UnitedHealth drops thousands of doctors from insurance plans: WSJ

Yahoo News   "UnitedHealth Group dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
"The insurer said in October that underfunding of Medicare Advantage plans for the elderly could not be fully offset by the company's other healthcare business. The company also reported spending more healthcare premiums on medical claims in the third quarter, due mainly to government cuts to payments for Medicare Advantage services.
"The Journal report said that doctors in at least 10 states were notified of being laid off the plans, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the healthcare environment."...

....
"UnitedHealth is participating in about a dozen new state insurance markets that launched on October 1 to offer subsidized health coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul."

ISN’T THIS KIND OF AN ADMISSION THAT THE OBAMA “RECOVERY” STINKS?

Via Instapundit;   Obama Pushes To Save The Holiday Season For A Million Unemployed People  "The Obama administration on Friday came out strongly in support of extending long-term unemployment insurance past its current expiration date.
Top economic adviser Gene Sperling said in a statement to The Huffington Post there is "no question" that Congress should extend emergency unemployment insurance for the more than 1 million workers who could be affected when benefits expire between Christmas and the New Year.
" 'We have always done so when unemployment is this high and would make little sense to fail to do so now when we are still facing the burdens of the worst downturn since the Great Recession," Sperling said. "It is high bang for the buck for the economy, reduces poverty and helps workers who lost jobs due to no fault of their own get back on their feet.'"

The Week in Pictures: The Old Fumblerooskie Edition

Powerline  "So while the New York Times is going with “incorrect promise” (a phrase that has never appeared in the paper before that anyone can find) to describe Obama’s “terminological inexactitude” (Churchill’s famous term for “lie”), Obama is going with “we fumbled.”  Fumbled, eh? ...  It’s starting to look more like one of those old Oakland Raider trick fumble plays, isn’t it?"

 

More here.

Theo (The Dog) And Beau (The Toddler) Star In A Naptime Love Story

Huffington Post  " 'We found him tucked together with his two siblings in the back yard of the Santa Cruz SPCA," mom of three Jessica Shyba writes on her blog, Momma's Gone City, of the puppy her family brought home last week."....

... "Their daily naps have turned into "what I can only describe as the most organic and beautiful friendship I have ever witnessed," Shyba writes."

 

Full article.

Friday night posts on Obamacare

National Review Writer: Obamacare ‘The Biggest Mistake That Any Party Has Made in 100 Years’ 
..."Asked first to react to the president’s press conference, Cooke said that it might be “the lowest I’ve ever seen him.”
“ 'He looked broken,” he added. “And he flailed. He filibustered when he was given the Iran question in the middle, for example. He talked at length. He just desperately didn’t want to talk about health care.' ”

39 Democrats Break With Obama to Pass Upton 'Fix'   "The Upton bill now goes to the Senate. Sen. Mary Landrieu is sponsoring legislation that is similar to Rep. Upton's, except that it would require insurance companies to continue offering the individual plans. Upton's bill would allow them to offer the plans, but not require them to do so."
10 Senate Dems Who Should Apologize for ObamaCare

Obamacare: How Is Incompetence a Defense?  "President Barack Obama made several excuses for himself and his party in an attempt to minimize the damage the Obamacare debacle will cause Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections. All of these excuses, however, try to use incompetence to excuse failure."

The Washington Post Pinocchios   "Getting another three Pinocchios from the Post for blaming health insurance companies for people losing their health coverage didn’t do it. But finally, hearing an earful from 16 panicked Democratic senators apparently got through to the president, convincing him that he needed to come clean because their constituents are so outraged over ObamaCare’s failings."

 

Obama channels 'Animal House' at presser   "You screwed up...You trusted us."

The President Is Losing His Plan  "The callous disregard for the very idea of law inherent in this manner of governing is matched by the overt cynicism of the move itself: After having created the circumstances in which millions of people lose their health coverage, the administration imagines this latest move can allow Democrats to say that the president and his health reform are not at fault but insurers and state insurance commissioners are because, after all, although they have had to prepare to follow the law for three years they now have thirty days to prepare to ignore it."

US cancels purchase order of Russian Copters for Afghanistan forces

RIA Novosti:  May 4th, 2013;  Pentagon to Buy Russian Helicopters Despite Ban  ..."The US Department of Defense said Thursday it plans to sidestep a Congressional ban to purchase 30 helicopters from Russian state-owned defense firm Rosoboronexport, despite objections from US lawmakers who allege that the firm has equipped the Syrian government to commit brutal crimes against civilians."...
The above article came with comments including this:

.... "Or consider this. The  United States Air Force is grounding 17 squadrons because of $591 million  dollars in budget cuts. Our Air Force is not able to do its mission because it  lacks the money to fly but we have the money to give Afghanistan $700 million  dollars in Russian helicopters.

