Where The Money Went

Just another FYI from your friends at IST….

The money you pay your insurance companies with….

One is ‘on your side’ and another tells you are in ‘good hands’….etc etc….you have heard all the claims and BS from them…..

Are you getting your money’s worth out of these companies?

As Americans grapple with rising healthcare costs, a revealing new study shows where much of that money is going — and it’s not necessarily toward better patient care or medical research. According to research just published in JAMA Internal Medicine, major healthcare companies listed on the S&P 500 have been directing massive amounts of their profits to shareholders, with these payouts more than tripling over the past two decades to reach $170.2 billion in 2022 alone.

To understand the scale of this financial shift, consider that healthcare represents 17% of America’s entire gross domestic product, with total U.S. healthcare spending reaching $5 trillion in 2023. Of this enormous sum, approximately 70% comes from taxpayer dollars through various channels, including tax breaks for employer-based health insurance and direct government funding via Medicare and Medicaid.

Behind the staggering medical bills and insurance premiums that many Americans face lies a financial system that includes substantial payouts to investors. “When shareholders expect greater payouts year in and year out, that has an impact on affordability,” notes lead author Dr. Victor Roy, in a statement. “One of the ways that [health care companies] make money is to keep prices high — or raise them.”

Between 2001 and 2022, 92 major healthcare companies distributed an astronomical $2.60 trillion to shareholders through two main mechanisms: direct dividend payments and share buybacks.

Dividends, of course, are profit-sharing checks sent directly to investors who own shares in these companies. Share buybacks, on the other hand, are more like a company reducing the number of slices in a pie; when a company buys back its own stock, each remaining slice becomes worth more, benefiting the shareholders who still hold shares. Both strategies effectively channel money to investors rather than reinvesting it in healthcare services or innovation.

https://studyfinds.org/healthcare-company-profits-shareholders/

These companies challenge most claims in a way to weasel out of paying out….there must be a way us peasants can come out with our savings intact….

There is and it is called Medicare For All…..

Medicare For All

The time has come and the time is ripe as more Americans are being screwed out of the homes because of outrageous medical expenses.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

DOGE, The Money Pit

Money pit a term we all use from time to time but do we have a good grasp on the definition?  If not I can help….

Money pit….A massive non stop waste of money that you regret severely in hind sight

I would say that explains this whole stupidity of the DOGE.

Billionaire CEO and White House advisor Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has amassed roughly 30 staffers with the goal of slashing the US government’s budget.

As it’s targeted president Donald Trump’s number one bogeyman — diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) — something ironic is happening: even as it’s trying to cut costs across the government, the so-called department’s expenses are ballooning.

As Business Insider reports, DOGE’s spending more than doubled from $6.75 million to $14.4 million between January 30 and February 8, according to its latest financial filings.

While that’s still quite a bit less than the roughly $60 million the Biden administration set aside for the United States Digital Services last year — the department was reincarnated as DOGE — it’s nonetheless a sign that Musk is quickly racking up bills, despite employing underqualified high school grads, drug sellers, and racist shitposters.

Meanwhile, according to DOGE’s dubious back-of-the-envelope accounting, the department is purportedly saving the government “approx. $1 billion/day.”

“A good start, though this number needs to increase to > $3 billion/day,” DOGE’s official X account tweeted late last month.

DOGE has gloated about canceling government subscriptions to news outlets and consulting contracts related to “executive coaching.”

But considering the mountain of legal complaints filed against the nascent entity, DOGE will likely have some much steeper bills to pay in the upcoming months and possibly years.

In just a matter of weeks, Musk’s group of young lackeys — who have torn through sensitive data at lightning speeds without the necessary clearances — have already amassed a litany of lawsuits from district judges, religious groups, teachers’ unions, federal worker unions, the American Foreign Service Association,  and 22 attorneys general, to name a few.

And as plenty of experts have since pointed out, DOGE’s indiscriminate combing through sensitive data is likely illegal.

Who will foot the bill for the ensuing legal challenges remains to be seen. Besides, we’ve already seen the Trump administration bristle at the legal blowback, with Trump accusing judges of “intolerable judicial overreach.” If the judicial system will survive Musk’s coup is also a hotly contested subject these days; Congress, meanwhile, has mostly sat on the sidelines.

Apart from ballooning expenses, DOGE at least won’t have to give the richest man in the world a paycheck, as BI points out, since he’s a “special government employee.”

(futurism.com)

The whole idea of giving this tool Elmo unlimited power is stupid….but then look who is allowing it.

