Consequences

This matter should concern all of us.  From The Federalist, dated April 23, 2020....

Instead Of ‘Flattening The Curve,’ We Flattened Hospitals, Doctors, And The U.S. Health Care System: Across the country, hospitals shut down 'non-essential' procedures in preparation for a surge of coronavirus patients that never appeared

When the lockdowns began last month, we were told that if we didn’t stay home our hospitals would be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients, intensive care wards would be overrun, there wouldn’t be enough ventilators, and some people would probably die in their homes for lack of care. To maintain capacity in the health-care system, we all had to go on lockdown—not just the big cities, but everywhere.

So we stayed home, businesses closed, and tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. But with the exception of New York City, the overwhelming surge of coronavirus patients never really appeared—at least not in the predicted numbers, which have been off by hundreds of thousands.

[...]

[H]ospitals and health care systems nationwide have had to furlough or lay off thousands of employees. Why? Because the vast majority of most hospitals’ revenue comes from elective or “non-essential” procedures. We’re not talking about LASIK eye surgery but things like coronary angioplasty and stents, procedures that are necessary but maybe not emergencies—yet. If hospitals can’t perform these procedures because governors have banned them, then they can’t pay their bills, or their employees....

Read the rest HERE.

Voices From The Past

Please take a few minutes to watch the two short videos below:





Below is the most-watched YouTube documentary on the topic of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic — if you have time to watch (over 4 million views):


Now for my family's own stories.......


My father's younger sister, about age 7, died of "the aftereffects of the flu." Something like the 1990 film Awakenings? Full movie HERE at YouTube, albeit poor quality.  I highly recommend the film! It is available via Amazon Prime Video.

Dad occasionally spoke of what happened when his sister died: "The undertaker embalmed Chrissie at the house — and dumped the blood behind the barn."  The funeral service and burial were private.  The influenza didn't stop until everything was shut down: schools, funerals, churches, etc.  And the government refused to believe that something terrible was happening with Americans' health.  Until, that is, bodies began piling up on the sidewalks and in the streets of Washington, D.C.

My maternal grandmother (1898-1981) had a robust immune system. It fell to her to take care of her brother Walter, who brought influenza to their remote location in the mountains of East Tennessee when he was discharged from the US Army, fell ill himself, and gave the flu to his brother-in-law Fred, my grandmother's husband.  My grandmother sent her two children, one born in 1916 and the other in 1918 to her parents' farm and took care of Walter and Fred.

My grandmother related the story of those days in this way: "I got almost no sleep.  I went back and forth between the river for cold water and the menfolks' foreheads.  They were out of their heads with fever.  My sister brought food, called to me, and set the food down about 25 feet from the house; I fetched the food from there.  I don't remember how long all this went on.  Seemed like forever.  But Walter and Fred got well, and life went back to normal."  I asked Wawa how she stood those weeks of hard work as a nurse.  Her response: "Life isn't about what you want to do.  Life is about what you have to do."

A view of the front lines of this grim war against Coronavirus (dated March 23, 2020): The Growing Chaos Inside New York’s Hospitals.

And one more thing...in the immortal words of Gilda Radner:

Another Trump Effect?

From Bloomberg: U.S. Small-Business Optimism Index Surges by Most Since 1980.

Read the article HERE.

Our Economy Is On The Brink

Ron Russell opines:

Obama has been trying to pad the economic numbers to put his failed economic policies in the most favorable light. However, most of the public are just not buying it. All people have to do is ask themselves a simple question, "Are you better off now than when Barack took office?" The truth is there and not in the spin on the actually numbers the White House puts out!

Updated Abbott And Costello

FreeThinke's comment at at my blog yesterday — after the release of the horrible job numbers for May 2016:

ABBOTT and COSTELLO'S BRILLIANT EXPLANATION of a CRUCIAL ISSUE

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America .

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It’s 5.6%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%.

COSTELLO: You just said 5.6%.

ABBOTT: 5.6% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 5.6% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 23% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 5.6%.

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 5.6% or 23%?

