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WASHINGTON — After months spent criticizing Democrats' health overhaul plans, House Republicans have produced a draft proposal of their own. It's much shorter and focuses on bringing down costs rather than extending coverage to nearly all Americans. A 230-page draft was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. A spokeswoman for Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said changes were still being made before the bill would be finalized in time to offer as an alternative when Democrats begin floor debate on their bill, possibly at the end of this week.

Immorality Drives Medical Costs By Roger Fredinburg Watching the “Great Debate” over medical insurance, rising medical costs and ever broadening government control, I am reminded of some interesting facts, the details of which are not evident in the public or political discussion. I thought we ought to at least review them before the “rulers” of “Amerika” completely destroy the republic. Have you asked questions like; What is the cost of substance abuse on the medical system? What are the medical costs of sexual deviance and promiscuity? What’s the price of gluttony? How about laziness, slothfulness, sedentary lifestyles etc. what is...

Republicans on Capitol Hill are challenging an assertion by House leaders that their new health-care package comes in under President Obama's spending limit of $900 billion over the next decade. The true cost of the measure, the GOP argues, is more than $1 trillion. A House leadership aide dismissed the charge as "GOP spin." But, in this case, the spin is essentially true. According to a preliminary estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, expanding coverage to an additional 36 million Americans would cost $1.055 trillion over the next decade under the House plan, counting tax breaks for small businesses,...

Data from the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll present a problem for President Obama and congressional Democrats as they try to sell their health-care plan: Americans do not believe Obama and Congress are paying sufficient attention to the cost issue, which is a top public concern. As this chart shows, while Americans are essentially split on what Obama and Congress should be most focused on addressing, they are not split on what the proposed health-care plan actually is addressing. Some 38 percent of Americans say the plan should be most focused on health-care costs, and only 13 percent say the...

The public option is back. Its Lazarus act is hailed as a sign of how rosy the health- care debate looks for Democrats. August is but a sepia-tinged memory. Passage of a sweeping bill is now considered a lock by the wisest Beltway pundits. And legislation may even include the most shining prize of all, the public option that liberals -- no matter what the talking points for public consumption -- consider a way station to the Valhalla of a government-controlled system. The flush on ObamaCare's cheeks, though, is not necessarily a sign of health. The return of the public...

THE health-care-reform debate is plagued by different num bers on how many Ameri cans lack health insurance, but we actually have excellent data on the question: Ninety percent of Americans are insured, according to the Census -- and even the president more or less concurs. The Census is the source for the much-cited figure of 46 million uninsured. Yet the very same table plainly indicates that 9 million of those are not US citizens. That leaves 37 million uninsured who are Americans. But there's more. In the same document, the Census also plainly states that "health-insurance coverage is underreported" in...

IF only the laws of the uni verse didn't make it impossi ble to conjure something out of nothing. In a magical world free of such encumbrances, Democrats would be spared the bother of hiding the inevitable costs of ObamaCare. The latest gambit of Democrats in both the Senate and House is to take roughly $250 billion out of health-care reform -- for Medicare payments to doctors -- and spend it in a separate bill. This instantly makes ObamaCare appear cheaper, although its impact on the federal budget will be precisely the same. This isn't even competent three-card monte. It's...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The insurance industry yesterday charged that the proposed Senate health-care bill would shift costs to privately insured people, raising the price of a typical policy by hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dollars annually.</p> <p>The trade group America's Health Insurance Plans sent its members a new accounting-firm study that projects the legislation would add $1,700 a year to the cost of family coverage in 2013.</p>

LAST week, the Senate Finance Committee voted 12-11 not to wait for the Congressional Budget Office to "score" its health-care bill before the committee votes on it. Imagine that: Some senators actually wanted to know how much the bill costs before voting on it. Let them get away with something like that, and before you know it they'll be demanding honest accounting practices -- sending the whole legislative process to hell in a hand basket. When it comes to the health-care-reform debate, you see, honest budgeting is nowhere to be seen.

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Honduras’s nationwide curfew is costing the Central American nation’s economy $50 million a day, said Jesus Canahuati, vice president of the nation’s chapter of the Business Council of Latin America.

