HHS Secretary Azar Secures Trump Healthcare Victory
Implementing price transparency will save families thousands of dollars and bring free market forces to bear on healthcare.
Who said President Trump didn’t have a health plan?
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is implementing the president’s healthcare agenda and improving the way health insurance companies operate by requiring more price transparency. This will likely prove to be the most effective healthcare reform ever enacted.
“We want every American to be able to work with their doctor to decide on the healthcare that makes sense for them, and those conversations can’t take place in a shadowy system where prices are hidden,” he said when announcing the recent rule change that will change healthcare for virtually all Americans, and change it for the better.
The finalized rule change requires private health insurers to disclose in real-time and prior to treatment the cost of medical services. Effectively, the rule requires insurers to put a price tag on medical services so consumers can shop around and plan accordingly.
The rule also requires private insurers to disclose the exact dollar amount they pay healthcare providers for specific services. Consumers can then gauge whether they’re being charged too much for a particular procedure or treatment and look elsewhere.
As Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia says, “American workers in employer-sponsored health plans will now have access to real-time, personalized cost-sharing information that empowers them to shop and compare costs between specific providers before receiving care.”
Implementing price transparency, moreover, will relieve pressure from the many Americans who have been financially hurt by COVID-19. Even before the pandemic, 16% of Americans had received a surprise medical bill, and 22% were scared to go to the doctor because they didn’t think they could afford it.
Timothy Regan's story shows why many Americans are afraid to seek care even during a global pandemic. Mr. Regan went to the ER after experiencing coronavirus symptoms but, instead of receiving a COVID-19 test, he underwent a regime of unrelated diagnostic tests. Because he never took a COVID-19 test, his insurance company tried to deny him coverage and left him with a bill for $3,200.
Forcing insurers and hospitals to tell patients how much treatment costs will alleviate these types of worries and drive down prices by increasing competition. Americans should feel they can go to the hospital when they need care, and we should encourage people to get tested, not hit them with surprise bills.
No one goes to the Apple Store to buy an iPhone without finding out how much the phone and its contract cost. If a company like Apple doesn’t reveal its prices, it would soon go out of business. Price tags exist when we buy a phone or eat out; there is no reason this same basic principle shouldn’t apply when Americans shop for healthcare.
Empirical research shows price transparency could save the average family approximately $11,000 annually and cut healthcare costs by more than 30%. Insurers and hospitals would have to compete with each other to offer the lowest prices. If a patient is being charged thousands for routine tests, like an MRI, they could go elsewhere and receive the same care for less.
These savings would boost our economy while we recover from COVID-19. The esteemed economist Arthur Laffer argues, “The rules will unleash a real market in healthcare, usher in competition and choice, dramatically lowering the costs of care and coverage. Fewer dollars going to health care and more going to wages, jobs and small businesses in our local communities will help boost our nation’s economic recovery.”
Secretary Azar has helped President Trump achieve a huge victory for the American people. Implementing price transparency will save families thousands of dollars and bring free market forces to bear on healthcare. This reform couldn’t be more timely and wouldn’t have been possible without Secretary Azar’s relentless effort.
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/74782
Will Christian Conservatives Be Prosecuted and Removed from Society?I want to assure you that the title to this article is not click bait. Rather, it reflects the very open sentiments of the extreme leftist, political commentator Keith Olbermann. He has made himself perfectly clear.
Before I share his exact words, though, I want to be perfectly clear as well. My answer to the question of whether Christian conservatives will soon be prosecuted by the millions and removed from American society is an emphatic (but qualified) no.
It is an emphatic “no” because there is no way that tens of millions of Christian conservatives would simply stand by and let this happen. Not a chance.
It is a qualified “no” because, in part, it has happened already. Christian conservatives have been prosecuted for their Christian beliefs. We have been imprisoned for our beliefs, right here in America in the 21st Century.
More broadly, we have been marginalized and muted by the cancel culture and the spirit of intimidation. And the more we cower and capitulate, the worse it will get. Now is the time to stand up and speak out. And while Olbermann’s sentiments may be extreme, they are not isolated.
I have documented for years how Christian conservatives have been likened to Hitler, to the Nazis, to the KKK, to ISIS, and that was long before Donald Trump appeared on the political scene.
I have supplied verbatim quotes of protesters wishing that we would be thrown or the lions or killed in other ways.
And, again, this had been totally unrelated to hostility towards President Trump. The hatred was in response to our conservative, biblical ideology, most particularly, when it came to LGBTQ activism. And no matter how loving or gracious or compassionate we were, we were still branded haters, people who were a danger to society. People who should be removed.
As one reviewer on my Facebook page stated, “It’s people like this so called ‘Doctor’ are what are wrong with the world.
“People like him need to be bound and tied by their hands and feet, beaten repeatedly in the head with their book of fairy tales until they are twitching from never [sic] damage and bleeding profusely from their ignorant heads.”
Yes, “people like him,” meaning, people like you, too, if you share my beliefs. By no means was I the sole target of this demented person’s rage.
