Evil Obamacare

[billy.pilgrim]

McCain did not win so it is Obama's and dem's deal. Can't blame this on "Bush" as it is your tar baby. Start fighting it.

so it's not the "what" that you fight, but the "who"


you are ringing clearer every day

[Supsalemgr]

Your post goes totally over my head. However, I don't speak "Auburn".

[rstrong]

McCain did not win so it is Obama's and dem's deal. Can't blame this on "Bush" as it is your tar baby. Start fighting it.

So voting for long-term Republican policy makes you a Republican, but voting for the same policy if a Democrat suddenly supports it makes you NOT a Republican. Riiiiiiiight.

[Supsalemgr]

McCain did not win so it is Obama's and dem's deal. Can't blame this on "Bush" as it is your tar baby. Start fighting it.

So voting for long-term Republican policy makes you a Republican, but voting for the same policy if a Democrat suddenly supports it makes you NOT a Republican. Riiiiiiiight.

Can't shift the blame as much as rstrong would like. It is not "what if" it is "what is" and the the dems are the ones who passed it.

[O Really]

McCain did not win so it is Obama's and dem's deal. Can't blame this on "Bush" as it is your tar baby. Start fighting it.

So voting for long-term Republican policy makes you a Republican, but voting for the same policy if a Democrat suddenly supports it makes you NOT a Republican. Riiiiiiiight.

Can't shift the blame as much as rstrong would like. It is not "what if" it is "what is" and the the dems are the ones who passed it.

Dems did pass it - and proudly so, I might add. It's not what I'd like to see, but it's going in the right direction. But rstrong is right - it is in concept what used to be a Republican plan until Obama was elected. Not that Republicans would have ever passed a broadbrush healthcare reform bill, anyway. And that's where the "blame" should lie - not in action taken or bills actually passed, but in obfuscation and obstructionism.

[Wneglia]

Half of states say no to exchanges

Obamacare's Unintended Consequences

Cut reimbursement-cut access

[rstrong]

Tell Applebee's: Do NOT cut workers' hours to avoid ObamaCare

Immediately after the election, executives and franchise owners from Papa John's, Olive Garden, and Applebee's all threatened to cut employees' hours to avoid paying for the Affordable Care Act's insurance requirement.

Since then, a grassroots backlash has forced the owners of Papa John's and Olive Garden to back off these threats and commit not to manipulate workers' hours to deny them health care.

That's great! But now we need to make sure Applebee's does the same, because if any company gets away with cutting their workers' hours to avoid ObamaCare, it's only a matter of time before the rest of corporate America does it too.

To be delivered to: John Schnatter, CEO, Clarence Otis Jr, CEO, and Zane Tankel, CEO

We will not patronize your businesses if you go ahead with cutting your employees' hours because of Obamacare. By doing this, you are showing America you don't care about the health and welfare of your hard-working and loyal employees who help make your companies successful and making you billions. Keep this in mind: If your employees don't have health care in order to get well when they do get sick, those same employees come to work sick and can pass their illnesses onto us as they prepare or serve our food. They often don't have paid sick days and can't afford to miss a day of work to get better.

Olive Garden Owner’s Profits Fall After Attempt to Dodge Obamacare Backfires

Times aren't so good at Darden Restaurants, which announced this morning its net income fell 37 percent this quarter.

Turns out, treating your employees like shit isn't such a good business move. Darden, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse and other "full-service" restaurants found just off the highway, drew some criticism earlier this year when it announced it was cutting back employees' hours. The move was in anticipation of the Affordable Care Act, which requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide those working more than 30 hours a week health insurance, starting in January 2014. Basically, if all your employees are part-time, you don't need to provide health insurance; it's not your problem if they get sick....

[Wneglia]

Obamacare age-rating restrictions to increase premiums on young

[Wneglia]

Not a very user-friendly copy, paste and comment link. However, I note that it's full of suppositions, is written by actuaries from the sketchy Oliver Wyman, is published in a journal from the American Academy of Actuaries (private insurers), and is lauded by the health insurance industry mouthpiece, America's Health Insurance Plans.

So, 'grain of salt' time. However, I'm sure the ACA, which is a vast improvement over the status quo, will need tinkering with now that we're beyond the overturn or repeal silliness. If the GOP ever gets past its unpatriotic obstructionism we can get working on it.

More salt

[rstrong]

Insurance premiums have been skyrocketing for years. RepubliCare/ObamaCare was never going to stop this; it would only slow it down.

Naturally, insurance companies are getting some increases in while they can, before new the rules kick in. Does anyone expect them not to?

[O Really]

Obamacare age-rating restrictions to increase premiums on young

Or, looking at it another way, "Obamacare age-rating restrictions to equalize premiums among all covereds."
Sounds good to me.

[Wneglia]

DNA pioneer James Watson takes aim at "cancer establishments"

I had no idea that he was still alive, or that he was only 25 when he co-discovered the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. Still kicking at almost 85.