The main question of the national debate on health care has been who should pay for it, but lurking behind it is another one: Why does American health care cost so much in the first place? ... Obviously, the MRI is an extremely useful tool, giving doctors an ability to see inside the body and diagnose conditions that would otherwise require them to probe and cut into their patients' bodies. It is also expensive to buy -- at about $2 million -- and expensive to operate.... http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/the-machine-that-is-ruining-health-care.aspx?GT1=33002

Fellow FReepers -- We are going to move my aging parents into the finished ground floor of our home. To make this work best we want to install a residential elevator into our existing structure. Architecturally, this is not hard to do, as there are several locations in the home where we can easily fit the 'column' of the lift. BUT ... we don't have the first clue of what this might really cost us. Who has done this? ... and can shed light on the REALISTIC costs of putting in a lift capable of handling my mom in her...

Mr. Obama has gone back on the campaign trail to try to sell his health care reform to the nation. Mostly hand-picked, sympathetic attendees have been showing up to his town hall meetings. He continues to make the same points regarding health care reform, which need to be addressed specifically. I hope to address more in future articles. 1. We need health care reform. We do not need health care reform. We have the best health care system in the world. We need health insurance reform. 2. Free market health insurance has caused our current problem. It is the government...

The Obama folks plan to end their Cash for Clunkers program Monday -- and good thing, since it was rap idly falling into chaos. By contrast, if Congress passes President Obama's plan for health-care reform, Americans may be stuck with it forever. No matter how much of a "clunker" it turns out to be. And, indeed, judging by the car-subsidy program, ObamaCare may well be just that -- if not worse. Sure, the clunker plan always sounded good: Free money toward a new car -- who'd complain about that? Well, for starters, the money comes from taxpayers. So it's not...

The NHS spent more than £800m settling legal claims last year as complaints of medical negligence against the service rose sharply. The surge in payouts is revealed in the NHS Litigation Authority's annual accounts which show that maternity services attract the highest legal costs. Clinical errors in delivering babies can result in lifelong damage and payments accordingly reflect the intensive medical care often needed for decades to come.

FOR generations, we doctors have promised our patients that medical advances will allow us all to live longer, more comfortable lives. Now that these results are finally arriving, "health-care reform" -- or "insurance reform," as they're now pitching it -- could snatch the rug out from under us. Cost-control is central to any health-care "reform" along the lines favored by President Obama and congressional Democrats. But new treatments, while ever more precise and personalized, are also costlier. Anyone who's been saved from cancer by the latest targeted chemotherapy treatment, had a lung or breast cancer diagnosed early by a CT...

President Obama gives us a false choice on health care: his way or the status quo. Nobody wants the status quo, and Republicans have real alternatives. The real choice is whether we have a single-payer, government run health care system. "The health care system in America is broken. Costs are rising at an unacceptable rate - more than doubling over the last 10 years, which is nearly four times the rate of wage growth. Too many patients feel trapped by healthcare decisions dictated by HMOs. Too many doctors are torn between practicing medicine and practicing insurance. And 47 million Americans...

PRESIDENT Obama has repeatedly said that one of his "reform" goals is to increase "competition and choice" in the US health-care system -- but the policies he's pursuing would actually reduce competition and give consumers fewer choices. Meanwhile, he's ignoring reforms that would bring more choices and competition. The nation now has some 1,300 insurance companies, but most consumers actually have far fewer choices. An American Medical Association survey found that in 299 of 313 largest metro areas, one insurer controls at least 30 percent of the market. In New York, just two insurers, GHI and Empire Blue Cross, represent...

So says the Congressional Budget Office: In yet more disappointing news for Democrats pushing for health care reform, Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, offered a skeptical view Friday of the cost savings that could result from preventive care -- an area that President Obama and congressional Democrats repeatedly had emphasized as a way health care reform would be less expensive in the long term. The Dems are perturbed, and Pelosi whined: Before that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that "it's always been a source, yes I will say frustration, for many of us in Congress...

Over the past five years, taxpayers have paid about $8 million to 117 administrators who either returned to the faculty or left the university. In 24 cases, the payouts were for $100,000 or more. A News & Observer review found that these agreements, along with other transitional payments, offered sizable sums of money with few or no strings attached, in at least three cases violated UNC system policies and in some cases rewarded administrators with as much as a year's salary for a job poorly done.

We're allowing is you standardize the system, you bring the pre--pre-market principles to the marketing of prescription drugs. It's the only product made in the world where there is actually prohibition from free trade. If you brought free trade and competition and choice, actually the market would work.