ABBOTT: 5.6% are unemployed. 23% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, Obama said you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment roles that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how it gets to 5.6%. Otherwise it would be 23%.

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like a Democrat.

COSTELLO: I don’t even know what the hell I just said!

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like Hillary!

The Economic Reality

From this article in the NY Post, dated April 30, 2016:

...Americans are angry because they don’t care about the statistical noise — they care about what they see with their own eyes.

True, there may have been 15 million new jobs created during the Obama administration — which, on the surface, is laudable. But that’s about half what was needed to both absorb newcomers to the workforce and those who were laid off over the past decade and would like to return.

[...]

One last statistic, from Sentier Research. Median annual household income in the US reached $57,263 this past March, which was 4.5% higher than in March 2015.

But — and here’s where the anger comes in — this March’s figure is still slightly below the $57,342 median annual income in January 2000.

January 2000!

Americans haven’t gotten a raise in more than 16 years.

Statistical noise doesn’t just confuse economists and politicians. It also drowns out the sound of people complaining.

Read the entire article HERE.

Prosecutorial Discretion To Give Illegals Social Security Benefits?

Part of Obama's new world order, no doubt.

From Obama Claims Power to Make Illegal Immigrants Eligible for Social Security, Disability (dated April 6, 2016):

Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status?

Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now.

The solicitor general calls what Obama is doing "prosecutorial discretion."

He argues that under this particular type of "prosecutorial discretion," the executive can make millions of people in this country illegally eligible for Social Security, disability and Medicare.

On April 18, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case....

Read the rest HERE.

The GOP Betrayal Worsens

Just when you thought the betrayal wrought by the December 2015 omnibus bill couldn't be any worse.

GET A LOAD OF THIS!

Tweeted today by Conn Carroll, Communications Director for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT):

Democrats were AGAINST tripling the H2B program http://thehill.com/homenews/house/263592-liberal-minority-dems-sound-off-against-omnibus …

This was a "Republican" ask.

HERE is the Tweet.

Cutting Retiree Benefits

The cuts involve the ailing Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, an independent agency of the federal government.  This portion of the Wikipedia article explains how the PBGC is funded.

Excerpt from the Washington Post article Congressional leaders hammer out deal to allow pension plans to cut retiree benefits:

A measure that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut is set to be attached to a massive spending bill, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans.

The rule would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets....

Note the following example:

Whitlow Wyatt, 70, retired with a $3,300-a-month pension in 2000 after working more than 33 years as a long-haul driver. He could face pension reductions of 30 percent or more if Congress permits trustees of the hard-pressed pension fund to slash benefits.

Read the entire article HERE.

Just imagine what havoc these cuts would work upon the personal budgets of many already-retired, elderly retirees under the age of seventy-five!  Retirees who are over age seventy-five or disabled are exempt from the cuts.

The root of the financial troubles of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is an inverted pyramid of support for the pension plans.  There used to be four active workers or members for each retiree, but now the ratio is one active worker or member for every five retirees.

Meanwhile: Boehner gives $16,928 for each of the 56,000 youths, young adults and children who crossed the border during the 12 months up to October 2014.

Housing UAC's

UAC's is the government term for Unaccommpanied Alien Children.

Where to house them?

From Fox News:

Feds to house, feed illegal aliens in Border Patrol Academy

The federal government has found a place in New Mexico to help house the tide of humanity pouring in from Mexico: The Border Patrol Academy, the very facility where agents are supposed to be trained to keep illegal immigrants out of the U.S.

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, a sprawlinThe Obama administration has tasked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson with finding temporary housing for illegal immigrants waiting to be processed for deportation in what is known as Expedited Removal proceedings.g campus in the arid dirt plains of western New Mexico known for oil and dairy farms, could soon house hundreds of children and families that have crossed the southwest border. Tens of thousands of immigrants have crossed in through Mexico primarily from Central America, where they appear to have been led to believe that once in the U.S., they will be allowed to stay. The government is scrambling to accommodate them, but some critics say putting them up in the academy turns government policy on its head.

