Liberty Ford's home is shifting to Aurora Crain's Cleveland Business Liberty Auto Group's well-known jingle listing Northeast Ohio cities it's in will need a rewrite if plans to move Liberty Ford to Aurora from Solon come to fruition. The dealership wants to move to a 14-acre site on part of the former Geauga Lake that ... |
View original post here:
Liberty Ford's home is shifting to Aurora - Crain's Cleveland Business
Published: Mon, June 5, 2017 @ 12:05 a.m.
Second of a two-part series
By Peter H. Milliken
LIBERTY
Fearful of a low-flying jet fighter, Yasser Ismail broke his hand at age 10 when he jumped off a stone wall he was sitting on during the Six Day War of June 1967.
They were flying very low. We got scared from that, Ismail said of his familys experience of the terrifying roar of military jets as they lived 9 miles north of Jerusalem.
Ismail, who lives in Liberty Township, said he believed they were Israeli jets.
My hand healed crooked after his mother fashioned a homemade cast for it, he added.
When the war erupted, men vanished from his neighborhood, he recalled.
My father left. All the men left the area. I heard the older people saying that the Jews are killing all men, so all the men left for the interior of Jordan, he said.
We woke up one day and they were gone, he said of high-ranking Jordanian army officers and their families, who lived in the vicinity of a Jordanian army base near his home.
That base is now an Israeli military base with an Israeli settlement next to it.
Ismail lived in a home without electricity or running water in the central West Bank city of Al-Bireh, which is adjacent to Ramallah.
The West Bank was under Jordanian control before Israel began occupying it during the 1967 war.
Besides his memory of injuring his hand, Ismail recalled hiding in a cave near his home for several days with about 60 of his neighbors during the war.
He heard news accounts of the war on a battery-operated transistor radio from a Jordanian government-run radio station.
As Israel emerged victorious, Ismail recalled he and his brother ran toward buses carrying occupying Israeli soldiers arriving to establish a checkpoint.
My mother started screaming at us and said, Come back. Come back. Theyre going to kill you, Ismail said in a recent interview.
The soldiers came and assured my mother there was nothing that was going to happen to us. They gave us candy, he added.
Ismail, however, recalled one incident in which his mother became angry when she heard an Israeli soldier make a derogatory comment about the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
An Israeli officer scolded the soldier and apologized to Ismails mother, promising that such utterances would not be repeated, Ismail said.
After the Six Day War, the economic well-being of West Bank residents improved, Ismail said.
We were way below poverty under Jordanian rule, he noted.
Under Israels occupation of the West Bank, People started going into Israel and started working. The economy all of a sudden was going, and we started having enough food, and everybody was working until the 1970s or 1980s, he recalled.
Ismail obtained employment as a dishwasher in a Jerusalem restaurant and as a construction worker.
You get paid good money when you work in Israel. Its nothing like when you work in Palestine, he said, adding that a laborer can earn six times more money in Israel than in Palestine.
Ismail came to live in the United States in 1978 and now owns a Farrell, Pa., check-cashing and health and beauty aid store.
He still maintains a residence in Al-Bireh, however, where he typically spends one month every two years.
Today, he said, the life of Palestinians is a lot harder than before because of these walls Israel built for security reasons, which make travel difficult.
If youre a student, you never make it on time to your college because of these checkpoints and walls. If youre a worker, you cannot make it to work on time, he explained.
Now, they [the Israelis] dont hire Palestinians because of security reasons, he added.
The Jewish people dont have security and we [the Palestinians] dont have security, he said.
Ismail believes the arms race promoted by the United States and Europe is a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
The United States and the Europeans are the problem, and theyre using the Palestinians and the Jews, he said. Theyre using us to keep their interests going to be able to sell military equipment to the region.
The Russians sell it to the Syrians; and the Americans sell it to the Saudis and Qatar. Everybodys got their own gang. If there is peace, they cant sell this stuff anymore, Ismail said.
I wish peace comes through one day, he added.
The goal of achieving peace and security for all in the Middle East is also articulated by Youngstowns Jewish community.
You have numerous individuals who are living in areas of the West Bank and Gaza who have little security in their lives right now, and they deserve security as much as the Israelis do, said Bonnie Deutsch Burdman, director of community relations and government affairs for the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation.
Their quest for statehood is no less legitimate than the Jews quest for statehood in 1948, when modern-day Israel was established, she added.
The Jewish community overwhelmingly supports a two-state solution, in which Israel would coexist peacefully with a Palestinian state, she said.
Read the original:
Liberty man broke his hand and hid in cave - Youngstown Vindicator
The disappointment in their eyes showed that Liberty Hills softball players were not satisfied with reaching the Class 4A championship game.
This was one they could have won. Probably should have won, they said. Instead, they walked away from the UIL softball championships Saturday with silver medals draped around their necks and empty feelings dwelling in their hearts.
Krum pitcher Tristan Bridges flirted with danger at times, but she helped the Lady Cats escape with a 4-3 victory in the Class 4A title game at McCombs Field. Mixing a mean off-speed pitch with excellent location, Bridges struck out eight, raising her season total to 305. A junior, the Tarleton State pledge was named the games most valuable player.
She didnt get to be MVP by accident, Krum coach Bryan Chaney said. We call her Princess, and when shes in the circle, thats exactly what she is.
Bridges yielded just five hits, but four walks and three Krum errors gave Liberty Hill opportunities. The Panthers left nine players on base, though, an indication that they wasted some chances.
Liberty Hill (39-3-1) threatened in the seventh inning as Joely Williamson and Jessika Truax drew back-to-back one-out walks, but Bridges retired Kinsey Kuhlmann on a pop-up and Kandyn Faurie struck out to end it.
Krum (39-4) won a championship in its first trip to the state tournament.
Liberty Hill coach Charice Hankins and her players said Bridges kept the Panthers guessing.
She had a lot of spin on her pitches, and she kept popping us up a lot, Hankins said. She kept the ball outside enough where we couldnt always get solid contact.
Liberty Hill struck first Saturday, scoring a pair of runs in the first inning. Carissa Garza and Samantha Barnett opened the game with consecutive singles, and both moved up on a sacrifice by Joely Williamson. An infield error and a sacrifice fly to deep center by Kuhlmann gave the Panthers a 2-0 lead.
Krum took the lead for good, though, by scoring three runs in the second inning. Maddie Goins and Avery Williams had RBI singles, and McKenna Bruce drove in another run while reaching safely on an infield error.
