News for the Week That Was – September 1 to September 8, 2012

What is the news, good neighbor, I pray?

They say a balloon has gone up to the moon

And won’t be back til a week from today.

Nursery Rhyme, 1805

September 8, 2012 -  This past week rhetorical balloons went up to the moon at both political conventions. Next week the balloons will come down.

·         For Republicans, the balloon came down in the form of a 9% Gallup bump in approval for Obama (with a 1.7% average jump in all polls).

·         For Democrats, the balloon came down with a miserable jobs report (368,000 left work force, and only 96,000 new jobs were created).

As for me, your faithful blogger, I  recorded these trial-balloon posts last week.

·         September 1 -  “Everything You Even Wanted to Know about How Obamacare Affects Doctors But You Didn’t Know Enough to Ask”  Here I concluded Obamacare enormously complicates and grotesquely distracts from the task of practicing  medicine.

·         September 2 -  “ Political Conventions and Health Care Issues”   Here I said if Romney wins there could be a psychological reawakening in belief in  the power of entrepreneurship and American enterprise to turn the economy around.  If Obama wins,  we shall slog on with an uncertain recovery but a firm belief that government holds the ultimate answers.

·         September 3 – “Review of 2016- Obama’s America, a documentary film”   Dinesh D’Souza, an American conservative of India descent and Obama’s same age of 51, narrates the film.  He succeeds in showing that Obama’s roots and past mentors shape Obama’s  view of America and his acts as  President.

·         September 4 -  “Is Your Personal Health Care Better Than It Was Four Years Ago?”  So far,  5% to 10% of Americans have felt a personal impact on Obamacare on their personal health care decsion-making .  We need polls indicating how many Americans have been affected.

·         September 5 – “Democrats’ Dilemma: Debt and Taxes.”  Here I tweet:  "The Democrats Dilemma, is arguing for re-election, is this: Will raising taxes on the rich decrease the national debt or  decrease government revenues?"

·         September 6 – “The Obama Record:  Do You Suppose Numbers Speak Louder Than  Words?”  Economic numbers have grown worse over the last four years.  Maybe they’ll  get better under Obama.  But maybe not. Maybe it’s time for a change.

·         September 6 -  "President Obama – The Secularist"    The President believes in a secular society guided by  government rather than religious values except  when it hurts his political party, e.g, deleting the words “Jerusalem” and “God” from the party platform with the ensuing uproar and protests from Jews and Blacks.

·         September 7 – “The Turning Away of  Medicare, Medicaid, and Insured Patients,”  Significant numbers of  American doctors are no longer seeing patients paid for  by third parties because of declining reimbursements, strangling  read tape,  and inability to make ends meet.  This raises a fundamental question: Of what value is expanded coverage without enough doctors to serve patients, even if they are covered by insurance?

Tweet: By next week, political balloons from  GOP and Democratic conventions will have deflated and returned to Earth.  Now it’s on to the debates.