There’s No Way Obamacare Can Last by Charles Hughes

The Congressional Budget Office score of the American Health Care Act [claims to shows] that the bill will reduce deficits by $119 billion over the next decade and result in 23 million more people being uninsured by 2026. This leaves the impression that people would be better off if Obamacare were unchanged. But a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services dispels this myth.

Premiums have doubled and tripled and are rising further. 

The HHS report shows that premiums in the individual market exchanges increased by 105 percent in the 39 states using Healthcare.gov from 2013 to 2017. This is equivalent to $244 per month in additional premium payments for people buying insurance through the exchanges, or $2,928 over the course of a year. People not eligible for exchange subsidies are fully exposed to these increases, while taxpayers will bear the brunt in the form of higher outlays for subsidies for enrollees who are eligible.Despite the promises that Obamacare would “cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year,” average premiums on the exchanges more than doubled over this period. In some states, such as Alabama and Alaska, the average premium more than tripled.

The high average increase is not driven by a few outliers, as 23 out of the 39 states included in the analysis experienced premium increases in excess of 105 percent. Only three states, North Dakota, New Hampshire, and New Jersey, had cumulative premium increases below 50 percent.

Source: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
Created with Datawrapper

As the report acknowledges, the composition of the population enrolling in plans through the exchanges has changed over time due to the adverse selection problems created by the laws subsidy and regulation frameworks.

For example, the community rating age bands, which dictate how much more companies can charge older, higher-risk enrollees, were set at 3:1 under Obamacare. A recent study by Milliman estimated that relaxing these age bands to 5:1 would reduce premiums for people aged 20-29 by 15 percent while increasing premiums for older enrollees.

Lower premiums for younger, healthier people would encourage more of them to enroll through the exchanges instead of foregoing health insurance because it is too expensive for them. Older, less healthy people make up a larger share of the exchange population now than in earlier years, which exacerbates the premium increases on that population.

Due to data limitations, the report does not deal with the population getting plans on the individual market but not through the exchanges. These people accounted for more than a third of the total individual market. They are not eligible for the law’s subsidies, so there is likely less adverse selection for the off-exchange population, but these enrollees have to bear the entirety of the costs of those increases.

Families choosing a plan through the exchanges have seen their premiums more than double since 2013. In some states, a wave of insurers leaving the exchange market has created situations where only one insurer is offering products for entire states.

Alabama and Alaska, which have seen the two highest cumulative premium increases, are both down to only one insurer. In the entire country, only Virginia saw the number of participating insurers increase from 2016 to 2017. Just today, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City announced it would be exiting the exchange, leaving 25 counties in Missouri without a participating insurer for now.The lack of choices and competition in a growing number of places makes it unlikely that there will be an end to rapid premium growth, absent reform. While the CBO estimates will provide some insight into the effects of the bill in its current iteration, a working group of Senators is crafting a revised bill with major alterations.

Getting the design of replacement legislation right is important, and the CBO score will give the working group of senators more information about which aspects of the bill that passed the House need the most adjustment. Provisions that allow for more competition and choice for people trying to get insurance through the individual market will help bring down annual premium increases.

Since 2013, this group has had to grapple with fewer choices while their premiums doubled. A well-crafted bill could go some way to reversing that unsustainable trend.

This originally ran on the E21 blog.

Charles Hughes

Charles Hughes is a research associate at the Cato Institute.

RELATED ARTICLE: In 3 Charts, the Biggest Revelations From New Obamacare Study

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Yes, it is a Virtue to Reject Charity by Jeffrey A. Tucker

There is a moment I found a bit startling in the new Anne of Green Gables series on Netflix. The farm is in trouble and the bank is talking foreclosure. The family starts to panic. Anne suggests that many people will chip in and help the family through these hard times.

The mother reacts with firmness and conviction: “Absolutely not. We do not accept charity.”How old fashioned! The statement alone reveals we are talking about the past here. I vaguely recall people in my own extended family – at family reunions in West Texas, sitting around shelling peas – saying something similar. It was a matter of pride, even morality.

When was the last time you have heard that assertion? I personally can’t remember hearing that in many years.

Maybe it is time to bring back that ethos and ethic.

What we have here is a principle at work, a matter of character. Don’t live at other’s expense. Make your own way in this world. Keep your independence and retain your dignity.

Is there any virtue here? I would suggest so. It is a forgotten virtue, to be sure, but a virtue nonetheless.

Charity with Dignity

The family in the story truly needed help. Rather than beg, they gathered up many of their possessions and took them to town to sell them. Merchants had heard about the family’s need, so some actually overpaid as a way of helping without letting the family know what was going on.

This is a great way to be charitable without letting the person know about it, which is yet another expression of virtue. The Bible tells people to give unto others without letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing – which is to say, don’t congratulate yourself and likewise expect others to praise you for your generosity. This is what the neighbors did.

By the same token, the shame associated with begging is ever-present in the Bible. In the parable of the unrighteous steward, the guy complains that he is been released from his master, but he is too weak to dig and “too ashamed to beg.”

Ashamed! Can you imagine? Social welfare professionals have been trying to remove the stigma of welfare for a century. But let’s face: it will never entirely go away. That might even be a good thing.

Don’t Be a Beggar

The story of Anne is set in Canada, but the attitude behind it feels quintessentially American. It is fundamentally a character trait forged in a setting of freedom. You encounter this often in the Little House books too, this attitude that it represents something of a humiliation to accept charity from others.

Even when the opportunity is there, there once seemed to be a cultural commitment against dependency, against living off others. Think of the old term hobo. The hobo ethic was never to beg – that’s what bums do – but rather to completely avoid all forms of dependency, even the need for a comfortable bed and nice clothes, and to travel and work small jobs to get enough to live and then move on. The hobos believed that this was the only way to stay free.In the American spirit, the hobo was making a dignified choice. The bum? Never.

Even when the redistributionist state came along, the American spirit of individualism rebelled.

Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of the author of those books, writing at the height of the New Deal, put it like this:

The spirit of individualism is still here. The number of us who have been out of work and facing actual hunger is not known; the largest estimate has been twelve million. Of this number, barely a third appeared on the reported relief rolls. Somewhere those millions in need of help, who were not helped, are still fighting through this depression on their own. Millions of farmers are still lords on their own land; they are not receiving checks from the public funds to which they contribute their increasing taxes.

Millions of men and women have quietly been paying debts from which they asked no release; millions have cut expenses to the barest necessities, spending every dime in fear that soon they will have nothing, and somehow being cheerful in the daytime and finding God knows what strength or weakness in themselves during the black nights.