Krum extended its lead to 4-2 in the fourth, but Liberty Hill countered with a run in the sixth. A triple by Kuhlmann preceded Krums third error of the game, allowing Kuhlmann to score and Faurie to reach first with no outs. With the Panthers down one run, Faurie moved to third on a two-out infield single by catcher Logan Oehler, but the threat ended when Garza grounded back to the mound.
After the game, Hankins congratulated her team for winning 39 games and reaching a state final. She also thanked two seniors, Williamson (bound for Utah State) and Barnett (Connecticut), for being team leaders.
Im disappointed in the moment, but were still a team of success, Williamson said. Were all just disappointed by the way it ended.
Instead of dwelling on the loss, Hankins said she will remember the good times.
Those seniors made hitting home runs cool the past few years, the coach said. We could not have asked for better leadership.
Read this article:
Liberty Hill comes up short in Class 4A final, falling to Krum 4-3 - Austin American-Statesman
Tiger Woods and the Statue of Liberty during a PGA Tour event at Liberty National Golf Club in 2009.(Photo: FILE)
JERSEY CITY Golfers who walk the fairways at Liberty National Golf Club can utter sentences that few who play this game ever get to say.
Just aim it at the Statue of Liberty, or Play a little draw off of One World Trade.
The super-exclusive private club, with its sweeping and unobstructed views of Manhattan and New York Harbor, offers a backdrop in golf unlike any other. Its part of the reason why Liberty National is one of the most recognized venues in professional golf, even though it has been around for only 11 years and has hosted just two PGA Tour events.
But Liberty National is about to add a major notch to its competitive resume when it hosts the Presidents Cup in September and October.
Its just an iconic place, Presidents Cup executive director Matt Kamienski said. And for all the people, not just those who are going to be here on site, but for all the people who are going to be viewing from around the world, its going to be spectacular.
The Presidents Cup isnt as big as landing one of the four majors. But its the next biggest thing. The four-day, biennial event is a team competition pitting 12 Americans against 12 international players. From Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, Liberty National will be the undisputed capital of the golf world.
Its a big step up from hosting a regular tour event.
This is going to be a much bigger event, Derek Sprague, Liberty Nationals managing director of golf said. Having hosted two [PGA Tour events] this event is probably double in size, at least, not only with the number of attendees but with the excitement surrounding it.
The event is so big and requires so much infrastructure, that construction workers will descend on Liberty National next week to start getting ready for an event thats more than three months away. Beginning on June 12, the PGA Tour will begin erecting a miniature city across the golf club, building hospitality structures, bleachers and the array of other structures that are required to put on an event of this magnitude.
Fans who attended The Barclays now known as The Northern Trust at Liberty National in 2009 and 2013 can expect an entirely different experience.
One of the most noticeable changes will be to the course routing. During the Presidents Cup what was previously the fifth hole will now be the first hole. The rest of the course will be played in order, with players finishing on what was previously the par-three fifth hole.
Why the change? The Presidents Cup is a match play event and often matches end before the 18th hole. This change makes it more likely that all of Liberty National's most memorable holes the ones near the clubhouse and with the iconic views of Manhattan will be played before a match ends.
We wanted to make sure that we could showcase those holes, Kamienski said. And [those holes] are also a place where we could build a lot of hospitality. We had to look at it that way, too, where we could position the [structures] to have the most energetic crowds the most people around.
Finding room for spectators has always been a challenge at Liberty National, which has 18 holes tightly fit onto a property of about only 150 acres. For comparison: Erin Hills Golf Club, which hosts the U.S. Open later this month, sits on a massive 652 acres of land.
Many of the holes at Liberty National are close together, allowing spectators access to only one side of the hole.
Tiger Woods during the final round of the PGA Tour event at Liberty National Golf Club in 2009.(Photo: FILE)
Itll be even trickier for the Presidents Cup. Unlike a regular tour event, with more than 120 players and groups spread across every hole, the Presidents Cup has only 24 players and only a few groups on the course at a time.
And so the PGA Tour has capped attendance at 25,000 people per day. And thats not fans, its 25,000 people total on the property every day including those who volunteer and work the tournament.
Only about half the amount of the daily capacity will be tickets sold to the general public. (Tickets, which start at $115 for tournament rounds and $50 for practice rounds, are on sale now at http://www.presidentscup.com.)
We know that this golf course is very confined, Kamienski said. Its tough to move [spectators]. If you get more than 25,000 people out here for a full field event, thats tough. And think about it, we only have five groups on Thursday, five groups on Friday, four groups [Saturday morning] and four [Saturday afternoon]. So youre going to see so many more grandstands, so may more video boards than you would for The Northern Trust.
The hope is that with extra video boards and seating the congestion will be alleviated.
Its certainly a challenge for Liberty National. But the first two PGA Tour events at the course went off without a problem. And if things go well this time, it could be a stepping stone to hosting a major.
Well, certainly the Presidents Cup is the pinnacle for the PGA Tour, so we feel like we are hosting their most prestigious event, Sprague said. And who knows down the road, as successful as this one is we may have more in the cards in the future.
Email: vasqueza@northjersey.com
More:
Liberty National stepping into big-time as it prepares for Presidents Cup - NorthJersey.com
"Right-wing Neoliberalism" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see neoliberalism.
Thatcherism describes the conviction politics, economic, social policy and political style of the British Conservative Party politician Margaret Thatcher, who was leader of her party from 1975 to 1990. It has also been used to describe the beliefs of the British government under Thatcher as Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, and beyond into the governments of John Major, Tony Blair and David Cameron.[1] An exponent or supporter of Thatcherism is regarded as a Thatcherite.
