Those who have visited my preceeding re-post of a recent Paul Craig Roberts blog are likely to be shocked by his summation of the disastrous features of "ObamaCare" -- aka the Affordable Care Act, nearly 11,000 pages long. Apparently PCR has been one of a very few persons to have read it through. So he may be the sole credible person to make public the nastiest features of ObamaCare. On top of that, due to his having been Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and an Editor of the Wall Street Journal, he would be the one to believe when he says that the financial markets are being rigged by the banksters with assistance of the Fed. Protect your nestegg!

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts-U.S. Markets Rigged by its Own Authorities–It Blows the Mind

By Greg Hunter On January 8, 2014                                                                     Original Here

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

Economist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says, “We have a situation where all the markets are rigged.  All the markets are manipulated.”  As an example, Dr. Roberts points to the stock market.  Dr. Roberts contends, “We have a stock market at all-time highs, and where is the economy?  There’s not one.  There’s no recovery.”  Dr. Roberts goes on to say, “53% of Americans earn less than $30,000 per year.  Well, the poverty rate for a family of four is something like $24,000. . . . If there is no income to drive the economy and there is no credit expansion to drive the economy, then how does it go anywhere?  You can’t possibly have a recovery.”

When asked how long can this go on, Dr. Roberts replied, “How long can they fool people?”  When asked about the recent Fed “taper” of $10 billion a month in bond purchases with printed money, Roberts said, “Foreigners are getting nervous because they see the Fed creating all this new money.”  Roberts thinks the appearance of cutting back the money printing “is a way to protect the dollar.”  Obama Care is another headwind for the economy as monthly premiums for many double.  Dr. Roberts says, “The whole thing is constructed to produce massive income for the insurance companies, and that drains the economy.”

So, what does Dr. Roberts see for 2014?  “I would expect, this year, the economy will drop again, and they won’t be able to hide it.  So, the deficit will widen . . . and the widening deficit will again cause dollar worries.  Who’s going to finance it?  It means the Fed will have to print more dollars.”  Roberts goes on to say, “The Fed won’t be able to cut back $10 billion a year.  It will have to increase it $30 billion a year, $40 billion a year, whatever.”  On gold and silver, Roberts says, “The West is draining itself of physical bullion. . . If there is a currency collapses and you try to flee into gold, there won’t be any there.  The Chinese will have it.”  So, is this the year gold and silver stage a big turnaround?  Roberts says, “It’s gone on longer than I thought it could go on.  I didn’t realize all the deceptive and crooked methods they would use to rig the markets.  The notion that a democratic capitalist country having its markets rigged by its own authorities–it blows the mind.  This is not normal.  What will they do next?  I don’t know.”  Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.

http://youtu.be/_ojASipDzVY

GREG HUNTER

Related Posts:

• Washington is Arranging Support of the Dollar-Paul Craig…
• Fate of Dollar is the Fate of U.S. Power-Dr. Paul Craig…
• America is Going to Crash Big Time-Paul Craig Roberts
• If Bullion Were Not a Threat Government Would Not Attack It-
• One-on-One with Paul Craig Roberts #2

If you think your medical insurance is more than you can afford now, read this to find out what the greedy corporations have in store for you next. Only in America!

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Naked Capitalism / By Yves Smith

Welcome to the Brave New World of Corporatized Medicine: Just Hope You Don't Get Sick!
"Business freedom" in America increasingly means the God-given right to exploit the vulnerability of the public.

May 13, 2013 | One of the most effective scare techniques employed to preserve our grotesquely inefficient, overpriced health care system has been to invoke the red peril of “socialized medicine”. Never mind that foreigners in advanced economies fail to recognize the caricatures scaremongers supply, or that Americans who need emergency care while overseas are almost without exception impressed with the caliber of care and astonished by the low (sometimes no) cost to them. After all, Americans live in the best of all possible worlds, and consumer and business freedom are always better.

In fact, business freedom here increasingly means the God-given right to exploit the vulnerability of the public. The example slouching into view is more corporate control over the practice of medicine. And based on the previews, it will make the horrors falsely attributed to socialized medicine look pale.

Two accounts last week bring the issue home. The first came in the Health Care Renewal blog (hat tip Lysa). It’s a reminder of how the current institutional efforts to regiment doctors undermine the caliber of medical care. It has become distressingly common for HMOs and other medical enterprises to have business-school trained managers putting factory-style production parameters on doctor visits. Outside of foreclosure mills, it’s hard to find similar approaches in other professions.

