I think most people that know me realize that I am a very laid back person. Though I will say that I have been less patient in more recent years than ever before, but I am working on getting that back.
That said, I have some pet peeves.
1) Stopping in the door of a store or some other public place so people cannot get around you is there. Come on, be aware of your surroundings!
2) Generally being so loud you are impacting all the people around you. This is pointed at cell phone users, music players, etc. I love my music loud myself, but in a neighborhood or a stop light I turn it down out of courtesy.
3) Young men, say between like 12 and 50 sitting on their rear ends on a bus while women, children, and older people are standing. This is the biggie for me right now. Seriously, guys what happened to chivalry? At Disney last week over and over I saw this and it was all I could do to start yelling at an entire busload of people about how ridiculous it is.
I know I post about several things I see wrong with the country among other things, but this is really the worst thing. This lack of courtesy and manners is the real issue with everything. I wish I knew what the answer was.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Healthcare: Fun with numbers
The healthcare debate is still going strong. Obama has been called a liar, Grayson says the GOP wants people to die quickly, Reid wants to slip it through attached to another bill that already passed, and not even Dems can agree on a public option. The one thing almost everyone can agree on is that we do need some kind of reform. And from my perspective it really seems like our representative democracy has forgotten an important part of the whole deal, representing.
I find it interesting that our government has come down so hard on private companies being run poorly and even criminalizing it, yet look at how the country is being run. Obama is spending record amounts that we do not have, and Congress is helping him do it. Might as well throw Bush in there too, he did plenty of damage as well. Enron execs are in courtrooms while these idiots are getting away with much worse! But I digress.
Several stories that Grayson, other Dems, and the State Media have talked about in their attacks on the GOP and push for public healthcare have talked about specific people in the 45K. Several of the stories are about people that got something easily treatable and chose not to go to the doctor because they did not have insurance. This, they say, is how someone dies of not having insurance. I would submit to you, however, that these people died not because they did not have insurance, but because they were too dumb to actually drag themselves to the doctor or hospital. I am sorry they are dead, and I grieve for their families, but this is not an argument for free healthcare for all! (like it will be free really)
I want to dig into some numbers being thrown around. President Obama, right before saying that illegals would not be covered by public insurance and being called out of it by my hero Joe Wilson, stated that 47 million do not have healthcare in the United States. He has since dropped that number to 30 million tacitly acknowledging the truth in Wilson’s allegation by excluding the 17 million illegal aliens in the country. Apparently Grayson did not get that memo as he has been using the 47 million numbers.
Grayson also likes the 45K number that a Harvard study says die a year from not having insurance. I won’t get into how the study was flawed, and even acknowledged as flawed by the group doing it, but I will say that I have looked through the CDC numbers and have yet to come across a cause of death of “not insured.” Instead we get these, actual, causes of death.
Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
• Heart disease: 631,636
• Cancer: 559,888
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
• Diabetes: 72,449
• Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
• Septicemia: 34,234
More people died of the flu than of not being insured.
While we are at it, according to the CDC about 2.4 million die each year in the US. Well if 45K of them died because they were uninsured then 2,355,000 died FROM having insurance. Lets dig deeper into this.
If we go by the 47 Million numbers, and 45K died, then 1 in 666 died from not having insurance.
If we go by the 30 Million numbers, and 45K died, the 1 in 1044 died from not having insurance.
307 Million people live in the US, subtracting the 47 million is 260 Million. 2,355,000 died so 1 in 110 died FROM having insurance.
Conclusion: It is better to NOT have insurance.
But this is fun so let’s dig deeper.
47 Million have no insurance. But we take out the 17 million illegal aliens leaving 30 million. Of those there is 25%, or 7.5 Million, that are eligible for Medicaid or S-Chip. 20%, or 6 Million, have an income of over 58K per year and could conceivably afford insurance. And 20%, or 6 Million, have turned down their employer option for whatever reason. The last two numbers it is of course possible to have some overlap so for my purposes I am going to assume an overlap of 50% which gives us 9 Million that either turned down their employer option or make enough already to get their own insurance.
30,000,000 - 7,500,000 - 9,000,000 = 13.5 Million (or 4% of the population) that are slipping through the cracks. That is the number that we need to be targeting in the healthcare debate. We need reform that will help them! Leave the rest of us out of it!
On top of all this we just recently learned that some 63 million dollars in fraud was identified in the Medicaid system in just 5 states! If we just pass that down and multiply it by 10 to get to 50 states that is 630 million dollars! Fix that and pay for the 13.5 million needing help!
Before I conclude I also want to touch on something that people that support public healthcare like to point to. They constantly bring up stories about people being denied coverage on procedures and how it impacted their lives. I understand where they are coming from; I really do, as we ran through a lot of this with my wife and our insurance company recently. But do these people really think that the government run healthcare will never deny a claim? Maybe you need to look at the following chart.
