This increase could be hazardous to your health.
This increase will be 17.4 percent to the Part B premium and will begin in January. It is the highest increase ever in the history of the Medicare program.
What’s more, the monthly Part B premium will increase again in 2006 and again in 2007.
Save your money, Granny.
If you listened to what was said in the televised "debates," you might be confused.
I now will speak the truth to you:
Anyone who suggests that the increase is due to the need to shore up the Part A Trust Fund and/or to pay for the new prescription drug benefit does not know what he’s talking about. Or if he does, he doesn’t want you to know.
The Part B premium funds only Part B, which largely pays for physician and outpatient services. It does not fund Part A, which is mostly hospital, inpatient and home-care services. Part B does not provide income to the Medicare Part A Trust Fund.
Another totally separate thing, the new prescription drug plan, doesn't begin until 2006 and will have its own separate monthly premium, now estimated to be about $35 per month. That will be on top of what you’ll already be paying by then.
So why is the Part B premium increasing so much? Certainly some of the answer is the overall rise in the cost of health care.
Here’s another big reason:
The increase also is due to windfall payments, called "bonus payments" in the new Medicare law, which were promised by the administration and Congress to private plans that join the Medicare program.
Get it, old people? Get it, crippled people? Next year you will be paying more every month to help pay bonuses to entice private plans into Medicare. Your payments could make the plans’ shareholders wealthier.
This will happen even though in the past, private plans have left Medicare beneficiaries high and dry and have not yet saved the program anything.
Medicare beneficiaries are not wealthy. In 2001, their median family income was only $20,600. They can’t afford these higher premiums and we haven’t even talked about higher deductibles and co-payments that also are part of the new plans.
One thing that troubles me in this thing is this:
I expect many folks now enrolled in Medicare may soon begin to drop out of Medicare Part B entirely to save money. They’ll elect to spend that money on groceries. In dropping out, they will largely forego health care.
They will do this because they believe that the first rule of healthcare is this:
Avoid starving to death whenever possible.
...kenmatthews@yahoo.com
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Caution: Medicare could be hazardous to you health
To fellow old people, disabled people and citizens who expect to be old:
While you were watching the contenders for the job of U.S. president on the television and trying to figure out what the bulge in the current president’s coat was all about, the federal government’s Medicare administration announced an increase in the amount of money you’ll have to pay.
This increase could be hazardous to your health.
This increase will be 17.4 percent to the Part B premium and will begin in January. It is the highest increase ever in the history of the Medicare program.
What’s more, the monthly Part B premium will increase again in 2006 and again in 2007.
Save your money, Granny.
If you listened to what was said in the televised "debates," you might be confused.
I will now speak the truth to you:
Anyone who suggests that the increase is due to the need to shore up the Part A Trust Fund and/or to pay for the new prescription drug benefit does not know what he’s talking about. Or if he does, he doesn’t want you to know.
The Part B premium funds only Part B, which largely pays for physician and outpatient services. It does not fund Part A, which is mostly hospital, inpatient and home-care services. Part B does not provide income to the Medicare Part A Trust Fund.
Another totally separate thing, the new prescription drug plan, doesn't begin until 2006 and will have its own separate monthly premium, now estimated to be about $35 per month. That will be on top of what you’ll be paying already by then.
So why is the Part B premium increasing so much? Certainly some of the answer is the overall rise in the cost of health care.
Here’s another big reason:
The increase also is due to windfall payments, called "bonus payments" in the new Medicare law, which were promised by the administration and Congress to private plans that join the Medicare program.
Get it, old people? Get it, crippled people? Next year you will be paying more every month to help pay bonuses to entice private plans into Medicare.
This will happen even though in the past, private plans have left Medicare beneficiaries high and dry and have not yet saved the program anything.
And you’ll help pay the bonuses even though you may not elect to have a private company handle your account.
Medicare beneficiaries are not wealthy. In 2001, their median family income was only $20,600. They can’t afford these higher premiums and we haven’t even talked about higher deductibles and co-payments that are also part of the new plans.
One thing that troubles me in this thing is this:
I expect many folks now enrolled in Medicare may soon begin to drop out of Medicare Part B entirely to save money. They’ll elect to spend that money on groceries. In dropping out, they will largely forego health care.
They will do this because they believe that the first rule of healthcare is this:
Avoid starving to death whenever possible.
...kenmatthews@yahoo.com
To fellow old people, disabled people and citizens who expect to be old:
While you were watching the contenders for the job of U.S. president on the television and trying to figure out what the bulge in the current president’s coat was all about, the federal government’s Medicare administration announced an increase in the amount of money you’ll have to pay.
This increase could be hazardous to your health.
This increase will be 17.4 percent to the Part B premium and will begin in January. It is the highest increase ever in the history of the Medicare program.
What’s more, the monthly Part B premium will increase again in 2006 and again in 2007.
Save your money, Granny.
If you listened to what was said in the televised "debates," you might be confused.
I will now speak the truth to you:
Anyone who suggests that the increase is due to the need to shore up the Part A Trust Fund and/or to pay for the new prescription drug benefit does not know what he’s talking about. Or if he does, he doesn’t want you to know.
The Part B premium funds only Part B, which largely pays for physician and outpatient services. It does not fund Part A, which is mostly hospital, inpatient and home-care services. Part B does not provide income to the Medicare Part A Trust Fund.
Another totally separate thing, the new prescription drug plan, doesn't begin until 2006 and will have its own separate monthly premium, now estimated to be about $35 per month. That will be on top of what you’ll be paying already by then.
So why is the Part B premium increasing so much? Certainly some of the answer is the overall rise in the cost of health care.
Here’s another big reason:
The increase also is due to windfall payments, called "bonus payments" in the new Medicare law, which were promised by the administration and Congress to private plans that join the Medicare program.
Get it, old people? Get it, crippled people? Next year you will be paying more every month to help pay bonuses to entice private plans into Medicare.
This will happen even though in the past, private plans have left Medicare beneficiaries high and dry and have not yet saved the program anything.
And you’ll help pay the bonuses even though you may not elect to have a private company handle your account.
Medicare beneficiaries are not wealthy. In 2001, their median family income was only $20,600. They can’t afford these higher premiums and we haven’t even talked about higher deductibles and co-payments that are also part of the new plans.
One thing that troubles me in this thing is this:
I expect many folks now enrolled in Medicare may soon begin to drop out of Medicare Part B entirely to save money. They’ll elect to spend that money on groceries. In dropping out, they will largely forego health care.
They will do this because they believe that the first rule of healthcare is this:
Avoid starving to death whenever possible.
...kenmatthews@yahoo.com
