The Sarah Palin game plan I clearly see is to gather together the millions upon millions upon millions of independent thinking grass roots voters from across party lines and from across the country and focus them on key issues and on electing the candidates who will do the job the Independent Thinking American Majority Demands that they do.

Obama woke them up with a bucket of Cold Water in their Faces… over $2 Trillion Deficit Dollars worth of Cold Water with full intentions of Taxing the Cap & Trade out of them while ruining the American Health Care System with a Government Owned and Operated Health Scare System that will bankrupt the country while destroying the existing quality and timeliness of health care today.

Now that they are awake, Sarah will show the way to defeating the Socialists who would dare to destroy our Country and Society.

Bow Down To Obama?
Bow Down To Socialism?

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

I Don’t Think So!

SARAH HAS SOMETHING TO SAY TO THAT!

Thanks to Voting Female for posting this. Visit her site and read her post in it’s entirety.

As Democrats in Congress push forward THEIR idea of health reform it is becoming clear that the battleground will now move to cost. Cost will become the battle cry along with cost control, savings and eliminating “needless” care. This is a slippery slope America is now going down, one that does not spell a happy ending for the millions of baby boomers, many of whom are embracing this approach as a sort of lingering nostalgia from their 1960’s days of youthful rebellion.

President Obama addressed some of these issues today: “Already, Congress has embraced our proposal to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary spending and unwarranted giveaways to insurance companies in Medicare and Medicaid . . . I realize there’s going to be a lot of debate and disagreement on how best to achieve these long-term savings. Our proposal would change incentives so that providers will give patients the best care, not just the most expensive care, which will mean big savings over time.”

WHO DECIDES WHAT IS NECESSARY?

There is much to agree with the President on.  However, the concern that many have relates to what is ‘unnecessary and unwarranted’.  Who will make those decisions?  We know how the National Health Service in England does it. For the most part its process is slow, with new treatments and technologies lagging.

For example, percutaneous endoscopic discectomy. This procedure remains unapproved for NHS patients as of June 2009.  The NICE sets rules for what is and is not available to patients under the NHS budgets.  In essense, though they do not ration care  per se, they DO RATION ACCESS TO TYPES OF CARE.  Yet, this same technique is widely reported on in the literature over the past decade and is generally available throughout the United States from specialists in neurosurgery.  It is not the only technique available, but is an OPTION for patients seeking a minimally invasive alternative to more traditional open surgery.  The American health system has led the way in giving broad access to these types of medical advances. There are many examples of this.

The Canadian system is worse, mainly in that there is no competition at all with the provincial health services.  For example, from 1987 to 1995 the Ontario Health Insurance Plan spent more than $1.1 billion for U.S. medical services provided to Ontarians.   That is patients who left Ontario to seek treatment in the US as well as patients who happened to be in the US and received medical care. Some Ontarians are crossing the border to seek specific types of medical services that typically are more available in the United States.  This is likely the motivation for cross-border care seeking for CABG surgery, residential substance abuse treatment, and experimental cancer therapy. Thus, there is evidence that the United States does serve as a destination for Canadians seeking certain kinds of services that may be less available in Canada. The case of TMJ surgery reinforces the notion that constrained supply in Canada may be less immediately responsive to rapid changes in the demand for highly specialized treatments than in the United States.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 created the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research to coordinate comparative effectiveness research across the Federal government. The Council will specifically make recommendations for the $400 million allocated to the Office of the Secretary for CER.  It is clear, given the calls for cost controls, that this entity will in fact reflect the actions of NICE in England and ration access to technology, drugs and other medical advances in the name of controlling costs.

DEFENSIVE MEDICINE

Regarding waste, at $210 billion annually, defensive medicine is one of the largest contributors to wasteful spending, and it can manifest in many forms: unnecessary CT scans, MRIs, cardiac testing and hospital admissions.  A 2005 survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 93% of doctors reported practicing defensive medicine.

Why do doctors order these unnecessary tests? The simple reason is that every physician wants to avoid being sued. Win or lose, the ordeal of a malpractice trial is a devastating experience. The American Academy of Family Physicians, citing a study that interviewed doctors who had fought medical liability cases, said 90% “suffered significant mental effects from the lawsuits” and, disturbingly, 10% contemplated suicide.