The post describes how a pediatrician, Pauline, who has developed a reputation for treating chronic conditions is at loggerheads with her for-profit practice. The suits don’t like her patient mix. She gets too many tough cases, when they’d rather have basically healthy kids who are there for a cold or ear infection. Mind you, this is only partly a money issue. These visits can be “up coded” so as to get larger insurance/patient payments, but she gets a higher level of patients in less-generous state insurance programs. But some of the pushback is that her practice is perceived as disruptive, since she uses what is perceived as too much of her and staff time, separate and apart from the economics. She’s constantly breaking management’s precious guidelines. One of her turf struggles:

She had set up a visit to see a new medically complex patient and had blocked off 40 minutes, the amount of time she felt she needed to do a good job. The child had a complex genetic disorder, cerebral palsy, and heart, lung, and kidney problems. Both the cardiologist and the nephrologist had called asking her to take this patient. She agreed. After she had scheduled the visit, a manager called her and told her that she was being allowed only 15 minutes to see that patient. After some fruitless discussion with him, Pauline finally said, “Okay, I guess that means that you’ll be seeing the patient instead of me, right?” The shocked voice at the other end of the phone line replied, “What do you mean? I don’t know how to take care of patients.” “That’s exactly my point,” Pauline put in.

Pauline explained that this manager assigned to her office is not even a college graduate. Physicians cannot access the schedule electronically and have no control over scheduling. These functions are controlled by the office manager and (amazingly) by some of the medical assistants who have received some “leadership” training. These medical assistants are even allowed to evaluate the clinical competency and skills of the physicians.

And to add insult to injury, how long did this discussion take? All those minutes the doctor spent fighting with a petty bureaucrat come at the expense of patient care.

As an aside, it’s hard to stress enough that this sort of demoralizing micromanagement and unwillingness to listen to and learn from workers, is a widespread shortcoming of management American-style. And it has weirdly been airbrushed out of the media. When I was a kid in business school, US manufacturers were having their clocks cleaned by Germans and the Japanese. There was a good deal of critical self examination back then. One source of foreign ascendancy was that they had newer factories, so you couldn’t really blame American management for that one. But the second was that it was widely acknowledged that US managers were generally poor at dealing with labor. And this wasn’t “labor” in the union sense, but at having productive relationships with factory workers (note that there has been massive revisionist history since then. When I was in Bschool, none of my classmates, nearly half of whom had worked in major manufacturing companies, had bad things to say about unions.) Now you’ll often see the decline of American manufacturing attributed to unions in an “everybody knows that” tone.

So let me add a further nugget about Pauline’s background. In one of her previous jobs, she was made the manager of a pediatric outpatient center within a county hospital caring for a largely indigent population. This center had been running in the red for a good while. Pauline took over and within 28 months she’d streamlined the place and had them running well in the black, while still administering a quality of care that Pauline and her colleagues could be proud of. In short, Pauline could probably tell the managers of her current practice a thing or two about how to optimize patient scheduling without compromising care or cost —if they’d listen.

As bad as that is, most patients are unware of how much their care has been fitted to a Procrustean bed. The deliberate degradation in the name of profits is going to become more obvious, at least if the health care industry has its way.

I strongly encourage you to read this post from Whole Health Chicago (hat tip Lambert) in full. It shows how the future of American medicine is to fire the ones who are unhealthy. No, I am not making that up. The writer, Dr. David Edelberg, describes a recent presentation by a large insurance company. They’ve apparently been hosting similar sessions with physicians in the Chicago area in large medical practices. Here are the key bits (emphasis original):

The speaker at these evenings is always a physician employed by the insurance company. His/her title is medical director (I begin to think there must be dozens and dozens on their payroll) and he always begins by reassuring the audience that he was in clinical practice himself so he understands something of what physicians–especially primary care physicians–are facing. I view this physician more as a “Judas steer,” the animal that leads an innocent but doomed herd of cattle through the slaughterhouse corridors to the killing floor.

• The health industry hopes that individual medical practices and small medical groups will ultimately disappear from the landscape by being financially absorbed into larger groups owned by hospital systems.

And why do the powers that be regard this as desirable? Although the article does not stress this point, doctors have an established revenue stream. So the acquirers buy them out and impose discipline on those artistic, freewheeling doctors. The “practice style,” which used to mean the independence that doctors once enjoyed, is now an Orwellianism and includes hewing to corporate guidelines as to how to operate.

