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Bonjour Biloulou

Il me semblait que cette nouvelle plairait!

les filles de obama pourraient aller à une école publique mais c'est probablement pas assez sécurisé
(allez savoir pourquoi?)
pour ce qui est des repas de cantines scolaires, dans la mesure où l'éducation utilise des sponsors pour se financer, on s'étonne plus que macdonalds fournit des fiches éducatives sur la nutrition
c'est ça le libéralisme finalement
bon, ils en sont pas encore aux fiches éducatives sur la sexualité financées par durex

des barres de mars et du cola au distributeur du le hall de l'école
franchement, est-ce que ça répond à un besoin réel?
je sais, on en a en france aussi de ces distributeurs de junk food, même dans les entreprises
et pourtant, qu'est-ce qui empêche le gamin de mettre son 4 heures dans son cartable puisque c'est ce qui se faisait avant que les distributeurs existent

ah oui, sans doute une carence éducative du côté des parents (c'est le sujet du jour)
en gros, les "mauvais" parents préfèrent donner quelques pièces de monnaie pour que leur gamin devienne obèse et/ou diabétique,
plutôt que de se faire chier à lui préparer un gouter équilibré

tout s'explique

Il me semble il me sembleseulement que le motif derriere l'affiche est justement que des repas equilibres, dietetiques, etc... soient offerts a tous les enfants Americains, comme ils le sont dans l'ecole privee des filles de Mr. Obama.

Date ................Presidential Approval Index Strongly Approve Strongly Disapprove Total Approve Total Disapprove

08/05/2009	-8	31%	39%	49%	51%
08/04/2009	-7	30%	37%	50%	48%
08/03/2009	-6	30%	36%	51%	48%

========

01/22/2009	+30	44%	14%	64%	29%
01/21/2009	+28	44%	16%	65%	30%

Il fait le bouchon en ce moment, un coup au-dessus, un coup en-dessousIt is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama's numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That's because some of the President's most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote. Other factors are also important to consider when comparing Job Approval ratings from different polling firms.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin strips off his shirt again for macho man photo op suggesting he would be fit to return as president if he chose to. | VIDEO

The story behind Clinton's trip to North Korea


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It took a former president with global celebrity status to free two U.S. journalists from a North Korea prison.
Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore greets freed U.S. journalist Laura Ling.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee arrived back in the United States Wednesday morning with former President Bill Clinton, who flew to North Korea to negotiate their release after they were sentenced to a labor camp.

Iain Clayton said Wednesday said that his wife Laura told him through a telephone conversation that the North Koreans were willing to grant the two journalists amnesty if a high-level envoy, such as former President Clinton, were willing to travel to Pyongyang.

But there was no shortage of envoys ready to travel to North Korea and negotiate the women's release.

Some heavyweights were turned down by the North Koreans: former Vice President Al Gore, a co-founder of the media outfit the women were working for when they were arrested, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations whose previous missions to North Korea included negotiating the release of a detained American.

Lower-level envoys such as former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and current Korea Society Chairman Donald Gregg, Sig Harrison, an expert on North Korean nukes who has traveled there several times, and Han Park, a scholar at the University of Georgia, all offered their services.

Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was also closely involved in coordinating efforts with the White House and State Department to free the women.

According to sources intimately involved with the efforts, Sen. John Kerry -- chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- received an official invitation to visit Pyongyang to facilitate their release and open a larger dialogue on the nuclear issue after several weeks of quiet direct diplomacy between Kerry and his aides and North Korea.

In the end, it was Clinton who North Korea wanted.

Two senior Obama administration officials described on background how Clinton's mission to Pyongyang to secure the release of two U.S. journalists imprisoned by North Korea evolved.

Officials said that while President Obama never spoke directly with the former president about this issue, negotiations were under way within the administration.

During the weekend of July 24-25, Clinton spoke with National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones about his willingness to take on this mission. Clinton ultimately agreed to go on the mission but made it very clear in every communication that this was purely a humanitarian effort.

Clinton also wanted to make sure, based on the due diligence of the national security team, that there was a high likelihood of success if he went.

"We were convinced this would be the result, and based on that we could advise President Clinton that his trip was going to be successful," one official said.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday that "we did our homework ... to make sure that if President Clinton did take this trip, that we would be able to ... win the freedom for these two."

Kelly said that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also had a role in the mission, adding that "The State Department was very involved." More details, he said, will be released.

Administration officials also said it was always made clear by Clinton and the national security team that this would be a humanitarian mission.

"We had one goal in mind, which was in the U.S. interest, which was to seek the release of these two U.S. Americans," one of the officials said. "And it wasn't in any way about our disagreements with the DPRK with respect to its conduct, or with respect to our intention to vigorously enforce resolutions and to vigorously seek the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

Clinton and his team engaged in a 75-minute meeting with President Kim Jong Il, and then had a dinner which lasted a little over two hours.

"So the total amount of time that they were in meetings or agendas with each other was about a little over three hours and 15 minutes," one official said.

Asked if the nuclear issue at least was discussed, the official said, "I don't have an answer to that question. I'm sure president Clinton gave President Kim his views on denuclearization and his views are well known with respect to denuclearization."

While Gore was turned down by North Korea, he was, however, actively involved in this effort from the start, speaking often with the families and the Obama administration.

On Wednesday, Obama thanked the former vice president, saying he "worked tirelessly in order to achieve a positive outcome."

Clinton's humanitarian help was not lost on Obama -- who reached out to the journalists' families on Tuesday night.

"I want to thank President Bill Clinton, I had a chance to talk to him, for the extraordinary humanitarian effort that resulted in the release of the two journalists," he said at the White House. "My hope is is that the families that have been reunited can enjoy the next several days and weeks understanding that because of the efforts of President Clinton and Gore they are able to be with each other once again."