Americans are still paying the price of individual liberty, which is individual responsibility and insecurity.

This view is of course routinely lampooned in the progressive press, overtly by socialists like Elizabeth Warren but implicitly in venues like the New York Times and National Public Radio. Their voices drip with disdain for what they say is the myth of “rugged individualism,” a phrase popularized at the end of the 19th century. It is the supposedly cruel and unrealistic idea that people should get by on their own wherewithal.

The idea behind this phrase is to celebrate individual achievement and to suggest that it is a compromise of your potential as a human being to expect others to care for you if it is not necessary.Too often the idea has been caricatured, at least since the New Deal sought to break down the social stigma of dependency on government. For example, maybe people associate this with selfishness. It’s not true. There is a paradox that the more independent you are, the more you are willing to step up and help others. As Lane says: “We are the kindest people on earth; kind every day to one another and sympathetically responsive to every rumor of distress. It is only in America that a passing car will stop to lend a stranded stranger a tire-tool.”

This is not living off others. This is benefitting from the kindness of others when it is necessary and helpful. You accept it because you would certainly do the same for them. And you don’t expect it from others. And you certainly don’t craft your life around the idea that everyone or anyone is morally obligated to help you when you encounter misfortune.

Help Yes, Dependency No

It’s not complicated: you accept help when necessary but don’t make a habit of it. My own mother, who comes from the stock and heritage that celebrated self-reliance, used to say to me, very simply: “never be beholden.” If you owe others, you have given up that most precious thing, your independence, which means giving up some of your freedom.

That includes owing debt. CNN reports: “Total household debt climbed to $12.58 trillion at the end of 2016, an increase of $266 billion from the third quarter, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.” Meanwhile, 44% of Americans don’t have $400 cash that they can throw at an emergency expense.

Private creditors are bad enough. It is surely worse to be beholden to government. Right now 43 million Americans are on food stamps. That is not a mark of national pride. And this is true even in times when groceries are absurdly cheap and available by any historical standard.

Once you accept the largesse, you have a political investment in continuing it. Your loyalties gradually change.

People justify this based on observing how much they are paying into the system. It pillages them with every paycheck, so they might as well get something back. No matter how much welfare they pay in, they can never take enough out to make the bargain work out equally. For most people, this is surely true.Once you accept the largesse, you have a political investment in continuing it. Your loyalties gradually change. The state becomes your benefactor. Your sense of self reliance is compromised.

Do you see the vicious cycle? You are forced to pay in, so you have no moral resistance about taking out when the time arises. Pretty soon you find yourself part of the Bastiatian calculus: the state becomes the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at everyone else’s expense.

In service of people’s dignity, programs like food stamps ought to be abolished, as much as that would upset the corporate agricultural interests that are forever lobbying for this racket to continue.

It seems that government does everything possible to rope people into the role of dependent these days. Whether it is student loans, Obamacare, or just guilt tripping us all to love the highways and glorious national defense we get for our tax dollars, we are supposed to feel forever on the hook, forever beholden. Forever indentured.

This is not the attitude of a free people.

A Word for Individualism

To hear about “rugged individualism” is a bit strange for us today. We have a vague sense that people used to believe this. We feel mischievous even to sense that there might be a grain of truth in it. The attitude built the world’s most prosperous economy. It gave us new inventions. It created the most dynamic, thriving, progressing society in history, and this became a model for the world.

To be sure, there is often a confusion over the phrase self-reliance. It does not mean to grow your own food, make your own furniture, and walk instead of drive. It has nothing to do with the technology you use, and there is a sense in which the market and the division of labor it creates makes us all deeply dependent on each other. That is a beautiful thing.

The point is that market dependency is rooted in exchange and mutual benefit. We go into every exchange with the freedom to change our minds, and we benefit from exchange as much as the other party. We aren’t doing favors for each other. We cooperate together in our own interest.Self-reliance really means something else. It means not being on the hook for a favor someone else did you or being expected to live in a constant state of owing others for some act of benevolence on their part. It certainly rejects forcing others through the state to be productive so that you can get a free ride.

Pay Your Debts

My mother is right. It’s not good to be beholden to others. This idea was once baked into our institutions. Government had no charity to offer anyone. Your debts had to be paid. Americans didn’t rush to create the cradle-to-grave welfare state. The thing existed in Europe long before it came to our shores. Even when we created the institutions, people were reluctant to use them.

And it’s not just about the compromise of your individualism that you make when you accept welfare. It is also about the annoyance others feel when forced to pay for it. Both sides are degraded in this forced wealth transfer.

For our ancestors, it was a matter of personal character.

This is the underlying thinking behind the quote that Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged worked to forge into a life doctrine: “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”It’s best to think of that line, not as a hard religious doctrine but just very solid life advice, a good bedrock practice for how to think of yourself in relation to others. With that idea in place, all the rest of the virtues fall into place.

What Can We Do About It

The idea of rejecting charity means that you should take charge of your own life, regardless of pressures around you to do otherwise. This is possible even today. It’s true that you are forced to pay into the system. But no one is forcing anyone to take food stamps, to live on handouts, to be dependent on government programs. It’s not so easy to refuse them anymore. The struggle is real. Still, this is something you can control – unlike national politics.For our ancestors, it was a matter of personal character. It is always easier to take the more temporarily lucrative path and the safer route. Maybe you feel like a chump for turning down government money when it is so easily available. But if you relent, what are you giving up in the exchange?

We don’t need to bring back the shame that comes with living off others. Anyone who does that when it is not absolutely necessary knows in his or her heart that there is a better way. If we can choose the better path, we should.

If everyone did this, the welfare state would be de facto abolished overnight.

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books. He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

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TAKE ACTION: Ask President Trump and AG Sessions to protect religious liberty [Video]

NOM has just released an important new video calling on all marriage supporters to sign our new petition to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to issue comprehensive rules to protect the religious liberty of people who support marriage, life and the truth of gender and ensure we are not targeted by the federal government because of our views. Please watch the video.

This powerful new video is part of our ongoing commitment to pressure the Trump administration to once and for all fulfill President Trump’s repeated promises to people of faith that his administration would “do everything in its power to defend and protect religious liberty.”

There are a number of things that we have applauded President Trump on since his election, especially the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court and the rescission of President Obama’s illegal transgender bathroom mandate in the public schools. But we are obligated to call President Trump out when he has not done what he has promised to do – and protecting the religious liberty of people of faith to continue to live out their beliefs about marriage, gender, life and human sexuality is at the top of the “unfulfilled promises” list.

