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Tag: conservative
Synopsis: In “The New Reality”, author Stephen Martino delivers an action-packed medical thriller in a heart-stopping race to save humanity. After a deadly retrovirus is inadvertently released upon the planet in 2080, no country is financially prepared to deal with such a disaster. Only the acclaimed neuroscientist, Alex Pella, and NIH expert, Marissa Ambrosia, have the audacity to lead a search for the cure while simultaneously fending off a foreign elite military unit sent to stop them. Guided by an ancient code concealed within the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the scientists must traverse ancient lands and attempt to solve a biblical riddle in order to save humanity from its eminent destruction. Drawing from both our nation s politically charged environment and the worldwide economic crisis, “The New Reality” follows Alex Pella on a journey that projects a frightening path for human existence in the twenty-first century.
Critique: With a storyline that could be ripped from tomorrow’s newspaper headlines, author Stephen Martino reveals an extraordinary ability for creating memorable characters embedded in a thrill ride of an adventure that will grip the reader’s total attention from first page to last. Attention Hollywood! This is the stuff of which block buster movies and ratings gold television series are made! Highly recommended for community library fiction collections and personal reading lists, it should be noted that “The New Reality” is also available in a Kindle edition ($7.49).
Small Press Bookwatch
Midwest Book Review
June 2014
As a physician, I can attest to the recent article I’ve read in the Courier Journal about more people using the emergency rooms due to Obamacare. Unfortunately, under this new law, the newly insured Americans were supposed to be utilizing their primary care physicians instead of the emergency room. However, that has turned out certainly not to be the case.
With the number of visits to the ER soaring by the day, most ask why this rise is happening if more Americans are supposedly receiving coverage through Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The answer is actually simple. The health insurance that well over 50% people now covered by Obamacare received is Medicaid. Because there are too few primary care doctors actually accepting this insurance, these newly insured patients have no other place to go to see a physician other than the ER.
As stated in the Courier Journal article: “It’s a perfect storm here,” said Dr. Ryan Stanton of Lexington, president of the Kentucky chapter of the ER physician group. “We’ve given people an ATM card in a town with no ATMs.” In short, Obamacare provided millions with Medicaid, but there are no doctors accepting Medicaid.
The article went on to use Kentucky as an example. A workforce capacity study conducted for the state by Deloitte Consulting last year found that Kentucky needed 3,790 more doctors, including 183 more primary-care physicians, to meet pre-ACA demand. Under the law, it said the state may need to add an additional 284 primary-care physicians by 2017. Complicating matters, a quarter of Kentucky’s primary-care doctors could be ready to retire within five years, the report said. The report also said roughly 56 percent of the state’s primary-care physicians, and 22 percent of all physicians, accepted a Medicaid payment in 2011, which Deloitte said was its best estimate for figuring out how many physicians accept Medicaid.
While primary care may be difficult to find, emergency rooms cannot turn anyone away. Stanton said every patient who comes in must have a medical screening, and most doctors do more; “the vast majority … do treatment to decrease medical and legal risk.”
The problem gets even larger when you realize that Medicaid reimbursements are a fraction to that of Medicare. The physician reimburse is so low that a private practice doctor would go bankrupt if they only saw Medicaid patients. Between their overhead and malpractice, Medicaid reimbursements would not cover even the basic costs of doing business. In the end, there is no incentive for any private practice physician to accept Medicaid patients. Then, when you realize that reimbursements by the federal government for Medicaid are being cut, you will quickly realize that the number of physicians who accept it will also be dwindling.
So where does that leave those patients now? Worse off than they were before.