A landmark study from The New England Journal of Medicine analyzed more than 1,400 malpractice claims and found that in almost 40% of cases, no medical error was involved. Facing such an unpredictable malpractice climate, a physician’s instinct is to increase testing. When facing jurors and trying to explain a medical catastrophe, who wants to tell them why a specific test wasn’t ordered?

PUBLIC/PATIENT RESPONSIBILITIES

It is also abundantly clear that patients bear a great deal of responsibility as well for rising health care costs. The continual removal of responsibility by employers, health plans and the government has created a perception that health care is free among many.  It has now been well shown that placing financial incentives back onto patients, such as the use of HSAs, has led to more discernment among those patients in their choices about use of the health care system as well as options.  Removing all financial constraints places the patient in the position of expecting everything and the physician in the untenable position of acting as a cost comptroller . . . which is something physicians should not be forced to do.

Among workers over the age of 65 responding to the National Health Interview Survey [2003-2007], 12% of respondents reported that they are current smokers, 21% are risky drinkers, and 75% are not following recommended leisure-time exercise.  Drug and alcohol use was greater among younger workers ages 18-29 years, with more than half of these workers reporting one of the four types of use [illicit drug use only, problem drinking only, heavy drinking only, or both drug use and problem/heavy drinking].

People who adopt four healthy behaviors — not smoking; taking exercise; moderate alcohol intake; and eating five servings of fruit and vegetables a day — live on average an additional fourteen years of life compared with people who adopt none of these behaviors, according to a new study.  So it is clear that a combination of bad habits, bad diet, lack of exercise and open ended expectations of the health system are also playing a major role in driving system wide costs, both in terms of unecessary tests and procedures, but also in terms of health consequences of detrimental behaviors.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Seventy-six million American babies were born between 1946 and 1960, representing cohorts that would be significant on account of its size alone. This cohort shares characteristics like higher rates of participation in higher education than previous generations and an assumption of lifelong prosperity and entitlement developed during their childhood in the 1950s.

In the 1985 study of US generational cohorts by Schuman and Scott, a broad sample of adults was asked, “What world events over the past 50 years were especially important to them?”For the baby boomers the results were:

Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from circa 1946 to 1955), the young cohort who epitomized the cultural change of the sixties

Memorable events: assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., political unrest, walk on the moon, risk of the draft into the Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, drug experimentation, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women’s movement, protests and riots,Woodstock, mainstream rock from the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix experimentation with various intoxicating recreational substances
Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented
Key members: Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush

Baby Boomer cohort #2 or Generation Jones (born from circa 1956 to 1964)

Memorable events: Watergate, Nixon resigns, the Cold War, lowered drinking age in many states 1970-1976 (followed by raising), the oil embargo, raging inflation, gasoline shortages, Jimmy Carter’s imposition of registration for the draft, punk or new wave from Deborah Harry and techno pop to Annie Lennox and MTV
Key characteristics: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism
Key members: Douglas Coupland who initially was called a Gen Xer but now rejects it and Barack Obama who many national observers have recently called a post-Boomer, and more specifically part of Generation Jones

57.8 million- Number of baby boomers living in 2030, according to projections; 54.9 percent would be female. That year, boomers would be between ages 66 and 84.

2.1 – The number of workers for each Social Security beneficiary in 2031, when all baby boomers will be over age 65. Currently, there are 3.3 workers for each Social Security beneficiary.

To be sure, demograhics are playing a VERY LARGE ROLE in the exacerbations of cost issues related to health care we are now facing.  However, this is no different than the challenges faced by the educational system during the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s.  We met those challenges. We can meet these. However, we must remain vigilent that as this baby boom generation ages, and health care costs become an ever greater concern, that we do not edge toward solutions that would be morally questionable . . . limiting care, limiting care choices, encouraging a more rapid embrace of end of life options and similar troublesome paths.  Caring for our aged, in all aspects is a moral imperative that we can all agree on admist this debate . . . obi jo

Obama Addresses Concerns Over Health-Care Costs – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/17/AR2009071702665.html

