Out of control??

Health care spending will outpace the nation's overall economic growth over the next decade, the government forecast, highlighting a challenge for the next president, not to mention taxpayers, businesses and individual Americans.

Expanded insurance coverage under President Barack Obama's law, an aging population, and rising demand will be squeezing society's ability to pay.

By 2019, health care spending will be increasing at roughly 6 percent a year, compared to an average annual rise of 4 percent from 2008 through 2013.

The forecast, through 2024, does not foresee a return to pre-recession days of torrid health care inflation, as the government and private employers try to revamp the way they pay hospitals and doctors to emphasize quality over quantity.

"The main point is that the bill will continue to grow faster than the economy, 

The health care law's Medicare cuts helped keep spending in check, as did across-the-board cuts enacted later.

Many working people saw their own medical bills rise, as employers shifted costs to employees and their families.

At the same time, expensive new drugs that can cure hepatitis C are boosting spending on medications. In 2013, prescription drug spending rose by 2.5 percent. For 2014, the projected increase is 12.6 percent, according to the report.  Spending on Medicaid has jumped 6.1 percent in 2013, and projected to grow by 12 percent in 2014.

Solution: It starts with medication cost.
1- Medicaid and Medicare can negotiate with big pharma to get better pricing including Brand and Generic medication.
2- Pharmaceutical companies are free to price their medication in USA  market with no competition with Canada, England and the rest of the world. While pharmaceutical companies are free to merge, reduce their taxes by relocating, in addition to other variety of techniques some of which was penalized by the government.

Just a thought.

The Sunset...

Joyce Mitchell poured her heart out to investigators about her relationships with the convicted murderers she helped escape from an upstate New York prison, detailing her increasing sexual contact with one of them and her deepening involvement in the plot over time, according to police.

Mitchell, a married woman, details her dreams of running off into the sunset with the men, "I enjoyed the attention, the feeling both of them gave me, and the thought of a different life," 

Her relationship with Richard Matt began with seemingly innocent requests for help, but soon escalated into sexual contact, she said, including sending him nude photos.

Matt made her “feel special” and she started doing favors for him. First, she called Matt’s daughter for him and then helped him get a hold of items he couldn't get for himself.

Mitchell said she was alone with Matt in the prison tailor shop when he "grabbed me and kissed me," the statement said. The sexual request from Matt escalated from there over time and Mitchell obliged, she told investigators.

Life is tedious, dull, monotonous, repetitive, unrelieved, unvaried, unimaginative, and uneventful outside a maximum security prison.                Just a thought. 

Get Over it ...???

Most marriages where there’s been infidelity end in divorce sooner or later and a common reaction of the victim spouse is to want the cheater held accountable for their actions, to be punished for the pain and hurt they’ve wrought on the family.

The harsh reality though is that with no-fault divorce laws throughout the U.S, divorce courts don’t care about cheating. The courts are there to administer the law not our moral code.

In the context of divorce, here comes the truth, NO ONE CARES.

My client.  She was young, smart, highly educated and beautiful.  She was also very trusting and naïve.  She literally suffered a nervous breakdown and could not go to work. 

It was a very short marriage, just under two years.  There were no children and no assets.  Other than get her divorced from this cheater, what else did she want? More importantly, what else could I fight for? I was so moved by her plight and believed that having lost her job because of her husband’s cheating, that he should provide some spousal support while she got her life back in order.

The Judge agreed with the Husband’s attorney, told me my demand was ridiculous and that my client had to “get over it.”  

Cheating is NOT a factor in divorce, and people spend way too much time, energy and money obsessing over it.  You are just too good for that type of life waster!

Just a thought

Curing HIV




A French teenager infected at birth with HIV has shown the ability to control levels of the infection in her body -- without being on antiretroviral treatment.

The finding provides new hope that a "functional" cure for HIV -- where the virus is brought down to low levels but not eradicated in the body -- may one day be possible.

 

The 18-year-old female, whose mother was HIV positive, was given antiretroviral treatment soon after birth but stopped at age six and has since maintained undetectable levels of the virus in her blood -- known as remission -- for 12 years.

 

"This is the first [time] long-term remission has been shown in children, or adolescents," said Asier Saez Cirion from the Institut Pasteur in France, who presented the findings at the 8th IAS conference on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention, in Vancouver this week.

 

Just a thought.

Willing to....*!

Ashley Madison the dating site for married people seeking affairs is riddled with fake profiles for women that encourage men to spend more money subscribing to the site.
The suit dovetails with longtime rumors that have swirled around the site that many of the female profiles on it are fake. The company says the suit is frivolous and provided Business Insider with photographs of the plaintiff to back up its statement that her suit is without merit.

Doriana Silva of Toronto alleges she was hired to write Portuguese-language profiles for the Brazilian version of the site. She was paid $34,000 plus benefits.

Her job consisted of creating 1,000 “fake female profiles” in three weeks, to make men think there were more women willing to cheat with them than actually existed.
“To entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website,” the suit says,  “They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison or any real human beings at all.”

The suit does not allege that creating fake profiles is illegal or unethical. Rather, Silva claims that all the typing hurt her wrists and that therefore the company should compensate her for her injuries. AM responded that Silva posted photos of herself on social media riding a jet ski after her employment with the company.

