The-Asterisk

Part of the package that passed tonight was desperately needed modification of how health insurance companies operate. As a small business owner, I absolutely HATE the news that comes each August as my annual renewal notice for my company's medical insurance premium arrives. Has it EVER gone down year over year? Nope. I usually hear my insurance agent say "Well, they wanted to increase it by 25%, but I got it down to an 18% increase." A Pyrrhic victory at best. I have been screwed, glued and tattooed by insurance companies over the years and they have lied on several occasions. I have also seen how "groups" are the biggest way that these companies really penalize small employers by creating artificial entities which are rated in a vacuum. With these statements, I hope I have established my bona fides that I am not a shill for the insurance companies. So, what would I do if I was the king? On the insurance front I would make a few fundamental changes. First, I w...

I sit here watching the House of Representatives voting on the Health Care Reform bill. Unless something unexpected happens, this Senate bill (and its companion House bill) will become the law of the land. So many Democrat Congresspersons have sold out for promises and innuendo. Now, the final vote is in: 219-Yea, 212-Nay and they are cheering. The-Asterisk observation: The ‘big’ insurance companies were made the Bogey men and the Dems took up an "us against them" stance. What the applause-givers don’t talk about is the fact that so much of what is wrong with our health ‘system’ now is government imposed rules, regulation and restrictions. Business fulfilling a need is like water in a swollen river, you cannot stop it and when it reaches an obstacle, it either goes over it or around it. That is why our health system is such a labyrinth of insane nonsense. And the Pelosi -Reid-Obama triumvirate think that this 2500 page tome is going to fix it? Are they freaking insane????...

Senator Mark Warner sent out the following email to me today: A sobering experience There has been a lot of talk recently about the apparent gulf that exists between what we're talking about here in Washington and the economic uncertainty that too many Americans are experiencing in their daily lives. An event I hosted in the Fredericksburg area earlier this week illustrated this economic anxiety in a powerful way. My office sponsored a federal job fair at the Stafford County campus of Mary Washington University, and more than three-dozen federal agencies were represented -- from the Transportation Security Administration, to the Peace Corps, to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The response was overwhelming -- literally overwhelming. As many as 7,000 jobseekers showed-up to speak with these federal agency recruiters, and the unexpected response resulted in long lines and significant traffic congestion. In fact, our event reached capacity before lunchtime -- so members of our st...

Al Gore will never change his mantra on this subject, but I must refute his thesis. Climate Change? Yes, of course. Man-made? Probably not. Can we do ANYTHING about it? No. As this winter that we still have not escaped in the Northern Hemisphere proves, the climate does change. Funny how every person's reference point for the "good ol' days" is how things were when he or his parents were young. Al is a smart man but he does not exhibit his intelligence by holding onto this theory of man-made climate change. The believers will say "Oh, we have to do SOMETHING before it is too late." The problem is, if they do do something and it doesn't change things, then they will say that the non-believers wouldn't let them do enough, or we waited until it was too late. If they do something and the seas do not rise, then they will say that what they did worked and the non-believers were idiots. This is the same modification scenario where Global Cooling became Glob...