Quel cinema! Alors que Bill n'y serait pas alle si ca n'avait pas ete gagne d'avance.
Sortez la Harpe et le violon!!!

Deja moins drole:


AUGUST 5, 2009, 1:23 P.M. ET

Paying Kim's Price

Was Mr. Clinton’s visit the down payment for a larger set of American concessions?

The last time an American civilian was held prisoner by North Korea, in 1996, it took a visit from then-Congressman Bill Richardson to secure his release. Yesterday, it required the full prestige of a former U.S. President to win the freedom of captive journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. When it comes to giving up politically valuable hostages, the Dear Leader has clearly raised the price.

We don’t begrudge the congratulations Bill Clinton deserves for saving the two journalists from what might have been a nightmare 12 years of hard labor; that was the sentence a kangaroo North Korean court imposed for allegedly blundering across its border with China in March. But the important question going forward is whether Mr. Clinton’s visit was merely the down payment Kim extracted from the Obama Administration for a potentially larger set of American concessions.

That question is hard to avoid given that Mr. Clinton was met at the Pyongyang airport by Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator. North Korea may have had its own propaganda reasons for putting its diplomat in the photo-op, and the White House insisted that Mr. Clinton’s mission was strictly humanitarian and that he was not carrying any messages from President Obama. We hope that’s true.

Yet Mr. Clinton’s visit is a message unto itself. It will bolster Kim’s bid to dissolve the six-party negotiations in favor of the direct talks with the U.S. he has long sought. It will also dismay some in South Korea and Japan, which have their own hostages in North Korea and will wonder why Mr. Clinton couldn’t obtain their release as well.

...

Aaaaaah si Bush avait fait ...

Ah non, non, il n'aurait jamais fait ca!

Là je suis d'accord avec Jam,

Si la bouffe dans les écoles est dégueu et non équilibrée, qu'est-ce qui empêche les parents de préparer eux mêmes les collations et le déjeuner de leurs mômes ?
ça coûte moins cher, mais ça prend plus de temps (comme préparer un repas "normal" plutôt que d'avaler de la junk food pré-machée à décongeler au micro-ondes...), et puis, on pourra toujours me rétorquer que des parents peuvent aussi préparer un repas non-équilibré à leur gosse...
Ah ! il est loin le temps de la petite maison dans la prairie...

plutôt que de se faire chier à lui préparer un gouter équilibré

Il ne s'agit pas de gouter mais de dejeuner ca n'est pas exactement la meme chose.

Pendant des annees, j'ai prepare le dejeuner de nos enfants. A l'epoque, il n'etait question que de lunch boxes (pas la petite maison dans la prairie mais presque, annees 80) les cafeteria n'existaient pas.

Mais j'avoue que je ne travaillais pas a l'exterieur, donc le matin je n'avais pas a preparer le petit dejeuner (tres important repas), preparer les enfants, me preparer, PREPARER LE DEJEUNER pour l'ecole et mettre tout le petit monde soit au bus soit dans la voiture afin qu'ils arrivent a l'ecole pour 7h45 et que je ne sois pas en retard au travail.

Je ne jette donc pas la pierre aux parents qui autorisent leurs enfants a manger a la cafeterai plutot que de preparer non seulement un repas sain mais aussi attrayant que celui des copains qui eux mangent pas forcement ce qui est bon pour eux mais en tout cas ce qui est a leur gout. Les parents n'ont tout simplement pas le temps pour la pluspart.

Je rappelle que le but justement de cette affichette est que la nourriture proposee dsoit meilleure pour la sante de tous les enfants dans toutes les ecoles. Certaines ont deja depuis longtemps remplace les machines a coca par des machines d'eau minerale, proposent des fruits au lieu de Twinkies, etc... mais bon, si un gamin a le choix...

Juste pour dire: nos enfants ont un court moment frequente la cantine francaise. Les mets generalement equilibres sont egalement imposes pour ne pas dire forces sur les gamins et je vous assure qu'il est hors de question a notre fille, par exemple, d'avaler certains plats vingt ans plus tard. Des lors on peut arriver a la conclusion que rien n'est parfait meme dans le systeme de sante francais meme dans les repas proposes par l'E.N.

Soyons réalistes......

La junk food pré-machée à décongeler au micro-ondes... est une infime partie de la responsabilité des parents par rapport à la jeunesse actuelle, nous sommes tous coupables mais surtout pas les gosses....

Quelques rescapés survivent, merci papa, merci maman, et que l'on taise à jamais "il est interdit d'interdire" que ces connards de 68 ont un jour dégueulé......














Si la bouffe dans les écoles est dégueu et non équilibrée, qu'est-ce qui empêche les parents de préparer eux mêmes les collations et le déjeuner de leurs mômes ?
ça coûte moins cher, mais ça prend plus de temps (comme préparer un repas "normal" plutôt que d'avaler de la junk food pré-machée à décongeler au micro-ondes...), et puis, on pourra toujours me rétorquer que des parents peuvent aussi préparer un repas non-équilibré à leur gosse...
Ah ! il est loin le temps de la petite maison dans la prairie...[/quote]

La Maison Blanche a demande a ses supporters d'ecumer le Web afin de trouver toute information contraire a la proposition de reforme du systeme de sante Democrate qui pourrait leur sembler "suspect" et de les communiquer sur un site specifique a la Maison Blanche. WOW!



White House steps up health care offensive with a blog that asks supporters to turn in 'fishy' information, sparking Big Brother fears — and outrage. | VIDEO

Cet article pris sur le Wall Street Journal, j'espere qu'il n'est pas considere comme de la desinformation!

