HillaryCare "...may be a bad dream for some."

I heard the Dhimmicretin candidate for lieutenant governor campaigning here in Atlanta, say that small employers couldn't buy health insurance and the dhimmicretins needed to help them. I am an insurance agent that specializes in entrepreneurial companies with less than 50 employees. I consider them small employers. Under current law, a group health insurance company is not allowed to refuse to offer coverage for employee groups from 2 to 50. The rate increase allowed for medical conditions existing in the group must be filed with the state insurance commissioner and the maximum ranges from 48% to 67% increases from the preferred rates. So just whom was he talking about? I don't think he knows other than it sounds good. Which I think is the actual condition of most people that blather about health insurance.

For example, I had a group of 35 that had three cases of HIV in the group. I was able to offer their group single rates from $175 per month to $320 per month. They chose the most expensive because they wanted the insurance company to pay the most. The company also paid all but $10 per month on the single rate. (The normal amount is 50% of the single rate.) The other thing that is worth noting is most people have higher deductibles on their car insurance than they do on their medical insurance, because they do not buy car insurance to pay for their oil changes, but they do buy medical insurance so that they can pay $20 instead of $60, for a physician to say. "Why yes, you do have a cold, no, you don't need antibiotics unless it gets worse, because you'll heighten your resistance to the antibiotics.”

Another thing they need to consider is this new health plan is going to be brought to you by the same people that brought you Medicare and HMOs. Oh did you forget that the much maligned HMO was a creation of the government? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Batiste and Eaton; My take on General stupidity

Flag officers can't imagine being manipulated and refuse to think that anything has changed since the last time they heard shots fired in anger (probably when they were lieutenants or captains). The one utterly asinine adaptation of the 80's & 90's was the concept of management replacing the quality of leadership. These PPRs (power-point rangers) would probably be halfway decent executives in mega-corps except their "management style" was cultured in an environment where disobedience could be punished by a lot more than "you're fired!" Even with that, there are few competing jobs with the same level of purpose.

I think that they actually thought that the Dhimmicretins were interested in what they had to say, or even more foolishly believed that if they had the right "hook", they would get all of their message out.

Do I think the war has been conducted well? No, but then again, I'm no politician, just an old, beat-up retired SF troop. A commenter on this post at Mudville Gazette said the war was won, I beg to differ. Victory only occurs when you have destroyed the will to resist so thoroughly that anyone that might bring the attention of the soldiers will be turned in or shot by his/her own compatriots to avoid the known consequences. An old saying when I heard it in RVN in the 60's. "When you've got'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

We've been trying to win this war like most of my generation has raised children, with less discipline than is needed to housebreak a puppy.

Management is not the way to win this. Leadership in violence is. Let's do away with Carters EO that extended the previously banned "political assassination" to just "assassination" and start playing whack-a-mole with these "militia leaders" and "clerics" until we have a group more wanting to survive than to impose their will on anyone else. Maybe then they will quit piddling on the carpet.