Thatcherism represented a systematic, decisive rejection and reversal of the post-war consensus, whereby the major political parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry, and close regulation of the economy. There was one major exception: the National Health Service, which was widely popular. She promised Britons in 1982, the NHS is "safe in our hands".[2]
Both the exact terms of what makes up Thatcherism as well as its specific legacy in terms of British history over the past decades are controversial. In terms of ideology, Thatcherism has been described by Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1989, as a political platform emphasising free markets with restrained government spending and tax cuts coupled with British nationalism both at home and abroad.[3]The Daily Telegraph stated in April 2008 that the programme of the next non-conservative British government, Tony Blair's administration with an emphasis on 'New Labour', basically accepted the central reform measures of Thatcherism such as deregulation, privatisation of key national industries, maintaining a flexible labour market, marginalising the trade unions, and centralising power from local authorities to central government.[4]
Thatcherism attempts to promote low inflation, the small state, and free markets through tight control of the money supply, privatisation and constraints on the labour movement. It is often compared with Reaganomics in the United States, Economic Rationalism in Australia and Rogernomics in New Zealand and as a key part of the worldwide economic liberal movement. Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1989, listed the Thatcherite ideals as "free markets, financial discipline, firm control over public expenditure, tax cuts, nationalism, 'Victorian values' (of the Samuel Smiles self-help variety), privatisation and a dash of populism".[3]
Thatcherism is thus often compared to neoliberalism. Milton Friedman said that "the thing that people do not recognise is that Margaret Thatcher is not in terms of belief a Tory. She is a nineteenth-century Liberal."[5] Thatcher herself stated in 1983: "I would not mind betting that if Mr Gladstone were alive today he would apply to join the Conservative Party".[6] In the 1996 Keith Joseph memorial lecture Thatcher argued that "The kind of Conservatism which he and I... favoured would be best described as 'liberal', in the old-fashioned sense. And I mean the liberalism of Mr Gladstone, not of the latter day collectivists".[7] However, Thatcher once told Friedrich Hayek: "I know you want me to become a Whig; no, I am a Tory". Hayek believed "she has felt this very clearly".[8]
But the relationship between Thatcherism and liberalism is complicated. Thatcher's former Defence Secretary John Nott claimed that "it is a complete misreading of her beliefs to depict her as a nineteenth-century Liberal".[9] As Ellen Meiksins Wood has argued, Thatcherite capitalism was compatible with traditional British political institutions. As Prime Minister, Thatcher did not challenge ancient institutions such as the monarchy or the House of Lords, but some of the most recent additions: such as the trade unions.[10] Indeed, many leading Thatcherites, including Thatcher herself, went on to join the House of Lords: an honour which Gladstone, for instance, had declined.[11]
Thinkers closely associated with Thatcherism include Keith Joseph, Enoch Powell, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. In an interview with Simon Heffer in 1996 Thatcher stated that the two greatest influences on her as Conservative leader had been Joseph and Powell, who were both "very great men".[12]
A number of commentators have traced the origins of Thatcherism in post-war British politics. The historian Ewen Green claimed there was resentment of the inflation, taxation and the constraints imposed by the labour movement, which was associated with the so-called Buttskellite consensus in the decades before Thatcher came to prominence. Although the Conservative leadership accommodated itself to the Attlee government's post-war reforms, there was continuous right-wing opposition in the lower ranks of the party, in right-wing pressure groups like the Middle Class Alliance and the People's League for the Defence of Freedom, and later in think tanks like the Centre for Policy Studies. For example, in 1945 the Conservative Party chairman Ralph Assheton had wanted 12,000 abridged copies of The Road to Serfdom (a book by the anti-socialist economist Friedrich Hayek later closely associated with Thatcherism),[13] taking up one-and-a-half tons of the party's paper ration, distributed as election propaganda.[14] The historian Dr. Christopher Cooper has also traced the formation of the monetarist economics at the heart of Thatcherism back to the resignation of Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Peter Thorneycroft in 1958.[15]
Thatcherism is often described as a libertarian ideology. Thatcher saw herself as creating a libertarian movement,[16][17] rejecting traditional Toryism.[18] Thatcherism is associated with libertarianism within the Conservative Party,[19] albeit one of libertarian ends achieved by using strong and sometimes authoritarian leadership.[20] British political commentator Andrew Marr has called libertarianism the "dominant, if unofficial, characteristic of Thatcherism".[21] However, whereas some of her heirs, notably Michael Portillo and Alan Duncan, embraced this libertarianism, others in the Thatcherite movement, such as John Redwood, sought to become more populist.[22][23]
Some commentators have argued that Thatcherism should not be considered properly libertarian. Noting the tendency towards strong central government in matters concerning the trade unions and local authorities, Andrew Gamble summarised Thatcherism as "the free economy and the strong state".[24]Simon Jenkins accused the Thatcher government of carrying out a 'nationalisation' of Britain.[25] Libertarian political theorist Murray Rothbard didn't consider Thatcherism to be libertarian, and heavily criticised Thatcher and Thatcherism stating that: "Thatcherism is all too similar to Reaganism: free-market rhetoric masking statist content."[26]
Another important aspect of Thatcherism is the style of governance. Britain in the 1970s was often referred to as "ungovernable". Thatcher attempted to redress this by centralising a great deal of power to herself, as the Prime Minister, often bypassing traditional cabinet structures (such as cabinet committees). This personal approach also became identified with personal toughness at times such as the Falklands War, the IRA bomb at the Conservative conference and the miners' strike.[citation needed]
Sir Charles Powell, the Foreign Affairs Private Secretary to the Prime Minister (198491 and 1996) described her style thus, "I've always thought there was something Leninist about Mrs Thatcher which came through in the style of government: the absolute determination, the belief that there's a vanguard which is right and if you keep that small, tightly knit team together, they will drive things through... there's no doubt that in the 1980s, No. 10 could beat the bushes of Whitehall pretty violently. They could go out and really confront people, lay down the law, bully a bit".[27]
Thatcherism is associated with the economic theory of monetarism. In contrast to previous government policy, monetarism placed a priority on controlling inflation over controlling unemployment. According to monetarist theory, inflation is the result of there being too much money in the economy. It was claimed that the government should seek to control the money supply to control inflation. However, by 1979 it was not only the Thatcherites who were arguing for stricter control of inflation. The Labour Chancellor Denis Healey had already adopted some monetarist policies, such as reducing public spending and selling off the government's shares in BP.