Canadians’ Use Of U.S.Medical Services – http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/17/1/225.pdf

Percutaneous endoscopic laser cervical discectomy – http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/IPG303Guidance.pdf

Comparative Effectiveness Research Funding Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research – http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/programs/cer/index.html

Defensive medicine – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_medicine

Wasted medical dollars – http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/04/wasted-medical.html

Defensive Medicine Among High-Risk Specialist Physicians in a Volatile Malpractice Environment – http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/293/21/2609

Claims, Errors, and Compensation Payments in Medical Malpractice Litigation – http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/354/19/2024

Health Savings Accounts Boost Consumerism in Medicine: Increased Patient Responsibility Inevitable – http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/496154_4

Health Savings Accounts Boost Consumerism in Medicine: Early Adopters Report High Satisfaction – http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/496154_2

Health behaviors and health care costs in the multigenerational workforce – http://agingandwork.bc.edu/documents/FS23_HealthBehaviors_2009-06-10.pdf

Four Health Behaviors Can Add 14 Extra Years Of Life – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080108083001.htm

Combined Impact of Health Behaviours and Mortality in Men and Women: The EPIC-Norfolk Prospective Population Study – http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050012

Baby Boomer – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Boomer

U.S. Interim Projections by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 2000-2050 – http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/usinterimproj/

Social Security Basic Facts – http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/basicfact.htm

www.condron.us     www.blogburst.com     www.bloglines.com     www.blogcatalog.com     www.clusty.com

American Nation Of Change

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Does Obama throw like a sissy?  You be the judge.

For the first time since he took office, President Obama has fallen below 60% in approval ratings. Detractors of the President cite wasteful spending as their main reason for their disapproval. Still, a slight majority of Americans hold favorable views towards the President’s actions, currently at 58%.

The slight drop in approval ratings comes in a week where Sonia Sotomayor is being questioned at her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, any push for serious health care is being carefully watched, and the one year deadline set by the President to close down Guantanamo is approaching the half way point.

Good luck Mr. President, you’ll certainly need it.

I just listened to the President make a speech about healthcare and healthcare reform. Now I have heard this speech so many times from him it make me wonder if he not pulling a play from the play book of Adolf Hitler. Tell the world a lie long enough and they will believe it as truth (Joseph Goebbels (Propaganda Minister)).
So in my head I am wondering how many more times are we going to hear the healthcare speech from the president? I heard the CBO state that the present proposals will raise taxes and make it hard for people to keep the insurance they have and will not be able to cover everyone. As I have paid attention to the debates and arguments, I see the Dems pushing their agenda and the Republicans trying to insert some restraints but being voted down.
To my fellow leaders; take note, once you have wrecked this country by all your regulations, this will not go without political risk. My vote will go to the one who is watching my back. My support will back the one who is watching out for me. If one vote counts, don’t count on mine if you are trying to raise my taxes.
I have listened to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and realize that she just wants to tax us to death and even use funds dedicated for healthcare to pay down the deficit. If I did that, officials would say that I was misappropriating fund. That’s the way I see it…
Sooner than later, congress is going to charge me for taking a breath. Wouldn’t that take the wind out of you sails?

Hillary: Nice pitch the other day (Barack ignores her sarcasm).

Then candidate Obama trying to convince voters he likes beer.

Barack: I’ll have a Stella.

Hillary: I’m fine with this ice water. (Turns to Barack) You’re not drinking your usual?

Barack: After Politico posted the sparkling wine story, I switched to beer. I’m surprised you didn’t order whiskey.

Hillary: Whiskey’s for the cameras (Winks at Barack, crushing ice in her mouth a la Ferris Bueller. Barack cups his balls under the table).

Barack: I’m sure you saw the CBO report. (He takes a sip of his beer and winces like me drinking Peppermint Schnapps at age thirteen)

Then candidate Clinton trying to convince voters she likes whiskey.

Hillary: Yeah, you’re screwed… but not because of health care. (Her speech suddenly incorporates a southern twang) When unemployment gets in them double digits, you gotta worry more ‘bout Chuck and Susan down in Indiana turning against you.