There is still time for President Trump to get this right. That’s why we encourage you to watch our new video, share it with your friends and family, and then make sure that you and everyone you can reach has signed the petition to Attorney General Sessions.

NOM is a top group in the country continuing to pressure the Trump administration to fulfill the president’s promises to provide comprehensive religious liberty protections. We need to raise additional funds to expand the launch of this video and invite more people to sign the petition.

Please make a generous financial contribution to NOM today, which will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous donor. If you can contribute $25, NOM will receive $50. Whatever amount you can manage — $25, $50, $100, $250 or even $500 or more – will immediately be matched and NOM will receive twice the amount that you contributed.

Thank you for all your support, and for helping us continue to fight for religious liberty for everyone who believes in the truth of marriage.

Faithfully,

Brian S Brown

Brian S. Brown
President, National Organization for Marriage

Former Christian Coalition President Enters U.S. Senate Race Against Career Politicians

Randy Brinson, candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama.

Dr. Randy Brinson, candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Montgomery businessman and physician, Dr. Randy Brinson, candidate for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, spoke yesterday at Alabama Republican Party Headquarters.  Brinson outlined his plans to fight corruption, repeal and replace Obamacare, protect the Constitution, end Common Core, grow the economy, create jobs, and promote common-sense Alabama values in Washington, D.C.

Brinson touched on Alabama’s multiple recent political scandals, saying, “The people of Alabama deserve better” than “a shady appointment which put a permanent Alabama politician into a vacant Senate seat, or a current Congressman who keeps making incendiary comments. Both of these characters are career long politicians who currently swim in the swamp.”

A practicing physician, Brinson called Obamacare “a huge overreach of federal power that puts government bureaucracy between you and your doctor,” and supports repeal and replacement of the ACA.

Brinson has a history of involvement in Christian values-based political action, including founding Redeem The Vote in 2003.  He emphasized his support for the 1st Amendment, saying “When government can restrict our faith, there is nothing that they cannot restrict.”

An avid hunter, Brinson said, “I understand the need to protect our right to keep and bear arms,” and vowed to fight any attempt to erode that right.

Brinson vowed to end Common Core “because it’s an attempt to instill politically correct ideology, contrary to our values and beliefs.”  He proposed a shift in emphasis to trade internships and business partnerships in education to help more students prepare for jobs in the real world.

An Air Force veteran, Brinson supports a strong national defense strategy, as well as support for law enforcement, firefighters and first responders.  “We must see to it that they have the equipment, the training and the resources to continue to protect us.”

Brinson touted his experience creating Alabama jobs, saying, “We need more good jobs in this country, and trade is one of the best ways to create those good jobs.  Fair trade benefits all of us, but it should be Fair, both ways, so I’ll fight against any trade deals that are unfair.”

Brinson closed by saying, “It takes character, core convictions, and competency to make a difference for the people of Alabama.”

For more information on Randy Brinson please visit  http://www.votebrinson.com/

Meet Kára Deidra McCullough, Miss USA — Daughter of a Marine, Scientist, Engineer, American Woman

Kára Deidra McCullough, born on September 9, 1991, is a physical scientist at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On May 14, 2017, she represented District of Columbia at Miss USA 2017 and was crowned Miss USA 2017.

Kára was born in Naples, Italy to Betty Ann Parker and Artensel E. McCullough Sr. Her father was a member of the United States Marine Corps, and she thus lived in various places such as Sicily, South Korea, Japan, and Hawaii. Kára was later raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia. McCullough attended South Carolina State University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry with a concentration in radio-chemistry and served as the school’s 75th Miss South Carolina State University. While a student, Kára was a member of the American Chemical Society, the Health Physics Society, and the American Nuclear Society. She has been inducted into the Golden Key International Honour Society and the National Society of Black Engineers.

Kára works as an emergency preparedness specialist in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response.

You would think that women and men across America would be celebrating this special woman. But you would be wrong.

The feminists and those who hate America, hate Miss USA Kára Deidra McCullough. Why?

In a Fox News article titled Miss USA Kara McCullough calls health care a privilege, sparks controversy Sasha Savitsky reports:

The newly-crowned Miss USA is already under fire.

Kara McCullough, of the District of Columbia, was asked during Sunday night’s pageant whether she thinks that affordable health care for all U.S. citizens is a right or a privilege. She said it is a privilege.

“As a government employee, I’m granted health care and I see firsthand that for one to have health care, you need to have jobs,” the 25-year-old shared.

Later in the competition, she also was asked what she considers feminism to be and whether she considers herself a feminist. McCullough said she likes to “transpose” the word feminism to “equalism.”

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission scientist’s answers did not sit well with some viewers, who took to social media to slam her remarks.

Read more…

An accomplished woman who is articulate, beautiful, has strong beliefs about serving the nation and feels healthcare is a privilege is now demonized. Do you see a pattern here? If you are successful you are the enemy of the state. If you believe government is the problem and not the solution then you are an enemy of the state. Even if you work for the government and express your views you are an enemy of the state.

So why is Kára Deidra McCullough under attack?

Jeffrey Tucker, the Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education states:

It finally struck me why. For this crowd [the center-left], all their hopes and dreams are bound up with particular political processes, outcomes, and institutions. The state is their favorite tool for all the good they aspire to do in this world. It must be protected, guarded, defended, celebrated. The illusion that the government is not a taker but a giver and the source of all good things must be maintained. The gloss of the democratic process must be constantly refurbished so that the essential sanctity of the public sector can be constantly cited as the highest calling.

The center-left has at least one hundred years of work and resources invested in the state’s health, well being, reputation, and exalted moral status. Nothing must be allowed to threaten it or take it down a peg or two. Any failures must be deemed as temporary setbacks. The slightest sign of some success must be trumpeted constantly. The population must be subjected to unrelenting homilies on the essential holiness of the public sector.Their education told them this. Their degrees and ruling-class pedigree were hard earned. This is what has inspired them. They believe so strongly that they can make the world a better place through the managerial state that it has become their religion. It’s their very core!

If you are against the state then you are an enemy of the state. The center-left has declared Kára Deidra McCullough an enemy of the state.

The High Cost of Not Owning Your Healthcare by Rachel Mills

You either pay in dollars or control. And loss of autonomy in your own healthcare decisions can be much more expensive.