[...]

The Obama administration has tasked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson with finding temporary housing for illegal immigrants waiting to be processed for deportation in what is known as Expedited Removal proceedings....

Meanwhile in San Antonio: Swine Flu Confirmed at Shelter for Unaccompanied Minors.

School starts in about two months: [Boston area] Chelsea Schools Overwhelmed By Sudden Influx Of Immigrant Students. Go to the link to read the article and to watch the video.

Home owners, get ready for your real-estate taxes to soar. Those who lease residents will also see their monthly rent soar.

Who Will Do The Driving?

For decades, as both children and adults, the Baby Boomers drove our economy:

Almost exactly nine months after World War II ended, “the cry of the baby was heard across the land,” as historian Landon Jones later described the trend. More babies were born in 1946 than ever before: 3.4 million, 20 percent more than in 1945. This was the beginning of the so-called “baby boom.” In 1947, another 3.8 million babies were born; 3.9 million were born in 1952; and more than 4 million were born every year from 1954 until 1964, when the boom finally tapered off. By then, there were 76.4 million “baby boomers” in the United States. They made up almost 40 percent of the nation’s population....

Consider the situation today.

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

Universal Health Coverage Is Ailing

From this opinion piece at Reuters:

...[The] belief in socialized medicine is under strain, for the health services of the rich European states are in various kinds of “crisis.” I put the word in quotation marks because healthcare is ritually said by journalists to be in crisis: it’s the word that cries wolf. But this time there is a wolf.

In Italy, the UK, Spain and France, cuts of varying depths are now being introduced. In France, where the health system is usually seen as the best, the budget is exceded by billions of euros every year: the head of the association of French pharmacies says the system cannot survive more than six years without deep reform. In the UK, the new director of the Care Quality Commission that oversees standards, said after his appointment earlier this year that “the system is on the brink of collapse.”

The more socialized the U.S. system becomes, the more it will find itself facing the same dilemmas as the Europeans’. These dilemmas are all symptoms of the way we live now.

In nearly every country, people live longer than they once did. And in most countries, women give birth to fewer kids. In 2000, around 16 percent of Germany and the UK’s population was over 65 in 2000, while the U.S. had only 12.7 percent. But in the U.S., the proportion of over-65’s will increase to near 20 percent of the population in 2050, and over 80’s to around 8 percent. The UK will have over 20 percent of 65-plus citizens by 2050. Germany will have around 30 percent of 65-and-up by 2050; it will have around 15 percent of its population in their 80s.

So there will be fewer economically active taxpayers in North America and Europe while there’s a greater need for taxes to pay for socialized medical care....

A reality check.

The elephant in the room.

Whoa! Kaiser Dumps The Five Most Important Hospitals In Fairfax County, Virginia

From Inova, which provides the majority of medical care here in Northern Virginia:

A note to our patients about Kaiser Permanente

As of October 1, 2013, Inova facilities and physicians do not have contracts with Kaiser Permanente to provide in-network services. That means that Kaiser members, including health insurance exchange plan members, will no longer be allowed non-emergency access to Inova facilities, physicians, or outpatient services. The only exceptions to this fact are: Kaiser members who require emergency care; any Kaiser member who is part of our lung transplant program; and any Kaiser member who was receiving inpatient care or recurring outpatient care at an Inova location before October 1, 2013.

With our five hospitals and 140 additional locations in northern Virginia, including urgent and emergency care centers, physician offices and physical therapy centers, Inova offers convenient access and choice to the communities we serve.

If you would like to rely on Inova for your health and medical needs and are able, please consider choosing a health plan that gives you access to Inova. We participate with many of the leading commercial insurance plans.

If you have any questions, please contact your benefits administrator, Kaiser member services, or your physician.

More details about the Inova system HERE.