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Obamacare is a Financial Disaster
As Obamacare continues to decimate the American healthcare system, few media outlets highlight the facts about this ever growing problem. Though Obama claims his new law (which he enforces on an imperial, piecemeal basis) is a success, the truth is much different. When you break down the over 8 million enrollees signed up by the plan, you will quickly realize that over 5 million of them are on the federally funded Medicaid program. Then, with regard to the remaining 3 million, it is uncertain how many actually paid their premiums and how many needed this insurance because they were kicked out of their previous health plans due to the Affordable Care Act. A recent article in The Business Insider sums up the economics of Obamacare: Of the 5.45 million people who signed up through the federal exchange, 5.18 million (or 95%) applied for financial assistance in their insurance plans. As a businessman and physician, I can sum up these numbers in a very easy way:
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Only a very small percentage of patients enrolled through Obamacare are actually paying for it
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Our government has created a new and massive bureaucracy to manage Obamacare
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We can’t afford the Medicaid program which has been expanded another 5 million people
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Few doctors actually accept Medicaid, leaving the “newly insured” without true access to the healthcare system
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We can’t afford the Medicare program
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Where do we get all this money needed to pay for 2 programs we can’t afford and a new program, Obamacare, that is financially unsustainable?
The financial truth about Obamacare is that it is an economic disaster. Many think the Tea Party and Conservatives are against it just because they are displeased with Obama. The truth is, most of them understand that the health insurance programs created by our national government are financially unsustainable and will eventually bankrupt our country. We are in 18 trillion dollars of debt already. Where will this madness end?
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No Conservatives Christians Allowed
Has the media turned so progressive that any non-progressive, conservative thinking person is shunned from working?
Regardless of your social beliefs, you should find the treatment of David and Jason Benham by HGTV a little troubling. I understand that some disagree with their Christian beliefs but that is certainly not the point nor is it the issue. The issue is that they lost their show on HGTV not because of what they did but what they believed.
We are now finding media censoring themselves at a heightened, liberal level. Will conservative checks now be done for every person who tries to get any job on TV, the newspaper or on the radio? If you attended a mass in which the pastor or priest demonized abortion, could you be out of a job? The scarier thing to ask is if this liberal litmus test will spill over to different professions? Remember what happened to Brendan Eich from Mozilla or the scrutiny Chick Fila-A received.
We are heading to this point. My great grandfather was the first Martino to come to the USA in the early 20th century. He left Italy after he and his other 3 brothers were arrested for attending a democratic rally. His 3 brothers died in jail, and he came here to start a better life—in a place where freedom of speech was guaranteed by law.
Where has that guarantee gone? Well ask yourselves this– how many CEO’s are going to come out and say that they are pro-life? I can guarantee it will be zero. They will be too afraid to speak their mind for fear their job or company would be in jeopardy. The media attack dogs are ready and more than willing to pounce on anybody who does not adhere to the progressive party line.
The sad part is that there is a complete double standard. Remember Obama sitting through Reverend White’s hate filled speeches? Where was the media outcry. Sure, it was discussed and written on conservative outlets, but the main stream media killed the story before it really got legs.
The truth is as the mainstream media gets more progressive, our country gets worse.
A new study from the Brooklyn Institution states that more US businesses are being destroyed than are being created. This trend has been most striking over the Obama administration, culminating with the worst numbers since the beginning of 2009.
There is no states or regional localization for these numbers. The poor business growth and the destruction of businesses are seen throughout the entire 50 state union. The only valid conclusion when looking at these statistics is that the problem arises from a central source and not on the local level. When I write of a central source, I am, of course, referring to Washington DC.
Since Obama has taken office, there has been an attack on the middle class. Despite Obama’s rhetoric and the media’s confirmation of his lies, the wealth gap between the rich and poor is widening by the day, while squeezing out the middle class in the process.
Remember, small business is the spine which makes America’s economy and creates most of the jobs in this country. However, as any small business owner will tell you, it has become more difficult by the year to maintain that business. Higher taxes, no incentives, new laws and an unfriendly central government has made business ownership increasingly more difficult. Also, it deters the entrepreneurial spirit and discourages anyone from wanting to create their own business.
Despite the lower unemployment rate, it clearly explains why the nation’s workforce shrank by more than 800,000 workers in April, sending the labor force participation rate plummeting 0.4 percentage points to 62.8 percent.
Despite what you hear on the news, America’s economy remains in a downwards spiral. Many have given up looking for work and are now on the government doll, or they just decided to retire due to the bad economy. As this trend continues, America’s competitive edge will soon be lost.
Don’t let this happen.
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Journalism is Dead