For example, I have excellent teeth, thanks to my dad and his excellent teeth genes. However, even though I have no particularly bad dentist stories to tell, I am terrified of the dentist. I can only attribute this to the ‘fear of the unknown’ factor. I have no better explanation.During my “Year of Adulting” last year I had my first checkup in about 8 years and two small cavities were found. I had them filled last week and was very afraid. Facebook assured me beforehand that the survival rate for these procedures is pretty high. Afterwards, I proudly proclaimed on Facebook that I had voluntarily gone to the dentist to have a procedure done.

Voluntarily?

Someone inquired. What other way is there to go?

Ohhhhh, dear sir! Involuntarily, as per when I was a child. Our mother took us kids dutifully for checkups on the regular! Every second of that was involuntary, I assure you. My mother had my best interests at heart, but she was calling the shots and paying the bills and cries to CPS about forced dental visits fell on deaf ears, so I said “ahhhhh” and went to my happy place and hoped nothing horrible would happen to me.

It almost did.

At 16, I still had a stubborn baby tooth that hadn’t dislodged itself yet and the dentist proclaimed braces and head gear were in order to bring the adult tooth down. Mom opted for a more conservative approach as she saw large tears coursing down my angsty teenage face (and, being a frugal woman, wondering what all that could possibly cost) and viola! In a few months, after a mere extraction, the adult tooth made its appearance, no embarrassing, expensive headgear required.Bullet dodged, thanks to my mother listening to either/both the concerns of weeping teenage daughter and/or her own pocketbook.

Walk Away

But it was kind of a relief to remind myself in the chair last week that I could leave the dentist office at any time. I can walk right out of there untreated at basically any point. Or I could go through with it. I could even opt for tooth whitening if I am having a particularly nice time.

The bill comes to me. I call the shots. I am in control.

I could get treatment. Or not. It felt reassuring. And that’s the point. He who pays the piper calls the tune. When my mother was in charge, that was one thing. She was truly concerned with my long term well-being.

Government Loves You Not

When you ask or force some other entity that doesn’t love you to pay for your healthcare (or education for that matter) for how long will you suffer under the illusion that you also retain control or that decisions made for you are truly in your best interest?

Put a large layer of bureaucracy between you and your doctor and what do you imagine you might get?

I promise you it won’t be more control.

Health insurance companies routinely deny this or that course of treatment, for whatever reason and they largely get their way. They are paying the piper.

He who pays the bills will always preeminently care about smaller bills. I just don’t know how you get around that. Only you’re slathering on an additional thick, thick layer of bureaucrats into the mix who need specialized knowledge of how to deny claims and fight court battles and they don’t come cheap. Instead of paying medical bills, you’ll be paying them.

If what you want is healthcare, be the one paying the doctor, as directly as possible. If what you want is denial of treatment, give as much of the money that should go to your doctors as possible to entities that deny treatments. It is basically as simple as that, in the long run.

Do you have a right to healthcare?

Does the doctor have a right to work and make a living at a wage commensurate with the time and money spent on the necessary education?

Here is what you have a right to:

You have a right to see the doctor. But the doctor is also not your slave. Neither is he/she your slave by proxy.

When you argue that everyone else should shoulder your healthcare costs and/or for doctors to be forced to serve you, think about what you are advocating.

You are advocating for people charged with controlling costs (denying healthcare) to be in charge of healthcare.

You are advocating for an unsustainable system in which the financial burden of years of expensive medical training can never be recovered. In other words: You are arguing for a doctor shortage. And long waits instead of large bills. You pay one way or the other.You are arguing for the stable and lucrative employment of faceless bureaucrats whose measure of success will very probably not be how healthy you are but how much they saved the system in payouts. (You can see how there might be a conflict there.)

In short, you are not advocating for your own health.

We need other solutions. The “health insurance” model as a whole is failing.

A Real Market

Here’s an idea: How about payment plans? You can negotiate these with the hospital already and often for very reduced rates. If healthcare is so exorbitantly expensive, how about saving money on all these middle men, and only using insurance for major medical events like accidents and cancer? Anything under 6 figures, you could just pay directly to the doctor/hospital in installments?

But that is currently illegal as of the ACA. That model was actually insurance. What we call health insurance now is nothing of the sort. It is some kind of paperwork producing bureaucratic jobs program that makes the “health insurance” industry about 10 times bigger than it needs to be.

I don’t know about you, but as a grown adult myself, I take comfort in owning my own healthcare decisions as much as I can. And if I could legally own even more of them in the form of a cheaper major medical insurance plan instead of what has been forced down our throats by Obama, and now his successor, I would.

Rachel Mills

racial millsRachel served as Ron Paul’s communications director on Capitol Hill for 5 years. She is now a freelance-from-home wife and mom who writes extensively about gold and financial markets and occasionally consults on political campaigns, most recently for Sean Haugh for US Senate.

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Trump Defiles the Sanctity of Government, and it Drives the Center-Left Mad by Jeffrey A. Tucker

Has the center-left ever been more apoplectic about a presidency? It can’t have been this nuts even during the Nixon presidency. Every day, their publications fill up with articles that are breathless to the point of hysteria about the disgrace that the Trump administration is bringing to the affairs of government. His incessant tweeting, his violations of protocol, his attacks on the press, and even the very existence of this administration has them in permanent meltdown.

Here is an example. I’m leaving the over-the-top language from Charles Blow’s New York Times piece just to provide flavor:

I feel as if we are being conditioned to chaos by a “president” who abhors the stillness of stability. Every day we awake to a new outrage. We now exist in a rolling trauma — exhausting and unrelenting…. This should shock the whole of America out of its numbness. This is outrageous and without precedent… The sheer brazenness of it all is stunning…. It’s all just too much. We need an independent investigator. I don’t trust anything — anything! — coming out of this White House, and I don’t trust this feckless Congress to constrain Trump. This is not about partisanship, but patriotism. We must protect this country from moral corrosion, at best, and actual destruction, at worst. If this doesn’t stink to you, your nose is broken.

Yes, I know you have read something similar a thousand times in the last months. You have seen it on television stations, pretty much 24/7. Or you can turn on National Public Radio and listen to the same all day.

Or consider after Trump fired FBI director James Comey. The headlines by midnight all screamed: Crisis of Democracy! But I woke up the next morning and failed to see the evidence. The banks were open. People were buying chicken biscuits at the convenience store. The kids were getting dressed for school. Everything seemed normal.

It’s remarkable. This frenzy even has a name: Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is an identifying state of mind. It has particular symptoms.

To be sure, I read these pieces and don’t entirely disagree with the particulars of the analysis. In none of our lifetimes have we seen anything like this. The stodgy, serious, protocol-driven attempt to bring high dignity to this office has been a main concern of government. When it came out that Bill Clinton was using his power and office for private pleasures, it rattled the establishment, not because of his sins but because his behavior elicited ridicule from the public.

