Senate Group May Scuttle Public Option

Now this is a change that I can believe in. Especially if these are the things that they will get.

Like bills drafted by Democrats, the proposal under discussion by six members on the Senate Finance Committee would bar insurance companies from denying coverage to any applicant. Nor could insurers charge higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

But it jettisons other core Democratic provisions in a reach for bipartisanship on an issue that has so far produced little.

I think this would be called insurance reform instead of tearing down 20% of the economy and hoping for the best. If they can add a super cheap catastrophic option where a person will be covered if they get a rare disease or is hit by a car or something then it would be a good piece of legislation. Also expand the scope and funding of mini-clinics and doctor-in-the-box operations so the emergency room isn't used for preventive medicine.

The other things I would like to see are reforming Medicare and wringing the savings out of the system first and then talk about insuring the uninsured. Also they had better cap malpractice rewards so doctors don't have to practice defensive medicine.

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Mistrust of Government is Behind ObamaCare Resistance

I have noticed that this mistrust of government seems endemic in quite a bit of the populace and it might ultimately kill off ObamaCare.

One reason, of course, is that the mistrust is deeply ingrained now and not easily or quickly overcome. Recent events and the promise of big government help made things worse, however.

Americans have watched with frustration as their federal government has committed nearly $800 billion to stimulate the economy yet they've seen unemployment continue to rise. They've also watched their government send billions to Wall Street only to see financial firms give their executives big bonuses.

"Voters are in sacrifice overload," pollster John Zogby said. "They're dishing out trillions already and aren't seeing the return."

I think this is exactly the reason why ObamaCare is such a hard sell. They have seen trillions of dollars spent and have seen about $18 worth of return in their paycheck. I mean the stimulus bill was just money-wasting Democrat business as usual and didn't stimulate anything other then the national debt.

Now Americans are asked to pony up another trillion dollars to the same government that screws up on a nearly hourly basis. This is a government that pays for $1000 toilet seats, has a Veterans Hospital that is a decrepit joke, and seems to crash Amtrak trains every few weeks.

Now people are supposed to trust them with their very lives just for some savings on health insurance? I agree with Obama when he says "you rather stick with the devil you know then the devil you don't know." I think most Americans would rather see some tweaks the health insurance rather then a dismantling of the system.

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Blue Dogs Storm out of ObamaCare Meeting

Now this can't be good for party unity or for the moderate wing of the Democratic Party for that matter.

The seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stormed out of a Friday meeting with their committee chairman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), saying Waxman had been negotiating in bad faith over a number of provisions Blue Dogs demanded be changed in the stalled healthcare bill.�I�ve been lied to,� Blue Dog Coalition Co-Chairman Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said on Friday. �We have not had legitimate negotiations.

�Mr. Waxman has decided to sever discussions with the Blue Dogs who are trying to make this bill work for America,� Melancon said.

Um, I'm sure that Waxman understands that if these people take their "I'm all for higher taxes" vote back to their districts they will all be tossed out on their ear. One thing you can count on is that the Dems would rather self-destruct instead of working together. I'm just so tired of the "pass anything even if it destroys the country" attitude in Congress.

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Why Doesn't Health Care Reform Cap Lawsuits?

I have to agree with Charles Krauthammer when he says that why isn't there anything written into ObamaCare about reducing costs through this mechanism.

When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, in higher doctor fees to cover the insurance.

And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing -- and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers -- where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, which then pass it on to you in higher premiums.

The problem is that it will mess with a key constituency of the Dems which is trial lawyers. So all this talk about savings and fairness but doctors are getting robbed by these lawyers and then pass on that cost to consumers. Also the whole idea of defensive medicine should be put right into the cost savings pile as well.

This reform would be an actual incentive that could actually sell the government plan to doctors who would then sell it to their patients. Say that any doctor putting in claims to ObamaCare also gets malpractice rewards capped at $250,000.

Suddenly they don't have to pay onerous fees to some malpractice insurer and they can practice medicine to help people and not write up a bunch of tests just so they don't get sued. Obama could actually win this thing by pitting doctors who most people like against lawyers who most people hate.

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Obama Says He Should Have "Calibrated" His Words Better on Police Slam

Well, at least he is trying to get this out of the news cycle that he inadvertently created.

"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," he said. "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."

Seeking to lighten the situation further, he said he had invited both Crowley and Gates for "a beer here in the White House."