Moreover, it has been argued that the Thatcherites were not strictly monetarist in practice. A common theme centres on the Medium Term financial Strategy. The Strategy, issued in the 1980 Budget, consisted of targets for reducing the growth of the money supply in the following years. After overshooting many of these targets, the Thatcher government revised the targets upwards in 1982. Analysts have interpreted this as an admission of defeat in the battle to control the money supply. The economist C. F. Pratten claimed that "since 1984, behind a veil of rhetoric, the government has lost any faith it had in technical monetarism. The money supply, as measured by M3, has been allowed to grow erratically, while calculation of the PSBR is held down by the ruse of subtracting the proceeds of privatisation as well as taxes from government expenditure. The principles of monetarism have been abandoned".[28]
Thatcherism is also associated with supply-side economics. Whereas Keynesian economics holds that the government should stimulate economic growth by increasing demand through increased credit and public spending, supply-side economists argue that the government should instead intervene only to create a free market by lowering taxes, privatising state industries and increasing restraints on trade unionism.[citation needed]
Reduction in the power of the trades unions was made gradually, unlike the approach of the Heath Government, and the greatest single confrontation with the unions was the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) strike of 198485, in which the miners' union was eventually defeated. There is evidence that this confrontation with the trade unions was anticipated by both the Conservative party and the NUM. The outcome contributed to the resurgence of the power of capital over labour.[29]
Thatcherism is associated with a conservative stance on morality.[30] The Marxist sociologist and founder of the New Left Review, Stuart Hall, for example, argued that Thatcherism should be viewed as an ideological project promoting "authoritarian populism", since it is known for its reverence of "Victorian values".[31] The Social Democrat Party supporter David Marquand claimed that Thatcher exploited "authoritarian populist" sentiment in 1970s Britain: "Go back, you flower people, back where you came from, wash your hair, get dressed properly, get to work on time and stop all this whingeing and moaning."[32][non-primary source needed]Norman Tebbit, a close ally of Thatcher, laid out in a 1985 lecture what he thought to be the permissive society that conservatives should oppose.[relevant? discuss]
Bad art was as good as good art. Grammar and spelling were no longer important. To be clean was no better than to be filthy. Good manners were no better than bad. Family life was derided as an outdated bourgeois concept. Criminals deserved as much sympathy as their victims. Many homes and classrooms became disorderly; if there was neither right nor wrong there could be no basis for punishment or reward. Violence and soft pornography became accepted in the media. Thus was sown the wind; and we are now reaping the whirlwind.[33]
Examples of this conservative morality in practice include the video nasties scare, where, in reaction to a moral panic over the availability of a number of provocatively named horror films on video cassette, Thatcher introduced state regulation of the British video market for the first time. Despite her association with social conservatism, Thatcher voted in 1966 to legalise homosexuality.[34] That same year, she also voted in support of legal abortion.[35] However, in the 1980s during her time as Prime Minister, Thatcher's government enacted Section 28, a law that opposed promotion of homosexuality by local authorities and the promotion of the teaching of "the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship" in schools. The law was opposed by many gay rights advocates, such as Stonewall and OutRage! and was later repealed by Tony Blair's Labour government in 2003.[36][37]
However, Thatcher was one of only a handful of Conservatives to vote for the Sexual Offences Act 1967.[38]
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron later issued an official apology for previous Conservative policies on homosexuality, specifically the introduction of the controversial Section 28 laws from the 1980s, viewing past ideological views as "a mistake" with his own ideological direction.[39]
In May 1988 Thatcher gave an address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. In the address, Thatcher offered a theological justification for her ideas on capitalism and the market economy. She said "Christianity is about spiritual redemption, not social reform" and she quoted St Paul by saying "If a man will not work he shall not eat". 'Choice' played a significant part in Thatcherite reforms, and Thatcher said that 'choice' was also Christian, stating that Christ chose to lay down his life and that all individuals have the God-given right to choose between good and evil.
Whilst Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, she greatly embraced transatlantic relations with the US President Ronald Reagan. She often publicly supported Reagan's policies even when other Western allies were not as vocal. For example, she granted permission for American planes to use British bases for raids on Libya and allowed American cruise missiles and Pershing missiles to be housed on British soil in response to Soviet deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles targeting Britain and other Western European nations.[40]
Towards the end of the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher (and so Thatcherism) became increasingly vocal in its opposition to allowing the European Community to supersede British sovereignty. In a famous 1988 Bruges speech, Thatcher declared that "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels".
While Euroscepticism has for many become a characteristic of Thatcherism, Margaret Thatcher was far from consistent on the issue, only becoming truly Eurosceptic in the last years of her time as Prime Minister. Thatcher supported Britain's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973, campaigned for a yes vote in the 1975 referendum[41] and signed the Single European Act in 1986.[42]
It is often claimed that the word "Thatcherism" was coined by cultural theorist Stuart Hall in a 1979 Marxism Today article,[43] However this is not true as the phrase "Thatcherism" was first used by Tony Heath in an article he wrote that appeared in Tribune on 10 August 1973. Writing as Tribune's Education Correspondent, Heath wrote "It will be argued that teachers are members of a profession which must not be influenced by political considerations. With the blight of Thatcherism spreading across the land that is a luxury that only the complacent can afford".[44][45] although the term had in fact been widely used before then.[46] However, not all social critics have accepted the term as valid, with the High Tory journalist T. E. Utley believing that "There is no such thing as Thatcherism."[47] Utley contended that the term was a creation of Mrs Thatcher's enemies who wished to damage her by claiming that she had an inflexible devotion to a certain set of principles and also by some of her friends who, "for cultural and sometimes ethnic reasons" had little sympathy with what he described as the "English political tradition." Thatcher was not an ideologue, Utley argued, but a pragmatic politician; and he gave the examples of her refusal to radically reform the welfare state, and her avoidance of a miners' strike in 1981 at a time when the Government was not ready to handle it.
Some leftist critics such as Anthony Giddens claim that Thatcherism was purely an ideology, and argue that her policies marked a change which was dictated more by political interests than economic reasons:
Rather than by any specific logic of capitalism, the reversal was brought about by voluntary reductions in social expenditures, higher taxes on low incomes and the lowering of taxes on higher incomes. This is the reason why in Great Britain in the mid 1980s the members of the top decile possessed more than a half of all the wealth.[48] To justify this by means of economic "objectivities" would be an ideology. What is at play here are interests and power.[49]
The Conservative historian of Peterhouse, Maurice Cowling, also questioned the uniqueness of "Thatcherism". Cowling claimed that Mrs Thatcher used "radical variations on that patriotic conjunction of freedom, authority, inequality, individualism and average decency and respectability, which had been the Conservative Party's theme since at least 1886." Cowling further contended that the "Conservative Party under Mrs Thatcher has used a radical rhetoric to give intellectual respectability to what the Conservative Party has always wanted."[50]
Critics of Thatcherism claim that its successes were obtained only at the expense of great social costs to the British population.[how?] There were nearly 3.3million unemployed in Britain in 1984, compared to 1.5million when she first came to power in 1979, though that figure had reverted to some 1.6million by the end of 1990.