Barack: Yeah. (He nervously places an unlit Marlboro Menthol Light in his mouth)

Hillary: Or maybe, if things go real bad, Jim and Larry over at the Upper West Side. (Still speaking in a twang)  They ain’t likin’ you too much lately as it is.

Barack: Why are you talking like that? (He places the cigarette back on the table)

Hillary: Like what? (She drops the accent.)

Barack: Anyway, I’ve had a rough week, you know, first with my teleprompter crashing, then the health care issue, then the pitch not going as well as I hoped.

Hillary: Catching a tough break.

Barack: Please stop. I need a serious favor from you.  I need you to create a distraction… I need you… (leans over the table) to undermine me at your next press conference.  Get reporters’ attention off me and maybe a little more on you.

Hillary: Ha. Let me tell you something. (She leans in, as well, and whispers to the President) I’m not gonna undermine you.  In fact, for at least the next four years, I’m gonna be so supportive, you’re not gonna know what hit you.

Aww, Bill, let’s call it Monica!

(Bill and Hillary Clinton)

Picture by: dunno source. Caption by: Bonald via Advanced Lol Builder

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On more than one occasion my partner and I have made entries into this blog regarding Sales or the sales process. Each entry has been the result of our meeting with an executive as he/she reflected their views regarding a particular area; in this case Sales and we tried to make heads or tails of their experiences, seeing if they are unique or part of a larger pattern. We recently met a Senior Sales Executive of a well known global software publisher. The conversation went something like this:

Software Executive (SE): So far this year we have been holding our own. Year over year on a year-to-date basis our sales are down about 3% but our profit is down 15%. We can’t figure out why our profit picture isn’t in more decent shape.

Return on Efficiency (RoE): How would you best describe your sales delivery model?

SE: Well, we are a highly matrixed organization and we often have some difficulties internally of how best to distribute revenue and at the same time optimize the client’s spend capabilities.

RoE: Do you feel that your own product quota expectations are too high or too low?

SE: We do a reasonably good job of setting product expectations but often fall short in certain product revenue scenarios.

RoE: Have you streamlined your revenue process before?

SE: No, we had a decent first half until it started to slow down and now we have to quickly take out unnecessary costs and complexity. In fact, we’re meeting soon to brainstorm how this can be done.

RoE: Ok, so the people who have the most to loose by streamlining are thinking about how to streamline?

SE: It sounds contradictory, but that’s how it is right now.

Do you see where this conversation is going? This organization could be its own worst enemy. There is a significant amount of gold one could mine from a matrix heavy organization. The typical matrix has duplicative and compromise written all over it. But more than duplicity; product resources, sales cycle time and management time are often wasted fighting internal battles to gain the upper hand inside the company, worse yet is allowing the battles to be fought in the glare of the customer. Often, a matrix overlay is created when short-term attention is needed on a market or related issue and like most committees, once implemented, an overlay doesn’t seem to go away.  It just becomes ‘it is’.

The matrix really doesn’t work. Oh, it may appear that there is, in an odd way, some sort of check and balance or some rationale that survival depends on who is best at navigating political waters. But at the end of the day and in this economic environment what executive in right mind would want members of his/her team bickering over pennies when significant dollars are wasted arguing.

Just think if the duplicative instances were removed from the scenario above how many more dollars could be gotten from the customer or better yet added to the bottom line. Well thought out Compensation Plans and quota deployment do a far better job and therefore eliminate the need for a matrix. Product overlap, product pricing, and feature applicability to a specific vertical’s needs further advance the ability to quickly remove the duplicity of the matrix. Sales is not just a function of effort.  It’s mostly about time out in the field selling and the more committees eat time, the harder it is for Sales to meet its goals.

Perhaps, it’s not the sales department that’s killing you. It could be all the political masters in the matrix who have an axe to grind for revenue allocation, but have no sales awareness of how to get the job done.  Just how much could you add to the bottom line?