And this is where Barack  Obama thinks we should spend our money? Most people reading this story will not  have heard about it. Why?

Because the Obama  Propaganda Media is moving in lock step to make sure there is no bad news that  might damage Obama's presidency.This is a story that should damage him and  outrage every American. "....

This next story is some months later:
Nov 13th, 2013; US Cancels Russian Helicopter Buy Amid Syria Standoff – Senator 
“ 'I applaud the [US] Defense Department’s decision to cancel its plan to buy 15 additional Mi-17 helicopters from Rosoboronexport,” US Sen. John Cornyn said in statement, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
"Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has been leading a push in Congress to oppose the Pentagon’s purchase of Russian helicopters for deployment in Afghanistan due to Moscow’s weapons shipments to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad as his forces battle rebel groups in a fierce civil war."

Yet these links from months earlier accompanied the article about the US no longer buying Russian helicopters:

• US to Buy 30 Russian Helicopters for Afghanistan Next Year  June 2013
• Russia to Deliver 12 More Mi-17 Helicopters to Afghanistan May 2013
• U.S. Buys More Russian Helicopters for Afghanistan  May 2013

The article about the cancellation is the most recent of the lot.

Hat tip to John Uhrig; Plano, TX

Obamacare ads by Democrats and by Tony Branco

washingtontimes.com

comicallyincorrect.com

Why liberals are panicked about Obamacare

Charles Krauthammer  ... "The reaction to the incompetence, arrogance and deception has ranged from ridicule to anger. But more is in jeopardy than just panicked congressional Democrats. This is the signature legislative achievement of the Obama presidency, the embodiment of his new entitlement-state liberalism. If Obamacare goes down, there will be little left of its underlying ideology

"Perhaps it won’t go down. Perhaps the Web portal hums beautifully on Nov. 30. Perhaps they’ll find a way to restore the canceled policies without wrecking the financial underpinning of the exchanges.

"Perhaps. The more likely scenario, however, is that Obamacare does fail. It either fails politically, renounced by a wide consensus that includes a growing number of Democrats, or it succumbs to the financial complications (the insurance “death spiral”) of the very amendments desperately tacked on to save it.

"If it does fail, the effect will be historic. Obamacare will take down with it more than Mary Landrieu and Co. It will discredit Obama’s new liberalism for years to come."

Amazing World War 2 Photos

Mission4Today   Many, many photos, of which these three are just a sample.

 

 The nose gunner grabs a smoke.

After the bombing run over Germany the pilot should inform him that smoking is hazardous to his health.

Dauntless dive bomber,1944

 

 B-17 ball turret 1942 

 

Hat tip to Val Brose; Santa Maria, CA.

 

This next data comes to us from a childhood friend, Irma Dedera Sannes of San Francisco. I have made a few edits and comments to add clarity. TD

(It's Battle of Britain Day today, commemorating the unbelievably fantastic efforts of the "few" young RAF pilots of Spitfires and Hurricanes whose defeat of Hitler's invading Luftwaffe over southern England in Sep 1940 caused that bastard dictator to abandon his plan and look eastwards instead. That gave us a brief chance to build more planes to replace the heavy losses and to train up new young men to replace the hundreds of dead ones, until our American allies came in to help us after Pearl Harbour. Without them, we might have been speaking German now.)
The following document shows just how much the Americans helped us in the air:
Amazing WW2 Aircraft Facts; These are very moving statistics and people who were not around during WW2 have no understanding of the magnitude. This gives some insight.

On average 6600 American service men died per MONTH, during WW2 (about 220 a day).

276,000 aircraft manufactured in the US.
43,000 planes lost overseas, including 23,000 in combat.
14,000 lost in the continental U.S.

The staggering cost of aircraft in 1945 dollars
B-17 $204,370. P-40 $44,892.
B-24 $215,516. P-47 $85,578.
B-25 $142,194. P-51 $51,572.
B-26 $192,426. C-47 $88,574.
B-29 $605,360. PT-17 $15,052.
P-38 $97,147. AT-6 $22,952.

