Gus, that gang was bypassed yonks ago. You do them too much credit, assuming they bother with original thought any more.

The agricultural by-product is shoveled directly into the organs of our righteous stinktanks, from the Rove-Cheney-Wolfowitz machine, to stain the op-ed pages of our dailies.

I wish someone could reconstruct the muck from a WW1 trench, and pour it under the door of the Sydney Institute. Ban Eric Bogle?

What we will not see - photos of John & Janette in front of the "reconstruction" of Anzac Cove.

Extract from the New York Times

FDA Places Restrictions on Accutane

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 12, 2005

Filed at 7:59 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The thousands of Americans who take the acne drug Accutane -- and people who prescribe and dispense it -- must enroll in a national registry, part of a major government program to tighten access to the medicine that causes birth defects.

The Food and Drug Administration enacted unprecedented curbs Friday in trying to keep Accutane and its generic competitors on the market while ensuring that women who use the risky pills don't get pregnant. Critics see it as the drug's last chance, after two decades of safety warnings and other restrictions failed to end Accutane-damaged pregnancies.

From the ABC

Govt to sell Medibank Private
The Federal Government will introduce legislation into Parliament in the next few weeks to begin the process to sell Medibank Private, Australia's largest private health insurer.

The sale of the public asset is expected to net the Government $1 billion.

The Government made the announcement today, along with a raft of internal changes to the private health insurance industry.

The Government is still deciding on the method of the sale, but plans to complete it during the next financial year.

Under the changes, the Health Minister would still have to approve rises in insurance premiums, and the Government will make a major financial contribution to medical research to be announced in the federal Budget in a fortnight.

Finance Minister Nick Minchin says it has become a conflict of interest for the Government to hold onto the major health insurer.

"The Government's overwhelmingly primary responsibility is to regulate that industry," he said.

"It is not appropriate for the Government to be the regulator of that industry and the owner of, at the moment, the single biggest player in that industry."

The Opposition says insurance premiums will rise if the sale proceeds, but the Government has been moving to reassure policy holders that will not happen.

read more at the ABC

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I invite you to look at the cartoon leading this line of blogs. Gus

From the Jewish World Review Feb 14, 2005 / 5 Adar I, 5765
Tony Snow

The Budget: An Explainer
as Tony Snow explains the recent US budget....

(first read this note explaining that Tony Snow is "Fox Commentator to Join White House, Officials Say
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: April 26, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 25 — Tony Snow, the Fox News radio and television commentator, has agreed to become the White House press secretary and could be officially named to the post as early as Wednesday, administration officials said on Tuesday.

Unlike the soft-spoken current press secretary, Scott McClellan, who announced his resignation last week, Mr. Snow is something of a showman, having earned his living in a world in which success hinges upon being provocative.

Mr. Snow has even written recent columns critical of Mr. Bush, arguing that his White House had lost its verve and direction in his second term.

A senior administration official said the president chose Mr. Snow, 50, to become one of the most visible faces of the administration because he understood newspapers, radio, television and government [Tony Snow was press secretary for Bush senior for a while], having worked in all four areas.")

-----------------------
Tony Snow explains this year's US budget....
...
""""Despite all the talk about "deep cuts" in the president's budget, such things are few and far between. Nearly 80 percent of the federal budget right now has been spoken for already. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security gobble up more than half the free cash. Defense claims another large chunk, leaving Congress to tinker with the remaining 17 percent. After Congress has finished "deep cutting" the budget, expenditures will grow by at least 3.6 percent, and probably more than 5 percent. Only in Washington could someone spend an additional $125 billion a year and call it "deep cuts."

Economists have an explanation for this. They call it "rent seeking." Think of a politician's soul as an apartment. Think of lobbyists as renters. Each year, the renters show up, waving wads of cash. Politicians survey the throng. The winning contestants get to occupy the apartments on a one-year lease. It's a great deal for lobbyists: They spend millions and take home billions. It's not such a good deal for you or me, because we pay the billions and, if we use the goods and services promoted by the lobbyists, we pay the millions, too.

Worst of all, all this money changes hands for the purpose of maintaining a government that became obsolete decades ago. The Social Security system is a New Deal dinosaur. So are many of our regulatory agencies. Medicare and Medicaid bring us to the Mesozoic era of liberalism, but they also have run their course."""""

read more at the Jewish World Review
------------------------------
Gus calls all this lobbying collusion, corruption... fiddles. The US they call it business...
And of course the poor people, dinosaurs still living in the mesozoic due to their circumstances, will simply vanish, sick and tired of living in a cruel society.

From David Brooks NYT

Goldhill’s main message is that the American health care system is dysfunctional at the core. He vividly describes how the system hides information, muddies choices, encourages more treatment instead of better care, neglects cheap innovation, inflates costs and unintentionally increases suffering.

------------------

Here is Australia, we're lucky... The semi-socialised Medicare for all still works despite ballooning technology costs that gives us an extra six month/years to live when previously we would have been happy to die in our own bed — without pain if possible. And even doctors who really care can make a buck out of the bulk billing system. But politicians always like to fiddle big and re-invent the wheel when a dab of grease is sufficient — all so their names can be written in gold in the history books.

But the American health system appears to be corrupt at all levels and be based on one's ability to pay. It will need open heart surgery of its fundamentals. See toon at top.

Note: Medibank Private is still in the hands of the government...

When John Howard resumed leadership of the Liberals in 1995, he abandoned their long-standing opposition to Labor's Medicare (and Medibank before it). But that didn't stop him using a succession of carrots and sticks to get people back into private health insurance.

When Labor returned to power in 2007, it lost no time in seeking to water down those incentives. In its first budget it raised the income thresholds at which middle- and high-income earners became liable for the additional, 1 per cent Medicare levy surcharge if they didn't have private insurance.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/why-health-cover-needs-no-subsidies-20120207-1r4qp.html#ixzz1lkJAcFsO

see toon at top...

Health Minister Peter Dutton [CONservative] has flagged an overhaul of Medicare, suggesting Australians who can afford it should pay more for their healthcare.

Mr Dutton has used a major speech to declare he wants there to be a frank, fearless and far-reaching discussion about the health system.

He says the current system is unsustainable and he wants to "modernise and strengthen" Medicare.

He has told the ABC's 7.30 program there needs to be discussion around co-payments.

"Commonwealth and state governments contribute 92 cents in the dollar for those treated in the public system," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-19/peter-dutton-flags-medicare-overhaul/5270940

See toon at top... Nothing new when the conservatives are pulling wings off flies...