Notes and Quotes on Current Events

These days people judge you by  what you say in your email notes and what you say to your friends.  

This is what I am thinking today

1) Politics of Deletion

 I am thinking about writing a blog on “The Politics of Deletion.”   Democrats in general,  e.g. on  how deleting details sealed  made the Iran Contra deal,  how the State Department deletes incriminating  videos and loses emails, and how Hillary deletes thousands of emails, which she claims are personal.

Moral:  Errors one must selectively delete to avoid political white heat.

2) ObamaCare Helps Republicans

 I am thinking about  a blog based on an article in The Hill “ Trump, Republicans Agree, ObamaCare Helps Us,  hurts Democrats.”  This supposition rests on a Gallup  poll showing 48% of Dems versus 19% of GOP want to keep it,  while 25% of Dems  ersus 80% of Republicans want to repeal it, and the reality that health premiums are set to spike big time the week  before  the election.

Moral:  If ObamaCare helps Republicans,  Ipso Facto, it hurts Democrats.

3) Trump as Moderate Populist

I am thinking  about  Trump being labeled as a Populist Moderate.  Populism is defined  is a political outlook  or deposition that  that appeals to the interests and perceptions (such as hopes and fears) of the general  population, especially when considering any push against the previous status quo of any predominate political sector,  and a populist  is someone who is a member or advocate of a political movement seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people. 

Moral: A little Populism may be a good thing, it's time to let the People's voices ring.

4) Political Correctness as Dem Ploy

I am thinking Political Correctness,  the point of view that everything Obama advocates  is  progressive Gospel while its critics are Lucifers,  Luddites, and intellectual pygmies  who oppose progress.

Moral:  Political correctness is a Democratic ploy to show Republican are intellectual schoolboys.

5) CMS Health Measurement Craziness

 I am thinking of the health measurement crazies who think any health care problem can be solved by spending $27 billion to teach doctors how to think.     Kip Sullivan, a Minnesota attorney and advocate of single payer said this in  the Health Care Blog today, ‘Technology Can’t Solve Slavitt’s “Data Paradox,"

Andy Slavitt, head of CMS, beleives  that the measurement craze has been a disaster. He  summarized the lousy results to date of the measurement craze. He said doctors feel all the data entry “took time away from patients and provided nothing or little back in return. Physicians are baffled by what feels like the ‘physician data paradox,’” he said. “They are overloaded on data entry and yet rampantly under-informed.”But the rest of Slavitt’s statement reveals he has no idea how to solve the “data paradox.” He asserted that “technology that works for doctors and patients” is the solution.

“I have no idea what this means and Slavitt did not indicate that he has a clue either. What I’m sure of is that “technology” is not the solution to the “data paradox.’

“The “data paradox” as Slavitt described it is not fixable with changes in “technology.” It’s the mindset of people like Slavitt that has to change. The “data paradox” will be fixed only when Andy Slavitt and other proponents of the measurement craze terminate the craze or, at minimum, drastically reduce measurement activities. That in turn will require that Slavitt et al. concede that they have vastly oversold what measurement and “data feedback” can accomplish and have vastly underestimated the cost of chronic measurement.

There is no “data paradox.” Physician hostility to being turned into data entry clerks so they can receive mountains of data back from CMS and other insurers can be explained very simply: The data they get back is either worthless or at best useful for generating hypotheses that physicians have neither the time, money nor training to prove or disprove. The data is not, as CMS likes to say, “actionable” by the physicians who receive it. “

Moral:  EHR health measurements do not work,  they reduce a doctor to a data entry clerk.

6) More ObamaCare  Bumps in Road

 I might compose a blog om 3 ObamaCare developments;   One) the Supreme Court has returned the Religious Mandate forcing Nuns to pay for    contraceptives for employees has been returned to the lower court, and both sides are declaring victory.; two,  the Court has yet to rule if ObamaCare subsidies on health exchanges are constitutional; and three, some   health insurers will no longer provide insurance  in 650 of America’s mostly rural counties, leaving citizens in those counties with only one and may be no health plans.  ObamaCare continues to be bumpy road with lots of potholes and a potential electoral sinkhole.

Moral:  ObamaCare creates multiple bumps in the road,  which develop  into giant sinkholes.