As for Olbermann, whose words reach far more people than that Facebook review, he said this on October 9: “The task is two-fold. The terrorist Trump must be defeated, must be destroyed, must be devoured at the ballot box. And then he, and his enablers, and his supporters, and his collaborators, and the Mike Lees and the William Barrs and the Sean Hannnitys and the Mike Pences and the Rudy Gulianis and the Kyle Rittenhouses and the Amy Coney Barretts must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society while we try to rebuild it and rebuild the world that Trump has nearly destroyed by turning it over to a virus. Remember it.” (He also referred to Trump supporters as “maggots” and “morons” in his rant).
Of course, this is beyond unhinged, and I pity Olbermann more than anything. He is certainly zealous. And I’m sure there are good things he stands for. But this is completely beyond the pale, totally irresponsible, and very dangerous.
Thankfully, this was not delivered on network TV but rather on Olbermann’s new YouTube channel (which now has 123K subscribers). And while the clip has 8.6K thumbs up, it also has 7.3K thumbs down.
But without question, his words reflect the seething hostility that exists toward Christian conservatives in many quarters in America today. We dare not underestimate it.
And even though this clip is more than one month old, I bring it up today because of the attitudes already surfacing in the apparent electoral defeat of Trump. No need to hold back any longer!
Yet this is not simply because many of us voted for Trump. As I noted, the hostility was there long before he came on the scene, and it will be there long after he is gone.
It is an ideological hatred more than a political hatred, a hatred based on deep moral differences, a hatred that can easily turn violent, as it often has through the centuries and in recent months.
That’s why it’s fair to ask: on what charges will people like us be prosecuted and convicted? (Let’s be more specific: on what charges should Amy Coney Barrett be prosecuted and convicted?)
And, how, exactly, will people like us be “removed” from society? Prison? Concentration camps? Something worse?
Again, I haven’t the slightest fear of something like this happening in the immediate future here in America. The country would have to fall to depths beyond our imagination for that to happen so quickly. But every step in that direction is a dangerous step, and every step should be resisted.
It is true that Trump has inflamed hostilities with his own irresponsible rhetoric. We must continue to separate ourselves from those words and sentiments.
But let’s not deceive ourselves. Trump is not the ultimate issue. It’s our beliefs. Our faith. Our values. Our Bible. Our God.
It’s about to get really ugly here in our land. Resolve to stand strong. Resolve to speak the truth. Resolve not to be moved by fear. Resolve not to live for the praises of people. Resolve not to be marginalized.
And determine not to respond to hatred with hatred. Let’s show the Keith Olbermanns of the world who we really are. Let’s overcome evil with good.
Organization That Made Public Blacklist of Trump Supporters Shuts Down After Massive Backlash
The "Trump Accountability Project" was created shortly after media outlets declared Democratic nominee Joe Biden the winner in the presidential election, with its mission being to list those who worked in President Trump's administration to hold them "accountable."
Attention was first brought to the Trump Accountability Project after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) asked if there was such a list being created since Trump did not do everything Democrats perceive as being wrong.
People then started to post links to the project's website and people were already being listed to make potential employers aware the applicant worked in the Trump administration, which drew heavy criticism from Republicans.
In a new post on their site, the Trump Accountability Project said they will be shutting down to be in accordance with "the President-elect's call to build a more united country":
"The Trump Accountability Project was started because we believe restoring democratic norms are vital to protecting America's future. A critical part of making sure the nation never finds itself in this position again is to make sure those members of the Trump administration responsible for loosening the guardrails of our democracy are not rewarded with book deals, TV contracts, or six-figure salaries in the private sector based on that experience. Ultimately, however, the goal of the project was to play a part in restoring the soul of the nation, and we'll follow President-elect Biden's lead to get us there.
Accordingly, in the spirit of the President-elect's call to build a more united country, this project will no longer be active."
Jobs for the girls
Bettina Arndt on the feminist scene
Australia’s Education Minister Dan Tehan is working on legislation to force our recalcitrant universities to properly tackle free speech on campuses. But it’s one thing to find ways of stopping students throwing tomatoes at a Prime Minister’s car and quite another to take on the current feminist culture which encourages blatant discrimination against men in academic appointments, and censors publications or scholarship which challenge their preferred narrative.
The Henrekson study
Across the Western World, universities kowtow to these orthodoxies. I have recently been corresponding with Swedish economist Magnus Henrekson, a professor and president of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm.
Professor Henrekson told me about an exciting study he completed recently. It was based on an extremely large and exhaustive data set covering the entire Swedish population, used state-of the art econometric techniques and their hypothesis was confirmed, with strong empirical support.
Henrekson and his colleague Carl Magnus Bjuggren sent it to various top economic journals – only to receive endless rejections. “We have gotten pushbacks everywhere. It is obvious that the issue is not the quality of the paper per se. The problem is that the research question and the results are controversial (i.e., politically incorrect). We just get desk rejects where editors say that this is not an interesting question, or we get twisted reviews where reviewers go out of their way to conjure up outlandish alternative explanations to our findings.”