While credited with reviving Britain's economy, Thatcher also was blamed for spurring a doubling in the relative poverty rate. Britain's childhood-poverty rate in 1997 was the highest in Europe.[51] When she resigned in 1990, 28% of the children in Great Britain were considered to be below the poverty line, a number that kept rising to reach a peak of nearly 30% during the government of Thatcher's successor, John Major.[51] During her government Britain's Gini coefficient reflected this growing difference, going from 0.25 in 1979 to 0.34 in 1990, at about which value it remained for the next 20 years, under both Conservative and Labour governments.[52]
The extent to which one can say Thatcherism has a continuing influence on British political and economic life is unclear. In 2002, Peter Mandelson, a member of parliament belonging to the British Labour Party closely associated with Tony Blair, famously declared that "we are all Thatcherites now."[54]
In reference to modern British political culture, it could be said that a "post-Thatcherite consensus" exists, especially in regards to economic policy. In the 1980s, the now defunct Social Democratic Party adhered to a "tough and tender" approach in which Thatcherite reforms were coupled with extra welfare provision. Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992, initiated Labour's rightward shift across the political spectrum by largely concurring with the economic policies of the Thatcher governments. The New Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were described as "neo-Thatcherite" by some on the left, since many of their economic policies mimicked those of Thatcher.[55]
Most of the major British political parties today accept the trade union legislation, privatisations and general free market approach to government that Thatcher's governments installed. No major political party in the UK, at present, is committed to reversing the Thatcher government's reforms of the economy. Although in the aftermath of the Great Recession from 2007 to 2012, the then Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, had indicated he would support stricter financial regulation[56] and industry focused policy,[57] in a move to a more mixed economy. In 2011, Miliband declared his support for Thatcher's reductions in income tax on top earners, her legislation to change the rules on the closed shop and strikes before ballots, as well as her introduction of Right to Buy, claiming Labour had been wrong to oppose these reforms at the time.[58]
Moreover, the UK's comparative macroeconomic performance has improved since the implementation of Thatcherite economic policies. Since Thatcher resigned as British prime minister in 1990, UK economic growth was on average higher than the other large EU economies (i.e. Germany, France and Italy). Additionally, since the beginning of the 2000s, the UK has also possessed lower unemployment, by comparison with the other big EU economies. Such an enhancement in relative macroeconomic performance is perhaps another reason for the apparent "Blatcherite" economic consensus, which has been present in modern UK politics for a number of years.[citation needed]
Tony Blair wrote in his 2010 autobiography A Journey that "Britain needed the industrial and economic reforms of the Thatcher period". He described Thatcher's efforts as "ideological, sometimes unnecessarily so" while also stating that "much of what she wanted to do in the 1980s was inevitable, a consequence not of ideology but of social and economic change."[59]
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Thatcher's 1979 election victory, BBC conducted a survey of opinions which opened with the following comments:[60]
To her supporters, she was a revolutionary figure who transformed Britain's stagnant economy, tamed the unions and re-established the country as a world power. Together with US presidents Reagan and Bush, she helped bring about the end of the Cold War. But her 11-year premiership was also marked by social unrest, industrial strife and high unemployment. Her critics claim British society is still feeling the effect of her divisive economic policies and the culture of greed and selfishness they allegedly promoted.
The dictionary definition of Thatcherism at Wiktionary
See the original post:
Local column: Libertarianism gone hog wild Post Register We all want liberty, but taking it to a point where our safety is constantly threatened goes too far, writes Jim Delmore. Why does the Idaho Legislature persist in giving people the right to infringe upon the freedoms of others? Let me give some examples. |
Visit link:
UK Elections: The libertarian issues no one is mentioning Being Libertarian The quickest of skims over these policies reveals that, as is traditional, libertarians have drawn the short straw. For all the different views being presented this time round (What should happen with Brexit? What's level of immigration should Britain ... |
Read more from the original source:
UK Elections: The libertarian issues no one is mentioning - Being Libertarian
Helen Milenski visits the Los Alamos Daily Post world headquarters Friday to announce that she has been appointed acting chair for the Los Alamos County affiliate organization of the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, which has just qualified as a major political party in the state. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com
By MAIRE O'NEILL
Los Alamos Daily Post
Just as the Libertarian Party of New Mexico announced it now meets the requirements to qualify as a major political party in the state, beginning with the 2018 election cycle, Helen Milenski announced that she has been appointed acting chair for the Los Alamos County affiliate organization of the LPNM.
According to State Chair Elizabeth Hanes, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Elections Director Kari Fresquez have confirmed that as long as the Libertarian Party maintains or increases its voter registration numbers, it will be designated as a major party on the date of the Governors primary election proclamation in January 2018.
Today marks a historic day for the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, Hanes said. We look forward to representing the ideals of thousands of New Mexicans who believe in living their lives peacefully and free from government interference.
The Libertarian Party of New Mexico will be able to participate in the primary election process in 2018 instead of having to nominate its candidates in convention and Hanes said the party is already identifying potential candidates for local, state and federal offices.
Milenski says she has always been a Libertarian at heart. Turning 18, she says she registered as a Democrat because of the social issues of the time. The country was coming out of the Reagan era and the Democratic Party had an altruistic feeling that she liked. She says liberalism called to her but not in the way Libertarianism speaks to her.
Milenski worked hard on Gary Johnsons campaign for president last year, coordinating a sign-waving campaign at the junction of Trinity and Diamond drive for several weeks. She feels she has a common- sense approach to politics and has been encouraged to get more involved. She just recently got involved at the state level.
Today there are 134 registered Libertarians in Los Alamos County which is up 14 from the time of the Gary Johnson campaign. Milenski said there are currently 6,000 affliate members statewide and that the party grew by at least 50 percent in 2016 largely due to Johnsons presidential campaign. She said Los Alamos County has the highest percentage of registration in the nation.
A public meeting has been slated for 6-8 p.m. June 21 at Mesa Public Library.
This will be a preliminary planning and interest meeting, Milenski said. We want to gauge peoples interest in the Libertarian Party and answer any questions people may have. We also want to elect a chairperson in a more permanent manner.
Milenski, 43, is a graduate of Los Alamos High School and UNM-LA. She has an Associates Degree in Engineering and is employed by Los Alamos Nation Laboratory, working in Chemistry Chemical Diagnostics and Engineering. She has one grown daughter and another daughter in high school. She and her husband Scott live in Los Alamos.
According to its news release, the Libertarian Party stands for individual freedom and responsibility. In New Mexico, the party advocates defending and expanding civil rights; eliminating government regulations that stifle economic growth; and lowering or eliminating taxes of all kinds. LPNM also is opposed to any restrictive immigration reform measures and supports the free movement of law-abiding citizens throughout the region.
For more information about the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, visit http://www.lpnm.us. For information about the Los Alamos group specifically, email helen.milenski@gmail.com.
See the original post here:
Being Libertarian | What are we Thinking - Terror and Climate Change - Being Libertarian Being Libertarian After the terror attacks in Manchester (a little over a week ago) I started writing on the issue of Islam, terrorism, and the idea that, in Europe especially, these ... |
See the article here:
What are we Thinking - Terror and Climate Change - Being Libertarian - Being Libertarian
Being Libertarian | Castro Regime Arrests Cuban Libertarian Party Members Being Libertarian Cuba's newly-formed Libertarian Party has already experienced the brute force and tyranny of the Castro regime, simply for having liberty-minded ideas. All of the present activists at Cuba's Libertarian Party HQ were arrested late Wednesday evening for ... |
Read this article:
Castro Regime Arrests Cuban Libertarian Party Members - Being Libertarian
They came in a U-Haul.