And here’s what to expect:

Physicians are expected to spend a limited amount of time with each patient, and are encouraged to see as many patients as possible during a workday. The insurance companies, sometimes with the token cooperation of a few physician-employees, create vast books of patient-care guidelines to which they believe their physicians must be “accountable” (remember this word, it will crop up again). These guidelines might mean documented Pap smear and mammogram frequency, weight management and exercise, colonoscopies for patients over 50, and getting that evil LDL (bad cholesterol) below 99 by any means possible…

If the chart audit system discovers that a physician, for whatever reason, is an “outlier”–that she’s either not following the guidelines exactly or not getting the results anticipated for her patient population—she’ll be financially penalized. A quick example of what might occur: if your LDL is 115, you may be on the receiving end of a statin sales pitch from your doctor, not because bringing it down to 99 will improve your longevity, but because your refusal to do so will impact her financial bottom line.

Now of course, you might say, “Well, in fairness, medicine is too much of a cottage industry. Look at how many doctors give unnecessary annual EKGs to patients in low risk groups. How else are we going to get to evidence-based medicine?” The problem is that what we as patients will get isn’t driven by best outcomes, it’s driven by profits. Edelberg explains:

…the subtext of “standardized” always includes the unspoken “spend less money on the patient.” Thus, a doctor might be financially penalized for recommending nutritional counseling to lower cholesterol (“counseling is expensive”) instead of writing a generic statin drug (cheap). Or recommending psychotherapy (“therapy is very expensive”) instead of generic Prozac (cheaper than M&M’s). Or referring patients for massage, acupuncture, or even chiropractic (“expensive, expensive, expensive!”) instead of pushing an over-the-counter antiinflammatory (free to the insurance company, as it’s OTC).

And I shudder to think what becomes of patients who don’t hew to standard templates: the person who had a high body mass but not due to dangerous abdominal fat (which is what creates the health risk) who is pushed to take the latest, greatest diet drug. What about people who don’t buy into the religion of getting your LDL down to below 100 (one reader argued that while it may lower your risk of heart disease, it increases your all-factor death risk by reducing your ability to fight MRSA)? Will they face penalties if they fail to comply?

No, you just will find it nearly impossible to get a doctor to take you:

• Let me close with a best-as-I-recall quote from an insurance company medical director. “We can no longer afford to pay for health care under the PPO model. Our plan is to phase out all fee-for-service care during the next few years. We’ll pay you doctors a finite amount of money to take care of a defined population. We tell doctors, ‘Don’t spend much money and you can keep the difference. Period. Don’t follow guidelines, and you’ll be leaving behind some serious money on the table and we’ll just take it back.’”

In case you think I overstated the implications, Edelberg recapped the discussion that ensued:

One physician piped up…. “But what about the non-compliant patients who won’t take the meds, don’t eat well, don’t have mammograms, continue to smoke? And what about super-health-conscious patients who want their vitamin levels measured and want referrals to acupuncturists?”

Another physician answered wearily for the medical director (who didn’t disagree): “You’ve got to fire patients like that. Get the non-compliant and the super-demanding out of your system. They’ll drag your numbers down. Hit your personal bottom line.”

Hey you, patient. Yes, I mean YOU. Pink slip time! Canned! Take your medical records and don’t let the frosted glass door hit you in the…on the way out.

In other words, if you are high maintenance because you don’t do what your doctor says (and remember, “non-compliant” includes people who don’t follow orders because they think the cookie-cutter approach isn’t right for them) or want higher service or per the example of the pediatrician Patricia’s 40 minute case, have a complicated set of ailments, you’ll be shunted. The brave new world of corporate medicine will eject you.

The rich are unlikely even to know that this change is occurring. There will be a tier of doctors on the high end to cater to patients who want more personalized, cutting edge treatment and might need some prodding. And they can always go abroad if they can’t find what they need here. But for ordinary schlubs, expect to find the doctor’s office become more hostile as the brave new world of corporatized medicine becomes entrenched. 

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Yves Smith is the founder of Naked Capitalism and the author of 'ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism.' 

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If you are doubting that your bank would ever steal your account (see preceding post), watch this video. Not only will they do it, they will do it in criminal collusion with U.S. overseers ...and no one will even be indicted.