You guessed it, Medicare denies more claims than anyone else!
I am not saying that we do not need healthcare reform. We do. But it is certainly not something to rush into. Take some time to do it right, and listen to your constituents. Or find another job.
I find it interesting that our government has come down so hard on private companies being run poorly and even criminalizing it, yet look at how the country is being run. Obama is spending record amounts that we do not have, and Congress is helping him do it. Might as well throw Bush in there too, he did plenty of damage as well. Enron execs are in courtrooms while these idiots are getting away with much worse! But I digress.
Several stories that Grayson, other Dems, and the State Media have talked about in their attacks on the GOP and push for public healthcare have talked about specific people in the 45K. Several of the stories are about people that got something easily treatable and chose not to go to the doctor because they did not have insurance. This, they say, is how someone dies of not having insurance. I would submit to you, however, that these people died not because they did not have insurance, but because they were too dumb to actually drag themselves to the doctor or hospital. I am sorry they are dead, and I grieve for their families, but this is not an argument for free healthcare for all! (like it will be free really)
I want to dig into some numbers being thrown around. President Obama, right before saying that illegals would not be covered by public insurance and being called out of it by my hero Joe Wilson, stated that 47 million do not have healthcare in the United States. He has since dropped that number to 30 million tacitly acknowledging the truth in Wilson’s allegation by excluding the 17 million illegal aliens in the country. Apparently Grayson did not get that memo as he has been using the 47 million numbers.
Grayson also likes the 45K number that a Harvard study says die a year from not having insurance. I won’t get into how the study was flawed, and even acknowledged as flawed by the group doing it, but I will say that I have looked through the CDC numbers and have yet to come across a cause of death of “not insured.” Instead we get these, actual, causes of death.
Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
• Heart disease: 631,636
• Cancer: 559,888
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
• Diabetes: 72,449
• Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
• Septicemia: 34,234
More people died of the flu than of not being insured.
While we are at it, according to the CDC about 2.4 million die each year in the US. Well if 45K of them died because they were uninsured then 2,355,000 died FROM having insurance. Lets dig deeper into this.
If we go by the 47 Million numbers, and 45K died, then 1 in 666 died from not having insurance.
If we go by the 30 Million numbers, and 45K died, the 1 in 1044 died from not having insurance.
307 Million people live in the US, subtracting the 47 million is 260 Million. 2,355,000 died so 1 in 110 died FROM having insurance.
Conclusion: It is better to NOT have insurance.
But this is fun so let’s dig deeper.
47 Million have no insurance. But we take out the 17 million illegal aliens leaving 30 million. Of those there is 25%, or 7.5 Million, that are eligible for Medicaid or S-Chip. 20%, or 6 Million, have an income of over 58K per year and could conceivably afford insurance. And 20%, or 6 Million, have turned down their employer option for whatever reason. The last two numbers it is of course possible to have some overlap so for my purposes I am going to assume an overlap of 50% which gives us 9 Million that either turned down their employer option or make enough already to get their own insurance.
30,000,000 - 7,500,000 - 9,000,000 = 13.5 Million (or 4% of the population) that are slipping through the cracks. That is the number that we need to be targeting in the healthcare debate. We need reform that will help them! Leave the rest of us out of it!
On top of all this we just recently learned that some 63 million dollars in fraud was identified in the Medicaid system in just 5 states! If we just pass that down and multiply it by 10 to get to 50 states that is 630 million dollars! Fix that and pay for the 13.5 million needing help!
Before I conclude I also want to touch on something that people that support public healthcare like to point to. They constantly bring up stories about people being denied coverage on procedures and how it impacted their lives. I understand where they are coming from; I really do, as we ran through a lot of this with my wife and our insurance company recently. But do these people really think that the government run healthcare will never deny a claim? Maybe you need to look at the following chart.
You guessed it, Medicare denies more claims than anyone else!
I am not saying that we do not need healthcare reform. We do. But it is certainly not something to rush into. Take some time to do it right, and listen to your constituents. Or find another job.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Midget's 1st Real Meet of the Season
Saturday was Midget's first real gymnastics meet of the season. She competes in the United Alliance Gymnastics League (UAGL) which is a fun centered non-sanctioned meet that serves as a great intro to competitive gymnastics. She did really well last year as a level 2 and this year she has moved up to level 3.
When we got to the meet, which is in Paducah, KY and about 2.5 hours away, we learned that she would compete as a 7 year old. This is because she will turn 7 prior to the final qualifier in January. This revelation brought on a small case of nerves for both myself and my wife, and we debated on whether or not we should set the stage for a potential loss due to the other girls being older. We decided not to based on the simple fact that if she did well we would never hear the end of it.