Colorado, the birthplace of the national Libertarian Party, is now something else: host of the partys trove of physical archives since its founding in 1971 in Colorado Springs.
Or was the party founded in Westminster?
Thats a friendly dispute among some Libertarians who debate whether the official formation of the small government individual freedom party, which took place in the Springs, supersedes where its ideas were hashed out around party founder David Nolans Westminster dining room table.
Regardless, Colorado, a state with about 1 percent of its registered voting population claiming membership in the party, has always had an outsized role in Libertarian history. Now, just this spring, the partys physical history relocated from a storage facility in Alexandria, Virginia, to Parker, Colorado.
Leading the effort to bring those records to the partys birthplace was Caryn Ann Harlos of Castle Rock, the state partys pink-haired spokeswoman who serves as the national partys representative for nine western states. On a December trip to the East Coast on party business, she asked to see archives many thought were destroyed in a flood when they were housed in the basement of the famous Watergate building. Instead, Harlos found a room of records largely intact. Boxes of newsletters, convention material, even contents from the desks of former party officials.
I got a burr under my saddle and was like This stuff needs to be preserved, she said over the phone recently.
The national party set up a committee and formulated a $10,000 budget to make it happen. Party people packed the archives in a U-Haul and a staffer drove it west.
For the past several weeks, Harlos, a paralegal with two decades of document management experience, has, in her own words, been becoming one with the records.
There are tape recordings of old conventions, there are video tapes of old TV spots, there are bumper stickers, there are buttons, theres a lot of handbills and fliers and stuff from older presidential campaigns, she says about whats inside. She found handwritten 1974 convention minutes on the back of an old press release.
Her goal is to organize and digitize the documents, and then upload them to the online crowdsourced Libertarian history site Lpedia.
She stresses it is not a public Libertarian Party museum or anything, but anyone who wants to take a look can make an appointment with her.
There are people very passionate about the history, she says. I have people planning weeklong vacations to come and work on these records in Colorado.
Call it Libertarian tourism in Colorado.
Says Harlos: Being the birthplace is really [a]big thing and weve always taken great pride in that.
Read more here:
The Libertarian Party's national archives now live in Colorado - The Colorado Independent
Hannah Grover , hgrover@daily-times.com Published 4:30 p.m. MT May 26, 2017 | Updated 10:00 a.m. MT May 29, 2017
San Juan County(Photo: The Daily Times stock image)
FARMINGTON For the first time in nearly a decade, the Libertarian Party of New Mexico has a San Juan County chapter.
The chapter was organized earlier this month andwill meet weekly. Meeting information will be posted on its Facebook page.
"We're trying to create some growth," chapter chairwoman Ranota Banks said. "We experienced quite a bit during the Johnson-Weld campaign."
The Libertarian Party has traditionally been the largest of the third parties in the state. Elizabeth Hanes, the chairwoman of the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, said the western ethos of working hard and minding your own business contributes to the success of the Libertarian Party in New Mexico.
"That's very much what Libertarianism is about," she said.
Hanes said the Libertarian Party hopes to run about half a dozen candidates in state and federal races in 2018. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson's campaign in 2016 led to an increase in registered Libertarian voters.
Johnson received about 9 percent of the votes in New Mexico, or more than 74,000 votes. The number of registered voters and the percentage who voted for Johnson qualified the party to hold primary elections during 2018.There are approximately 6,000 Libertarians registered to vote statewide. Hanes said there are about 400 registered Libertarians in San Juan County.
"This past general election, we had a lot of people switch their affiliation to the Libertarian Party," Banks said.
Hanes said some Republicans identify with the Libertarian stance regarding smaller government. She said the party also aligns with Democratic views on social issues and civil rights, such as same-sex marriage.
Drew Degner, chairman of San Juan County's Republican Party, said there may be some voters who switch affiliation because of the similar stance on smaller government. He said he has seen frustration on both sides nationwide.
Degner said he wishes the Libertarians luck in their endeavor.
"If it is able to gain traction, it might be a good thing for everybody," Degner said.
While the Libertarian Party supports social issues and civil rights, it does not believe in government-funded charities, such as Planned Parenthood.
"We believe that personal giving is preferable to government giving," Hanes said.
She said the Libertarian Party believes in slashing taxes, which would give people more money to donate to charitable organizations.
While San Juan County Democratic Party chairwoman MP Schildmeyer said she wishes the Libertarian Party well, she said she does not agree with the party's stance regarding cutting back Social Security.
"To me, the Libertarian Party is a dangerous party," she said.
Banks said while the party does not believe in forced charity, it does believe in "people taking care of people."
Banks said twice a month the San Juan County chapter will have picnics or trash cleanups.
Hannah Grover covers government for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4652.
Read or Share this story: http://www.daily-times.com/story/news/local/2017/05/26/libertarian-party-forms-san-juan-county-chapter/349366001/
More here:
Libertarian Party forms San Juan County chapter - Farmington Daily Times
How Has Liberalism Impacted Libertarianism? Being Libertarian Throughout modern politics, liberalism and conservatism have dominated and overshadowed other philosophies. However, the dynamic of libertarianism and liberalism is rarely discussed. Despite common misconceptions, these two ideologies are not similar ... |
See the original post here:
How Has Liberalism Impacted Libertarianism? - Being Libertarian
June 5, 2017
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have played a leading role in sequencing the whole genome of the common white-tailed deer, which has recently been made public by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
The deer genome has the potential to provide insights into bone behavior, more specifically how deer are able to regenerate and repair bone after it is lost or damaged.
"We are hoping that by understanding the deer genome in greater detail, we will be able to better consider how to approach and treat bone-related illnesses and disease, such as osteoporosis," said Dr. Brendan Lee, chair of the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor. "For example, antler growth each season is an example of the fastest and largest regenerating organ in nature."
By allowing the deer genome to be publicly accessible to researchers around the world, the NCBI is fostering collaboration among institutions when faced with solving complex cases or unidentified genetic conditions.
"Sharing data is incredibly important in developing therapies for bone disease," added Lee, who also holds the Robert and Janice McNair Endowed Chair and Professor in Molecular and Human Genetics.
Explore further: Notch1 and osteoblasts play role in bone cancer initiation
(Medical Xpress)A new mouse model of osteogenic sarcoma, a potentially deadly form of bone cancer, shows that high levels of Notch1, a gene that helps determine cell fate, can drive osteoblasts (cells that normally lead ...
