"Obamacare" Is a Big, Fat Lie

Single-payer coverage offers us the best chance of providing the best health care to the most people at the least expense. No. The last thing we need is government mucking up the best health-care system in the world. All we really need to do is put a cap on court awards for medical malpractice. Absurd. That'll address only part of the problem. What about the high "overhead" costs of the private health insurers? Don't be a twit. Those health insurers and their high premiums are the only thing keeping Medicare affordable. Private payers are subsidizing the below-market rates that Medicare pays for everybody else! Well, maybe. But come that's only because the private insurers pick and choose which clients they take on. Medicare gets stuck with all the high-cost old folk, and their pricey end-of-life expenses. Aha! Death panels ... ! Settle down, folks. You're both right. Each side (every side?) of the health-care debate contains its own kernel of truth. Everyone's "right" to a degree. But here's the dirty little secret behind the health-care debate: It doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong. "Obamacare" is not going to happen. Or, at least, not in the form that anyone hopes it will. Universal health coverage for everybody, with the government picking up the tab in its role as "single payer?" D.O.A. Congress nixed this idea from the get-go. The closest we're going to get to that is some sort of "public option," and you can see the president backpedaling furiously away from even that half-measure as we speak. Why kill a good idea? Ask 'most any of your Canadian and British friends what they think of single-payer, and chances are good they'll tell you it's a decent system. Not perfect. There are waiting lines involved, and "rationing." But you get your basic medical needs covered, and you never have to worry about the bill. Just like democracy, single-payer coverage is probably the worst way to run a health-care system ... except for all the others. So why won't it happen? President Obama sums it up best: For us to completely change [the current health-care system] would be too disruptive. That's where suddenly people would lose what they have and they'd have to adjust to an entirely new system. The big "lie" Ostensibly, the president was arguing against taking away employer-provided health care and shifting the responsibility of bill payment to the government. But let's be honest, folks: When you get down to the nitty-gritty of doctor-patient interaction, it makes no difference who signs the check and mails it to the doc ... so long as it ain't us. So where's the "disruption?" You're soaking in it. The real disruption would happen to the system of private health insurance, and in particular, to the insurance companies that provide it. Switch to single-payer, and presto-changeo, UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), Aetna (NYSE: AET), and WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) lose their raison d' etre. Now, single-payer proponents will argue that these companies aren't adding value to the health-care system anyway. They're toll collectors, paying the bills and taking their cut anytime a sick person visits a doc. Allow someone else (Obamacare) to pay the bills, and there's no reason for the insurers to exist. So what's wrong with letting them follow the horse-whip tanners and buggy manufacturers into the dustbin of history? Simply this: Love 'em or hate 'em, the insurers are just doing what we told 'em to do. They're collecting premiums, paying bills, and earning profits for their shareholders under the agreed "rules of the game." They didn't spend decades building lousy products, and drive themselves out of business like GM did and Ford (NYSE: F) nearly did. They didn't voluntarily hand out loans to acknowledged liars, racking up tens of billions in losses like Citigroup (NYSE: C) or Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). In short, they didn't do anything to deserve a date with a death panel. Nor do you Plus, there's the pocketbook issue. UnitedHealth, Aetna, and WellPoint currently carry $70 billion in combined market capitalization. Extrapolate to the rest of the industry, and we're probably talking well over $100 billion in investments that will be vaporized if we wipe out this industry. It's not fair to them. It's not fair to us. Companies won't stand for it. Investors won't stand for it. We won't stand for it. Who you callin' "we," buster? I'm calling you "we." And before you disagree, pull that mutual find statement out of the trash, shake off the coffee grinds, and give it a good read-through. You may be surprised to learn just how big a stake you already have in the health-care insurance industry. Same deal with your 401(k). Same thing for your pension plan. Simply put, we all have a lot to lose if the government nationalizes health care. Now for the good news: And that's why it won't happen. But the best news here for investors is: No one seems to realize this yet. Oh, Congress may nibble around the edges of the problem, limiting policy exclusions here (and letting insurers charge rates to accommodate), or expanding coverage there (more customers for the insurers -- boo hoo). But they know darn well that this isn't the kind of wholesale "change" voters were believing in last November. Yet investors are still sitting on their hands, and the P/E ratios on primo health-care stocks like Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) are sitting near multi-year lows. But not us. Here at Motley Fool Hidden Gems, we know an opportunity when we see one. We're watching the health-care sector like a hawk and pointing out the best bets to our members,-WAKE UP PEOPLE- before Congress DOES