AUGUST 6, 2009, 8:46 A.M. ET

ObamaCare's Real Price Tag

The funding gap is a canyon by year 10.

As ObamaCare sinks in the polls, Democrats are complaining that the critics are distorting their proposals. But the truth is that the closer one inspects the actual details, the worse it all looks.

Today’s example is the vast debt canyon that would open just beyond the 10-year window under which the bill is officially “scored” for cost purposes.
The press corps has noticed the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the House health bill increases the deficit by $239 billion over the next decade. But government-run health care won’t turn into a pumpkin after a decade. The underreported news is the new spending that will continue to increase well beyond the 10-year period that CBO examines, and that this blowout will overwhelm even the House Democrats’ huge tax increases, Medicare spending cuts and other “pay fors.”

In a July 26 letter, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf notes that the net costs of new spending will increase at more than 8% per year between 2019 and 2029, while new revenue would only grow at about 5%. “In sum,” he writes, “relative to current law, the proposal would probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.” (The House bill has changed somewhat in the meantime, but not enough to alter these numbers much.)

The nearby chart shows this Grand Canyon between spending and revenue, including CBO’s long-term predictions. While these are obviously very coarse estimates, there’s also a projection of a $65 billion deficit in the 10th year—and “deficit neutrality in the 10th year is . . . the best proxy for what will happen in the second decade.”

That’s not our outlook. That’s what White House budget director Peter Orszag told the House Budget Committee in June. He added that “If you’re not falling off a cliff at the end of your projection window, that is your best assurance that the long-term trajectory is also stable.” The House bill falls off a cliff.

And the CBO score almost surely understates this deficit chasm because CBO uses static revenue analysis—assuming that higher taxes won’t change behavior. But long experience shows that higher rates rarely yield the revenues that they project.

As for the spending, when has a new entitlement ever come in under budget? True, the 2003 prescription drug benefit has, but those surprise savings derived from the private insurance design and competition that Democrats opposed and now want to kill. The better model for ObamaCare is the original estimate for Medicare spending when it was passed in 1965, and what has happened since.

That year, Congressional actuaries (CBO wasn’t around then) expected Medicare to cost $3.1 billion in 1970. In 1969, that estimate was pushed to $5 billion, and it really came in at $6.8 billion. House Ways and Means analysts estimated in 1967 that Medicare would cost $12 billion in 1990. They were off by a factor of 10—actual spending was $110 billion—even as its benefits coverage failed to keep pace with standards in the private market. Medicare spending in the first nine months of this fiscal year is $314 billion and growing by 10%. Some of this historical error is due to 1970s-era inflation, as well as advancements in care and technology. But Democrats also clearly underestimated—or lowballed—the public’s appetite for “free” health care.

ObamaCare’s deficit hole will eventually have to be filled one way or another—along with Medicare’s unfunded liability of some $37 trillion. That means either reaching ever-deeper into middle-class pockets with taxes, probably with a European-style value-added tax that will depress economic growth. Or with the very restrictions on care and reimbursement that have been imposed on Medicare itself as costs exploded.

On the latter point, the 1965 Medicare statute explicitly stated that “Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any Federal official or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided.” Yet now such government management of doctors and hospitals is so pervasive in Medicare that Mr. Obama can casually wonder in a recent interview with Time magazine how anyone could oppose the “benign changes” that he supports, such as “how the delivery system works.” Oh, is that all?

Democrats will return in the fall with various budget tweaks that will claim to make ObamaCare “deficit neutral” over 10 years. But that won’t begin to account for the budget abyss it will create in the decades to come.

AARP *American Associatioin of Retired Persons ou encore Association Americaine de Vieux Peteux comme le disait Marieden , officiellement "apolitique" mais comme tout "apolitique" elle prend partie pour un parti. Elle s'implique dans le plan Democrate propose pour reformer l'assurance sante alors que la majorite de ses membres est avec MEDICARE!!!!

Apparemment l'association ne represente pas vraiment l'opinion de ses membres et ceux-ci semblent decides a ne pas pres a se laisser faire.

Un benevole de AARP s'explique ainsi:

My politics have nothing to do with this
I'm here to discuss with you why AARP is advocating for Healthcare

ensuite apres avoir attaque les compagnies d'assurance privees:

AARP does not endorse any legislation
AARP does not endorse any member of Congress

Un monsieur dit: cancel your memberships (C'est deja fait depuis bientot 2 ans! et je ne suis meme pas avec Medicare!)

Le mois d'aout est chaud cette annee a travers tous les Etats Unis! Les Democrates pensaient sans doute pouvoir passer cette legislation comme ils ont passe les plans de relance, mais la, ils sont tombes sur un os. Ca ne veut malheureusement pas dire qu'ils n'y parviendront pas.

O'Reilly s'en prend a GE (ce n'est pas nouveau d'ailleurs ), compagnie
- qui en difficulte a recu l'argent des contribuables (139 milliards de dollars quand meme),
- qui vient d'etre accusee de fraude par le SEC
- qui est prete a payer la penalite: 15 millions de dollars (avec l'argent des contribuables...) ,
- et dont le president Jeffrey Himmelt proche ami de NP est egalement son conseiller.

GE, si l'"autre" projet de loi passe, (celui sur l'environnement), gagnerait des centaines de millions...

FINALEMENT!!! Il est a espere que beaucoup liront cet article!


AUGUST 7, 2009

France Fights Universal Care's High Cost

By DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS

When Laure Cuccarolo went into early labor on a recent Sunday night in a village in southern France, her only choice was to ask the local fire brigade to whisk her to a hospital 30 miles away. A closer one had been shuttered by cost cuts in France's universal health system.