We had no idea of what was coming!

Agree, Sort Of

But there is something off about this center-left tendency. These commentators are driven to wild apoplexy by Trump, but not for the reasons I would normally cite. I don’t like his trade theories, his views on immigration, his shabby understanding of the problem with American health insurance, his ramping up of the police state, or his foreign policy. I was calling him out on all of this as early as July 2015.

They, on the other hand, seem to object to the very existence of Trump, his every utterance, his actions no matter what they are, and everything related to this new administration.Their complaints are contradictory. He is terrible because he is doing terrible things! He is terrible because he is not really doing anything! This presidency is destroying the world! This presidency is all sound and fury and nothing else!

The Why

It finally struck me why. For this crowd, all their hopes and dreams are bound up with particular political processes, outcomes, and institutions. The state is their favorite tool for all the good they aspire to do in this world. It must be protected, guarded, defended, celebrated. The illusion that the government is not a taker but a giver and the source of all good things must be maintained. The gloss of the democratic process must be constantly refurbished so that the essential sanctity of the public sector can be constantly cited as the highest calling.

The center-left has at least one hundred years of work and resources invested in the state’s health, well being, reputation, and exalted moral status. Nothing must be allowed to threaten it or take it down a peg or two. Any failures must be deemed as temporary setbacks. The slightest sign of some success must be trumpeted constantly. The population must be subjected to unrelenting homilies on the essential holiness of the public sector.Their education told them this. Their degrees and ruling-class pedigree were hard earned. This is what has inspired them. They believe so strongly that they can make the world a better place through the managerial state that it has become their religion. It’s their very core!

Above all else, the president is supposed to represent. His duty is to reflect and broadcast this sensibility.

This View Has a Name

Writing in 1944, Ludwig von Mises wrote that the debate over the future of freedom is not only about beating back socialism, communism, fascism, interventionism, and so on. There is broader discussion to be had. The core problem is the ideology of statism, a word he took from the French term etatism. It identified a view that the state should always and in everything be the central power, organizing principle, and spiritual core of any society. It must be the final judge, the final arbiter, the center of our loyalties, the one indispensable institution because it alone is deserving of our highest devotion and ideal. It must be forever built, larger and larger, taking on ever more responsibility and taking ever more money and power from the rest of us.

The president is supposed to at least pretend to be the high priest of the statist religion. That’s his job, according to this outlook.

Everything seemed to being going so well under the Obama administration, which was so earnest, so decorous, so civil. He was funny, smart, respectful of process, and sincere in his pronouncements. He ran on hope and change but governed as the person who kept hope for a new freedom and any radical change at bay.

Change in the Matrix

Trump has profoundly disturbed the balance. He overthrew the respective establishments of two parties, tore right into the legitimacy of the national press, humiliated every expert who predicted his demise, and is now stumbling around Washington like a bum in a jewelry store. He is not actually cutting back on the size of the state; he is doing something even more terrifying from the center-left point of view: he is ruining the mystery of the state, and thereby discrediting their holy institutions.

After the election, I wrote that this might be our 1989. What I meant is that major aspects of what we always thought would be true were suddenly not true any more. New possibilities have opened up. An older establishment has been discredited if not overthrown. What comes next is another matter.Trump is not a liberator in any sense. His temperament suggests the opposite. It was he who famously said in the campaign: “The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony.” Moreover, and in many ways, the deep state has regrouped and bitten back to avoid losing power and influence in Washington.

Even so, he is everything that the center-left fears most, a person who works, despite himself, to discredit the thing they love the most. He has demoralized them beyond consoling. Now we are seeing talk of impeachment. This seems to be some people’s last hope for saving the old faith.

Unsustainable

But the truth is that, with or without Trump’s reign of chaos, the 20th-century project of enlightened and comprehensive statism is not sustainable for the long run. The welfare programs are drying up and their plans have constantly proven unviable and unworkable. We live in a world in which the miracles of the private commercial sector are all around us, while the failures of statism are everywhere present as well.The old world of command and control just can’t last, not for the long run. Perhaps this is the role that Trump is inadvertently playing in this great drama of history. And this is precisely why his existence is driving the partisans of old-fashioned government planning to psychotropic drugs to control their anger and panic.

If you doubt it, I invite you to read the opinion columns of the mainstream press, tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next day….

Jeffrey A. Tucker

jeffreytuckerJeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books. He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

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Minnesota needs $5 million to fight infectious diseases in migrant population

Hey, since many of the refugees and other immigrants now causing expensive infectious diseases to spread in the state are a result of Obama’s migration policy, maybe he could contribute his $3 million speaking fee to Minnesota as a partial payment to handle the crisis!

Remember this story! Gov. Mark Dayton: If you don’t like our Somali refugees, get out of Minnesota because they are here to stay! 

Here is the latest news generated by the recent Measles epidemic in Minnesota. As of Tuesday there were 50 diagnosed cases, most (45) are in the ‘Somali community.’

And, we are told that refugees don’t cost state and local taxpayers a dime!

FILE In this June 30, 2011 photo, Gov. Mark Dayton speaks during a news conference hours before the midnight deadline to pass a budget at the Minnesota State Capitol  in St. Paul, Minn.   The Democratic governor and legislative Republicans are deadlocked over a $5 billion budget deficit. Republicans have refused any tax hike.   (AP Photo/Genevieve Ross)

Gov. Mark Dayton  (AP Photo/Genevieve Ross)

From Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart:

Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger sounded an alert on more frequent and costly threats to the public health, referencing measles, tuberculosis, and even the Zika virus and syphilis, according to a statement released by the MDH on Wednesday as reported by Hometownsource.com.

“In recent months, state and local public health officials have had to respond to a series of infectious disease outbreaks including multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, hundreds of new cases of syphilis, and now, the largest measles outbreak the state has faced in nearly 30 years. These outbreaks come on the heels of extensive public health efforts in 2016 for the Zika virus response and in 2014-15 for Ebola preparedness,” he added….

[ … ]

Minnesota is currently in the middle of the largest outbreak of measles in over twenty years. As of Tuesday, 50 cases of measles have been diagnosed in the state since the first case was reported on April 11, 45 of which have been diagnosed in Somali Minnesotans.

As Breitbart News reported previously, 90 percent of the 168 cases of active tuberculosis diagnosed in Minnesota in 2016 were foreign-born, much higher than the 67 percent of foreign-born cases that accounted for the 9,287 cases of active TB diagnosed in the United States in 2016.

