Day: October 12, 2022

Let’s Defraud Seniors

This is post is for all those Americans that have had their 50th birthday surely they have received their official letter inviting them to join AARP (where did they get your birthday info)……

The big deal these days is that Medicare Advantage plans for us pre-dementia seniors….to me they seem like a scam and not worth the cash they cost….seems I am not the only one with such thoughts….

I recently wrote about the deceptions that insurance companies are pulling on seniors…

Those MediCare Advantage Plans

Now further info has been given to help seniors know what is being done to rip them off…..

Insurance giants are exploiting Medicare Advantage—a corporate-managed program that threatens to result in the complete privatization of traditional Medicare—to capture billions of dollars in extra profits, Saturday reporting by The New York Times confirmed.

The newspaper’s analysis of dozens of lawsuits, inspector general reports, and watchdog investigations found that overbilling by Medicare Advantage (MA) providers is so pervasive it exceeds the budgets of entire federal agencies, prompting journalist Ryan Cooper to call the program “a straight up fraud scheme.”

Nearly half of Medicare’s 60 million beneficiaries are now enrolled in MA plans managed by for-profit insurance companies, and it is expected that most of the nation’s seniors will be ensnared in the private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare by next year. Six weeks ago, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched an inquiry into “potentially deceptive” marketing tactics used by MA providers to “take advantage” of vulnerable individuals.

As the table below shows, almost every major player in the industry has been accused of fraud by a whistleblower or the U.S. government. In addition, the vast majority are engaged in rampant upcoding, or exaggerating patients’ illnesses in order to reap more money from taxpayers—something they do while refusing to provide necessary care for tens of thousands each year.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/09/straight-fraud-data-confirms-private-insurers-use-medicare-advantage-steal-billions

Seniors should research this before they commit to a monthly deduction to their Social Security benefits.

Remember if something sounds too good to be true then it probably is just that….too good to be true.

Please do not fall for the glowing promos….you need to be more vigilant for these parasites will suck you monetarily dry.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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Looking For The “Cloud”

I am not talking about that imaginary location that computer nerds use all the time.

This “Cloud” is the one that so many Americans are fearing….the none that is left by the detonation of a nuke.

There are so many people blogging about the the possibility….it is interesting that most of the ‘posts’ are to add to the fear that Americans are feeling.

When Putin thumped his chest and threaten to use nukes Pres. Biden went on a tear with threats of his own….

This is surrender in multiple directions, or so it seemed to me as I read these words the other day in the New York Times — surrender to the worst (the stupidest) of who we are, on the part not only of the growling superpowers on both sides of the conflict, who are apparently playing games with Armageddon, but also surrender on the part of the mainstream media, which has failed, yet again, to cover war in the context of a larger sanity.

Oops, darn that mushroom cloud!

Maintaining peace through militarism — us vs. them, good guy wins, bad guy loses — has gotten blown up in the age of nukes. But for some reason any grasp of this remains politically marginal. In a world that has sliced itself into international borders, power remains a matter of dominance, or so the world’s leaders (and the media that covers them) continue, apparently, to believe.

Much of Planet Earth is moving beyond this glaringly lethal ignorance, but the most “powerful” nations on the planet remain spiritually underdeveloped. It’s the only way they can hold onto their power.

Nukes, War and Moral Sanity

Is Putin serious?

Well the State Department has made a statement…..

White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday said that the United States has not seen any indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision on whether to use nuclear weapons amid the war in Ukraine, but that recent comments make it “imperative” for the U.S. to monitor the situation.

“We’ve seen no indication, nothing that tells us Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction at all inside Ukraine,” he told reporters. “And we’ve seen no indication that the Russian apparatus is moving anything to prepare for that kind of a decision.”

Kirby said that his information is based on the U.S. monitoring Putin’s capabilities, which it has done since the beginning of the conflict. Additionally, he said that the U.S. has not seen anything that would cause it to change its strategic deterrence posture to defend itself or allies and partners.

Kirby: No indication that Putin has decided to use nuclear weapons

Instead of whining and bitching about nukes…..maybe they should do something besides sit on their ass and whimpering…..

Right now, we’re closer to a cataclysmic nuclear war than at any other time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. One assessment after another has said the current situation is even more dangerous.

Yet few members of Congress are advocating for any steps that the U.S. government could take to decrease the dangers of a nuclear conflagration. The silences and muted statements on Capitol Hill are evading the reality of what’s hanging in the balance – the destruction of almost all human life on Earth. “The end of civilization.”

Constituent passivity is helping elected officials to sleepwalk toward unfathomable catastrophe for all of humanity. If senators and representatives are to be roused out of their timid refusal to urgently address – and work to reduce – the present high risks of nuclear war, they need to be confronted. Nonviolently and emphatically.

…

What could the US government do to lessen the chances of global nuclear annihilation? The Defuse Nuclear War campaign, which is coordinating those picket lines, has identified key needed actions. Such as:

  • Rejoin nuclear-weapons treaties the US has pulled out of.

    President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002. Under Donald Trump, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019. Both pacts significantly reduced the chances of nuclear war.

  • Take US nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.

    Four hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are armed and ready for launch from underground silos in five states. Because they’re land-based, those missiles are vulnerable to attack and thus are on hair-trigger alert – allowing only minutes to determine whether indications of an incoming attack are real or a false alarm.

  • End the policy of “first use.”

    Like Russia, the United States has refused to pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.

  • Support congressional action to avert nuclear war.

    In the House, H.Res. 1185 includes a call for the United States to “lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war.”

  • (antiwar.com)

Bitching is the easy part….action takes gonads and determination….a couple of things armchair generals have in short supply.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”