Doctors, trade unions and others have called national protests against French health-care cutbacks this year. One petition signed by prominent physicians said they feared the intent of the reform was to turn health care into a 'lucrative business' rather than a public service.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images


Ms. Cuccarolo's little girl was born in a firetruck.

France claims it long ago achieved much of what today's U.S. health-care overhaul is seeking: It covers everyone, and provides what supporters say is high-quality care. But soaring costs are pushing the system into crisis. The result: As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.

In recent months, France imposed American-style "co-pays" on patients to try to throttle back prescription-drug costs and forced state hospitals to crack down on expenses. "A hospital doesn't need to be money-losing to provide good-quality treatment," President Nicolas Sarkozy thundered in a recent speech to doctors.

And service cuts -- such as the closure of a maternity ward near Ms. Cuccarolo's home -- are prompting complaints from patients, doctors and nurses that care is being rationed. That concern echos worries among some Americans that the U.S. changes could lead to rationing.

The French system's fragile solvency shows how tough it is to provide universal coverage while controlling costs, the professed twin goals of President Barack Obama's proposed overhaul.

French taxpayers fund a state health insurer, Assurance Maladie, proportionally to their income, and patients get treatment even if they can't pay for it. France spends 11% of national output on health services, compared with 17% in the U.S., and routinely outranks the U.S. in infant mortality and some other health measures.

The problem is that Assurance Maladie has been in the red since 1989. This year the annual shortfall is expected to reach €9.4 billion ($13.5 billion), and €15 billion in 2010, or roughly 10% of its budget.

France's woes provide grist to critics of Mr. Obama and the Democrats' vision of a new public health plan to compete with private health insurers. Republicans argue that tens of millions of Americans would leave their employer-provided coverage for the cheaper, public option, bankrupting the federal government.

Despite the structural differences between the U.S. and French systems, both face similar root problems: rising drug costs, aging populations and growing unemployment, albeit for slightly different reasons. In the U.S., being unemployed means you might lose your coverage; in France, it means less tax money flowing into Assurance Maladie's coffers.

France faces a major obstacle to its reforms: French people consider access to health care a societal right, and any effort to cut coverage can lead to a big fight.

For instance, in France, people with long-term diseases get 100% coverage (similar to, say, Medicare for patients with end-stage kidney diseases). The government proposed trimming coverage not directly related to a patient's primary illness -- a sore throat for someone with diabetes, for example. The proposal created such public outcry that French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot later said the 100% coverage rule was "set in stone."

Australia	8.7%†
Austria	10.1%
Belgium	10.2%*
Canada	10.1%
Czech Republic	6.8%
Denmark	9.8%
Finland	8.2%
France	11.0%
Germany	10.4%
Greece	9.6%
Hungary	7.4%
Iceland	9.3%
Ireland	7.6%
Italy	8.7%
Japan	8.1%†
Korea	6.8%
Luxembourg	7.3%†*
Mexico	5.9%
Netherlands	9.8%*
New Zealand	9.2%
Norway	8.9%
Poland	6.4%
Portugal	9.9%†
Slovak Republic	7.7%
Spain	8.5%
Sweden	9.1%
Switzerland	10.8%*
Turkey	5.7%‡
United Kingdom	8.4%
United States	16.0%

...[/i]

Scandalises au sujet de NP depeint sous les traits du Joker, les memes qui l'annee derniere ne voyaient aucun probleme a ce que Pres. Bush 43 soit traite de la meme facon.



FNC/Drew FriedmanIt's said 'turnaround is fair play,' but outrage over a poster circulating around L.A. that depicts President Obama as the 'Joker' seems to have ignored a similar image of President Bush last year in Vanity Fair.

White House Move to Collect 'Fishy' Info May Be Illegal, Critics Say

The White House has been under fire since posting a blog on Tuesday that asks supporters to e-mail any "fishy" information seen on the Web or received electronically.

FOXNews.com
Friday, August 07, 2009

The White House strategy of turning supporters into snitches when they see "fishy" information about the health care debate may run afoul of the law, legal experts say.

"The White House is in bit of a conundrum because of this privacy statute that prohibits the White House from collecting data and storing it on people who disagree with it," Judge Andrew Napolitano, a FOX News analyst, said Friday.

"There's also a statute that requires the White House to retain all communications that it receives. It can't try to rewrite history by pretending it didn't receive anything," he said.

"If the White House deletes anything, it violates one statute. If the White House collects data on the free speech, it violates another statute."

Napolitano was referring to the Privacy Act of 1974, which was passed after the Nixon administration used federal agencies to illegally investigate individuals for political purposes. Enacted after Richard Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal, the statute generally prohibits any federal agency from maintaining records on individuals exercising their right to free speech.

The White House has been under fire since it posted a blog on Tuesday that asked supporters to e-mail any "fishy" information seen on the Web or received electronically to flag@whitehouse.gov.

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there," the blog said, adding that "since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help."
The blog was posted partly in response to a video posted on the Web that claimed to show Obama explaining how his health care reform plans eventually will eliminate private insurance.

The video, featured on the Drudge Report, strung together selected Obama statements that the White House said were taken out of context.

The White House said it wanted to be made aware of "fishy" comments about its health care plan because it wants to set the record straight. But critics called White House move an Orwellian tactic designed to control the health care debate

....

Pour Tous et pour Biloulou en particulier

Probe Finds Airspeed Sensors Failed on at Least 12 U.S. Flights

Friday, August 07, 2009



AP/Brazilian Air Force
June 8: Brazil's Navy sailors recover debris from the missing Air France jet at the Atlantic Ocean.

