Intending no self-aggrandizement, I played a small but interesting role in the link below.  I was the first person to contact the NYS DOL office in Albany directly on Monday morning to report a problem with the system.  At first, they told me it might just be “normal volume” after the NYE weekend.  However, as the article notes, it was much more than that, as thousands of new claims were filed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/nyregion/07unemployment.html?sq=buckles&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print

Peace.

Shotojamf—The neo-cons tried to block the Dems today—that is what they see as their job.

If one is a liberal, one’s job is to promote liberal policies. The Dems have no excuses now. They had better do something.

But , they never have, and, may never in the future..

jackpine savage—I think that Obama is a fairly conservative person….

I think that studies show that , things like unemployment, “pay back the economy” well, and quickly. But, more business tax custs, is just samosamo, it seems to me. (Food stamps are immediate,medical care would produce great benefits for unemployed, but NOT on Medicaid, unless they intend to increase funding to the states!)

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/

For those doubting what I had to say about “Care Source” (what we in Medicaid are most often forced into now) is held up by the article above, as well as articles lately in the Dayton News about their purchase of a $35 million building with Greek marble floors and $10 million paintings! Want to save tacpayer money on heatlh care programs? “Care” Source is NOT the answer—they waste on color ads (with models—not drs or nurses), they “turn down everything first,(which costs money) (even emergency room)

“But I have to hand it to David Boone, CEO of American CareSource. What could be more appropriate for this entrepreneurial middleman organization than celebrating success with a ship’s bell, a Donald Trump wig, and a hat stuffed with dollar bills? How fitting!

Dallas’ American CareSource sees stock jump 120% in 2008
By Jason Roberson
The Dallas Morning News
January 2, 2009

American CareSource is the nation’s first publicly traded ancillary care network company. The company basically serves as a middleman, connecting payors, such as insurers, with the providers of such services as lab work and diagnostic imaging.

Ancillary services now represent 30 percent of health care expenditures, valued at $574 billion annually, according to U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

While most insurers can handle the 70 percent of health care dollars that go to hospitals and physicians, the largest insurers form networks with ancillary services. That’s where American CareSource comes in.

American CareSource targets smaller insurers, unions and employers that aren’t able on their own to purchase ancillary services in bulk.

(American CareSource) bills itself as a cost-saver to both payors and ancillary providers. It acts as the providers’ advocate by collecting hard-to-get payments from insurance claims; it serves as the insurers’ advocate by offering lower costs than they could get on their own.

“In some ways, we want to be the Wal-Mart or Target of health care,” said David Boone, CEO of American CareSource

“This should inspire the insurance industry’s AHIP. When Congress passes health care reform based on private health plans, AHIP can pass out the Donald Trump wigs with the hats stuffed with money. But the bell? Shipping in that bell from Philadelphia won’t do since it has a crack in it. That’s okay. Piping in the opening bell of the NYSE would much more befit the occasion anyway”

Hmmm…“care” source…put your life in THEIR hands.

I know that the “tax cuts” are structured slightly different. But, we did this, and did this, and did this…if we are not going to reverese the Bush tax cuts, the least we can do is NOT pile on more money for business! Jeez! The middle clas (not to mention the POOR—sorry, I guess that that is a curse word now in neo-liberal circles)are in dire straits here!

KDelphi,

I don’t know WHY he has to do it; for all i know, he wants to do it.  I don’t see how having 40% of the stimulus package going towards tax cuts fundamentally helps the situation at all. 

Other than not wanting to see Maani and so many others out on the streets i find the whole “borrow it from thin air” approach to propping up a fundamentally unsound way of going about our business to be beyond stupid.  It is, yet again, a shifting of the burden towards the future to reap the benefit of future labor today.

Volma—I was in a hurry before—sorry. I read your post—it is not crazy at all..

Things like NO and HK could be avoided , if we didnt live within disaster capitalism..I truly believe that. I have seen it in other countries.

Does anyone reslize just how the uS looks to the rest of the world, with our total concentration on taxes, and lack of caring about the hurt and poor among us? It is frightening…solutions vary, but, if we dont learn to live another way economically, I am afraid that the US is surely doomed, and, that the weakest of us (many here included) will not surive. Maybe that is what they want.