From Germany's invasion of Poland Sept. 1, 1939 until Japan's surrender on Sept. 2, 1945 = 2,433 days.  (America entered the war over two years after that. Until then, Britain stood alone against Hitler in Western Europe, the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and North Africa.)
America lost an average of 170 planes a day.

A B-17 carried 2,500 gallons of high octane fuel and carried a crew of 10 airmen.
9.7 billion gallons of gasoline consumed.
108 million hours flown.
460 thousand million rounds of aircraft ammo fired overseas.
7.9 million bombs dropped overseas.
2.3 million combat flights.
299,230 aircraft used.
808,471 aircraft engines used.
799,972 propellers.

Obama vs. the Generals

Politico   "McDonough insisted, and has “close, and in some instances warm, relationships with his military chiefs,” as the Post put it. During my own time at the Pentagon, where I worked as an Obama appointee from the spring of 2009 until mid-2011, few seemed to hold this view. I recall asking one general, recently back from Afghanistan, if he’d shared his experiences and insights with the president. Rolling his eyes, he told me grimly that the White House preferred the military to be seen but not heard."...  Full article

No soldier in his right mind would guarantee ‘no boots on the ground,’” a retired senior commander told me. “You can never make such guarantees.”

...."According to most of those I interviewed, Gates’s scathing words reflect an unhappiness with the commander in chief that is widely shared in the military. “The military does not take kindly to people asking them to do things without thinking them through,” Eaton observes. “Military guys get kind of bemused when civilians tell them it’s OK to blow people to smithereens using bombs, as long as you don’t kill them with chemical weapons.”....

Our military, both standing and in coffins, I feel are nothing more that photo-ops for this president. The same might be said for the Clintons as well

The future for President Obama is looking dim

Volokh Conspiracy; The Legality of the Latest ObamaCare Fix  ..."Does this make the renewal of non-compliant policies legal? No. The legal requirement remains on the books so the relevant health insurance plans remain illegal under federal law. The President’s decision does not change relevant state laws either.  So insurers will still need to obtain approval from state insurance commissioners. This typically requires submitting rates and plan specifications for approval. This can take some time, and is disruptive because most insurance companies have already set their offerings for the next year. It’s no wonder that some insurance commissioners have already indicated they have no plans to approve non-compliant plans." ...

 

 New James O’Keefe sting reveals rampant Obamacare navigator fraud   This is subsequent to the similar one O'Keefe posted a few days ago with more to follow this, he says. 

 "Conservative provocateur and undercover filmmaker James O’Keefe released a video on Thursday revealing rampant fraud among Obamacare navigators." 

Related post from Black Quill and Ink: Barack Obama…Brilliant Politician or Bumbling Idiot?  "... Americans must decide if President Obama is a brilliant man or, as facts would suggest, an inept, bumbling and detached narcissist who sees himself as a great leader but who in fact lacks the skills to lead. Well I feel he is the former."

James O'Keefe @JamesOKeefeIII       

We have so much footage, so many offices. So many employees. So much fraud caught on tape. We're going to release them all one by one.

PJ Media; The backlash to the Obamacare fix has already started   "It took about three hours exactly for states to start pushing back against President Obama’s request that regulators allow insurance plans to offer current products in 2014."

Was Benghazi Not Enough? Obama Should Resign over Obamacare 

"If I were Barack Obama, I would resign as president. Forget all the temporary fixes and limited hangouts, I would be too ashamed of myself for having lied so blatantly to the American people — and on matters of such great significance.
Yes, I am a highly imperfect person. Yes, I have lied. But I doubt I would ever have done what he did, lie so repeatedly and manipulatively to my fellow citizens for my own aggrandizement or for what I personally believe is their better good (even if they don’t)."  Roger L Simon

 

High School Senior’s Testimony Devastates Common Core

"Ethan Young is a student who has been subjected to the Common Core in the Knoxville School system and is currently a senior at  Farragut High School.  He testified on November 6th at the  at Knox County (TN) Regular Board Meeting.  His five-minute testimony to a packed house is devastating to the Common Core initiative."

First he takes on the facade of the Common Core Standards as “State Led .”   "He then takes some time to defend teachers and to speak against the teacher evaluation, then gets to the crux of the matter with common core, that it is a model of industrialized learning."

Somewhere our founding fathers are turning in their graves, turning and screaming and trying to say to us is that we teach to FREE MINDS….we teach to inspire, we teach to equip.  The careers will come naturally…ask yourselves: haven’t we gone too far with data?