"Guitar George, he knows all the chords"

Did they say "Sultans of Swag"?



Someone will have to develop some sort of powerful vaccine to inject my brain with to make me decide this stuff isn't hilarious.

We all know this about Emergency Rooms

We know it either intuitively or from experience. But here are the facts, presented by doctors who work in the ERs. However, maybe you prefer the opinions of DC Bureaucrats who wrote ObamaCare to those wearing the stethoscopes.

Hospital emergency rooms (ERs), the theory goes, get overcrowded because people without health insurance have no place else to go. But that's not the view of the doctors who staff those emergency departments, says NPR.

The real problem, according to a new survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians, isn't caused by people who don't have insurance -- it's caused by people who do, but still can't find a doctor to treat them.

• A full 97 percent of ER doctors who responded to the survey said they treated patients "daily" who have Medicaid (the federal-state health plan for the low-income), but who can't find a doctors who will accept their insurance.
• At the same time, 97 percent of ER doctors also said they treat patients daily who have private insurance and primary care doctors, but whose primary care doctors sent them to the emergency room for care.
• Apparently that's because the patient's need for care arose during a time when that private doctor's office was closed.
• Since these insured patients are more -- not less -- likely to use the emergency department, 89 percent of physicians in the survey said they believe the number of visits to emergency rooms will increase as the new health law is implemented.

Watch for construction crews increasing the size of ERs as well as building new Urgent Care facilities in a neighborhood near you. To reuse a Bushism, Heckuva job, Brownie.

John Paul II Beatification

Nice quick video.



The line "...Princess Letizia, wearing a black lace mantilla..." cracks me up. Obviously the journalist is trying to "spice up" this seemingly dull story.

Death of a Great Islamic Leader, Osama Bin Laden

One down, many more to go.

"It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honor, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their color, sex, or language." -- Osama Bin Laden, "Letter to America", 2002

Happy Divine Mercy Sunday

"For the sake of His Sorrowful Passion, have Mercy on us and on the whole world."

O Mercy Divine,
Rain from the skies, so bright
To fill this soul of mine
With Heaven's Golden Light.

The Benefactor Factor

Dennis Prager writes about how government entitlement programs and increasing dependency of the populace on them don't destroy only the economy, but also the virtue of gratitude. Excerpt:

What entitlements do, and what the transformation of entitlements into rights does, is create a citizenry that increasingly lacks the most important character trait -- gratitude. Of all the characteristics needed for both a happy and morally decent life, none surpasses gratitude. Grateful people are happier, and grateful people are more morally decent. That is why we teach our children to say "thank you." But the welfare state undoes that. One does not express thanks for a right. So, instead of "thank you," the citizen of the welfare state is taught to say, "What more can I get?"

Yet, while producing increasingly selfish people, the mantra of the left, and therefore of the universities and the media, has been for generations that capitalism and the free market, not the welfare state, produces selfish people.

All too true.

In my opinion, another thing which sheds light on the dearth in gratitude among recipients is the impersonal nature of government assistance. At a soup kitchen you may see a smiling face presenting you with the gift of food, with many other volunteers scurrying about in the background to prepare the gift. But often the monetary assistance delivered to those being helped by Uncle Sam is in the form of mass-produced debit cards and checks chunked out by 3rd party processing centers. Some of these don't even say where they are from. They don't even have an official seal or an American flag on them. It's easy to see how this tends to engender an entitlement mentality. Actions speak louder than words, even Obama's applause lines.

But speaking of Obama's words, all this legislation he brags on seems to be moving entitlements to a new level of abstraction. Forcing insurance companies to cover "kids" up to 26 years old—and these companies will merely shrug and raise premiums—is an ingenious way to hide the entitlement and thus hide the fact that it is a gift from either parental guardians or taxpayers. Is as if liberal bureaucrats are saying "Don't thank us, just re-elect us and pay more taxes. We'll keep rigging the system for you."

Health Care Sharing Ministries

Something to look into.

• Each member pays a monthly fee that varies with family size: Single members generally pay $135, couples $270, single-parent families $200 and two-parent families $320.
• Members pay the first $300 for any medical expense they incur; when they have billsabove that amount, they send them to the ministry's main offices.
• The ministry keeps track of the needs, informing other members where to send their monthly check, and letting those who have made requests know what checks to expect.
• If there's a shortfall one monthevery household seeking help gets a prorated portion of its needs covered, and the ministry asks members for voluntary contributions to make up the difference.
• If the shortfall continues, members vote on raising the share amount.

Although the ministries say that they're not providing health insurance and are therefore exempt from state insurance regulations, states sometimes beg to differ. Concerned that members may believe such ministries guarantee coverage of their medical bills, regulators have at times tried to shut them down.

The federal health care overhaul adopted by Congress last year recognizes ministries that share health care expenses as part of their religious practice. The law exempts members of such ministries from the penalty that will be levied against individuals who don't purchase health insurance starting in 2014, a fact which all three of the major ministries highlight to varying degrees on their websites, says Kaiser.

Source article.

Without Conversation...

...or a notion...



Avalon.