She started on beam and I was a nervous wreck! Beam has the potential to be great but just by the nature of the event it is so easy to fall. Add to that she had earlier admitted that she was nervous about beam because she was afraid to fall and get hurt. This is new for her but it comes from a fall she had a few weeks back on bars where she hurt her arm. She now realizes that getting hurt can happen. But the kid is a trooper. She got up there and she rocked out a 9.05! Best score she has ever gotten on beam, and honestly I think she got scored low, but WOW!!!
Next up was floor, probably her best event. She did absolutely beautiful. A few really minor bobbles but she got a 9.2! 2 9s! Another first for her as she has never gotten 2 9s in a meet before.
On to vault. Vault is funny for her. She has this odd run where she sometimes turns her right foot in and it gives her this weird frog run thing. Her warm-up runs were really awful though no frog run. Instead she did this odd really short steps for the first half and then these long gazelle like bounds for the second half. But it all cleared up for her first vault and she nailed it and got a 9.2!! Oh wow! 3 9s!!
One thing about these meets. There is a Red and a Blue division. Red is for the newer girls, with Blue for the more experienced. If you get a 34 AA you get moved up to Blue in THAT meet. Midget was obviously really close. She just needed a 6.55 on Bars and she was being moved up, and honestly that scared me cause those girls were all much older and were 2nd year L3s.
On bars is where it got just plain odd. First off Midget is really nervous about her dismount ever since she wiped out and got hurt. So she tends to come off the bar too early now. Which makes her wipe out again. Which is what happened during warm-ups. But then she got it again and all seemed good. Her mount was great, but her Mill Circle is still a work in progress. And then she fell on the dismount. Pretty much face planted. But overall not bad, and then the score flashed. 6.4?
Turns out it was a small coaching adjustment. Her leg cuts, and those of her team mates, need to be one motion without resting their legs on the bar. Big deductions for both the cut in and the cut out. Easily fixed according to the coach though. But she missed moving up to the Blue division by .15. She was upset, but I was pretty happy with it as those girls all seemed a bit older and I think several of them were repeating the level.
Apparently everybody struggled on bars though because even with the 6.4 on bars she swept Gold.
Good thing we had not said anything or she would be driving us nuts with "I told you so's."
She is bound and determined to get to Blue next meet though. Should be interesting.
When we got to the meet, which is in Paducah, KY and about 2.5 hours away, we learned that she would compete as a 7 year old. This is because she will turn 7 prior to the final qualifier in January. This revelation brought on a small case of nerves for both myself and my wife, and we debated on whether or not we should set the stage for a potential loss due to the other girls being older. We decided not to based on the simple fact that if she did well we would never hear the end of it.
She started on beam and I was a nervous wreck! Beam has the potential to be great but just by the nature of the event it is so easy to fall. Add to that she had earlier admitted that she was nervous about beam because she was afraid to fall and get hurt. This is new for her but it comes from a fall she had a few weeks back on bars where she hurt her arm. She now realizes that getting hurt can happen. But the kid is a trooper. She got up there and she rocked out a 9.05! Best score she has ever gotten on beam, and honestly I think she got scored low, but WOW!!!
Next up was floor, probably her best event. She did absolutely beautiful. A few really minor bobbles but she got a 9.2! 2 9s! Another first for her as she has never gotten 2 9s in a meet before.
On to vault. Vault is funny for her. She has this odd run where she sometimes turns her right foot in and it gives her this weird frog run thing. Her warm-up runs were really awful though no frog run. Instead she did this odd really short steps for the first half and then these long gazelle like bounds for the second half. But it all cleared up for her first vault and she nailed it and got a 9.2!! Oh wow! 3 9s!!
One thing about these meets. There is a Red and a Blue division. Red is for the newer girls, with Blue for the more experienced. If you get a 34 AA you get moved up to Blue in THAT meet. Midget was obviously really close. She just needed a 6.55 on Bars and she was being moved up, and honestly that scared me cause those girls were all much older and were 2nd year L3s.
On bars is where it got just plain odd. First off Midget is really nervous about her dismount ever since she wiped out and got hurt. So she tends to come off the bar too early now. Which makes her wipe out again. Which is what happened during warm-ups. But then she got it again and all seemed good. Her mount was great, but her Mill Circle is still a work in progress. And then she fell on the dismount. Pretty much face planted. But overall not bad, and then the score flashed. 6.4?
Turns out it was a small coaching adjustment. Her leg cuts, and those of her team mates, need to be one motion without resting their legs on the bar. Big deductions for both the cut in and the cut out. Easily fixed according to the coach though. But she missed moving up to the Blue division by .15. She was upset, but I was pretty happy with it as those girls all seemed a bit older and I think several of them were repeating the level.
Apparently everybody struggled on bars though because even with the 6.4 on bars she swept Gold.
Good thing we had not said anything or she would be driving us nuts with "I told you so's."
She is bound and determined to get to Blue next meet though. Should be interesting.
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