Costing the Ryan "replace" bill

Congressional Budget Office released their study of the effects of the Ryan bill, costs, loss of insurance and other things.  According to CBO the Ryan bill would reduce the federal deficit by $370 billion at the cost of 24 million people losing their insurance.
   Lets be simple about it,  $370 billion divided by 24 million people yields $15416 in savings per person losing insurance coverage.  That's a lot.  Used to be full house family plan company insurance ( the best you can get) ran $12000 a year.  Hospitalization only insurance ran $3000 a year.  So the Ryan bill reduces costs to us taxpayers by MORE than it would cost us taxpayers to buy outright, a full house family insurance plan for each person loosing their insurance policies. 
  Sounds like a deal to me.

The US Flag still means something in the Middle East

TV has been showing a video of a small convoy of military vehicles moving into some obscure town in Iraq. Some hummers, some trucks, a Styker armored car, but no tanks and no Bradleys. Every vehicle is flying a decent sized US flag on a pole above the vehicle. 
   The troops driving must figure that showing the flag won't draw fire and might help establish useful relations with the locals.
   Not bad for Old Glory. 

Let's dump ALL the Senate rules and start over with clean slate

All we ever hear about Senate rules, is how some obscure rule is holding up something good.  Senate rules were started by Southern Democrats looking for ways to block abolitionist legislation before the Civil War.   Southern democrats carried on this disgraceful tradition in the 1950's looking for ways to block civil rights legislation.   Then the "rules" were expanded to block Supreme Court appointments, all federal judge appointments, and pretty much anything.  It got so bad that they couldn't muster the votes to pass the federal budget.  Harry Reid (former Democrat Senate majority leader) had to create a new "rule" called reconciliation to allow the budget to pass on a simple majority, rather getting hung up going for 60 votes.   Today the Republicans are trying to use "reconciliation" to repeal Obamacare by a simple majority.   Which is why they didn't put interstate sale of insurance in it.  "Reconciliation" can only be used for budget matters Later Harry created another rule allowing appointments ( except Supreme Court) to pass on a simple majority.  And the Senate has "rules" requiring 60 votes in order to bring a bill to the floor, and then 60 votes to pass it.  In short the Senate spends half it's votes, voting to have a  vote.  Senators can vote one way on one vote, the other way on the other vote, and tell their constituents that he voted their way, for or against, what ever the voter wants to hear.  And there are secret "blackball" rules that allow a single Senator to blackball a nomination to anything.  They keep Senator Blackball's name secret too. 
   Let's scrap all the existing Senate rules.  Every Senator gets to submit one (or maybe more) bills, that will come to the floor for debate and a vote.  All votes are simple majority.   Every nomination comes to the floor for a vote within 14 days of the nomination.  Senator's may no longer talk on the floor as long as they please.
  

NHPR calls president Trump crazy.

Just this morning I heard this.  On FM radio.  To cloak their position, NHPR  said they were  quoting a Democratic Congressman from California.  "California" is a land of fruits and nuts, "Democratic" is a party of lefty greenies, neither adjective lends credence to the Congressman's words. They did mention the Congressman's name (once) but I didn't catch it. 
   Congressman didn't right out call the president crazy, instead he spoke in psycho-babble, but I have been hearing psycho-babble for years and years and know how to understand it.  He was calling president Trump crazy.
   Which is an extreme thing to say about an elected US president. 
   It's also pretty extreme for NHPR to carry the story.

NHPR quoting UNH. There is no electricity shortage in NH

Heard on my clock radio this morning.  A UNH study claims that we don't need to bring down the NH electric rate in order to grow business.  They made the further claim that NH electric rates were no worse than the national average.  And we didn't need more pipelines to bring in natural gas.
  The greenies love this kind of "stuff". 
  Pure poppycock.  My residential electric rate is 25 cents a kilowatt-hour, the nation average is 10 cents a kilowatt hour.  Lack of gas pipeline capacity causes radical prices spikes in the cost of natural gas.  Which in addition to ripping off those who heat with natural gas, causes price spikes in electric rates, because most electricity is generated by natural gas. When natural gas prices go crazy in a cold January, the electric rates do the same.
   Did UNH actually run this study?  Or did NHPR misquote them?  Who knows? Both groups have enough greenies in them, to support any amount of  greenie propaganda.  
   But that was this morning's news on FM radio.   

I taped over the camera on my laptop

I did it a year ago or more.  After seeing posts about some PA school that was spying the their students, via school supplied laptops, I put a square of masking tape on the camera lens of my laptop.  If I was really serious about it, I would find the microphone and tape that over too.

The "replace" plan is out this morning.

It's ONLY 120 pages, which makes it possible to read, unlike the thousand pages of Obamacare.  I haven't read it myself, so what I am writing here I get off the TV.  The bill keeps the ban on preexisting conditions, and kids up to 26 years old can stay on there parents insurance. 
  It offers "Tax Credits", presumably for buying insurance, possibly for paying medical bills.  If I remember my IRS form 1040, tax credits are better than deductions.  A deduction reduces your taxable income (adjusted gross income) whereas a credit reduces your tax.  For example, a $100 deduction reduces your tax bill by your tax rate times the deduction, usually amounting to $20-$30.  A $100 credit reduces your tax bill by $100.  This is a good idea.  It levels the playing field between most of us, who get our health insurance tax free thru our employers, and the self employed who get no kind of tax break at all. 
   On the other hand, half the population of the country is so low on the economic ladder that they owe no income tax at all.  Tax credits don't do you any good if you don't owe any income tax.  
   The plan fails to allow sale of health insurance across state lines, a measure that would increase competition
 and lower costs.  Everybody except the insurance companies is in favor of interstate sale.  Failing to put it in is a squishy soft cave in to the insurance companies.   Insurance companies don't vote, nobody likes them much, but they have a lot of money to buy Congressmen with.  Looks like they bought themselves a lot of Congressmen on this one.  Congressmen go for cheap this year.
   The bill also fails to require Medicare and Medicaid to bargain with big pharma over drug prices.  Again everybody (even insurance companies)  thinks this is a good idea.  Nobody likes big pharma much and they don't have the vote.  But big pharma  does have money, same general amount as the insurance companies, and they have bought themselves plenty of low priced Congressmen. 
  The bill fails to do anything to reduce the cost of health care, like clamping down on malpractice suits (lawyers like malpractice and nearly all Congressmen are lawyers). It doesn't allow duty free import of drugs from any reasonable first world country, which would do a lot to lower drug prices.  It doesn't rein in the ever growing FDA requirements for more and more testing of new drugs.  It does nothing to rein in the outrageous marketing expenditures by big pharma.