By the way Bill, you asked me about Libya. It’s looking more and more like the White House had advance warnings and screwed up on them. Stevens himself expressed concerns about his safety apparently. Now we’re hearing that the White House was informed by intelligence analysts with 24 hours of the attack that it was a pre planned terrorist operation. My hunch is that they were trying use the video as a convenient cover for ignoring warnings. Riots continued all over the Arab world for weeks after 9/11 so the video may have had a lot to do with that anyway. Obama has a lot of catching up to do with Romney, as far as being a liar, but in the end he’s just a politician too.

ii) My story was real and factual.

iv) It is what it is. Five years ago, I could schedule an appointment with my physician with no more than two days notice. Now, since his practice finally decided to accept Medicare patients, it requires a 35-45 day wait. Each practitioner will vary, but it will only get worse now that Obamacare has added millions more without adding a single doctor. In fact, it is chasing doctors from practice which will greatly aggravate the situation. The best and the brightest will and are finding other lines of work.

In case you are wondering, my primary business is in the healthcare industry, so I’m very much aware of what is going on.

The figures came from the U.S. government. You can call it fantasy all you want, or the Economic Policy Institute can dispute it, or you can trot out any other so-called ‘experts’, but the numbers are the numbers. Look it up on the government’s own sites.

montana, this Bush tax revenue fantasy has been thoroughly debunked, although I know that the American conservative alternative media has their own “special” facts and numbers…I’m quite aware of that.

The Economic Policy Institute noted that the “decade of the Bush tax cuts has, on avg., lowered revenue levels as a share of the economy more than any decade since the 1950′s.”

Numerous economists that have served in the Bush admin. have publicly conceded that the Bush tax cuts did not result in increased federal revenue.

Alan Viard, senior economist at the council of economic advisers during Bush’s 1st term, was quoted as saying: “federal revenue is lower today (not a recent quote) than it would have been without the tax cuts.” “There’s really no dispute among economists about that.” These quotes from economists go on and on.

Treasury revenues continued to hemorrhage and fell to 17.5% of GDP in 2008 from 20.6% in 2000. According to the C.B.O., by the end of 2008 legislated tax cuts reduced revenues and increased the national debt by 1.6 trillion. Slower than expected growth (despite the tax cuts) further reduced revenues by 1.4 trillion. The rest of the debt increase was a hike in spending not offset by other spending reductions or tax increases. That’s thanks to Bush eliminating Paygo in 2002. Incidentally, a doubling of the child tax credit is part of Romney’s 47%.

i) That you don’t care whether lower and middle income people could ever build up an HSA that might be adequate is typical of today’s American conservatism, and there’s not much to say about that. It’s a difference in values and it is what it is as they say.

ii) A choice in specialists seems like a bit of the proverbial red herring. How many folks would know, or even care, which hand surgery specialist or kidney cancer specialist is the best, especially when they’re desperate. They’re all experts with the same training. Referrals for specialists is how it works up here too but there’s nothing stopping you from telling the primary care physician which specialist you’d like. I imagine that’s a pretty rare request.

iii) In the U.S. system, I think you should be able to bypass medicare with cash. I’m with you there.

iv) Not sure how you define long for wait times. My wife has had health issues since 2009 and visits to our family doctor average about two times a year for her. We never wait longer than a week after making the appointment although it’s often 2-3 days, and he has a busy practice. This is full government single payer. If you needed a referral from a primary care physician at a walk-in clinic, it would be same day.

Here is an example of another Medicare restriction. I had a bout with vertigo. When the attack first hit, I was taken to the nearest hospital. My physician was not allowed to treat me there, so I received treatment from a completely unknown staff. Lots of tests ensued, but no treatment was authorized until I was released and sought my preferred specialist. I called the specialist of my choice for treatment. They said I had to have a referral from my primary care physician, the one who wasn’t allowed to treat me in the hospital. Knowing that would take days, I told them I would pay cash for service. They told me that since they take Medicare and I was on Medicare, they could not treat me in any way unless I had that referral. My doctor, when I finally was able to get through two days later, wanted to refer me to another specialist, not of my choice. Fortunately, I have a little clout and he finally agreed to refer me to the specialist of my choice.

One of the reasons that it takes so long to now see my primary care physician is that he finally gave in to accepting Medicare patients and now has to see nearly 3 to 4 times the number of patients in the same amount of time in order for his practice to remain profitable. Just think how much fun this system is going to be when he has to add even more Obamacare patients or when it finally becomes single payer.

Keep in mind that I am not poor or powerless, so what does the system do to them?

FYI, the Star Wars project has come a long way which is exactly why Russia didn’t want us putting it into neighboring countries. It would have made Putin’s dream of a Russia that could threaten the world as the U.S.S.R. did, mute.

You also need to get a little education into the type of investments that you would be allowed to participate in with SS, if part of it became an investment account. You would not be allowed to buy stocks willy nilly. Nobody, that I know of, has advocated putting Medicare money into the stock market.