As Elon Musk stood beside him, President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that gives Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency group control over hiring and firing at federal agencies. Six takes on what that means:

  • Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo: “I don’t think it’s too much to say that it puts Musk functionally in control of the US government,” he writes, noting that “political commissars” will be assigned to each federal agency and given control over hiring and firing, with a requirement that for every four people who are let go, only one person can be hired. “We’re in dystopian quasi-science fiction territory here,” Marshall concludes.

Rex Huppke, USA Today: He likewise calls Musk the nation’s “most powerful person” and “de facto president”—an “unelected rich snot” who is “demolishing the federal government, probably illegally” and “acting downright gleeful about thousands upon thousands of Americans losing their jobs.” “It is vile, bordering on sadism,” Huppke writes. “Losing a job is a catastrophe for most families. It’s not a damn joke.”

  • Tressie McMillan Cottom, New York Times: Musk wants to dismantle and “demoralize” the federal government, she writes, noting his “narration of power as a vicarious gamelike experience of dominance” is “a skilled manipulation of content in a content-saturated culture” that “obscures what is actually happening.” Look beyond his exuberant tweets and you’ll see “a strategic takeover of national interests that will demolish the state’s functionality in a way that benefits the ones swinging the hammer.”
  • Nicole Russell, USA Today: Taxpayers should be celebrating these efforts “to bring financial responsibility to the federal government,” she writes, noting that as a parent, she’d love to know why $268 billion in annual education funding hasn’t delivered “a better return on our investment.” She believes Trump when he says billions of dollars in waste and fraud will be found and argues the hunt “is exactly what Americans want.”
  • Cal Thomas, Tribune Content Agency: Indeed, Trump promised to downsize government, and now he’s following through on that promise, writes Thomas. He compares Musk’s moves to “spring cleaning,” the eliminating of “wasteful, fraudulent, and, in many cases, unnecessary and duplicative programs” that came from bureaucrats and regulators who, like Musk, weren’t elected by the people. And “sometimes it takes a chainsaw, instead of a scalpel, to get a job done.”

I like the term ‘president de facto’ when describing Elmo.

Nothing about this unit impresses me….it will in the end go down as a colossal waste of time and money.

Whatcha think?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine Peace Talks

Ukraine news and the Little Marco show.

It is more talks for a ceasefire that could turn into something good….if you believe that then I think you are delusional….

The US and Russia to meet and discuss the conflict in Ukraine….

Top Trump administration officials are set to travel to Saudi Arabia next week to hold talks with Russian officials to discuss bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, multiple media outlets reported on Sunday.

The delegation is expected to include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy.

Rubio spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in a phone call on Saturday, following up on President Trump’s recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The Secretary re-affirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine. In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues,” the State Department said in a readout of the Rubio-Lavrov call.

Ukrainian officials said they were not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview that aired Sunday that he will “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine” if Ukrainian officials don’t participate in the negotiations.

While it’s still unclear how the war will end, the Trump administration’s policy toward Russia is a dramatic shift from the Biden administration. After Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden refused to speak with Putin despite acknowledging the risk of nuclear was at its highest point at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also refused to engage in any meaningful diplomacy with Lavrov, holding only brief conversations with him about prisoner exchanges after the invasion.

(antiwar.com)

Say what?

The US and Russia to meet to discuss Ukraine?

Not a fan of this conflict but would it not be good idea to include the country most effected….in this case Ukraine?

I have a problem excluding the very nation that is dealing with the ravishes of war.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz discussed some of the core issues for Donald Trump in the upcoming talks on ending the war in Ukraine. He did not confirm that Ukraine would be involved in the talks. 

On Fox News Sunday, Waltz explained, “Number one, it has to be a permanent end to the war, not a temporary end to the war. Number two, this can’t be ended on the battlefield. This has turned into a World War I-style meat grinder of human beings.” He continued, “Number three, I talked about how the structure of our aid has to change. Then number four, we’re talking about economic integration going forward as the best arbiter of peace.”

(libertarian institute.org)

Anyone that has been interested in the war and following the progress….can they see Ukraine agreeing to any of this?

Of course not.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Ukraine will “not recognize” upcoming talks between the US and Russia and denied that his country was invited to participate.

“Ukraine will not accept. Ukraine knew nothing about this. And Ukraine regards any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as having no results,” Zelensky told reporters while visiting the UAE.

Zelensky denied claims from US officials that Ukraine was invited. “Ukraine will not take part in the negotiations. Ukraine did not know they were planned. And the visit to the region was planned long before the US decided to meet Russia there,” he said.

Zelensky has said that European countries should be involved in the talks, but that idea has been rejected by both the US and Russia. Lavrov said Monday that most European leaders aren’t interested in peace.

(antiwar.com)

Just another waste of time and energy.

Ukraine needs a seat at this ‘shit show’

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”