Fourteen of those cases were from newly arrived refugees, eleven of whom were diagnosed with active TB in medical screenings overseas but were nonetheless allowed to resettle in Minnesota by the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security.

Continue reading here. The article is chock full of important information and links to follow.

See my ‘Health issues’ category, here, where I have archived 329 previous posts about health issues (including mental health issues) involving the refugee flow to America.

I wondered here if this Measles outbreak started with a newly arrived refugee from Somalia (or from elsewhere in East Africa since a large number of our Somalis come from UN camps in Kenya).

BTW, Slate had a hysterical story the other day claiming this Measles outbreak is Trump’s fault—not because he is admitting infected Somalis, but because he hangs with “Anti-vaxxer pals.”  Huh?

Can we call Minnesota Somali Measles outbreak an epidemic yet?

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has been doing great work digging in to the Minnesota Somali measles outbreak which we first reported here on April 20th.

Health officials in Minnesota predict it is going to get worse before it gets better and you can bet it is costing the state taxpayers a bundle to track and treat.

Kris Ehresmann is director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health [Pictured right].

Did you know that Measles was considered eradicated in the U.S. in 2000?  I didn’t!

New cases are coming in with the new immigrants, most likely the refugee flow that Trump has not curtailed!

Here is Leahy yesterday:

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced on Friday afternoon that the number of confirmed cases of measles in the state has now increased to 44, three more than had been confirmed 24 hours ago, and ten more than had been confirmed 48 hours ago.

Of the 44 total cases, 41 are in Hennepin County, two are in Ramsey County, and one is in Crow Wing County.

Forty-two are “confirmed to be unvaccinated.” Two “had 2 doses of MMR.”

Forty-three of the cases are “in children ages 0 through 10 years,” while there is “1 case in an adult.”

MDH reports that “38 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan.”

[….]

“Once measles begins to spread in unvaccinated populations, it can be very difficult to stop,” Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious disease control for MDH, said in the statement.

“We would not be surprised if we saw additional cases in other parts of the state where there are clusters of unvaccinated people before this is over,” Ehresmann added.

[….]

“Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but it is still common in other parts of the world. Ehresmann noted that Europe is currently experiencing a significant measles outbreak. [Gee, I wonder why?—-ed]

Continue reading here.

So where have Trump’s Somalis been placed in Minnesota?

When trying to figure out the source of the initial case of Measles in the state, the first group to be analyzed should be refugees admitted to the US in recent months! 

As we have reported on many occasions, the US State Department and DHS do not weed-out sick refugees.

The Minnesota Department of  Health should find out which Somalis entered the state within the disease’s incubation period.  Of course they will have trouble finding out who is ‘just visiting’ since there is no travel ban in place and as far as I know there is no way to track those who get in as visitors.  And, never forget, Somali, so-called refugees, are traveling back and forth to Africa all the time (so much for fearing persecution!).

For your edification, here (below) is where 193 new Somali refugees were placed in Minnesota since President Trump was inaugurated.

Overall (as of today, May 6th) Trump has welcomed 1,394 Somalis since inauguration day. Minnesota is the number one state, but as we reported here, some placed in other states pack up quickly to get to Minnesota as ‘secondary migrants’ to join their own kind of people and avail themselves of the more generous welfare that they get in MN.

(I am having trouble with screen shots these days, so forgive the lousy shots below).

From Wrapsnet:

For new readers, we have 328 previous posts in our ‘Health Issues’ category, click here to learn more about the many diseases, parasites, and mental health issues involving the refugee flow to America. You will see that TB is an especially big problem in the refugee flow.

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VIDEO: We Don’t Need Another Obamacare | Senator Rand Paul on Healthcare Plan

Senator Rand Paul talks about the new Obamacare repeal and replacement bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

Senator Paul believes it is better than what it was before but it is still a far cry from being a free market bill and will most likely be Obamacare cut in half.

The Every Day American in an email notes:

TODAY’S BIG THING: THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE ACT

WHAT’S THE BIG PICTURE?

The American Health Care Act (AHCA) is the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

HAVEN’T I HEARD THIS BEFORE?

Yes. About six weeks ago, Republicans came close to voting on the AHCA. Ultimately, the bill was pulled. So, moderate and conservative Republicans spent time working together to improve the legislation.

WHAT ARE THE DETAILS?

The updated AHCA is the same bill as before, but with three important changes.

  1. Palmer/Schweikert Amendment: creates a new federal risk-sharing program, a high-risk pool that will lower costs for people with pre-existing conditions, and lower costs for everyone else.

  2. The MacArthur Amendment: allows states to apply for waivers to three of Obamacare’s costliest mandates: essential health benefits; age rating; and community rating, but only if the state has a risk-sharing program to help individuals with pre-existing conditions afford coverage.This new flexibility will allow states to design insurance frameworks that are right for their unique populations, providing superior care and lowering costs for patients.

  3. The Upton-Long Amendment: dedicates $8 billion solely to reducing premiums and other out-of-pocket costs for patients in the individual market with pre-existing conditions who do not maintain continuous coverage and who live in states that receive a waiver to redesign their insurance market.

SO… IS IT LAW?

Not quite. Next it goes to the Senate and then to the White House, where it is signed into law. Don’t worry. We’ll keep you updated every step of the way.

WAIT, IS CONGRESS EXEMPT?

No. Yesterday, Congress also voted on the McSally Bill, which ensures that Members of Congress and their staff live by the same health care rules as everyone else.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Congress has several big projects coming up this year and next, including balancing the budget, funding the military, fixing America’s infrastructure, and overhauling the tax code.

Stay tuned. It’s sure to be an exciting year.

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Medical Pot Laws = 1.1 Million New Adult Users

pot users graphResearchers examined three national surveys spanning 20 years to determine whether illicit marijuana use and disorders increased among adults in states that passed medical marijuana laws compared to states that did not. They found that between 1991 and 2012, an additional 1.1 million adult illicit marijuana users and an additional 500,000 adults with a DSM-IV-diagnosed marijuana use disorder may be attributable to the passage of medical marijuana laws. This represents a serious public health problem, they say.

The 1991-1992 survey found that use was 69 percent higher and disorders were 80 percent higher among California adults compared to other states. California was the first state to legalize pot for medical use in 1996. It showed no increase in use or disorders, likely because these numbers were so high already. In the other early medical marijuana states, however, the laws contributed to higher rates of use and disorders while these measures were declining nationwide. During the later period (2001-2002 to 2012-2013) when more states passed medical marijuana laws, “illicit use increased significantly more in these states than in non-medical marijuana states.

