Health care...a commodity

Okay, our current health system has many problems that definitely need addressed i.e. unable to get insurance due to having a chronic/lifelong ailment, but lets fix the problem instead of creating a new plan loaded with problems of it's own like penalizing the small business man when he starts to expand past 25 employees.

From my stand point...Obama's health plan... It 's a failed system that shortchanges doctors and interferes with the private contract between the doctor and the patient. This is a good summary of an article in one of the ENT magazines I was sent...

As it is currently...

...If you treat a Medicare patient, and the patient says, "times are tough, can you forget the copay, you can't do that," he said. "That's illegal because it's considered fraud. Also, if the patient wants to give you $20 more because the payment for your services is not adequate, you can't accept it. They kick you our of the Medicare system for two years. Wen you tell the public that, they say, "You gotta be kidding me! Why should there be coercion?"

So we should...Allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines. you allow tax credits-Whenever you pay for your insurance comes back to you as a credit, not a deduction. You allow private contracting between patients and physicians without penalty. You allow individual ownership of a policy and enhanced medical savings accounts. Get people off of Medicaid. Get rid of the program. Give Medicaid recipients a voucher and allow them to buy health insurance just like the people in the federal employees' health benefit program.

Anyway, food for thought.

Oh, I was chatting with a fellow resident who went to capital hill to hear all the latest...

If Obama sticks around, in 15 years we'll have a single payer system where everyone will be on the government insurance. Yes, a repeat of all the rest of the world. I say, if you love it that much Mr. Obama, put yourself on the system with the rest of your comrades. I just can't wait till my gas is free.

CHILDREN ARE NOT ACCESSORIES!

Listen up you wanna-be's Angelina Jolie's So, did any of the women or men listen to the Lords voice this past month? I hope I wasn't the only one that picked up on how selfish parents are these days. All in all, I interpreted the several talks as focusing on how we are all about self gratification. Forgetting that now we are adults and it isn't about us anymore. I'm guilty of it, and maybe that is why I picked up on it so much this last conference. However, I know I'm not the only one. As I look around and talk to other people and see how their children are stunted in their mental and thus scholastic, and spiritual souls. I was once told that being LDS, Catholic etc. was a fear, and guilt based religion. I say, there should be guilt and shame which drives us to be better! If that hasn't occurred, then you won't change. Questions we should ask ourselves... 1) Are you as a parent doing at least the bare minimum of Family home evening, family prayer, and scripture study? 2) If your child is struggling to progress scholastically, have you and your spouse dropped all of the selfish time sucking items (i.e. TV remote), and focused on how your child can progress (i.e. help patiently with homework)? 3) Did you listen to the voice of the lord in prayer and fasting for inspiration on how to make your children spiritually great? As they said in conference, there is a direct coorelation between quality time and quantity of time. If you don't have quantity, then there are not opportunities created for quality. So, set aside the selfish desire to excel in the professional world, turn off the "boob tube", and nurture the children whom so desperately need parents to spend that time with them. Since they obviously can learn more than what is taught in school, take time to teach them. They will remember it forever as "the fact my daddy taught me". Teach them now before they think they know it all. Be the example a parent desires their child to be. If your child is talking back, destructive, rude, etc. Where did he/she learn it from? From those he/she admires...YOU! Stepping down now from my soap box.

