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20110716
20110713
With Friends Like These...
150,983 people with individual Anthem policies plans overseen by the Department of Managed Health Care, an agency under California Gov. Jerry Brown (left), saw raised rates by as much as 26% in their premium starting May 1st — in addition to a hike in co-pay and deductibles.
Practically all of them will be paying significantly more than those (about 600,000 people) who had the good fortune of being under the supervision of State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.
Many of the policyholders facing bigger rate increases said they were surprised to learn that their individual plans were regulated by the managed healthcare department. They said they had believed — incorrectly — that they too would see a limited increase on their rates and other costs, like most other consumers with individual policies from Anthem.
The department asked Anthem to justify the cost differences and report back by April 25 — days before the new rates took effect.
More than two months later, now, nearly 121,000 people are still eagerly awaiting an answer.
Doubtless, any time soon, now, they'll be hearing back from the department...
Consumer advocates also are puzzled:
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Contempt for the People
I didn't like it, then, when the Bush-Cheney administration was doing it.
And I don't like it, now, when the Obama administration does it.
Transactional Analysis calls it a Crossed Transaction:
A Crossed transaction is one in which the ego-state being responded to is not the ego-states that was addressing the respondent.
While usually not intentional (i.e. non-conscious), this state of things however can be deliberate where politics is concerned—and oftentimes carefully cultivated (the father figure still remains to this day a proven potent political archetype).
Happens all the time.
Especially in a system, where the relationship between a wealthy political elite and ordinary citizens is not unlike that between nobles and commoners.
Low levels of education and literacy and a debilitated media (subservient to the aforementioned elite) mean that many people are not fully informed about what matters to them. Their deliberate isolation from social, economical and ecological realities means that many do not even think of politics, other than the unexamined commonplace and misleading talking points of the day being served to them by the media (aka disinformation). There is a common feeling that the average person cannot affect the politics of the country, so there is no reason to try (other than once every few years—those who still have faith in the system—during election time).
As for those who try...
Except, that, as it turns out, the Republican caucus really does have nothing to do with it, does it, Mr. President?
Just as the Republican Caucus really had nothing to do either with the "no public option" backroom deal you made with the for-profit hospital lobby in Summer 2009 (I know what you did last Summer).
In a perfect modern representative democracy, of course, the ideal line of communication between the people and their political representatives would be the mature and rational "Adult-Adult" relationship:
Talking at the same level as the other person acts to create trust.
Don't hold your breath, though—it's not going to happen.
There is nothing that politicians fear most than an educated and informed population.
In politics, people are not to be "informed," they are to be "handled" (this is Machiavellianism-101, for you).
"Controlling-Parent" politicians invites their constituents into a Child state where they may conform with their demands. The Adaptive "naughty child" and rebel, of course, is, a natural byproduct of that kind of dynamic. The Adaptive Child reacts to the world around them, either changing themselves to fit in or rebelling against the forces they feel. But "naughty children" have always been so easy to marginalize—especially with the help of the compliant media. They can be manipulated and their anger and frustration channeled and redirected (e.g. Tea Party movement), or they can be ridiculed and dismissed as irrelevant (e.g. President Obama's most favored method in handling dissent from his progressive base).
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20110709
20110707
Nature Shows . . .
Always sure to captivate and amaze!
Entertaining and educational, and entirely factual, they portay the environment in fun, adventurous, amusing ways – ideal for a solid learning experience, no matter the age.
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20110706
You should be so lucky
The question is . . .
Would the inhabitants of New Pacifica conceivably be as gullible as the Aztecs or the Incas?
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