Have you read the paper, Wneglia? What do you think and does the article do it justice?

I have not read Watson's paper, only news reports like the one you cited, about it. I think there has been a tremendous amount of progress in the understanding of cancer over the past 40 years, but unfortunately not much progress (with the exception of pediatric malignancies) in treatment. I don't agree with the commonly held conspiracy that the medical establishment does not want progress in treatment to fill their coffers, as many alternative medicine promoters propagate. The reality is that there are hundreds of different cancers that respond differently, and a "silver bullet" taking advantage of a single commonality among them has been elusive to discover. I agree that as soon as one metabolic pathway in a tumor cell line is discovered, and a drug is created to block it, a mutation soon occurs rendering it ineffective. While Watson is correct that oxygen based free radicals can kill almost any cancer cell, they are non selective and also kill normal cells. If there were a delivery system that could selectively bring these radicals (or almost any poison) into only cancer cells, there would be effective universal cancer treatment. Targeting cancer cells with ricin or diptheria toxin "smart bombs" have been tried and have failed. Radiation interacts at the cellular level by producing oxygen based free radicals from the intracellular water (cells are about 70% H2O). These radicals then break strands of DNA that may or may not cause a lethal event, depending upon how many breaks occur, and whether or not the cell can identify and repair the damage. Normal cells are more efficient in repairing such damage, and is one of several reasons why radiation is delivered in small doses over extended periods. Other reasons include allowing cancer cells to move through the cell cycle to a phase where they are more vulnerable (since cancer cells divide more rapidly, this helps selectively kill more bad than good cells) Also as tumor masses shrink from treatment, there is better oxygen flow, making them more sensitive. Long story short (or even longer) Oxygen and oxidative radicals are the foundation for radiation treatment. Unfortunately, there is significant collateral damage to normal cells, making this suitable only for localized disease, as an alternative to surgery, or in combination for "mopping up" residual cells after surgery.

Pharmaceutical companies are in fierce competition to develop new drugs (and make money) in the war against cancer. I don't always agree with their use when the benefit is marginal, and the financial cost is great. Patients (particularly when it is other people's money) often demand that everything be done for them. Using Provenge (for prostate cancer) as an example, studies show that it has an average life expectancy advantage of about 3 months, with a cost of about $100K. When the data is further stratified, one can identify certain subgroups (such as patients with low PSA's when starting Provenge, or African Americans, who have significantly longer survival (up to several years). Perhaps the drug should be restricted to those groups. Rationing care is something that is frowned upon in our society, but perhaps it will become a necessary evil to control rising medical costs.

With regard to the anti-oxidant debate, I agree that studies that have looked at using them to prevent cancer have failed, and they might even contribute to the development of cancers (although many of these studies did not correct for confounding variables, and as you know, association does not always mean causation. During treatment (in my practice) I advise patients to withold anti-oxidant use during treatment, even though the concerns are more theoretical than proven.

The best advice for cancer prevention is don't smoke or drink alchohol in excess (the 2 together are particularly carcinogenic), and be sure to pick your parents much more selectively, as genetics play a large role, as well.

[O Really]

Darden has more problems than just sick employees...

http://nrn.com/latest-headlines/darden- ... tock-drops

http://www.undercoverwaitress.com/2012/ ... z2IkmeW5O7

[O Really]

I wonder if the info. presented in your second link and the campaign against Darden I cite on page 4 have something to with the floundering discussed in your first link. If so, you can bet they'll never admit it.

Could be. But it seems mostly to be a matter of losing their niche (too many other cookie-cutter restaurants) and failure to adapt effectively. Changes in menu and theme in Olive Garden and Red Lobster didn't help. Old regulars didn't like it, and there is apparently nothing to attract new ones.

They're easy to criticize, but they're not really any worse to their employees than most other chain restaurants.

[O Really]

...They're easy to criticize, but they're not really any worse to their employees than most other chain restaurants.

...Darden owns and operates 1,936 restaurant locations throughout North America and has more than 180,000 employees, making it the largest full-service restaurant company in the world after Skylark, a full-service restaurant company with 3,680 restaurants based in Tokyo, Japan...

As the biggest US-based full-service chain and second biggest in the world, Darden sets the standard rather than just following it. Seems like the best initial target to me.

True that. I'm just saying that hospitality is a tough business to work in no matter who you're working for, and sometimes the ones that look good are the most rotten at the core.

[O Really]

As a public health matter I would be fine with a law requiring that food and healthcare workers be given paid sick time. Society ends up subsidizing the bosses with its health otherwise.

That's a law that would be rife with abuse - from both sides - and particularly if one values individual medical privacy. I'd rather see really steep fines for restaurants who get caught working sick employees.