Spank or not to spank

My question is, not if, but how much. You see, Debbie would go along with this article full heartedly. I say, for the most part, she's right. As I have experienced, it isn't wise to use corporal punishment on a emotional basis. For the most part, it's used in the heat of pinacled anger from the parent who's had enough. I should know, when my patience runs out, I pop like a balloon. Typical for a surgeon I guess. After a few still small voices, aside from Deb's, it has been recommended that I not spank on a whim. I haven't spanked my kids in months. Nor have I had to. I mean what I say, and I apply what I mean. I let them know when they are getting close to the line and warn them about crossing the line. If it's done on purpose, then I act. If I don't act you see, that just tells the little boundry pushing child that it's actually okay to push the boundary a few times before recourse happens. At thier age, if there is nothing to fear, then there is nothing to respect. If there is nothing to respect then their innate selfishness abounds and everyone around that brat suffers. So, I say, use corporal punishment wisely and not as a constant means of punishment, but as an end after all has been tried and failed. Just keep the golden rule in hand and teach them! Just like in conference two weeks ago. There was so much said on teaching the child in the home, not just spiritual, but academics. They talked about all the other learning preocesses that come about by exposure t o two loving parents. Study: Spanking Kids Leads to More Aggressive Behavior By ALICE PARK Alice Park – Mon Apr 12, 1:50 am ET Disciplining young children is one of the key jobs of any parent - most people would have no trouble agreeing with that. But whether or not that discipline should include spanking or other forms of corporal punishment is a far trickier issue. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not endorse spanking for any reason, citing its lack of long-term effectiveness as a behavior-changing tactic. Instead the AAP supports strategies such as "time-outs" when children misbehave, which focus on getting kids to reflect on their behavior and the consequences of their actions. Still, as many parents can attest, few responses bring about the immediate interruption of a full-blown tantrum like a swift whack to the bottom. (See pictures of the evolution of the college dorm.) Now researchers at Tulane University provide the strongest evidence yet against the use of spanking: of the nearly 2,500 youngsters in the study, those who were spanked more frequently at age 3 were more likely to be aggressive by age 5. The research supports earlier work on the pitfalls of corporal punishment, including a study by Duke University researchers that revealed that infants who were spanked at 12 months scored lower on cognitive tests at age 3. "I'm excited by the idea that there is now some nice hard data that can back up clinicians when they share their caution with parents against using corporal punishment," says Dr. Jayne Singer, clinical director of the child and parent program at Children's Hospital Boston, who was not involved in the study. (Read "Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?") Led by Catherine Taylor, the Tulane study was the first to control simultaneously for variables that are most likely to confound the association between spanking and later aggressive behavior. The researchers accounted for factors such as acts of neglect by the mother, violence or aggression between the parents, maternal stress and depression, the mother's use of alcohol and drugs, and even whether the mother considered abortion while pregnant with the child. Each of these factors contributed to children's aggressive behavior at age 5, but they could not explain all of the violent tendencies at that age. Further, the positive connection between spanking and aggression remained strong, even after these factors had been accounted for. "The odds of a child being more aggressive at age 5 if he had been spanked more than twice in the month before the study began increased by 50%," says Taylor. And because her group also accounted for varying levels of natural aggression in children, the researchers are confident that "it's not just that children who are more aggressive are more likely to be spanked." What the study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, shows is that outside of the most obvious factors that may influence violent behavior in children, spanking remains a strong predictor. "This study controls for the most common risk factors that people tend to think of as being associated with aggression," says Singer. "This adds more credence, more data and more strength to the argument against using corporal punishment." Among the mothers who were studied, nearly half (45.6%) reported no spanking in the previous month; 27.9% reported spanking once or twice; and 26.5% reported spanking more than twice. Compared with children who were not hit, those who were spanked were more likely to be defiant, demand immediate satisfaction of their wants and needs, get frustrated easily, have temper tantrums and lash out physically against others. The reason for that, says Singer, may be that spanking instills fear rather than understanding. Even if a child were to stop his screaming tantrum when spanked, that doesn't mean he understands why he shouldn't be acting out in the first place. What's more, spanking models aggressive behavior as a solution to problems. For children to understand what and why they have done something wrong, it may take repeated efforts on the parent's part, using time-outs - a strategy that typically involves denying the child any attention, praise or interaction with parents for a specified period of time (that is, the parents ignore the child). These quiet times force children to calm down and learn to think about their emotions, rather than acting out on them blindly. Spanking may stop a child from misbehaving in the short term, but it becomes less and less effective with repeated use, according to the AAP; it also makes discipline more difficult as the child gets older and outgrows spanking. As the latest study shows, investing the time early on to teach a child why his behavior is wrong may translate to a more self-aware and in-control youngster in the long run.

Georgia's Congressman is smokin' something!

Par for the course! After viewing this video, it's no wonder why nothing of importance gets done in congress these days. Lazy sacks of useless carbon dioxide emitters. Yes, I am offended that this guy actually is polluting this earth with his huge carbon footprint caused by his oral emissions. But he does make a good point. The island of Guam perhaps would "tip and capsize" if they put additional military personnel on the island, that is, if I was as trippin' on whatever it is he's smokin'. Pass the dubie! Love, Peace, and lets watch Guam capsize!

Here's the link...

Dumb de dump dumb

What is our nutty president & goons doing to all of us!?!

So, Let me get this right. Nanci Pelosy gives a press conference and actually says "we need to pass the bill before we can find out what is in the bill". Yeah, buy it before you try it. That always goes down well! So, we baught it, and now we're trying it and it tastes like Cr*@!

Remember what I said about Brazil's health care? If you want an augmentation and any other non urgent surgery, it's fantastic. Just wait in line and you get what you want. The caveat? DONT GET COMPLICATIONS! That is, unless you want to die by waiting in that line again. You see, in Obamaland he wants this too. In the bill, it was proposed that those with medicare (that part sucked out of your paycheck during your working life), they will pay for your surgery. BUT if you have complications, you're on your own. Kicked to the curb, good luck sucka!

Is that the way we should treat our seniors citizens who busted their butts their entire lives? You decide. And THAT is only the beginning!