WASHINGTON — On at least a dozen recent flights by U.S. jetliners, malfunctioning equipment made it impossible for pilots to know how fast they were flying, federal investigators have discovered. A similar breakdown is believed to have played a role in the Air France crash into the Atlantic that killed all 228 people aboard in June.

The discovery suggests the equipment problems are more widespread than previously believed. And it gives new urgency to airlines already scrambling to replace air sensors and figure out how the errors went undetected despite safety systems.

The equipment failures, all involving Northwest Airlines Airbus A330s, were brief and were noticed only after safety officials began investigating the Air France crash — on a Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight — and two other recent in-flight malfunctions. The failures were described by people familiar with the investigation who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

...

juste une remarque sur les courbes du calcul de cout de l'assurance maladie usa

d'une part, cet argent n'est pas perdu puisqu'il va directement enrichir les actionnaires de l'industrie pharmaceutique (qui pourra même en profiter pour augmenter ses prix de vente)

d'autre part, si le système fonctionne, il va rentrer en concurrence avec des assurances actuelles "bas de gamme" qui vont disparaitre des solutions "privées"
donc ça va peut-être intéresser bien plus de monde que les actuels non assurés,
donc ça va couter plus cher à l'état

la seule erreur qu'il faudrait pas qu'ils fassent, c'est d'imiter la france
c'est à dire de faire financer l'assurance maladie par les salariés
parce que du coup, la productivité s'écroule et les délocalisations s'accélèrent
mais les conneries, c'est la spécialité des politiciens, donc ça se pourrait fort bien qu'un type dise un jour
"... et si on prélevait l'assurance maladie sur les salaires ...."

et l'inde et la chine, vous croyez qu'ils vont le faire, eux !
déjà, vous croyez qu'ils sont comme nous à payer les médicaments 100 fois leur prix de revient?
pas fous les types
ils ont une croissance entre 7 et 12, ils vont pas se tirer une balle dans le pied

en inde on va tous finir
en inde je vous dit
(sauf les retraités qui n'auront plus personne pour cotiser pour eux, mais comme déjà ils s'en foutent des délocalisations !! c'est certainement pas ça qui va les aider à comprendre)

AUGUST 7, 2009, 10:02 A.M. ET

Health Reform and the Polls

Obama’s biggest obstacle is the 68% of voters who rate their health coverage as good or excellent.
By SCOTT RASMUSSEN

For all the back and forth about the “public option,” Congressional Budget Office estimates and proposed tax hikes, the fundamentals are really what make health-care reform a hard sell to American voters. As members of Congress head home for the August recess, they should take a close look at some poll numbers before they attempt to pass any new legislation.

The most important fundamental is that 68% of American voters have health-insurance coverage they rate good or excellent. That number comes from polling conducted this past weekend of 1,000 likely voters. Most of these voters approach the health-care reform debate fearing that they have more to lose than to gain.

Adding to President Barack Obama’s challenge as he sells health-care reform to the public is the fact that most voters are skeptical about the government’s ability to do anything well. While the president says his plan will reduce costs, 53% believe it will have the opposite effect.

There’s also the reality that 74% of voters rate the quality of care they now receive as good or excellent. And 50% fear that if Congress passes health-care reform, it will lead to a decline in the quality of that care.

Martin Kozlowski

Advocates of health-care reform on Capitol Hill are up against something bigger than voters’ reactions to a variety of specific proposals. Our polling in February found that by a 2-1 margin, voters believe that no matter how bad things are Congress can always make matters worse.

That’s one reason 78% believe passage of the current congressional health-care proposals is likely to mean higher taxes for the middle class.

However, there are some numbers congressional Democrats can celebrate. Specifically, 63% of voters agreed with the president earlier this year when he said, “We must make it a priority to give every single American quality affordable health care.” Yet while they agree in theory, only 28% are currently willing to pay higher taxes to achieve that goal.

Another point in the reformers’ favor is that a significant number of the voters we polled in May had experienced financial hardship brought on by health issues. One in four Americans—26%—say that health-care costs have at some point caused them to miss credit-card, rent or mortgage payments. That figure includes 21% of those who have health insurance coverage.

Finally, voters strongly believe that medical care should be provided when needed, regardless of insurance coverage. In May, Rasmussen Reports found that just 31% of voters believe young and healthy adults who choose not to buy health insurance should be forced to do so. But a follow-up question asked: “What if those who chose not to buy health insurance end up needing emergency room care?” Only 16% said treatment should be denied; 74% said they should be treated even if they did not have insurance.

Taken together, the data shows that at this point voters are pretty evenly divided. Last week’s polling showed that 47% at least somewhat favored the plan while 49% are somewhat opposed.

Though voters are torn about reform, there is intensity among the opposition. Just 25% strongly favor the reform effort, while 41% are strongly opposed. And that gets back to the very first point: 68% currently have good or excellent coverage. It’s going to be hard to generate passionate support for change among this group of voters.

Those opposed to Mr. Obama’s reform appear to have momentum on their side. Polling last weekend showed that 48% of voters rate the U.S. health-care system as good or excellent. That’s up from 35% in May and up from 29% a year ago. Only 19% now rate the system as poor, down from 37% a year ago. It appears that the prospect of changing health care has made the existing system look better to a lot of people.

Beyond the intensity of the opposition and its momentum, there is also a huge partisan gap that puts congressional Democrats in a very difficult position. Currently, 76% of Democratic voters favor the health-care reform plan proposed by Mr. Obama and the congressional Democrats, and they are counting on their representatives to deliver.