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http://youtu.be/u9pG7yFTWhQ

Fed Money Printing is No Longer Working: Karl Denninger Interview 

Greg Hunter 





Published on Apr 30, 2013 http://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fusawatchdog.com%2Ffed-money-printing-games-out-of-gas-karl-denninger%2F&session_token=FJrYke-aHSIZZNn2GlxTcEJulLJ8MTM2NzYzMTE3N0AxMzY3NjE2Nzc3 

- Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.org says Fed money printing is no longer working, "We're seeing the leading edge of a great deal of softness, and this means the Federal Reserve's money games have run out of gas." A weak economy will be the backdrop for Obama Care in 2014, which Denninger says basically transfers healthcare costs to the government. Denninger warns, "If you shift more of the private expense into the government, all you do is bankrupt the government faster. How does this solve a healthcare problem?" Denninger says, "We are sowing the seeds of the next crash . . . and yes, there will be losses." Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.org.

HOW YOU MIGHT GET BY SHOULD YOU EVER NEED SURGERY BUT HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE...

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How the Market Can Cure the Health Care Crisis w/Dr. Keith Smith!

Original here


Published on Sep 10, 2012 by CapitalAccount

Follow us @
http://twitter.com/laurenlyster
http://twitter.com/coveringdelta

Welcome to Capital Account. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney raised eyebrows yesterday when he said he would "not get rid of all of healthcare reform." Romney's statement made headline news because it differed from his previous rhetoric of "repealing ObamaCare." We would rather hear politicians explain the real reasons for why a trip to the ER for a headache can amount to a bill of $10,000. Could it be that healthcare isn't actually that expensive? Over the years healthcare costs in the US have increased from 5% of GDP in the 60s to 17.4% in 2009, according to an OECD report published in 2011. A recent report from the Institute of Medicine calculated systemic waste in the US healthcare system at $765 billion, representing 30% of total expenditures. We ask Doctor Keith Smith, Managing Partner and Medical Director for the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, about the role of insurance companies, wasteful administration costs, and hospital inefficiencies. Keith Smith runs an independent surgical clinic and brings free market competitive prices to surgery. He offers customers lower prices and patients fly in from all over the world, even from countries with universal healthcare systems, to get surgery at his center. And in today's "Loose Change," Lauren and Demetri discuss former Reagan Budget Director, David Stockman, recent appearance on CNBC. Specifically, Stockman's comment that "Ron Paul is the only one who is right about the Fed, and the Fed is the heart of the problem." Indeed! 

PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT OF 2010, 1,900 PAGES: DERIDED BY THE RIGHT AS "OBAMA CARE" AND OFTEN LEAVING MEMBERS OF THE LEFT SKEPTICAL. WANT TO UNDERSTAND IT BETTER? THEN SEE THIS...

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In a Comic Book, Health Care Reform Explained

by JAY LONDON on February 28, 2012

in ALUMNI LIFE,ECONOMICS,HEALTH,IN THE NEWS,RESEARCH

Original here

At about 1,900 pages and 400,000 words, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a heavy read. Trying to deduce all of the bill’s information can be, at best, time-consuming and, at worst, undecipherable.

Professor Jonathan Gruber ’87 sought to interpret this information for the general public in a straightforward way: through pictures. Using a comic book format, Gruber’s graphic novel, “Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works,” explains and combats some common misconceptions about the new federal health reform law.

A longtime health economist, Gruber has worked with both political parties on health care reform. He worked alongside then-Governor Mitt Romney on the 2006 Massachusetts health care insurance reform law and advised President Barack Obama during the writing of the Affordable Care Act. He told New York’s Inside City Hall he was initially skeptical about doing the book, but quickly realized the comic-style medium was an effective way to translate information.

From Inside City Hall:
“…When you’re on airplane, and you want to know what to do in case of an accident, they hand you a comic. It’s a great way to teach people.
When we polled people and asked them whether they liked the bill, they were sort of skeptical. But when you explained what was in it, they liked it. We realized we needed to explain a very complicated concept clearly.”

In the 152-page book, an illustrated version of Gruber attempts to clarify information and combat misconceptions about the new federal health reform law. The book aims to answer bill-specific issues such as why health-care reform is important, what the individual insurance mandate is, and whether or not people will be required to buy health insurance that they cannot afford.

In the video below, Gruber uses animated illustrations to provide a short summary of points made in Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works.

http://youtu.be/IF8SiN8Bbh0