 Fairfax Hospital is part of the Inova system:

Inova Fairfax Hospital is the largest hospital in Northern Virginia and the flagship hospital of Inova Health System. Located in Fairfax County, Virginia, Inova Fairfax Hospital is one of the largest employers in the County.  The hospital campus includes the only heart institute in the region, the 156-bed Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, as well as the Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children. Northern Virginia’s only Children’s Hospital – largest Neonatal Intensive-Care Unit in the region, dedicated Pediatric intensive care, oncology unit, adolescent unit, cardiac surgery and pediatric surgery center.

The above change in accessing Inova will affect Fairfax County employees and retirees as well as innumerable others.

The 2015 ObamaCare Time Bomb?

From this source:

One thing you have to remember about Obamacare is that much of the financial pain, such as steep penalties, is back ended so that by the time people wake up to reality, the law has been operating for years and it’s too late.

Here’s yet another example, the subsidies for state exchanges disappear in 2015, and that’s going to bust state budgets....

[...]

...Like a drug dealer giving you drugs on the cheap until you are hooked, and then you’re on your own....

Read the details HERE.

Obama's Stale Message

Dana Milbank opines:

A warmed-over jobs message

“I don’t normally do this,” President Obama’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer wrote in the subject line of an e-mail blast to reporters Sunday night.

This was tantalizing. What would this top White House official be doing? Singing karaoke on the North Lawn? Getting a “POTUS” tattoo on his arm?

Reality was rather more prosaic. Pfeiffer was announcing the rollout of a series of economic speeches Obama would begin on Wednesday — roughly the 10th time the White House has made such a pivot to refocus on jobs and growth. What would set this one apart is that Obama would be reprising a speech he made eight years ago, when he first became a senator; Pfeiffer included a link to clips from that speech, set in part to mood music from the Canadian electronica group Kidstreet, the same music used in an Apple ad last year.

But even a reincarnated Steve Jobs would have trouble marketing this turkey: How can the president make news, and remake the agenda, by delivering the same message he gave in 2005? He’s even giving the speech from the same place, Galesburg, Ill....

Obama — epic fail.

Detroit Goes Belly Up

With a hat tip to Western Hero:


The future of more big cities in America? Likely.

Quotation Of The Day

Actually a series of quotations (hat tip to Mike's America):

“Obama’s been virtually absent from the legislative process” of replacing his sequester, reports Politico. After getting the $600 billion in tax hikes he wanted last month (with no spending cuts), “there has been no discernible effort by the White House to work on a bill that might pass.”

“The Obama administration seems to be spending far more time warning of the consequences of the sequester — and blaming Republicans for it — than engaging in actual negotiations that would prevent it,” says ABC News.

“The president hasn’t actually come up with a proposal to avert sequestration,” says David Brooks in the New York Times, “let alone one that is politically plausible.”

“Tuesday's event had the feeling of a campaign commercial that went too far to be believed,” says the Los Angeles Times.

Politico says calls to GOP leaders were “perfunctory,” meant to “inoculate” the president from criticism that he’s campaigning instead of urging Senate Democrats to follow the House and pass legislation replacing his sequester. Their headline asks, “Is President Obama overplaying sequester hand?”

Meanwhile, this morning the mainstream media are so thrilled that Michelle Obama appeared at yesterday's Oscar Awards and, a day or so earlier, danced with Jimmy Fallon.

Sequestration Reality Check

With a hat tip to Randy's Roundtable for the graphic below:

From Bob Woodward's February 22, 2013 essay about sequestration:

In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.

So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.

What is the motive behind the sequestration-related demonization of the GOP? The 2014 elections?

Another Iconic Business Files For Bankruptcy

Reader's Digest:

...The company is the latest in a line of iconic businesses to have recently sought court protection from creditors, after Hostess Brands Inc., maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, and Eastman Kodak Co., inventor of Kodachrome and the Instamatic camera....

[...]

The company’s flagship print magazine is read by more than 25 million people, according to its website. The company publishes 75 magazines globally including 49 editions of Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home, the Family Handyman and Birds & Blooms. Reader’s Digest “sold more digital editions in December than we did newsstand editions,” Guth said....

Detroit: America's Third World City

The welfare state in all its "glory":