But delivering for the Democratic base has the potential to hurt the party’s standing among independents. Among the unaffiliated, 35% are in favor of the Democrats’ health-care reform initiative, and 60% are opposed. Notably, just 16% of unaffiliated voters strongly favor the legislative effort; 47% strongly oppose it.

As the Democrats scramble to pass a health-care reform bill by the fall, they appear to have two choices. One is to stick with the broad outlines of the plan that has been laid out by various congressional committees. Those proposals would be well received within the party, but will cause some angst beyond it.

The other option would be to pass smaller scale reform and declare victory. That approach would probably be well received by voters in the middle, but create turmoil within the party.

In political terms, the most important reality will be how the reform affects the 68% who say they have good or excellent health-insurance coverage. If they end up having to change their coverage, pay significantly higher taxes, or encounter some other unpleasant reality, congressional Democrats will look back on this August as a time when they should have listened more closely to the folks back home.

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It's tough to be a politician!

President Obama, Hawaii, and Dodgy Certificates

We have seen the evidence, and it is even worse than you might think.
By Stephen Spruiell

Pres. Barack Obama has argued that “one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest.” But if you want to know how state enterprises really feel about competition, take a look at Obama’s home state of Hawaii.

On the island of Maui, there is only one acute-care hospital, the state-run Maui Memorial Medical Center. For years, residents of Maui have complained that the hospital does not meet their needs — too few beds, not enough specialists, and long waits in the emergency room. State bureaucrats finally cleared the way earlier this year for a small private hospital to be built, but only after scuttling plans to build a larger, more accommodating private hospital. A larger hospital, they said, would have an adverse impact on “the existing health-care system.” In other words, it would compete too effectively with what is now a state-run monopoly.

To block the construction of the private hospital, which its backers dubbed the Malulani project, the Hawaii State Health Planning and Development Agency (SHPDA) simply denied its application for a Certificate of Need (CON). In Hawaii, private companies must petition the state if they want to build a new hospital. Certificate of Need laws proliferated during the regulatory heyday of the 1960s, and the federal government started requiring states to adopt them in the 1970s. The federal requirement was repealed in 1987, and a number of states followed suit by dropping these anti-competitive laws. But many states, including Hawaii, still have them.

Under the guise of controlling health-care costs (sound familiar?), Certificate of Need laws allow established market players to game the system by convincing regulators that competition would force them to charge more or to cut politically popular but money-losing services such as substance-abuse counseling. This CON job is even easier to pull when the established market player is a state-run hospital, such as Maui Memorial.

In denying Malulani’s CON application, the SHPDA relied almost entirely on the testimony of interested parties, primarily officials from Maui Memorial who claimed that the new hospital would hurt their bottom line. “The financial impact . . . of Malulani would be severe,” one Maui Memorial official testified. “Total estimated net revenue loss in Maluiani’s third year of operation is estimated to be $54,913,000 . . . Revenue losses of this magnitude would limit any safety-net programs [Maui Memorial] could provide.”

Coming from a private hospital, this sob story might or might not convince a sympathetic regulator to protect it from competition. Coming from a state-run hospital, it is simple extortion. Taxpayers are on the hook for any holes in Maui Memorial’s operating budget, so the hospital’s administrators can scare their political overseers with a big number or threaten to make unpopular service cuts to get their way.

The involvement of the state also allows other interest groups to exert control over the process. The Hawaii Government Employees Association, the union that represents Maui Memorial employees, feared the Malulani project and pressured policymakers to oppose it. Ronald Kwon, a Maui-born internist who led the Malulani project, says, “The largest employer in Hawaii is the state government, and the largest union is the HGEA, and when they don’t want something to happen, they can be very effective at blocking it.”

In addition to Maui Memorial administrators and employees, a consortium of interests on the neighboring island of Oahu, the seat of state government, got in on the act. Jan Shields, a nurse who worked at Maui Memorial and later became an advocate for Malulani, explains why: “Maui is the money island,” she says. “The rich get care, because they hop on a plane and fly over to Oahu and go to one of the private hospitals. But the middle class who can’t afford to fly over, and certainly the poor, are stuck with the government hospital.”

Shields points out that the Oahu panels involved in the Certificate of Need review process sank Malulani for the simple reason that a large number of Maui patients are flown to Oahu for care each year — the rich at their leisure and the middle class and poor in emergencies. For instance, Maui Memorial does not have a neonatal intensive-care unit. It can only try to stabilize premature or sick newborns until the cavalry arrives. “So if you have a sick baby,” Shields says, “say it’s a preemie and it’s born at Maui Memorial, the babies just get poor care until the transport team can come from Oahu, pick them up, and bring them back. And, as a result, our babies don’t do as well.”

The human costs of substandard care are bad enough, but the state’s decision to block the Malulani project has had budgetary consequences, too. Like most states, Hawaii is currently facing a budget crunch, and Linda Lingle, the Republican governor who supported Malulani, is looking for ways to cut costs. Maui Memorial in particular has been a source of budgetary headaches, because overcrowding has forced it to fill expensive acute-care beds with long-term patients. In order to save money in the long run, the state now has to spend $5 million to add long-term beds at another state facility. Three years ago, private investors were offering to add hospital beds on Maui at no cost to the state through the Malulani project, and, had the state taken them up on it, the Malulani Health and Medical Center would probably be ready to serve the island today — it was scheduled to open its doors last January.

“We had everything in place,” says Kwon, who left Hawaii for Boston in frustration. “[The SHPDA] said we would have an adverse impact on the existing provider, but my argument is that the impact would have been more beneficial than adverse, because it would have been forced to become a better place. A rising tide lifts all boats, and I really think that’s what would have happened.”

