Bill USA
Bill USA's JournalHealth Insurance Rate Shock-California Obamacare Ins Exchange Premiums LOWER than expected
... even for young people!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/23/california-obamacare-premiums-no-rate-shock-here/
The Congressional Budget Office predicted back in November 2009 that a medium-cost plan on the health exchange – known as a “silver plan” – would have an annual premium of $5,200. A separate report from actuarial firm Milliman projected that, in California, the average silver plan would have a $450 monthly premium.
Now we have California’s rates, and they appear to be significantly less expensive than what forecasters expected.
On average, the most affordable “silver plan” – which covers 70 percent of the average subscriber’s medical costs – comes with a $276 monthly premium. [font color="blue"]{that's $3,300 per year, so the CBO's estimate overshot the number by 57%!! _Bill USA}[/font] For the 2.6 million Californians who will receive federal subsidies, the price is a good deal less expensive, the amount noted in green below.
Health premiums will be lower for the youngest Americans. Here’s how the costs work out for a 25-year-old purchasing the same health plan.
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here's the Federal Poverty Levels: http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html
what's happened to PoliticusUSA? did the Corporate nation conduct a cyber-attack on it?
Browsers say they "can't find the server".
try it yourself: http://www.politicususa.com
Heat reaches triple digits, strains power grids - USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/30/heat-wave-southwestern-united-states/2476675/High temperatures brought sweaty discomfort to much of the Southwest on Sunday with no break in the sizzling temperatures likely until Tuesday.
The thermometer reached 117 in Las Vegas. Triple-digit temperatures were recorded n the valleys and desert regions of Southern California, while metropolitan Phoenix saw just a slight drop in temperatures after experiencing record-breaking heat a day earlier.
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Utility companies struggled to keep up with the demands of air conditioning.
"Some of these generators have been running at full speed for many hours now and they're not designed to do that and they break," said Steven Greenlee, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, managing 80% of the state's power grid.
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Fossil fuel industry toadies keep saying going 'Green' will cost more in utility bills and lost jobs (Note: when the fossil fuel toadies talk of lost jobs they never look at the net figure - which would include more jobs created in Green Energy sector). How much will utility bills and lost work cost when power outages shut down businesses and force repair/replacement or rapid increases in investment in even traditional power sources needed to meet the increased demand for power due relentlessly rising temperatures?
Has anybody figured the costs of heat induced power outages?? and the cost to increase power capacity - even with conventional fossil fuel based infrastructure? This cost has to be figured into the calculations for an accurate baseline to be establilshed for doing NOTHING.
Lotus Engineering's presentation for developing Methanol as a transportation fuel
this is from a few years ago. The fact that Lotus's presentation has never been discussed on American M$M is a testament to the power of the Oil Industry - especially when you consider that methanol has been used for decades in auto racing.
Using methanol would enable us replace most, or virtually all of petroleum as a light transportation fuel. This would constitute a PROFOUND strengthening of our economy through dramatically reducing the amount of money exported for petroleum and freeing us from the adverse economic impact of ever rising oil prices. Biomass based methanol would produce significant reductions of GHG as it replaces gasoline. Use of the MIT designed Ethanol Direct Injection engine (which works with Methanol as well) would enable a quicker reduction to gasoline consumption due to the 25% to 30% increase in fuel efficiency achieved by this engine (at relatively modest cost - relative to hybrids and PHEVs).
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/james_turner_Lotus.pdf
Alcohols as the Alternative (1)
• Alcohols are liquid fuels which provide high on-board energy
density in comparison to gaseous fuels (e.g. hydrogen_B USA)
– Using gasoline-compatible fuel systems (i.e. simple and lightweight)
• They can be distributed via a modified existing infrastructure
• Alcohols are miscible with gasoline
– The transition is easy – ethanol is being blended in now
• No engine modifications necessary up to 10% by volume
• Engine modifications for higher concentrations are minimal and
fully understood
– Principally inlet valve seats, fuel system materials and spark plugs
• Lower alcohols have high octane indices – ideal for ‘downsizing’
• High knock resistance enables better combustion efficiency
– Through optimised ignition advance and higher compression ratios
Alcohols as the Alternative (2)
• Alcohols can be synthesized from biomass, gaseous hydrocarbons
or from hydrogen and carbon mon- or dioxide
– They are alternatives to hydrogen to minimise climatic impact
• Alcohols are therefore excellent potential candidates on which to
base the long-term energy economy
• In ‘biofuel’ form they offer significant well-to-wheel CO2 benefits
• Additionally, the cost of ‘flex-fuel’ capability is trivial
– All new spark ignition vehicles could be made flex-fuel compatible
at minimal on-cost
• This is why Lotus has developed its gasoline/ethanol flex-fuel
Exige 265E vehicle
Renewable Alcohols: Future Possibilities
Using methanol for synthetic chemical production can effectively
remove CO2 from the atmosphere (“auto-sequestration”)
• To encourage this, Lotus believes that in 2012 the small step of
legislation requiring all gasoline vehicles to be gasoline/ethanol
flex-fuel should be enacted
– Gives a significant market incentive to renewable fuels suppliers
• There is therefore a potential for a joined-up, clear path to a
negative-CO2 energy economy for transport with a soft start
– Which hydrogen cannot provide
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the presentation presents conclusions developed in more detail in:
“Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy”
Olah, G.A., Goeppert, A. and Prakash, G.K.S
Renewable energy to eclipse gas by 2016 - IEA - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23770-renewable-energy-to-eclipse-gas-by-2016.html#.Uc8YARjD-mwThe dash for gas is being outrun by the race for renewables. According to the latest projections from the International Energy Agency, by 2016 global electricity generation from wind, solar, hydro and other forms of renewable power will exceed that from natural gas – and should be double that provided by nuclear plants.