That is why we cannot give up.

I wish I could help out too. Hell, I cant even help myself these days.

Volma, from the perspective of Native Prophecy, you are a wild eyed optimist. 

Maani, although most do not yet see it, these are the times of technological devolution and the elevation of spirit.  By that I mean that people collectively have been living absent spiritual connection and a correction is confronting us as a result.  The very fact that you and so many others are facing possible homelessness is a pretext to the coming changes. It is inconceivable in a world of spiritual connectedness that anyone would be homeless.  T.A.O. Walker has been sounding the alarm accurately.  We are facing an unprecedented time where forces are in play that will change everything and is beyond the scope of most people’s current awareness.  It is not an easy road that we walk now.  I wish you well.

I, too, wish you well, Maani

jackpine savage—WHY, does Obama have to cater to the GOP? They are going to fight him tooth and nail no matter what he does (the neo-cons—McConnell, Beohner, etc)

I know that there are some minor differences, and, the unemployment and COBRA extensions would be good, but if more people are coming onto Medicaid, they had better pass some funding, and fast!

The states are broke.

I just do not think that MORE tax cuts are what we need at all…we need more long term stimulus.

How in the world will we pay for vets programs, unemployment, new programs—if we keep cutting revenue?? Anyone who thinks that the “middle class” includes $2o0,000 a yr is just completely out of touch.

Volma:

Thanks for your kind words.  My warmest thoughts and prayers go out to you and yours as well.

Peace.

I’m negative Nancy today, but just read an article in TruthOut about the military preparation for mass civil unrest in the US due to unemployment,, homelessness, starvation etc…The article talked about the preparation for a domestic crisis in the next 6 months more or less of the Obama administration…So the ducks are lining up, the vice president elect guaranteed that Obama would be faced with a huge crisis in the first 6 months of presidency, the FEMA prison camps, that are set up all over the US, the millions of FEMA plastic coffins, setting in areas of the US, waiting for what? The coffins and camps are not fictional, there are films and info about them on Utube.  Our government has deliberately methodically created the end of the middle class in the US…To me this all seems so cold, calculating and just evil…The US people have been deconstructed from within, taken over, invaded, conquered…This is not by accident, although they all play stupid so well…Anyway, Maani, I really feel for you, I wish I could help, but I am in the same boat as you are with a family…We need to help one another if we can…I am hoping for the best, there is no way I can insulate, my life from the worst…I have health problems and without food shelter and medical care I won’t last long…I really hope that this all shifts for the better, can’t spend my energies on worry about the worst, and I feel like a helpless baby against what could be the methodical cold calculating, population control, genocide, possible agenda of the forces in power…Totally believe that we truly are not free anymore, not really a democracy, that Obama is “The Man” set up, in place for the next phase of the plan…The puppet masters, owners of the planet are evil people who think themselves to be God’s above everyone else, engineering world control/ownership for years… If you think this is crazy, you just do not see the big picture, nor are you aware of what has been taking place all over the world for decades…We are just starting to get an over all picture that we have been sold down the river….Duh!

Paracelsus:

Thank you for your kind words of support.

JS:

You, too.  And re “Conventional wisdom suggests that this will help get the whole thing past the Republicans swiftly,” that depends: the GOP has traditionally been against giving benefits to p/t employees, so that could be a sticking point.  Let’s hope either that it isn’t, or that if it is, Obama drops it quicikly to get the package through.

Peace.

And mine too, Maani.

The WSJ just reported that that the stimulus package is going to come with massive tax breaks…“dwarfing” the Bush tax cuts.  They’ll account for 40% of the stimulus package.

Conventional wisdom suggests that this will help get the whole thing past the Republicans swiftly.

My best wishes go out to you, Maani.

As one those millions who is unemployed and collecting benefits, I am definitely holding my breath, because the timing is, for me, critical: my benefits run out the first or second week of February, so if something is NOT passed by then, I will not be able to collect (or re-file) on any extension that takes effect after my last paid week.  If that happens, I may well join the ranks of the homeless whom I have been helping for six years, since I will not be able to pay my rent, and my landlord is just foaming at the mouth to get me out.

If I “disappear” from the boards in mid-February, you will know why.

Peace.