Findings about what? Well, the first version of their paper was entitled “Avoiding the housewife stigma: Self-employment as a female career choice”. So, the crux of the Swedish research is that women who marry men with extremely high incomes often start their own businesses which then underperform.
Isn’t that a hoot? In this elevated social set, it goes down better at cocktail parties for these women to mention they are importing matsutake mushrooms or designing diamond nose studs than simply raising rug rats.
It’s clearly not singing from the feminist songbook to suggest that the presence of a well-heeled husband could result in women choosing to dabble in unprofitable businesses rather than pursuing careers. Hence no one is allowed to publish research showing this is the case and even the most eminent journal reviewers meekly toe the party line.
I’ve been hearing such stories for decades. Research challenging the current cultural dogma simply doesn’t get published and students writing theses on the wrong topics can’t find supervisors or end up not qualifying for their degrees.
Unfair treatment of Colin Brown
Students like Colin Brown who has been fighting a mighty battle for a proper hearing after his PhD thesis on workplace male age discrimination was failed by a Melbourne university. Although it was initially passed by the two required examiners, the Dean of Graduate Research - a self-proclaimed feminist - then managed to disqualify one of these passes.
Eventually the Dean had his thesis failed after a number of strange "accidents” which included stalling on submitting his thesis for examination for 4½ months and then sending out a mangled version which the university had distorted in printing, leading to a negative response from two new examiners. The whole ghastly saga has been published here.
Bias in astronomy
One of the most striking essays included in Janice Fiamengo’s book, Sons of Feminism, was written by an Australian astronomer who ultimately decided to leave the country due to the invasion of his discipline by feminist and social justice politics.
Janice has given permission for me to share his thoughtful analysis with you – see here – as he explains exactly how the playing field is being systematically tilted to favour women.
Here, in his own words, is what life is like for an academic dealing with this climate:
“Before telescope-time or grant application meetings, we are now commonly subjected to patronizing speeches by diversity figureheads, who remind us how important it is to be fair to female applicants, how we should think twice before rejecting their applications, and how we should be mindful of gender balance and role models in our selection. It is a low-level form of brainwashing. We know that if we select too many male applicants (even if we do it on merit) our choice and motives will be scrutinized, monitored, criticized. Instead, if we select a few more female applicants (even if not all on merit), we will be praised and left in peace. Most astronomers unsurprisingly choose the path of least resistance.”
And this is the result:
“Some astronomers still spend most of their time researching and monitoring the sky; others instead spend most of their time researching and monitoring gender balance within astronomy departments, setting up equity-and-diversity committees, writing 200-page reports on discrimination, conferring awards to themselves for their social-justice work, making up new types of privileges, and running blogs full of political propaganda. Unfortunately, funding is shrinking for the former class of astronomers like me and is ever-expanding for the latter.”
Before this academic left Australia, the writing was already on the wall: “To obtain a good job, a male astronomer needs to be in the top 10% of male applicants, while a female astronomer only needs to be average.”
The astronomer also comments on the feminist claim that astronomy departments are rife with sexual assaults and harassment. He points out there have been examples of inappropriate behaviour – famous male professors duly shamed for having relationship with young post-docs or students. But, as he says, no one ever calls out the female students who flirt with senior male professors whose careers have benefited from such interactions. And female professors have relations with younger male post-docs and nobody complains.
A steady stream of men have been shamed as creepy aggressors on the Women in Astronomy blog which the writer suggests has become similar to the Red Guards' Dazebaos during the Cultural Revolution.
“As a male, I could be anonymously accused of sexual harassment on that blog without a shred of evidence, and my career would be over in a frenzy of online lynching before I had a chance to defend myself. No wonder we all choose to toe the line in public.”
Change in Australian politics?
Reading his words, I naturally thought of the ABC television’s latest public lynching – the 4 Corners programme this week on sexual misconduct by government ministers. What was quite extraordinary was staffer Rachelle Miller accusing her former boss and lover, now immigration minister Alan Tudge, of hypocrisy for having an affair with her whilst espousing family values. The programme allowed Miller to play the victim, complain bitterly about feeling used by Tudge and not one word about her responsibility in conducting the affair, risking the breakup of two families.
But that point aside, it will be interesting to see whether this constant narrative inflating the risks for women of working with potentially predatory powerful men will eventually misfire on the sisterhood.
Earlier this week I was in Parliament House, meeting with various parliamentarians and advisers, talking mainly about the campus kangaroo courts. It was encouraging to learn our efforts to alert the public to what’s going on here are much appreciated by key people in government.
At one point I was directed through the labyrinth of offices by a gorgeous young woman, tottering along on towering stilettos showing off her shapely bottom. You wonder how long prominent men will dare offer jobs to such beautiful creatures, or any young women. In this current climate we are already hearing women complain of being excluded from out-of-office socialising.
Was it just a coincidence that there seemed to be more young male staffers in some of the offices? Perhaps this is one area where feminist overkill might actually benefit men - if male employees become the safer bet for men in power.
Bettina Arndt newsletter: newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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