Now this shows he is the bigger man instead of rushing to judgment by saying that the Massachusetts State Police acted stupidly without any facts at all. I think Obama just needs to stick to the teleprompter or give an answer to a question like this as "I'm not sure of all of the facts of this case so I will offer more candor at a later date. Thank you"

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Bucyrus Follows Caterpillar and Smashes Estimates

It seems that mining equipment sales is started to become yet another green shoot in the economy according to these numbers.

U.S. mining equipment maker Bucyrus International Inc (BUCY.O) posted better-than-expected quarterly results, helped by growth at its surface mining original equipment and underground mining segments. For the second quarter, net income was $82.3 million, or $1.08 a share, compared with $62.3 million, or 83 cents a share, a year ago.

Revenue was up 17 percent to $724.4 million. Surface mining sales rose to $356.0 million from $301.8 million.

Underground-mining segment sales rose to $368.4 million from $319.2 million.

Analysts on average were expecting earnings of 82 cents a share, before special items, on revenue of $621.3 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

I was looking over their report and the only thing that caught my eye that you might be wary of is this part. Backlog seems like a very big deal when it comes to these sort of industrial companies so you can see project out earnings for the next few quarters.

Backlog as of June 30, 2009 and December 31, 2008, as well as the portion of backlog which is expected to be recognized within 12 months of these dates, was as follows:

                      June 30,     Dec. 31,
                        2009         2008      % Change
                     ----------   ----------    -------
                           (Dollars in thousands)
Surface Mining:
 Total               $1,146,534   $1,367,242    (16.1%)
 Next 12 months      $  652,642   $  906,884    (28.0%)

Underground Mining:
 Total               $  838,336   $1,135,212    (26.2%)
 Next 12 months      $  576,060   $  806,074    (28.5%)

Total:
 Total               $1,984,870   $2,502,454    (20.7%)
 Next 12 months      $1,228,702   $1,712,958    (28.3%)

But with commodity prices stubbornly high companies like Bucyrus and Joy Global (JOYG) might be seeing really good quarters for the rest of the year.

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Ried Pushes Back ObamaCare Until Fall

I have said lots of bad things about Harry Ried in the past but I have to give him credit for standing up to the Obama Hurry-up Machine and saying the Senate will not be rushed on health care.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., delivered the official pronouncement, saying, "It's better to have a product based on quality and thoughtfulness rather than try to jam something through."

His words were a near-echo of Republicans who have criticized what they have called a rush to act on complex legislation that affects every American.

Maybe the Senate will actually read this bill instead of passing it in the dead of night like the failed Stimulus.

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Cop Who Arrested Black Scholar a Racial Profiling Instructor

Even though the President of the United States called these cops "stupid" it seems that the arresting officer knew so much about racial profiling that he was an instructor of a profiling course.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy.

Academy Director Thomas Fleming says Crowley is "good role model" who was hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black.

In the class, Crowley teaches officers not to single people out based on their ethnic backgrounds.

Obama has said the Cambridge officers "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates last week after a woman reported a suspected break-in at his home.

Instead of just reserving his opinion until all the facts are known Obama condemned some peace officers as stupid simply for arresting his friend even though the charges were dropped. It is a sad state of affairs when Obama does not condemn Iran for cracking down on protestors but is quick to rush to judgment to call police officers "stupid." What happened to post-racial America?

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The Obama Pivot: It Isn't Healthcare Reform it is now Health Insurance Reform

Ah so now we get some triangulation and nuance in these remarks.

�I realize that with all the charges and criticisms being thrown around in Washington, many Americans may be wondering, �What�s in this for me? How does my family stand to benefit from health insurance reform?�� Obama asked. �This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job, or change their job.�

Now we will see an attack on the insurance industry as greedy companies that are "run for a profit" as people get sick and pay outrageous fees. Of course the government can regulate that industry so we won't get stuck with a $1 trillion bill for a public plan. There are quite a few mandates like cheap catastrophic plans, and forcing them to not deny health insurance due to preexisting conditions that could be looked at instead of a public plan.

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Obama Goes to the Airwaves as 53% of Americans Oppose ObamaCare

I think Obama needs to check some of these polls because the American people are starting to have second thoughts about health care.

The health care reform legislation working its way through Congress has lost support over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% of U.S. voters are at least somewhat in favor of the reform effort while 53% are at least somewhat opposed.

He is taking up another chunk of prime time tonight to go for his used car salesman hard sell. The more he pushes this the more he sounds like a car salesman saying "you have to sign, this car won't be here forever, you must sign" so you don't get a chance to read the fine print.