This surge is being driven in large part by emerging economies. China is leading the way, accounting for 40 per cent of the projected global growth in renewables between 2012 and 2018, the IEA – a Paris-based body with 28 member countries – notes.
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Greenwald: Beltway media types are ‘courtiers to power’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/24/greenwald-beltway-media-types-are-courtiers-to-power/?hpid=z7Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald yesterday clashed with “Meet the Press” host David Gregory, who’d asked Greenwald the following question: “To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?”
The elbow that came right back at Gregory was sharpened by the contempt that Greenwald harbors toward the media types that live and work around here. “I think it’s pretty extraordinary,” Greenwald said to Gregory, “that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies.”
When asked by the Erik Wemple Blog for his thoughts on how the rest of the media has greeted his stuff, Greenwald responded:
Media reaction to our scoops has been mixed. Many journalists have taken them very seriously, been quite supportive of the reporting I’ve been doing, and have with particular vigor defended our free press rights to report this.
But it is true that the Guardian generally, and me in particular, are outsiders, not members of the Beltway establishment media clique. I’ve purposely made myself an outsider by very aggressively and harshly criticizing not just the culture itself but the most prominent members of it, including David Gregory and Andrew Ross Sorkin, who this morning suggested on CNBC that I be arrested.*
Some of what is driving this hostility from some media figures is personal bitterness. Some of it is resentment over my having been able to break these big stories not despite, but because of, my deliberate breaching of the conventions that rule their world.
[font size="3"]But most of it is what I have long criticized them for most: they are far more servants to political power than adversarial watchdogs over it, and what provokes their rage most is not corruption on the part of those in power (they don’t care about that) but rather those who expose that corruption, especially when the ones bringing transparency are outside of, even hostile to, their incestuous media circles.[/font]
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I've got an idea for a Sci-Fi thriller: Flying Piranha fish! A mad geneticist, tinkering with fish
genes (to increase aquatic food supply) accidentally puts Flying fish genes into Piranha fish eggs. Voila: Attack of the Flying Chomping Piranhas! They would come flying out of the water attacking fishermen on boats first (of course, at first, no one believes the eye-witnesses) and later great flocks of them, with teeth flashing, would be chasing people off of beaches and inland (naturally - or I should say unnaturally - with amazingly enhanced glide paths).
.... I see a future cult classic here!
Bill Moyers continuing reports on ALEC should be recognized with an award.
.. after the Roberts Supreme Court, ALEC is perhaps the greatest challenge to our Democracy (as a system of government for, by and of the people rather than corporate lords and psycho-billionaires). Because the threat that ALEC represents to our democracy is so great, it's impossible to overestimate the importance of Moyers' continuing reporting on it.
"The United States of ALEC — A Follow-Up" - Moyers and Company : http://www.democraticunderground.com/101666830
"United States of ALEC — A Follow-Up" - Moyers and Company
... after the Roberts Supreme Court, ALEC is perhaps the greatest challenge to our Democracy (as a system of government for, by and of the people rather than corporate lords and psycho-billionaires). Because the threat that ALEC represents to our democracy is so great, it's impossible to overestimate the importance of Moyers' continuing reporting on it. It is worth emailing, posting (FB, etc) and making sure everyone you know is aware of Moyers reports on the threat of ALEC
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-united-states-of-alec-a-follow-up/
A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge.
In state houses around the country, hundreds of pieces of boilerplate ALEC legislation are proposed or enacted that would, among other things, dilute collective bargaining rights, make it harder for some Americans to vote, and limit corporate liability for harm caused to consumers — each accomplished without the public ever knowing who’s behind it. Using interviews, documents, and field reporting, the episode explores ALEC’s self-serving machine at work, acting in a way one Wisconsin politician describes as “a corporate dating service for lonely legislators and corporate special interests.”
Former health care industry executive Wendell Potter says, “Even though I’d known of [ALEC] for a long time, I was astonished. Just about everything that I knew that the health insurance industry wanted out of any state lawmaker was included in that package of bills.”
Following up on a 2012 report, this update includes new examples of corporate influence on state legislation and lawmakers, the growing public protest against ALEC’s big business-serving agenda, and internal tactics ALEC is instituting to further shroud its actions and intentions.
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for those who may want to quote from the show in their own posts here's The transcript
Dig Deeper...
Interactive Map: Is Your State Legislator a Member of ALEC?
Frequently asked Questions on ALEC
How Republicans stopped worrying and learned to love big government - Ezra Klein
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/21/how-republicans-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-big-government/The budget talks are foundering on a Republican demand that the federal government start predicting the deficit 30 years into the future. The immigration bill is hung up over Republican demands that the government achieve full control over the 1,969 mile border between the United States and Mexico. But the Obama administration’s had some good news on its spying: Republicans are pretty comfortable with the federal government tracking our calls and mining our e-mails.
Here’s what I don’t understand: How can Republicans who think themselves skeptical of the federal government also believe it capable of predicting the path of the economy 30 years into the future while locking down the border and picking through all electronic communications?
Take the budget. Politico reports that “White House chief of staff Denis McDonough privately met with more than a dozen Senate Republicans who outlined their view of the budget picture over the next three decades instead of over the 10-year window.”
The political calculus behind this is clear: The budget deficit looks much worse over 30 years than it does over 10, lending urgency to Republican efforts to cut federal spending. But the implied confidence in the government’s powers of prognostication is extraordinary.
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If we can’t get 10-year, and even one-year, projections right, how can anyone possibly believe that 30-year projections will be worth the paper they’re printed on?
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