Income Inequality and North Carolina Health Care: A Tale of Two Extremes

by Nomad

Without the Medicaid expansion, health care for the poor of North Carolina has become a real problem.  Of course, you'd never know it by the looks of salaries paid to CEOs of  non-profit healthcare organizations. 

To put it bluntly, If you are poor in North Carolina, don't even think about getting sick.

  

The Tarheel State is one of 20 states that rejected Obamacare's optional Medicaid expansion. Governor Patrick Lloyd "Pat" McCrory and a Republican-majority legislature left healthcare coverage as it stood, covering some 1.9 million residents, around only a fifth of the state's population. 

Surviving in the Gap
Not everybody was happy with the arrangement. Advocates of the expansion claimed that another 500,000 people might have been added to the rolls, including tens of thousands of childless nondisabled adults.  

USNews reported last October that there was a good reason for this dissatisfaction. The states' Medicaid program is broken.

Bureaucratically antiquated and growing faster than state revenues, it has gone over budget in three of the past four years, and its taxpayer cost and total enrollment have both doubled over the past decade. Last year, it cost North Carolina taxpayers $15 billion, nearly a third of the budget and more than twice what the state spent in 2003.

At the end of 2015, Gov. McCrory signed into law a bill to reform North Carolina's overgrown and out of control Medicaid program.

However, this reform will take, by the official estimate, around four years to become fully implemented. Supporters claim that it will reduce existing spending by 2%, saving hundreds of millions every year. 

How accurate that is is anybody's guess. But one thing is clear, until then, the uninsured poor in the state are going to have to live with things as they are. 

Here's Why Mitch McConnell's Blanket Rejection of all SCOTUS Nominees is such a Dangerous Gamble

by Nomad

The decision by Senate Majority Leader McConnell to block each and every nominee submitted by President Obama could be a very dangerous misjudgment with devastating consequences in November. 

Leader of the Majority in the Senate Mitch McConnell's announcement to stall any SCOTUS candidate President Obama put forward came hours after the news of Justice Scalia's death. McConnell claimed that the matter could not too important to be decided in an election year.

Under McConnell's order, anybody nominated by President Barack will not succeed Justice Antonin Scalia. The confirmation process will be stalled until nearly a year from now after a new president is sworn in. As reported by USAToday, Mcconnell said:

"The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President." 

Democrats pointed out that the American people already had a voice in the selection. It was called the Senate. Their representatives in Congress- democratically-elected- have been designated by the Constitution to act as a Vox populi. Surely McConnell knows his own job description.

A Poem for Donald: Mending Wall by Robert Frost

by Nomad

Donald Trump's answer to America's immigration problem is to build a wall at the Sothern border. It may not be quite as easy or effective solution.
Trump's grand plan to cure immigration woes calls to mind a poem by Robert Frost.

The Great Wall of Trump

Republican candidate Donald Trump doesn't like to go into too many of the mundane details of his future policies as president.

Rather surprisingly, his supporters don't seem to mind too much. They just like to hear him speak and it appears the more unrealistic and offensive he is, the more they fawn over him.

One of the ideas he has proposed is the building of a wall on the Southern border to stem the flow of illegal migrants, from Mexico, Central, and South America.

Mark my words, Mr. Trump told his cheering crowds:

"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border.  

These are the same types that actually believed Reagan would cut government spending, that read George H.W. Bush's lips about no new taxes, and roared when George W. promised to hunt Bin Laden down, come hell or high water.
Until he lost interest. 

The Power of the Beat

by Nomad

Never ever underestimate the power of the beat.

Kentucky Lawmaker Wants Viagra Available Only to Married Faithful Men and Only with Wives' Approval

by Nomad

If it is good for the goose, the old saying goes, it should be good for the gander. In Kentucky, the government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens just took a step toward equality. 

According to a recent article from WDRB.com, if one Kentucky lawmaker has her way, men will have to swear on a Bible to be good little boys if they wish to enjoy the life-changing pharmaceuticals for erectile dysfunction. 

Democratic Rep. Mary Lou Marzian has introduced a bill in the Kenturky legislature wich would require men to be married and to have two office visits with a healthcare practitioner before getting a prescription for an erectile dysfunction drug such as Viagra or Cialis.

Single men would be out of luck. Horn-dawgs will just have to suck it up. They ought to feel relief that there was no mention of a mandatory prostate probe.

But there were other provisions to the draft bill.

Marzian’s bill would also require a man seeking an erectile dysfunction drug to get a signed and dated letter of approval from his spouse and to “make a sworn statement with his hand on a Bible that he will only use a prescription for a drug for erectile dysfunction when having sexual relations with his current spouse.”

As outrageous as it might sound, Marizan has a point to make. House Bill 396 is not exactly what it seems. Marizan explained in an interview that she wondered exactly how men might feel about the government injecting itself into their private medical decisions.