Category Archives: Commentary

Obamacare Impact on Employer-Provided Health Insurance

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It is no mystery why President Obama issued an executive decree that extended the requirements for implementation of the Affordable Care Act on employer plans to 2014. He did that even though he did not and does not (according to my understanding of how laws are made) have the authority to issue decrees that changes a law passed by Congress and that he signed. The President knew there will be outrage when tens of millions of people on employer health insurance plans begin receiving cancellation notices, and that outrage has now been delayed. 

Estimates of the percentages of employer-insured people who will lose their plans were published in 2010 in the Federal Register.  Reading the entire entry is instructive about the complicated process of imposing a regulation. There is a long list of things that will cause a company plan to no longer be legal. Table Three of the entry provides a midrange estimate that 22% of employer plans did not meet the “grandfathered” requirement by 2011, 38% by 2012, and 51% would not meet the requirement by the end of 2013. The high end estimate is that 69% of plans would not meet requirements by the end of 2013. (See Page 34522, Table Three of the link to see the details of the estimate ranges.) Continue reading →

Third Anniversary for Rocky Flats Facts Web Site

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The most important news about the web site as we have passed the third anniversary of the launch is that there is now a partner writing commentaries, book reviews, and explanations of the origins of expressions. There were a few commentaries and reviews provided by guest writers in the first couple of years, but Kate Rauner, writing under the tag line “Ponderer,” has provided a significant portion of the content in the last year. Her posts have provided a nice expansion in subjects and opinions. I recommend Kate’s fun and interesting science fiction book, “Glitch.” You can see my review of that book on Amazon.

We launched this web site in November 2010 with the primary purpose of providing the free on line book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked.” The book has had a few thousand people view it on line and several hundred copies have been sold on Amazon. There are eleven reviews on Amazon with an average rating of three and one half stars. Continue reading →

Humans Use Tools; So Do Alligators

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“It’s the first time the use of a tool has been documented in reptiles, according to the study published in the current edition of Ethology, Ecology and Evolution.” cnn.com  It seems the gators gather sticks on their snouts, then lie quietly in the water waiting for a hapless bird to try to perch.  Lunging suddenly, the gator grabs the bird.  They use the stick ploy more often during nesting season when birds are collecting sticks for nest-building.

Once, we humans tried to define ourselves as the animals that use tools.  Then we discovered chimpanzees use tools, then that birds use tools.  Now alligators.  If we insist that being human is not a matter of degree, but requires a unique capability, perhaps we can say humans are the animals that compose poetry.  That may work, at least until we understand porpoise languages. Continue reading →

Constitutionality of Obamcare

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President Obama admitted at the health care summit he convened in 2010 that there would be people who would lose their existing health insurance coverage. He admitted that when he was challenged by Eric Cantor that some people would not be able to keep the policies they had selected, and he casually dismissed the question. The following is a transcript of that exchange:

Eric Cantor said, “Because I don’t think you can answer the question in the positive to say that people will be able to maintain their coverage, people will be able to see the doctors they want, in the kind of bill that you are proposing.”

Mr. Obama’s response was, “Since you asked me a question, let me respond. The 8 to 9 million people you refer to that might have to change their coverage — keep in mind out of the 300 million Americans that we are talking about — would be folks who the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office,  estimates would find the deal in the exchange better — would be a better deal. So, yes, they would change coverage because they got more choice and competition.” Continue reading →

What Changes Your Mind?

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“When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.”

Edge.org

I ran into a couple neat web sites recently when I was looking into why people change their minds.

Kirstyevidence has a thoughtful list of reasons why scientists change their minds:  http://bit.ly/NkfVAn   Edge.org asked this very question of scientists and technologists a few years ago.  The quote at the top of this post comes from their site.  The answers are still interesting:  http://bit.ly/N2E5yD

When scientists change their minds, they are applauded.  Continue reading →

Avoiding Genetically Modified Organisms

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I intend this to be the final commentary about Generically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Of course I reserve the right to do more if I feel new information warrants.

Activists who want GMOs to be excluded from human foods are quite upset that the US Department of Agriculture has approved them for human consumption and are protesting and campaigning in several states to require foods derived from GMOs to be clearly labeled. In the interim, people can take the simple step of buying foods labeled as organic. The US and Canadian governments do not allow manufacturers to label something 100% organic if it has been genetically modified or is from an animal that has been fed genetically modified feeds. There is a web site that provides a discussion about the foods most likely to be GMOs. It also says that foods labeled with a four digit PLU number are conventionally produced, those with five digits beginning with 8 are GMOs, and those with a five digit number beginning with 9 are organic. Continue reading →