The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, was accompanied by an editorial which noted that psychiatrists need to understand the impact of marijuana laws for several reasons. 1) People “with mental illness are more likely to use marijuana, and both acute intoxication and chronic use can exacerbate psychiatric symptoms.” 2) Early marijuana use is associated with onset of psychosis and risk for suicide. 3) Marijuana use can interfere with the treatment of mental disorders.

Read Reuters story here. Read JAMA Psychiatry Study here. Read JAMA Psychiatry Editorial here.


Drugged Driving Now Kills More Drivers than Drunk Driving

For the first time, in 2015 (the latest year data is available) more drivers killed in auto crashes tested positive for drugs than alcohol, according to an updated report from the Governors’ Highway Safety Association and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility. The former is a nonprofit association representing the highway safety offices of the states, DC, US territories, and Puerto Rico. The latter is a nonprofit leading the fight to eliminate drunk driving and underage drinking and is financed by many alcohol distillers.

Drugs were present in 43 percent of fatally injured drivers with known test results, appearing more frequently than alcohol. Of the 57 percent of fatalities tested, 35.6 percent were positive for marijuana.

Read press release here, where the report can also be downloaded.


Colorado: 56 Contaminated Pot Recalls in a Year and a Half and Counting …

Colorado legalized marijuana for medical use in 2000, for commercial production, processing, distribution, and sales via dispensaries in 2009, and for recreational use in 2012. The state did not require recreational pot to be tested for contaminants until 2014
. . . or marijuana for medical use until 2016.

On September 8, 2015, the City of Denver issued the first recall of contaminated products. Since then, 55 more recalls have taken place despite laws cracking down on the use of pesticides and requiring testing for marijuana potency and the presence of other contaminants.

Read story here.

The Catholic Church has given up its ministry to the government

The Catholic Church is in decline. Why? Because it has failed  perform its primary mission to minister to and provide for the sick and needy. It has surrendered to government that role that once was the sole dominion of the church.

Bishop DewaneI recently read a statement by Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, Chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development for the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops. Bishop Dewane states:

“It is deeply disappointing to many Americans that, in modifying the American Health Care Act to again attempt a vote, proponents of the bill left in place its serious flaws, including unacceptable modifications to Medicaid that will endanger coverage and affordability for millions of people, according to reports,” said Bishop Dewane. “Sadly, some of the recently proposed amendments-especially those designed to give states flexibility-lack apparent safeguards to ensure quality of care. These additions could severely impact many people with pre-existing conditions while risking for others the loss of access to various essential coverages.”

His concern should not be about what the government is doing with healthcare. His concern should be that government should not be dictating to the states nor the people, who should or should not be covered. Particularly people of faith.

Bishop Dewane and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops should not be casting the first stone, for they are not without sin. Government taking over healthcare has harmed the Catholic church, its institutions and is congregations.

Let’s look at the Little Sisters of the Poor. The December 2016 edition of the Atlantic reported:

[T]he Supreme Court decided to tackle the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns who believe, along with some priests, a Roman Catholic Archdiocese, and several universities, that the government is compelling them to violate their beliefs. Their claim: The so-called birth-control mandate of the Affordable Care Act places a burden on their religious exercise, even with an accommodation from the government.

[ …]

The Affordable Care Act requires all U.S. insurance plans to cover 20 varieties of FDA-approved contraceptives at no cost to patients. This affects employers at both for-profit and non-profit organizations, because they have to provide coverage for contraception in their insurance plans. Immediately following the passage of the law in 2010, a number of organizations objected, saying that some of the approved forms of contraception are the equivalent of abortifacients, or drugs that cause abortion. If they refused to provide the coverage, they would face heavy fines.

Note the words “some priests” and a “Roman Catholic Archdiocese.” This is what happens when the Catholic church fails to stop the government from imposing itself on the lives of the faithful with mandates such as killing the innocent via abortifacients.

Perhaps Bishop Dewane would better serve his Archdiocese and Florida’s Catholics by working to get government totally out of healthcare?

GotQuestions.org notes:

The Roman government taxed the Jews unjustly and many of the tax collectors were thieves. When asked about this dilemma, Jesus took a coin and said, “‘Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?’ ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. Then he said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’” (Matthew 22:20-21).

But remember that the Roman Empire fell not because of external pressure but because of internal rot.

EDITORS NOTE: Following oral argument on the Little Sisters of the Poor case, the U.S. Supreme Court requested supplemental briefing from the parties addressing “whether contraceptive coverage could be provided to petitioners’ employees, through petitioners’ insurance companies, without any such notice from petitioners.” Post, p. ___. Both petitioners and the Government now confirm that such an option is feasible. Petitioners have clarified that their religious exercise is not infringed where they “need to do nothing more than contract for a plan that does not include coverage for some or all forms of contraception,” even if their employees receive cost-free contraceptive coverage from the same insurance company. Supplemental Brief for Petitioners 4. The Government has confirmed that the challenged procedures “for employers with insured plans could be modified to operate in the manner posited in the Court’s order while still ensuring that the affected women receive contraceptive coverage seamlessly, together with the rest of their health coverage.” Read more.

New Hawaii VA Chief Tied to Falsified Medical Wait Times, 13 Deaths in Arizona

West Hawaii Today reports:

Jennifer Gutowski

Jennifer Gutowski

Hawaii veterans aren’t worried about new Director of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System Jennifer Gutowski’s ability to fix whatever problems may already exist inside the system.

They’re fearful she’s going to make those problems worse.

“When it was announced she was coming over here to head the Hawaiian VA, none of us were happy about that because she’s got such a bad record,” said Bill Flynn, chaplain at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 12122 in Kona and also the post’s unofficial service officer for the past two years. “We do not want her here at all.”

Gutowski, who will assume the position on May 15, was appointed by the VA Secretary to direct a health system that administers services to almost 130,000 veterans across Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Prior to her appointment in Hawaii, Gutowski spent 18 years with the VA in a variety of capacities and locations. She served most of the last five years as associate director with the Southern Arizona VA, including a stint as acting director from January 2016-March 2017.

Based on misconduct prior to and during her time in Arizona, the branch of the VA she helped oversee became mired in controversy because of long wait times for patient appointments and a variety of allegations brought by whistleblowers as to why access was limited.

The allegations spurred a subsequent investigation by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The OIG fully substantiated one of four claims it investigated — that managers at the branch violated the VA’s scheduling directive in early 2014, a year and a half after Gutowski was hired, when they “improperly directed scheduling staff to zero out patient wait times.”