Endangered deer in the Florida Keys are no longer receiving anti-parasite medication to protect against flesh-eating screwworms.
On first glance, Yakushima Island in Japan and Dorchester County, Maryland, wouldn't appear to have a lot in common, but a closer ecological look reveals one stark similarity: both are home to populations of sika deer.
A team of researchers in Seoul, Korea have reported finding evidence that deer antlers - unique in that they regenerate annually - contain multipotent stem cells that could be useful for tissue regeneration in veterinary ...
With the ability to use next generation sequencing technology, researchers have a broadened understanding of the association of genetic changes and disease causation to a much greater resolution, driving new discoveries, ...
A new study shows that deer species capable of building and shedding their antlers already existed about 20 to 15 million years ago, in the Miocene. The finding sheds new light on the evolution of deer.
The DNA vital to the life of a cell is packaged in chromosomes, and a variety of checkpoints, repair mechanisms, and other cellular safeguards exist to maintain the integrity of the chromosomes during cell growth and division. ...
Scientists are now confident animal life on solid ground started with a few short bursts of marine creatures making the leap from the oceans.
Scientists have watched a cell's genetic machinery in the first stages of 'reading' genes, giving a potential way to stop the process in bacteria.
As the United Nations Oceans Conference convenes in New York, a new paper calls on marine scientists to focus on social issues such as human rights violations in the seafood industry.
Passing skills down through the generations, previously thought to be unique to humanity, has been discovered in chimpanzees.
The flightless cormorant is one of a diverse array of animals that live on the Galapagos Islands, which piqued Charles Darwin's scientific curiosity in the 1830s. He hypothesized that altered evolutionary pressures may have ...
Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more
Read more from the original source:
Fully sequenced deer genome made publicly available - Phys.Org
Hillsboro native Dr. Nancy J. Cox was honored this spring as the first recipient of the Richard M. Caprioli Research Award. Dr. Cox is currently the director of the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute in Nashville, TN.
The daughter of the late Gene and Helen Cox, she is a 1974 graduate of Hillsboro High School and was selected as the second Hillsboro Education Foundation Distinguished Alumni Award recipient in 2002.
Dr. Cox earned her bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1978 and her doctorate in human genetics from Yale University in 1982.
She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in genetic epidemiology at Washington University and was a research associate in human genetics at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1987, she was hired at the University of Chicago. She was appointed full professor in the departments of medicine and human genetics in 2004 and chief of the section of genetic medicine the following year.
In 2012, she was named a University of Chicago Pritzker Scholar. In 2015, Dr. Cox was hired at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as the Mary Phillips Edmonds Gray Professor of Genetics, founding director of the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute and director of the Division of Genetic Medicine in the Department of Medicine. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Throughout her career as a quantitative geneticist, Dr. Cox has sought to identify and characterize the genetic component to common human diseases and clinical phenotypes like pharmacogenomics traits (how genes affect drug response).
Her work has advanced methods for analyzing genetic and genomic data from a wide range of complex traits and diseases, including breast cancer, diabetes, autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, stuttering and speech and language impairment.
Through the national Genotype Tissue Expression (GTEx) project, Dr. Cox also contributed to the development of genome predictors of the expression of genes, and she also has investigated the genetics of cardiometabolic phenotypes such as lipids, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
With colleagues at the University of Michigan, Dr. Cox is generating content for the Accelerating Medicine Partnership between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Food and Drug Administration, biopharmaceutical companies and non-profit organizations. The goal of the partnership is to identify and validate promising biological targets, increase the number of new diagnostics and therapies for patients, and reduce the cost and time it takes to develop them.
Dr. Cox is co-principal investigator of an analytic center within the Centers for Common Disease Genomics, another NIH initiative that is using genome sequencing to explore the genomic contributions to common diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke and autism. A major resource for the Cox lab is Vanderbilts massive biobank, BioVU, which contains DNA samples from more than 230,000 individuals that are linked to de-identified electronic health records.
Dr. Cox is the author or co-author of more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles. She is former editor-in-chief of the journal Genetic Epidemiology, and is the current president of the American Society of Human Genetics.
For developing new methods that have aided researchers worldwide in identifying and characterizing of the genetic and genomic underpinnings of diseases and complex traits, Dr. Cox is the first recipient of the inaugural Richard M. Caprioli Research Award.
Dr. Cox and her husband, Dr. Paul Epstein live in Nashville, TN, and have two grown daughters, Bonnie Epstein and Carrie Epstein.
See the original post here:
Hillsboro Native Earns Honors At Vanderbilt - thejournal-news.net
Dont delude yourself that legislation to create a California universal healthcare system passed the state Senate last week. All that passed was authorization to keep yakking about it in dreamland.
Or you can look at it this way: A fantasy-driven single-payer healthcare concept was given the equivalent of a grade-school social promotion. It should have been held back for a lot more work but was advanced undeservedly to the next level.
The goal of the bill, SB 562, is to establish a state-run healthcare system that covers all 40 million Californians, including roughly 2 million who migrated here illegally.
There really arent any details, but as envisioned, it would replace all private and government insurance, including senior citizens Medicare. Right there, the bills advocates should stop. Federal Medicare works fine. Leave it alone.
The California concept is promoted as Medicare for all, except it wouldnt be Medicare. And it wouldnt include Medicares ability to buy extra service through a private plan.
No one can be sure of anything, however, because this is a hollow bill a bill in name only.
The legislative authors, Sens. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), promised to keep trying to mold a real bill.
No one even knows the bills price tag. But whatever it is, its astronomical.
An analysis by the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Lara, pegged it at $400 billion annually. To put that in perspective, total state spending for the next fiscal year is projected to be $290 billion, including $107 billion in federal dollars.
Lara says Californians currently spend $367 billion each year on healthcare federal, state and private money. His bill would use that money, eliminating private insurance. Thered be no patient co-pays or deductibles.
The California Nurses Assn., the bills loudest advocate, paid for a University of Massachusetts Amherst study that picked a $331-billion cost. Lara is running for state insurance commissioner with the nurses backing.
Even if the state gobbled up all the government and private money being spent on healthcare in California, thered still be a need for a state tax increase of up to $100 billion. A 15% payroll tax is envisioned. The nurses also suggested business and sales tax hikes. Lots of luck with that.
The rationale for passing a shallow bill devoid of substance was that June 2 was the deadline for a measure to be approved by its original house.
The way the rules work in the Legislature, we are deadline-driven, Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) argued during the long floor debate. The bill certainly has many holes, he said, but it should be kept alive and moved to the Assembly for negotiation and fine-tuning.