And therein lies the reason that the Malulani project went down to defeat: State-run enterprises do not want anyone to force them to be better. They would rather manipulate the reins of power to maintain the status quo. In discussing President Obama’s health-care agenda, Rep. Barney Frank recently went off-message and told a left-wing activist, “I think the best way we’re going to get single-payer, the only way, is to have a public option demonstrate its strength and its power.”

Representative Frank probably didn’t mean the strength and power of state-run enterprises to steamroll their competitors, but the Malulani project demonstrates why that is a strength and power we should fear and fight.

Stephen Spruiell is an NRO staff reporter

August 6, 2009 4:00 AM
Insult and Injury
By the Editors

President Obama likes to pose as the tribune of the common people, but Americans who show up at town-hall meetings to object to Obama’s plans to nationalize health care are, in the words of Obama’s Democratic National Committee, “the mob,” a bunch of “extremist” yahoos who must be publicly denounced and ridiculed. It’s a remarkable piece of condescension and snobbery, but one that is indicative of how President Obama thinks and does business.

Except when he condescends to make the occasional offhanded jibe about cops policing “stupidly” in Boston or hapless Special Olympics competitors, Obama famously likes to strike a pose of being above it all — but what country does he think he is president of, anyway? We cannot recall a similar episode in recent history in which a group of Americans bringing their concerns about a public-policy question to their representatives were told to sit down and shut up. It’s true that democratic discourse should be respectful and dignified — but it also should be two-way: Politicians should expect to listen as much as they expect to be listened to.

The DNC’s ad, “Enough of the Mob,” abominates those Americans who show up to address their congressmen and to exercise their constitutional rights to speak freely, to assemble, and to petition their government for redress of grievances. You know, that old pre-hope-and-change, hopelessly retro, pre-messianic democratic stuff. The ad is deeply dishonest, even by the standards of Washington discourse: The beginning and ending images, and many of those in between, are not those of people protesting Obama’s health-care proposals, but rather of the wacko fringe “birthers” (about whom much has been written here and elsewhere), who have nothing to do with either the town-hall meetings in question or with the Republican party as such. This is pure chicanery: The people protesting Obamacare have not gone out and comported themselves like a gang of buffoons, so Obama’s partisans simply took video of different people comporting themselves like a gang of buffoons and substituted it. That’s a low, shoddy, and intellectually dishonest way to operate.

It’s also a little ironic: This smear job is being shepherded by the DNC’s Brad Woodhouse, who back in his Americans United days acted as a front for the union bosses working to defeat President Bush’s Social Security reforms, doing precisely what he now accuses Republicans of doing — packing town-hall meetings with political activists and party operatives posing as regular people, shunting lobbyists’ money into phony grassroots action, etc. We’ll take Mr. Woodhouse’s tender concerns for decorum with a grain or two of salt.

Sen. Barbara Boxer has added to the national mirth, as she often does, by arguing that these people cannot possibly be real American voters. Why? Because they’re too “well dressed.” Presentable, peaceable protesters? It’s a set-up!

The Obama gang is derided, often and justly, for practicing cheap racial politics, but even more poisonous, if less remarked upon, is its class politics. The entire intellectual infrastructure behind the stimulus, the bailouts, the auto-industry takeover, and the proposed health-care takeover rests on the assumption that the people who staff the Obama administration are smarter, better, more caring, and more decent than you yahoos out there in the general public, who simply cannot be trusted to make your own decisions about important matters, such as what sort of health insurance to purchase or whether to buy a car that gets 20 miles per gallon or 22 miles per gallon.

Given that line of thinking, it’s easy to understand why Obama’s partisans would dismiss those citizens who dare to criticize his proposal as “the mob.”

The most mockery-inviting aspect of all this is that Obamacare-supporting Democrats are now ducking constituent meetings back in their home districts, afraid to face questions from the people they are paid to represent. Given the Obama team’s contempt for these people, and its utterly dismissive attitude toward their concerns, is it any wonder “the mob” doesn’t want Obama in charge of their health care? Obamacare will constitute an injury to Americans’ well-being — and the president now adds insult to it.

Courageux mais pas temeraires les gars...

les elus Democrates vont remplacer les reunions en salles municipales (un peu trop houleuses ces dernieres temps) par des appels telephoniques et des rendez-vous dans leurs bureaux...

Lawmakers Rethinking Town Hall Strategy

Some Democratic lawmakers are opting for smaller sessions, holding meetings by phone or inviting constituents for one-on-one office hours.

Wall Street Journal

FOXNews.com

Saturday, August 08, 2009


The health-care debate was supposed to play out at rallies and inside gymnasiums when lawmakers headed home for the August recess.

But after a series of contentious town-hall meetings, some Democratic lawmakers are thinking twice about holding large public gatherings. Instead, they are opting for smaller sessions, holding meetings by phone or inviting constituents for one-on-one office hours.

Democrats have accused Republicans of manufacturing the opposition by organizing groups to attend the events and encouraging disruptive behavior. Republican organizers say the unrest reflects genuine anger about the proposed health-care changes.

"Democrats may think that attacking or ignoring this growing chorus of Americans is a smart strategy, but they are obviously forgetting that these concerned citizens are voters as well," said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP's campaign arm.

Rick Scott, who leads Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a group that has helped publicize the local meetings, said: "The polls reveal the real picture of what is happening across the country -- people are genuinely concerned, some are genuinely angry, and they are expressing themselves."

The Senate on Friday headed home for a monthlong break after progress stalled on passing sweeping health-care legislation. House members, whose break started a week ago, have been hit with a flood of inquiries about the legislation since they arrived home.

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D., Ariz.) on Thursday canceled her public schedule for the day after a "Chat with Ann" session at a Safeway grocery store in Holbrook, Ariz., turned rowdy.