Patient wait times are calculated by comparing a patient’s desired date for an appointment against the actual date on which the patient was seen. When calling for an appointment patients are asked to supply schedulers with a desired appointment date, despite being unaware as to “scheduling capacity” and the feasibility of being seen on the date requested.

Schedulers are directed to log the desired date along with the date a patient is actually seen. According to the OIG report, dated Nov. 2016, schedulers were instructed by managers to zero out the two dates — or falsify scheduling records by altering the dates to reflect that the desired appointment date was the same as the scheduled appointment date.

The report found that 76 percent of 5,802 routine appointments it reviewed between December 2013-August 2014 showed the same desired and scheduled dates.

Upon a review of 4,855 routine appointments at the clinic between October 2015-March 2016, the number of coinciding desired and scheduled dates dropped to a rate of 46 percent.

OIG also investigated claims by a former employee that these inappropriate scheduling practices led to the endangerment of some veterans’ health. OIG concluded that was incorrect after reviewing the cases of 13 veterans who waited more than 30 days for each of a combined 15 appointments and died before the appointment dates….

That is when the misconduct was confirmed by investigators, but a former VA administrator named Pat McCoy told KGUN9-TV in Tuscon, Arizona, last November that she brought the issue to Gutowski and the rest of the Southern Arizona VA’s top staff long before then.

“(Gutowski) is the associate director,” McCoy said to KGUN9-TV. “She’s as responsible as (former Director Jonathan Gardner). This whole pentad is responsible for what went on with this data. They’re all responsible. They all knew about it. The chiefs of staff knew about it. I know they did. I told them.”

read … Veterans troubled over newly tapped director of Hawaii VA health system

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Measles outbreak in Somali community; Muslim parents refuse to vaccinate children

This article at Mic Daily makes it sound like it is all about a fear that vaccines cause autism in vaccinated children.  However not mentioned is the Islamic prohibition on the use of vaccines.

Minneapolis Doctor Madlon-Kay

Here is the story at Mic Network Inc.  Golly gee, why can’t we get our message heard, say health officials.

Minnesota’s Hennepin County is in the midst of the state’s largest measles outbreak since 2011. Nine cases have been reported since last week, and officials expect the number to rise.

So far, all of the cases are among unvaccinated children. They have something else in common too: The affected children are all part of Minneapolis and St. Paul’s Somali-American community. According to a health department official, Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community has been a particular target of the anti-vaccination movement, colloquially known as “anti-vaxxers.”

“They’re very much engaged with and targeting this community,” Kris Ehresmann, infectious disease division director at the Minnesota Health Department, said in a phone call Wednesday.

According to Ehresmann, anti-vaccine groups began to target the Somali community around 2008, amid concerns about autism among Somali-American children. Anti-vaccine groups started reaching out to the Somali community and showing up at community health meetings, she said, disseminating misinformation linking autism to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or MMR.

Since then, the population has seen a “steady decline in MMR vaccine rates.”

[….]

She [Dr. Diane Madlon-Kay, a practicing physician who has studied the low vaccine rates among Minnesota’s Somali community] and other doctors who serve that population have had little luck dispelling myths about autism and vaccines that travel quickly though the community via word-of-mouth, she said.

“We don’t seem to be making any headway with that at all,” Madlon-Kay said.

Despite countless studies indicating there’s no connection between vaccines and autism, Madlon-Kay doesn’t have much hope that science will change the minds of scared parents within the Somali community anytime soon.

Continue reading here.

What about Islam?

Not a word in the story about Islam and vaccines which is likely the bigger reason why health officials can’t educate the Somalis.  In only a few minutes search, here is one of many articles about “religious” prohibitions in Islam.

Islam and Medical Science Must Oppose Vaccination

The case against vaccination is first an Islamic one, based on Islamic ethos regarding the perfection of the natural human body’s immune defence system, empowered by great and prophetic guidance to avoid most infections. The case against vaccination is also a medical and health-related one. Incredible evidence, unbeknownst to most, has emerged in the West regarding the many serious health hazards that affect those who have been vaccinated.

For inquisitive minds, we have hundreds of articles about refugees and health issues (including mental health issues) in our ‘Health Issues’ category, here.  Measles is not the worst illness you will find there.

Yoga at Work: 5 Easy Yoga Poses That You Can Do at Your Desk

The thought of sneaking out of lunchtime for some yoga class may be laughable, especially now that jobs are more demanding than ever.  But wait, this does not mean that you have to stay stagnant for hours and keep facing at your computer all day.

There are yoga moves that you can actually do right at your own desk. This yoga poses help you get a mental breather and makes sure that your arm, neck, wrists, back and hips are in good working order. There’s a better way to utilize your free time other than chatting with your workmates in the lounge after lunch.

Try these simple moves that ease back and neck strain and let you slip in quick toning.

1.The Scale Pose

First, look for a sturdy piece of chair (one that can fully support your weight). Sit the edge of the chair, press both of your hands on both sides of your hips then raise your legs and butt off the seat.

Engage your abdominal muscle and keep the upper portion of your shoulders down. Stay for 3 to 5 breaths. Lower your body again and repeat the same process at least two times.

2.High Altar Pose

Sit on the chair erectly. Inhale and raise your arms together. Clasp your hands and invert your palms. Next, lean to your left. Hold for 5 to 8 breaths then switch to a different side.

3.Twist

First turn to your left and use your left hand on the back of the chair to deepen the twist. Keep in this pose for 5 to 8 breaths.Release and switch to the other side.

4.Cow Face Arms

Stretch your left arm across your back, and right arm behind your head. Clasp your fingers together. Make sure that you exert a little tension to both arms. Stay in this pose for 5 to 8 breathing then switch sides.

5.Ankle To Knee

Lift your left foot and place it over your right knee then drop open your left knee. Learn forward to stretch deeper (keep your back straight while doing this). Hold on for 5 to 8 breaths then switch sides.

Takeaway

Don’t be too hard on yourself, you are entitled to give yourself a break.  Doing the simple yoga poses might just be what you need to refuel your productivity at work. Do it now (breaktime or lunchtime I mean). All you need to have is a single chair and a few minutes. So, no more excuses.

Author Bio:

Alyssa Mason Prout loves traveling to different cities around the world to look for the latest trend in fashion, lifestyle and health. Aside from traveling, she also enjoys writing, and it has been her greatest passion since childhood. Whatever she learns in her journey, she writes it and shares it with her readers.

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