Australia 'uranium' dust concerns

Environmentalists have raised concerns that another giant dust storm blowing its way across eastern Australia may contain radioactive particles. It is argued that sediment whipped up from Australia's centre may be laced with material from a uranium mine. Scientists have played down concerns, saying there is little to worry about. Last Wednesday Sydney and Brisbane bore witness to their biggest dust storm in 70 years. Both were shrouded in red dust blown in from the desert outback. The massive clouds of dust that choked heavily populated parts of Australia have caused problems for people with asthma, as well as those with heart and lung conditions. "I thought the whole city was on fire, it was just so red" But some environmental campaigners believe that the dry, metallic-tasting sediment could threaten the health of millions of other Australians. David Bradbury, a renowned filmmaker and activist, claims the haze that engulfed some of the country's biggest cities in the past week contains radioactive grains - or tailings - carried on gale force winds from a mine in the South Australian desert. "Given the dust storms... which [the] news said originated from Woomera, and which is right next door to the Olympic Dam mine at Roxby Downs, these [storms] could blow those tailings across the face of Australia," Mr Bradbury asserted. Mining companies have stressed that dust levels are carefully monitored, while the health concerns have been dismissed by a senior environmental toxicologist. Barry Noller from the University of Queensland says that many of the particles from mines in the outback are simply too heavy to be carried by the wind over long distances. "In a big dust storm, the dust is not going to come from one isolated site, it is going to be mixed in with dust from a [wide] area and diluted considerably," Mr Noller said. The latest murky haze that spread over parts of Queensland at the weekend is dissipating and weather forecasters say it should soon start to move out to sea. A storm which blew in from the Australian outback blanketed Sydney in a layer of orange dust. Here, residents describe the bizarre and frightening scene. Tanya Ferguson said the dust was the weirdest thing she had seen in her life, turning the city into a scene from another planet. "It was like being on Mars," she told the BBC News website. "I haven't been there, obviously, but I imagine that's what the sky would look like." She said she woke to a massive gust of wind blowing through her windows early in the morning. "The whole room was completely orange. I couldn't believe my eyes," she said. Ms Ferguson said she initially thought there was a bush fire. When she finally decided to venture outside, she said the entire city was covered in a film of orange dust. "All the cars are just orange - and the orange was so intense," she said by phone from Sydney, where she has lived for the past six years. "It was like being in the outback, but it was right here in the city." Ms Ferguson said the sky was overcast and it was very dusty, making her sneeze a lot. Public transport was disrupted and the roads were clogged as drivers struggled in the difficult conditions, but she said some people went to their jobs, and she saw a few residents wearing face masks. By evening, Ms Ferguson said there were blue skies over Sydney and that it was returning to a normal day. 'Pink until noon' Fellow Sydneysider Nick Beaugeard said his four young children were really frightened when they woke up on Wednesday morning. "There was a really red glow inside the house, really crimson" he said. "It looked like the end of the world." After the initial shock, he said the children got really excited and went off to school where they said it was "pink until noon". Mr Beaugeard - who moved to Australia from the UK in 1998 - had to drive to work from the Northern Beaches area because the ferries were closed. "It was like driving through a pea soup of fog," he said, "except it was bright red". He said the lights looked blue because it was so red outside. Mr Beaugeard said his wife - who is an asthmatic - was fine despite the blanket of dust and fog. "She went out with a scarf over her mouth and she came back without it," he said. He said the dust left everyone with a dry mouth, and a really gritty taste, but caused no breathing problems for his wife. 'Armageddon' Andrew Hawkins, who lives in Northmead, about 20km from the centre of Sydney, says he was scared at first because it looked like the end of the world. "This morning's dust storm was unbelievable… It was like waking up to see that Armageddon is upon us," he wrote in. Mr Hawkins said he thought his eyes were playing up, or that there had been a nuclear explosion or a bush fire. He described an ethereal scene of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House as he rode the train to work. "To see a city of such beauty shrouded in red, was a sight which cannot be described - even pictures fail to capture the eerie nature of the scene which surrounded us this morning," Mr Hawkins added. Another Sydney resident, Kirsty Ainsworth, said it was like being in a film. "It was really, really bizarre. It was actually like being in a movie - the Day After Tomorrow or Armageddon," she said. Ms Ainsworth said there had been storm warnings on Monday and Tuesday, but the dust storm took everybody by surprise. "It came out of nowhere," she said, adding that visibility had improved enough for her to make it to work by around 0830 local time. "Everybody's cars were caked in orange dust, and there's still sand everywhere," she said.-(personal message)-untill the news website deletes them you can see the pictures that made the headlines here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/8270107.stm

Walmart-The Movie

Thankyou to my wife for this video xxx

Six-year-old Dali girl beaten up by Indian police

New Delhi - Two policemen were suspended from their jobs Tuesday for beating up a 6-year-old Dalit girl for allegedly stealing 280 rupees (less than 6 dollars) in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, news reports said-The incident, which was caught on camera, showed the station officer of Jaswantpur area in Etawah town grabbing and lifting the tiny low-caste girl by her hair and threatening her while another officer and at least six policemen looked on. Brij Lal, Uttar Pradesh's additional director general of police, said the department was taking a serious view of the incident and a criminal case had been lodged against two policemen, who were suspended, NDTV television channel reported. Several national and regional channels showed the images as top news in their morning bulletins. While local police claimed the girl had confessed and the money had been returned to the owner, her mother lodged a complaint against the policemen. Uttar Pradesh is currently governed by the Bahujan Samaj Party which was formed in 1984 to represent the rights of Dalits, and other castes and tribes that are at the bottom of India's ancient caste system. Dalits were traditionally regarded as outcasts in Indian society. (dpa)

Bar-Ass Obama