Tom Bergeron is a Managing Principal of Return on Efficiency, LLC, who’s website is www.growroe.com and is one of their senior turnaround leaders/CROs, Program and Interim Executives with over 25 years experience reshaping companies, Operations and sales organizations. He can be reached at tom.bergeron@growroe.com

Though social policies sometimes governed the course of tax policy even in the early days of the Republic, the nature of these policies did not extend either to the collection of taxes so as to equalize incomes and wealth, or for the purpose of redistributing income or wealth. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote regarding the “general Welfare” clause:

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it . . . Thomas Jefferson

COMMENTARY

Taxing selected groups in the United States exclusively for projects that are for the so called common good is a dangerous precedent. That precedent is being set in the Democratic congress and White House.

Altering the tax code is not new. It has been the favorite toy of politicians since the income tax was formally initiated by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution around 1913 (then as now, designed to punish the so called rich for their economic excess or success, whichever version you wish).   The withholding tax on wages was introduced  in 1943.

If health care is a national priority then all should pay, not just a very limited few. If defense is a national priority then all should pay, not just a very limited few. The current method outlined to pay for the massive expansion of federal control of health care is nothing more than a demagogic populist ploy by Democrats to make it easy for the majority of constituents to support this federalization of health care because it “won’t cost them anything” as in “it will be free”. Whoopee!

In tax year 2003 there were over 18 million non-filers and another 33 million who paid no taxes – all of these were modest to lower income returns.  Should not citizens who benefit from our governmental, economic and military system pay at least something?  $5?  $10?  Should not all citizens at least file a return?  Is that too high a price for the privilege of American citizenship?

Have we learned nothing? Is our congress totally bereft of any semblance of public duty and commitment to honor our founding principals? Appartently, when it comes to their agenda, the Democratic majority cares not. They are willing to scuttle the great engine of American ingenuity and free market initiative which made us great, and yes, made our medical system great.

When few are invested, few care about the overall system and its outcome. When all are invested, most will care about the system and its impacts and outcomes.

We have argued aggressively for Real Health Reform.  This bill does contain some of the ideas we have been touting for some time. However, it takes them and then uses them as pretext for massive intrusions, expansions and usurpations that are neither necessary or called for.

The current prescription offered is sadly typical of all of Washington DC thinking. Let’s not just fix the flat tire on the overall excellent car, let’s take the car apart and remake it to OUR liking . . . the way WE think a car should be made . . . and while we are at it, we will remake the way a person operates that car, parks that car, washes that car, maintains that car and we will in the end decide when that car is no longer useful, costs too much and should be discarded.

This my friends, in the end, is the point which will be reached in time if federalization of the health system proceeds, as it appears it will. Once down this road, return is not impossible, but improbable.  There is still time as the Senate moves toward its final version of a bill for course corrections.  Those corrections could still solve the majority of issues we face in reforming healthcare without massive costs and massive federal intervention.

If additional taxes are needed, all should participate if this is to be a national system of reform. Recall the words of Founder Thomas Jefferson above and write your Senator while you still have a chance to make a difference . . . obi jo and jomaxx

HISTORY OF THE U.S. TAX SYSTEM – http://www.treasury.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/ustax.shtml

Nonfilers and Filers With Modest Tax Liabilities, 2003 – http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=283

In the speech given yesterday by Barack Hussein Obama at the NAACP convention, he mentioned that his path to the Presidency was cleared for him by those such as Thurgod Marshall and W.E.B. Dubois. What he forgot to mention was that Dubois was a Communist/Socialist and had championed and admired Joseph Stalin as a “great man”!

DuBois was also investigated by the FBI (ordered during FDR’s administration) for what was basically termed as “un-American activities” in his opposition to nuclear weapons, opposition to the U.S. position in the Korean War and being a Socialist! DuBois visited Russia, Communist China and Africa durijng his life and was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee on his Socialism. Later on he was indicted by the U.S. as a foriegn agent but sadly was acquited of those charges.

This is the pedigree (political and idealogical) of W.E.B. DuBois, a man whom Barack Hussein Obama looks up to and credits the advancement of African Americans in the U.S. What happened to the other great African Americans who were solid American citizens and not Comunists, Socialists and/or radical progressives?

Mr. W.E.B. Dubois thought so much about America that in 1961 he became a citizen of Ghana. His U.S. passpoort was cancelled and he never did renounce his American citizenship.