[O Really]

Ashley Furniture isn't such a great place, either....
(copy of complaint)... http://ia801608.us.archive.org/30/items ... 80.1.0.pdf

Isabel Perez is suing the Ashley Furniture HomeStore of Secaucus, N.J., Ashley CEO Eugene Chrinian and Ashley’s director of people services and development Kathy Martin, in Federal Court because she she was fired for being a lesbian.

On October 5, 2012, Martin and and Isabella were walking in the parking lot and approached Isabella’s car when Martin asked her about an HRC decal that she had on her car. Isabella explained to Martin that the decal was an ‘equality symbol.‘ Martin then asked Isabella if it was for ‘the gays’ and then told her that she was not sure that she made the right decision about hiring her because she did not fit the ‘culture’ at the company. Martin then explained that she was going to ‘speak to God’ about it and wheather Isabella should continue her employment with Ashley Furniture.

The next day Isabella was called into a meeting with Martin and Alfred Nunez (sales manager) where Martin told Isabella that she had prayed about it and that God had spoken to her and told her that she needed to let Isabella go. Martin told her: ‘You just don’t fit our culture. … I need someone in your position that can embody our mission statement. Your beliefs just don’t fit them”‘ although Martin stressed that Isabella was very competent at her job and stated that ‘We all know you are very capable and can easily manage the entire department.’”
And Ashley Furniture receives bonus points for employing someone who cultivates a racist environment by its purported “Christian” Martin (Courthouse News):
“During this meeting, Martin made a number of derogatory remarks about homosexuals, stating that ‘lesbos and gays would be judged’ and that she follows the ‘word of Leviticus’ – which purportedly condemns homosexuality – and that ‘there are many who call themselves true Christians, but they don’t know what that means.” (Brackets in complaint.)
On her first day of work, Perez claims in the complaint, she heard Martin refer to an employee as “nigga.”

When she asked Martin not to use that language in the workplace, Martin told her, “‘Girl, please. They’re different. It was nigga, not [the n-word].’ Martin then advised plaintiff that she needed to be more understanding of the company’s ‘culture,’” according to the complaint. (Brackets in complaint.)

Two other human resources employees told Perez “that Martin often directed derogatory and discriminatory comments to them, including referring to them as ‘nigga’ (as well as the n-word), ‘bitch,’ ‘heifer,’ ‘ghetto,’ ‘lesbo’ and ‘fag,’ among others,” the complaint states.

[O Really]

As a public health matter I would be fine with a law requiring that food and healthcare workers be given paid sick time. Society ends up subsidizing the bosses with its health otherwise.

That's a law that would be rife with abuse - from both sides -

How so? Lots of employers already offer paid sick time.

and particularly if one values individual medical privacy.

How so? Such a law would not require accessing medical records. Some employers do require a doctor's note for multi-day illness. I'm okay with that as a means of limiting abuse.

I'd rather see really steep fines for restaurants who get caught working sick employees.

Wouldn't that be an even greater invasion of medical privacy, not to mention mandating the need for a much bigger inspection bureaucracy? Conviction would require accessing medical records.

Lots of employers provide sick time as an employee benefit. That's a good thing. So should the restaurants. But when something becomes law, it gets nit-picked to death. You think the argument over "the meaning of 'is'" is picky - go back and look at the volumes required to define "serious health condition" under the FMLA. How sick would they have to be? And what would they have to have? Something contagious? What documentation would be required? Could the employer demand a second opinion? If the employee was required to go to a doctor to be eligible, they would still show up sick if they didn't have good health insurance.

I'm not saying there should be more inspections than there are now. I'm just saying I'd rather see "working a sick/contagious employee" should be on the list of infractions along with other health violations, and carry a steep fine. Only need a means of reporting, like a sign giving an 800 number to call if the server sneezes in your soup. Of course, the public doesn't see a lot of the workers in a large restaurant.

[O Really]

Ah, I see what you mean, that would be complex. Rather, I was thinking of a law that said little more than, "Paid sick leave shall be offered, __ days per year." It's not like private or government employers offering it now have all the contortions you're proposing.

If someone other than the sick employee reports a potential violation then I still say that your Rx would require accessing medical records.

They don't have all the contortions because the employee has no legal right to the time, and has no recourse of the employer refuses to pay it. Lots of employers had medical leave, maternity leave, yada before FMLA, but once there was a legal right, then any denial of benefit could be litigated, so employers started sharpening pencils. FMLA was originally one of the simplest, cleanest labor laws written, but, for example, it requires up to "12 weeks" of time off. Do you have any idea how many different ways one can come up with the count "12 weeks"?

Yeah, you're right. I've changed my mind on the fine, sort of, but it is the employer's job to provide a safe and sanitary eating environment, and working a sick employee isn't doing it.

[O Really]

In the unlikely event you get an answer, it will probably be that the stores are franchises and corporate Ashely is clean as the new swept snow. But it's still their name on the door - still the name people recognize.