Americans are fairly evenly divided on the health care reform proposals working their way through Congress, but most remain convinced that the plans will raise costs and hurt the quality of the care they receive. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% are in favor of the reform effort proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats while 49% are opposed. Those figures include 25% who Strongly Favor the plans and 41% who are Strongly Opposed. The specifics of what will be in a health care reform plan remains hotly debated in Congress at the moment. When a...

Proponents of government-run health care like to point out that countries with such a system spend a smaller percentage of their gross domestic product on health care than the United States. What they don't like to mention is how those savings are achieved. For example:

There's potentially good news on the environmental front out of Washington D.C., but it's probably more than offset by a devastating announcement Friday. First, the good news. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Environmental Protection Agency, when upgrading older power plants, may consider costs before demanding use of the most advanced technology, as required by law. The ruling was a defeat for environmentalists, who challenged the Bush administration's discretionary practice. Hans Bader, special projects counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank, told us the ruling permits continued cost-benefit analysis as an option in upgrades .. The group...

We need to fix the problem of colleges sending graduates out into the world with mountains of debt and degrees that are increasingly deflated because everyone gets one. The sources of this problem are the three-fold: 1) college prices are high because everyone wants in (supply and demand), 2) degrees are worth less because universities grant them with increasing rapidity while holding students to increasingly low academic standards, and 3) government has the misplaced idea that it is somehow democratic to fund college education based on economic standards and not student merit. Government policy toward education should be to assist...

The removal of about 140,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 will be a "massive and expensive effort" that is likely to increase rather than lower Iraq-related expenditures during the withdrawal and for several years after its completion, government investigators said in a report released yesterday

Columbus questions whether it needs paramedics City panel suggests returning to cheaper basic emergency medical care Sunday, March 22, 2009 8:43 PM By Suzanne Hoholik THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH A committee charged with finding ways for Columbus to save money has recommended that the city return to a basic emergency medical system. The last time the Columbus Division of Fire provided only basic-level care was in 1968. Since then, Columbus has provided advanced life support to anyone who calls 911 for medical attention, whether a patient needs it or not. Basic care mostly involves stabilizing injuries before a patient is transported....

(IsraelNN.com) Ali Al-Kurd, a money-changer in eastern Jerusalem, promised his investors a 26 percent annual profit. He disappeared several weeks ago, and 100 million shekels – some say 200 million – are gone. The story, broken by Israel’s business weekly Globes, began seven years ago, according to some reports. Ali Al-Kurd, son of a wealthy businessman, began paying between 21 and 26 percent annual interest rates, in regular monthly payments, on investment sums that reached as high as $1.2 million. He held lavish meetings with potential investors, spoke vaguely of various opportunities in Israel and elsewhere, but “when you left...

Governor’s Staff Addresses Expenses Issues on News Media Coverage of Per Diem FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 09-35 Governor’s Staff Addresses Expenses Issues February 23, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska – Staff for Governor Sarah Palin today responded to persistent news media coverage of the per diem the governor has collected while working away from her official duty station of Juneau, while pointing out significant savings the governor has achieved in regard to the way she has discharged her official duties. “The news media have been focused on the $8,500 the governor has collected in per diem annually while working in Anchorage, almost...

LOS ANGELES – A big share of the financial burden of raising Nadya Suleman's 14 children could fall on the shoulders of California's taxpayers, compounding the public furor in a state already billions of dollars in the red. Even before the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother gave birth to octuplets last month, she had been caring for her six other children with the help of $490 a month in food stamps, plus Social Security disability payments for three of the youngsters. The public aid will almost certainly be increased with the new additions to her family. Also, the hospital where the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – How much does it cost to spend $350 billion? The U.S. Treasury said on Tuesday its administrative bill for the Troubled Asset Relief Program is expected to total $26.55 million through the end of January, mostly to pay for services such as accounting and custodial contracts. In a report to Congress, the Treasury said it incurred $5.58 million in expense obligations through December 31. Congress has released only the first half of the $700 billion bailout fund, which was approved in October 2008. The Treasury has allocated about $354 billion from the fund, but has released only...