...

L'opinion hebdomadaire de Charles Krauthammer

Health-Care Reform: A better Plan
By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, August 7, 2009

In 1986, Ronald Reagan and Bill Bradley created a legislative miracle. They fashioned a tax reform that stripped loopholes, political favors, payoffs, patronage and other corruptions out of the tax system. With the resulting savings, they lowered tax rates across the board. Those reductions, combined with the elimination of the enormous inefficiencies and perverse incentives that go into tax sheltering, helped propel a 20-year economic boom.

In overhauling any segment of our economy, the 1986 tax reform should be the model. Yet today's ruling Democrats propose to fix our extremely high-quality (but inefficient and therefore expensive) health-care system with 1,000 pages of additional curlicued complexity -- employer mandates, individual mandates, insurance company mandates, allocation formulas, political payoffs and myriad other conjured regulations and interventions -- with the promise that this massive concoction will lower costs.

This is all quite mad. It creates a Rube Goldberg system that simply multiplies the current inefficiencies and arbitrariness, thus producing staggering deficits with less choice and lower-quality care. That's why the administration can't sell Obamacare.

The administration's defense is to accuse critics of being for the status quo. Nonsense. Candidate John McCain and a host of other Republicans since have offered alternatives. Let me offer mine: Strip away current inefficiencies before remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The plan is so simple it doesn't even have the requisite three parts. Just two: radical tort reform and radically severing the link between health insurance and employment.

(1) Tort reform: As I wrote recently, our crazy system of casino malpractice suits results in massive and random settlements that raise everyone's insurance premiums and creates an epidemic of defensive medicine that does no medical good, yet costs a fortune.

An authoritative Massachusetts Medical Society study found that five out of six doctors admitted they order tests, procedures and referrals -- amounting to about 25 percent of the total -- solely as protection from lawsuits. Defensive medicine, estimates the libertarian/conservative Pacific Research Institute, wastes more than $200 billion a year. Just half that sum could provide a $5,000 health insurance grant -- $20,000 for a family of four -- to the uninsured poor (U.S. citizens ineligible for other government health assistance).

What to do? Abolish the entire medical-malpractice system. Create a new social pool from which people injured in medical errors or accidents can draw. The adjudication would be done by medical experts, not lay juries giving away lottery prizes at the behest of the liquid-tongued John Edwardses who pocket a third of the proceeds. *

The pool would be funded by a relatively small tax on all health-insurance premiums. Socialize the risk; cut out the trial lawyers. Would that immunize doctors from carelessness or negligence? No. The penalty would be losing your medical license. There is no more serious deterrent than forfeiting a decade of intensive medical training and the livelihood that comes with it.

(2) Real health-insurance reform: Tax employer-provided health-care benefits and return the money to the employee with a government check to buy his own medical insurance, just as he buys his own car or home insurance.

There is no logical reason to get health insurance through your employer. This entire system is an accident of World War II wage and price controls. It's economically senseless. It makes people stay in jobs they hate, decreasing labor mobility and therefore overall productivity. And it needlessly increases the anxiety of losing your job by raising the additional specter of going bankrupt through illness.

The health-care benefit exemption is the largest tax break in the entire U.S. budget, costing the government a quarter-trillion dollars annually. It hinders health-insurance security and portability as well as personal independence. If we additionally eliminated the prohibition on buying personal health insurance across state lines, that would inject new and powerful competition that would lower costs for everyone.

Repealing the exemption has one fatal flaw, however. It was advocated by candidate John McCain. Obama so demagogued it last year that he cannot bring it up now without being accused of the most extreme hypocrisy and without being mercilessly attacked with his own 2008 ads.

But that's a political problem of Obama's making. As is the Democratic Party's indebtedness to the trial lawyers, which has taken malpractice reform totally off the table. But that doesn't change the logic of my proposal. Go the Reagan-Bradley route. Offer sensible, simple, yet radical reform that strips away inefficiencies from the existing system before adding Obamacare's new ones -- arbitrary, politically driven, structural inventions whose consequence is certain financial ruin.

Comme quoi, contrairement a ce que certains pensent, disent et/ou ecrivent, les Republicains ont plus d'une alternative a presenter concernant les assurances medicales.

Pres. Bush 43 avait d'ailleurs fait une proposition complexe mais qui donnait a chacun la possibilite de choisir (Pas vraiment le genre de chose appreciee par les Democrates elitistes au pouvoir qui preferent tout standardiser et tout mettre sous la houlette du gouvernement: C'est bien connu les gens sont tellement betes qu'ils ne savent pas ce qui est bon pour eux - sic).

* John Edward

AUGUST 8, 2009, 12:40 A.M. ET

Geithner Asks Congress to Increase Federal Debt Limit

By COREY BOLES and MICHAEL R. CRITTENDEN

Washington -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress to increase the $12.1 trillion debt limit on Friday, saying it is "critically important" that they act in the next two months.
Mr. Geithner, in a letter to U.S. lawmakers, said that the Treasury projects that the current debt limit could be reached as early mid-October. Increasing the limit is important to instilling confidence in global investors, Mr. Geithner said.

The Treasury didn't request a specific increase in the letter.

"It is critically important that Congress act before the limit is reached so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations," Mr. Geithner said in a letter to lawmakers.

Mr. Geithner said the that it is "clearly a moment in our history" that requires support from both Democrats and Republicans for the increase.

"Congress has never failed to raise the debt limit when necessary," Mr. Geithner said.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Thursday the federal government's budget deficit reached $1.3 trillion through the first ten months of fiscal 2009, on track to reach a record high of $1.8 trillion for the 12-month period.

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