On the other hand, a North Carolina man has filed a lawsuit accusing the notorious affairs website Ashley Madison of breaking up his 13-year marriage. Robert Schindler's lawsuit, names the infidelity website, and his ex-wife's lover.

Everyone is trying to collect.    Just a thought.

Terror in Tenn.

 

The shooter had a handgun and two long guns in his possession, and another rifle at home, the official said. The 24-year-old engineering graduate wore a "load-bearing vest" that allowed him to carry extra ammunition.

  

Friends described the shooter as a once-devoted, disciplined mixed-martial-arts fighter; a top student known for smarts, charm and humor; and kept in touch with his roots in the Middle East.  He would go shooting as a hobby.

 A picture of a disturbed, suicidal young man using drugs, preparing for bankruptcy and facing an appearance in criminal court.   He abused sleeping pills, opioids, painkillers and marijuana, along with alcohol, with DUI arrest in April. 

It doesn't appear that the weapons were purchased recently, law enforcement   "some were purchased legally and some may not have been."

He had been in Jordan in 2014 and visited Kuwait and Jordan in 2010.  

  

Comment. This individual intended to do harm in a big way. When he failed to join  the Nuclear plant, he came with another evil plan.

Just a thought.

Plenty of protection ?

 

Police investigating the death of a Los Angeles man uncovered an arsenal inside his home and garage more than 1,200 guns and about two tons of ammunition, authorities said Monday. The man's decomposing body was found in a car down the street from his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

LA Police Department Cmdr. Andrew Smith called the number of rifles, pistols and shotguns staggering. Many had never been fired and some were still wrapped in boxes, with price tags still attached. "Our truck couldn't carry it all," Smith told the Los Angeles Times. "We had to go back and make another trip."

There were no signs of foul play and no evidence he was involved in criminal activity. 

Detectives want to find out why he had so many guns and are examining the weapons to determine if they have been linked to any crime.

"It's not a crime to have a large number of weapons so long as they were legal to own and legally obtained," Smith added. "We want to make sure that's the case."

 

More protection.  Just a thought.

"Yellen" up the wrong tree

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen urged lawmakers to tread lightly when it comes to overhauling the central bank, warning that proposed changes could undermine its ability to support the economy.
Yellen discouraged lawmakers from pushing their own proposals to bring the Fed under stricter oversight.

Yellen’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee comes one day after a hearing in which Republicans blasted the Fed as being unaccountable. 

The relationship between the Fed and Republicans has been touchy ever since the Fed embarked on an unprecedented run of monetary stimulus following the recession. 

The Financial Services panel went so far as to issue subpoenas for some documents, at which point the Fed refused to provide them, citing an ongoing criminal probe into the matter by the Department of Justice.

Yellen said the U.S. economy appears to be positioned to improve further in the months ahead, after a disappointing first quarter that saw no economic growth. 

Some of the Republican members blamed the unemployment and problems in the economy on Obama Care.    Shutting down the Government, lack of action for job creations by the Republicans and oppose any from the presidents wasn't mentioned at all. But It was nice to blame someone else.

Just a thought.

New Era, Nuclear Deal.

Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States reached a historic accord on Tuesday to significantly limit Tehran’s nuclear ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions.

Mr. Obama, in an early morning appearance at the White House that was broadcast live in Iran, began what promised to be an arduous effort to sell the deal to Congress and the American public, saying the agreement is “not built on trust it is built on verification.”   

 Almost as soon as the agreement was announced, to cheers in Vienna and on the streets of Tehran, its harshest critics said it would ultimately empower Iran rather than limit its capability. 

 

The United States preserved and in some cases extended the nuclear restrictions it sketched out with Iran in early April in Lausanne, Switzerland.

 

American officials said the core of the agreement, secured in 18 consecutive days of talks here, lies in the restrictions on the amount of nuclear fuel that Iran can keep for the next 15 years. The current stockpile of low enriched uranium will be reduced by 98 percent, most likely by shipping much of it to Russia.

 

Israel, Saudis, Republicans, among others are not happy that Obama's Administration didn't use the military to bomb Iran...... and choose difficult and successful negotiation to achieve a better outcome with No death of Americans, Iranians and others.

 

It is a new era. Deal with it.   Just a thought.

Get Rich or..

Image is not related

In court papers filed in the US Bankruptcy Court in Hartford, Conn., Mr. Jackson reported assets and debts each in the range of $10 to $50 million," The Wall Street Journal reports.

The filing comes just three days after the "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" rapper was ordered to pay $5 million to his rival Rick Ross' ex-girlfriend, Lastonia Leviston, who sued him for posting a sex tape online to millions of viewers in an attempt to embarrass Ross.

He is one of the world's wealthiest rappers, largely thanks to his minority stake in Vitamin Water. In 2007.  he continued to act as a spokesman.

Additionally, the rapper's studio albums alone have sold more than 21 million units, and he has starred in a long list of film and TV projects, including Starz's new hit "Power."
In May, Forbes estimated 50 Cent's net worth at $155 million, ranking him No. 4 on the list of the wealthiest hip-hop artists.

The bankruptcy claim comes just days after The New York Times published a glowing profile of the rapper, praising his "exceptional business instincts." Go Figure.

Just a thought.