LONDON (Reuters) - The cost of efforts to avoid dangerous global warming may be 170 percent higher than 2007 estimates, a report for the U.N.'s climate agency said on Thursday. The report comes four days before the U.N. leads a fresh round of talks in Poland to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in ongoing negotiations marred by squabbles over who should bear the cost of fighting climate change. The U.N. report cited research by the International Energy Agency (IEA), energy adviser to 28 countries, and others which showed growing capital costs especially in the energy sector. "The increased...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2008 – Today’s increased price of oil is fueling Iraq’s ability to pay more for its reconstruction costs that up to now have been heavily funded by U.S. taxpayers, a senior U.S. official said at the White House yesterday. Since Saddam Hussein was deposed by U.S. and coalition forces in 2003 “a lot of the heavy lifting” in terms of cost in restoring Iraq’s worn out infrastructure has been accomplished with American tax dollars, said U.S. Treasury Department employee Ged Smith, who is the U.S. Treasury attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Smith, who has been...

Warning: Tuition Hike Ahead by: Jeff Waldmann, August 13, 2008 As Congress and the President continue to squabble over consolidating the federal budget, they pass bills that simultaneously undercut their efforts and expand government, says Brian M. Riedl, a Heritage Foundation fellow. Riedl gives a glaring example of one such bill that counteracts any comparatively minor budget cuts that have been made. He writes, “virtually unnoticed, the House of Representatives voted 354 to 58 on February 7 to add $169 billion in new higher-education spending and create at least 50 new federal programs. In other words, one step forward, ten...

5 foods it's cheaper to grow If grocery prices have you thinking about cutting costs with a garden, you may be on the right track. But be careful what you plant; a garden could raise your food costs. Whether you save by gardening depends largely on where you live, what you grow and how well you resist slick gadgets and miracle solutions. If you're looking to save money rather than to start a hobby, here are five garden crops likely to give you the best return: What about tomatoes? They require moderate care and vigilance, and in short-season climates, you...

American Degree Mills Exposed by: Deborah Lambert, May 27, 2008 If someone in your family is heading off to college shortly, here’s something you might want to think about. A new study by the non-profit Delta Cost Project found that although the cost of college tuition outpaces inflation by a country mile, it doesn’t necessarily translate into better results, according to USA Today. For example, this year “the sticker price increases ranged from 4.2% at community colleges to 6.6% at public four-year institutions.” Since a college degree is still the must-have “ticket” for every American student, steady tuition increases are...

Climate Change Bible by: Bethany Stotts, April 23, 2008 While some global warming skeptics may have accused climate change believers of placing undue “faith” in murky science, some professors have already elevated the cause to a Christian edict. In his recent column “The Ultimate Ethical Issue?,” Professor David P. Gushee casts combatting climate change as Christianity’s ultimate moral test—and dismisses family values and constitutionality in the process. “The data is in: Human beings are indeed culpable [for climate change],” comments the Mercer University Theology Professor. His article appears in PRISM, a publication of the progressive Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA)....

Soaring food costs risk 'starvation and unrest' By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 2:41am BST 14/04/2008 The world's poorest countries face starvation and civil unrest if global food prices keep rising, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said. There have been serious disturbances in more than a dozen developing countries, including Haiti [pictured] Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in Washington that "hundreds of thousands of people will be starving". "Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with consequences for all their lives," he said. He predicted that increasing food prices would push up the cost of imports for poor countries,...

Collectivism Is Not the Cure : Health Care Market Needs Innovation, not Regulation Thomas C. Patterson, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, March 20, 2008 Have you ever tried to do cost comparisons for medical services? You do it all the time for your car, your house, food and clothes. But it’s not easy to find out what medical services cost before you buy. Of course, most of us aren’t too concerned because we figure we’re not paying the bill anyway. PATMOS Emergiclinic in Greeneville, Tenn., is different. Their charges are prominently posted in the clinic, on their Web site (patmosemergiclinic.com) and...

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2008 – In a broad-ranging news conference today, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell fielded questions on the costs of the war on terror, troops’ water safety in Iraq, the fielding schedule for mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, and a recent contract for aerial refueling tankers. The Pentagon has spent $527 billion dollars fighting the war on terror since Sept. 11, 2001, officials released today. Through December 2007, the Defense Department had paid $406.2 billion for the war in Iraq, $92.6 for operations in Afghanistan, and $27.8 billion defending the homeland, Morrell said. “I think the Pentagon has been extraordinarily...

This is a summary of an article by Ezekial J. Emanuel, M.D. titled as of above. You can find a summary of the article HERE. The author makes the following points: It is a misperception that employers and the government pay for health care. Employees are given health care in lieu of increases in gross and net wages. This is clear from economic data over the last 30 years where adjusted for inflation health care costs have gone up 300%, corporate profits have gone up 150% and employee wages have gone up 4%. Essentially, employees have received more health care...