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Apple Beats Numbers and it isn't Just IPhones Alone

It seems that Apple is hitting on all cylinders while the rest of the tech industry flounders.

The company, which recently welcomed CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs back from a six-month medical leave, said earnings in the quarter that ended June 27 rose to $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per share. Apple's profit was $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per share, in the same period last year. Sales increased 12 percent to $8.34 billion from $7.46 billion in the year-ago quarter, which is the third in Apple's fiscal calendar.

Apple beat Wall Street's forecast on both counts. Analysts were expecting Apple to earn $1.17 per share on $8.20 billion in revenue, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.

It seems that some electronic gadgets are just recession-proof:

Apple said it sold more than 5.2 million iPhones in the quarter, more than seven times what it sold in the 2008 quarter, thanks to a newly released version of the device.

Apple's Mac computers also bolstered results. Apple sold 4 percent more Mac computers than a year ago. Meanwhile, researchers recently reported a 3 percent to 5 percent decline for the overall worldwide PC market in the same period.

It seems that the only two kinds of computers that are growing are Macs and Netbooks.

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The Speed is starting to Eat at Obama�s Policies

I have to agree with this assessment that the speed of these changes are starting to ware Americans down.

But the public understands that he wants to rush, rush, rush, and voters told the RNC researchers that they were tired of the pressure. �Repeatedly,� the Republican strategist says, �we�d hear, �Wait a second. We had to do the stimulus in the dead of night, we had to do cap and trade without anybody reading the bill, we had to move quickly on a multitrillion-dollar budget without any serious public debate, and now we�ve got to get health care done in two weeks?� �

I think Americans are understanding that when you rush things you end up with crap like the Stimulus Bill that has strait-up failed to deliver. I also agree that the hard-sell is starting to alienate people as well. Why does this need to be done by August 7th? LBJ took a year and a half to get Medicare passed. I remember Clinton's Health care revamp went on for quite a few months as well. I think the hard-sell and the rush-job is going to backfire on Obama going forward.

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I Hope You Like the Public Plan because It Will Be Forced on You

One of the things Obama keeps saying is this:

�If you have health insurance, and you like it, and you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period.�

The problem is that Congress doesn't care about what Obama says or that they make him a liar with their stupid scheme. According to this it seems that millions of people will be forced off of the their private plan onto the public plan. So you might like your doctor or your insurance but that doesn't matter when you are forced to take the government plan.

• Approximately 103 million people would be covered under the new public plan and, as a consequence, about 83.4 million people would lose their private insurance. This would represent a 48.4 percent reduction in the number of people with private coverage.
• About 88.1 million workers would see their current private, employer-sponsored health plan go away and would be shifted to the public plan.
• Yearly premiums for the typical American with private coverage could go up by as much as $460 per privately-insured person, as a result of increased cost-shifting stemming from a public plan modeled on Medicare.

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Leading Indicators Inch Up

Finally, some good news on the economy.

The index rose 0.7 percent last month. Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a gain of 0.4 percent. May's reading was revised up to a gain of 1.3 percent from 1.2 percent, while April was scaled back to 1 percent growth from 1.1 percent.

The group also said activity in the six-month period through June rose 2 percent, with an annual growth rate of 4.1 percent. That's the strongest rate since the first quarter of 2006.

The only bad thing is this will probably be a jobless recovery due to the failure of the stimulus bill and with Cap-and-Tax and ObamaCare killing even more jobs. I am just surprised that there is any positive leading indicators at all with Washington trying like mad to kill any green shoots.

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Now the Mayo Clinic Blasts ObamaCare

I think they are just piling on now. But these guys are the gold standard in medicine and they should know what they are talking about.

In general, the proposals under discussion are not patient focused or results oriented. Lawmakers have failed to use a fundamental lever � a change in Medicare payment policy � to help drive necessary improvements in American health care. Unless legislators create payment systems that pay for good patient results at reasonable costs, the promise of transformation in American health care will wither. The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.

I think there should be a cap on malpractice lawsuits built into this thing somewhere. That way doctors won't have to run a 100 tests just to cover their ass so they don't get sued. I like how Mayo separates health insurance from health care. Insurance just pays for the procedure but people like Mayo Clinics are the ones running the show.

The problem with ObamaCare is that some ass in Washington will be telling the Mayo Clinic what will be covered or not no matter what happens to the patient. I still would rather have one doctor from the Mayo Clinic rather than 10,000 Washington bean-counters any day.

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