Except, the deadline argument was a poor excuse for the Senate not doing its job. Most legislative deadlines, like this one, are of the Legislatures own making. And the deadline can be suspended on a two-thirds vote the same vote that would be required to pass a substantive bill with a funding plan.
There would be a hard deadline Jan. 31 for Senate passage. But even after that, the proposals substance could be amended into legislation with a different bill number a common gut and amend tactic.
Updates from Sacramento
So what the Senate did was disappointing and rather shameful if youre a single-payer advocate. Rather than digging in and developing an actual plan, it passed the chore over to the Assembly, which hasnt shown much interest in the subject.
This is the most difficult issue Ive ever agreed to work on, Atkins told the Senate. Let me assure you Im serious about it. This is the biggest issue the state of California has undertaken in a very long time.
Then youd think it would have warranted more time and energy. But, realistically, its probably an impossible task given the complexity, competing interests and politics.
The bill passed on largely a party-line vote, 23 to 14, with most Democrats for it and all Republicans against. Because it didnt include any funding, only a simple majority vote was required.
Give four Democrats credit for refusing to support it: Sens. Steve Glazer of Orinda, Ben Hueso of San Diego, Richard Roth of Riverside and Richard Pan of Sacramento. Glazer voted no. The others abstained.
We should keep it here and finish the work, Glazer said, then put it on the ballot in 2018.
This is the Senate kicking the can down the road to the Assembly and asking the Assembly to fill in all of the blanks, Hueso said. I dont see this bill coming back from the Assembly. I think this bill will die in the Assembly.
Republicans brought up some practical problems for the bill. Start with the fact that California is only a state, not a nation. It would be almost impossible for one state to enact a single-payer system by itself.
And Californias anti-Trump Democratic legislators would need the Republican president to generously turn over federal Medicaid and Medicare funds to make their single-payer dream come alive.
We give Trump crap day in and day out, and were going to beg him for a couple hundred billion dollars? Sen. Tom Berryhill (R-Modesto) asked.
Anyway, even if the Legislature did manage to pass a bill, Gov. Jerry Brown probably would veto it. Hes very skeptical about the financing.
Well be watching what the Assembly produces. Maybe theyll surprise us. But probably therell just be more yak.
Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter
ALSO
Republicans are mad about the California gas tax, and they're taking it out on this freshman lawmaker
Excerpt from:
New York Times | From Maine, a Call for a More Measured Take on Health Care - The ... New York Times Susan Collins, attuned to the particular vulnerabilities of her constituents, is among a handful of senators thinking about repairing, not replacing, the health law. |
Read more:
From Maine, a Call for a More Measured Take on Health Care - The ... - New York Times
New York Times | Rebuking Congress, Cuomo Plans to Keep State Health Care Plans Intact New York Times The measures, taken via emergency regulations, will include requiring any private company doing business on the state's insurance marketplace to guarantee the 10 essential health benefits required by President Barack Obama's signature 2010 health ... |
Go here to read the rest:
Rebuking Congress, Cuomo Plans to Keep State Health Care Plans Intact - New York Times
As an employer and a health care provider I would like to discuss several things that are not being addressed in the debate between Obamacare and Trumpcare.
Firstly, though it is a dirty little secret, between 40 percent and 50 percent of the population in the U.S. is already on government-funded health care and mostly they are happy with it.
If you add up all the employees of the military and their families, those eligible for VA health care, Medicare, Medicaid, federal, state, county and city employees and their families, individuals in prison, companies that depend mostly on government-funded projects like highway construction companies and defense companies, and heath care providers treating mostly Medicare patients and the disabled, you have a large part of the population on government-funded health care.
Secondly, what both parties are trying to do in addressing only health insurance is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The reason health insurance costs are so high is due to what it insures, health care. The cost of health care is high and getting more so. Neither party is addressing this. It is as if everyone drives a Rolls Royce and we are wondering why car insurance costs so much. As an employer, I saw the same double-digit increases to health insurance premiums before Obamacare as I do now afterward.
I have heard a lot of nonsense about allowing the free market to work here. Health care in the U.S. does not function on a free market basis. There is no way to choose one hospital over another as to quality and cost. When you go into an emergency room you have no idea what your costs will be. You just walk out of the hospital afterward and hope you can pay your share. Anyone who has ever examined a hospital bill will tell you it is beyond understanding.
Allowing health insurance providers to sell stripped-down plans is the same as just increasing the deductible. It just allows the insurers to call it a non-covered procedure rather than tacking the charges on the deductible. Health care is a necessity. No one goes through their whole life and refuses to ever see a doctor. The federal government acknowledges this by requiring hospitals to treat anyone who walks into an emergency room whether they can pay or not. If health care was free market, hospitals could tell people "sorry you don't have insurance, so go die."
My proposal to both parties is to provide a federal re-insurance for the health insurance providers. Let's say an individual has more than $100,000 in a year in health insurance costs, then a type of Trumpcare along the lines of Medicare would step in and take over the costs. In addition, if an individual has more than $1 million in health insurance costs over their lifetime, what the old lifetime maximum was, then they would become instantly eligible for Medicare. Medicare is essentially a high-risk group insurance anyway and most people who need that much health care will end up disabled and soon on Medicare.
By limiting the losses to the insurers it should help to keep costs down. The costs of the program will only go to those we know are high risk and not individuals that insurers would perceive to be high risk. Medicare also approaches the costs of health care differently than most insurers by paying for the disease and not just procedures and supplies used. This is a real attempt to control costs. Medicare also has much lower administrative costs than private insurance.
Once we have addressed the costs of health insurance we need to take a good look at the cost of heath care. The answers to that puzzle are more complicated and require wiser men than me.
In addition, we should not switch regular Medicaid to block grants to the states. As most welfare payments go to support people in nursing homes and with us baby boomers reaching that age, going to block grants will put an incredible strain on state budgets. Remember Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., you were all once state officials and what it takes to balance a state budget.
Could Congress also reduce the reporting paperwork of Obamacare and simplify it? One of our office managers spent three full days this year just filling out the Obamacare forms that no one will ever look at. It was ridiculous.
Bradley King is a lifelong resident of Bismarck and founder and senior partner at Prairie Rose Family Dentists in Bismarck and Mandan.
Go here to see the original:
Wall Street Journal (subscription) | Health Care in Iowa Shows Peril for Both Political Parties Wall Street Journal (subscription) Chuck Grassley's town-hall meeting to press the Republican senator on the GOP plan to overhaul health care. Mr. Barnum has health insurance through his work. But his family depends on Medicaid to help cover the medical costs of his 9-year-old son, Koan ... |
Read more:
Health Care in Iowa Shows Peril for Both Political Parties - Wall Street Journal (subscription)