Driving down to Austin lately has become a real trip. I-35 is usually packed for most of the 185 miles, and what used to take three or four hours now can take five or six. Flying down can take almost as long, when you figure in airline security delays, more flight delays, and the time it takes getting into and out of crowded airports. But what if it took 45 minutes to travel from the Metroplex to Austin by train or an hour to make a trip to Houston? Advocates of high-speed rail lines are floating these ideas once again...

With automakers patenting more parts to enhance dealers' service and repair revenues, the knockoff business is taking a big hit. The patenting of more run-of-the-mill auto part designs is roiling small body shops, many of which make their living by fixing cars with knockoffs of original equipment parts such as grilles, hoods, lights, mirrors, side panels and fenders. Such pieces are anywhere from 10% to 50% cheaper than the real McCoys, but increasingly, the law forbids their use. Automakers have long sought patents on certain extra-stylish ornamentation to prevent other automakers from cribbing the design for their vehicles. But the...

Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach are battling back by growing their own food. Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies. Although the 2008 planting season is still largely in the planning stages, it appears vegetable seed sales will be up significantly from year-ago figures, said Barb Melera, president of D. Landreth Seed Co., in New Freedom, Pa. "I just came back from the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta and we sold three- to four times the amount of seed packets we did the previous...

The Census Bureau informs us that when the clock strikes midnight, the U.S. population will exceed 303.1 million. That represents a one-year increase of 0.9% and a 22% increase since 1990, when our population stood at a mere 248.7 million souls. ...Between 1994 and 2005, the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. is estimated to have doubled to around 12 million. Yet according the Department of Justice, over that same period the violent crime rate in the U.S. declined by 34.2% and the property crime rate fell by 26.4%, reaching their lowest levels since 1973. Crime has fallen in cities...

In 2002, the median price of a single-family home in Los Angeles was $270,000 and the median homeowner's income was $65,000. With a $50,000 down payment, the annual cost of that house (taxes, insurance and payment on a 30-year fixed-rate conventional mortgage) would add up to about 33% of the median household's income -- just under the 35% mark that the Federal Housing Administration calls the upper limit of "affordable." By 2006, the cost of that same house doubled, to $540,000 -- pushed by unbridled speculation fueled by unparalleled access to mortgage capital. But median income rose a paltry 15%....

...Everyone believes in adequate health care; people should have it when needed. Politicians cater to these beliefs. But the intellectual and even moral laziness of this approach results in an invisible abdication of political responsibility. We are letting the unchecked rise in health spending determine national priorities. Consider: Health spending already totals more than $2 trillion annually, about 16 percent of national income (gross domestic product). By 2030, it could easily exceed 25 percent -- one dollar out of four -- projects the Congressional Budget Office. There's a massive transfer of income from young to old. Americans 65 and older...

SIERRA VISTA — Sunday’s protest at the Fort Huachuca Main Gate called for 25 off-duty Sierra Vista police officers to clock in for overtime. A total of 32 officers worked the event, of which 25 were on overtime, for the approximate seven-hour detail, city Lt. Adam Thrasher said. Officers’ time sheets aren’t due until Monday morning, so exact numbers are not yet available. The city will spend an estimated $7,000 in overtime pay as a result of the approximate 175 man-hours used during the event, Thrasher said. For events that may occur in city right of way but are not...

...Several American business leaders have come to believe that the American health-care system is not only bad for our health but also for national competitiveness. In the automotive industry, General Motors claims that it spends about $1,600 per car on health care. In Japan, according to GM, Toyota's per automobile healthcare expenditure is just $110. Health coverage is indeed becoming more expensive for businesses. Over the past eight years, the percentage of firms offering health benefits to employees has dropped significantly, to 60% from 69%. This decline, however, is almost completely accounted for by businesses with fewer than 10 employees....

There's a long history of legislation that has increased student aid but hasn't reined in tuition. After the avalanche of federal subsidies is factored in (plus colleges' own aid and the private scholarships that students win), the price that students pay out of pocket--called the net tuition--still rose 28% after inflation over the past decade at public colleges and 33% at private ones, the College Board says. As with any subsidy, Congress approving a handout is a signal to raise prices and capture that money, leaving the intended beneficiary--college students, in this case--no better off. The handouts "encourage colleges to...