Body Mass Index - Now Required by Federal Government

Obesity Rating for Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Says HHS

New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.

The obesity-rating regulation states that every American's electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.”

Lovely. Those of you who are serious about weight lifting take note - muscle weighs more than fat. It's possible that even though you are incredibly in shape, you'll be flagged as "obese". From a site with a BMI calculator:

Although BMI can be used for most men and women, it does have some limits:

* It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.
* It may underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost muscle.

The article also states that the health records will be available on the national exchange. Good luck getting insured (while there are still insurance companies other than the retards (and yes, I do mean retards Ms. Palin) in Washington.

Under the stimulus law, health care providers--including doctors and hospitals--must establish "meaningful use" of EHRs by 2014 in order to qualify for federal subsidies. After that, they will be subjected to penalties in the form of diminished Medicare and Medicaid payments for not establishing "meaningful use" of EHRs.

Doctors - this one is really simple. Stop accepting insurance. Stop accepting Medicare/Medicaid. Go back to directly seeing a local pool of patients who will pay you directly for your services. Drop your prices to something that will be in accordance with running a profitable and successful business, without being ripped off by the Feds and the Insurance Companies.

Screw the Washington Bureaucrats. Let them stew in the cesspool that is D.C, trying to get blood from the bankrupt stones that are many of the Liberal states, and lets get some 10th Amendment assertions and secessions going here folks. I'm tired of this crap.

I'm a racist, you're a racist, he's a racist, she's a racist...

NAACP Considers Condemning Tea Party for 'Racism'

Considers it? Hah, Tea Partiers have been branded as racists since they emerged during the Healthcare "debate".

Whatever, go ahead. We're WAY past labels at this point.

Hey, by the way, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Who's the bigot now???

Governor Jan Brewer - Obama, Do Your Job

A long watch, but worth it.

I'm liking Governor Brewer a lot more, with the various bills she's been signing, I *almost* regret leaving AZ.

Remember, the folks that are the most upset about this, other than the illegals of course, are the folks that don't believe in borders. Those folks that would like to invite anyone, regardless of criminal background, regardless of their ability to contribute to our country (and therefore help to pay for the entitlement programs they will enjoy), and most of all, people that actually WANT to become Americans, not Mexicans living in America.

You're an illegal? You don't want to get arrested in AZ? Don't do anything to draw the attention of the Police, such as speed, rob, burgle, etc. Don't like it? Get the **** out until you've gone through the time honored legal process of getting your citizenship.

Keep giving 'em hell Gov!

Make the Mojave Cross Permanent

Authorities Say Mojave Desert Replacement Memorial Cross Must Come Down

Since apparently it's ok to settle a score after you lose the decision of the Supreme Court by removing that which offends you, I have a suggestion for the people that used to maintain the cross.

Get a large jackhammer and etch a cross into the rock. Make it as large as possible, and nice and deep. Make sure no matter what happens that it's always there.

Hey Obama, About Those "Tax Cuts" and "Bi-Partisanship"

Obama Renews Call for Bipartisanship, Takes Jab at Tea Partiers

"I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes," the president said, noting the numerous tax cuts pushed by his administration. "You would think they'd be saying thank you."

Hey jackass, "cutting" my taxes just enough to buy a Whopper each month, all the while allowing for a monetary policy that is pushing commodities, including oil, higher, and passing a "Healthcare Reform" that in reality will COST me money (and possibly my job), and you want me to thank you??

I've got a different gesture for that:


You want Bi-Partisanship? You can start by resigning. Then, and only then, will we come to the table.

FBI Able to Read Emails Stored on Servers

Yahoo, Feds Battle over E-Mail Privacy

The legal dust-up, unsealed late Tuesday, concerns a 1986 law that already allows the government to obtain a suspect’s e-mail from an ISP or webmail provider without a probable-cause warrant, once it’s been stored for 180 days or more. The government now contends it can get e-mail under 180-days old if that e-mail has been read by the owner, and the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections don’t apply.

Yahoo is challenging the government’s position and defying a court order to turn over some customer e-mail to the feds. Google, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy & Technology and other groups late Tuesday told the federal judge presiding over the case that accessing e-mail under 180 days old requires a valid warrant under the Fourth Amendment, regardless of whether it has been read.

“The government says the Fourth Amendment does not protect these e-mails,” Kevin Bankston, an EFF lawyer, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “What we’re talking about is archives of our personal correspondence that they would need a warrant to get from your computer but not from the server.”

I learn something new every day. Sometimes, I wish I didn't.

Quick note to my fellow Threepers - if you're in the habit of keeping communications on a server such as GMail or Yahoo, Hotmail, etc, be aware that someone without a warrant might be watching.

Of course, none of you would put anything that might incriminate you into email now would you? OpSec and CommSec friends.

My Stance on Healthcare

Longtime lurker Cheddar (and you're welcome to lurk, I encourage it!), an always good questioner of my rants, asked on this post:

Would health care be so bad if it were provided to only citizens and immigrants (please don't confuse immigrants with aliens).

The short answer is "yes", because we *still* can't afford it.

This isn't about "pre-existing conditions". There are two issues with that:

1. If you as a person were able to get a tax deduction for paying your own healthcare, we wouldn't have the problem where you lose your coverage every time you changed jobs. The Government and its regulations CREATED pre-existing condition issues by only allowing businesses to receive credits for insuring employees' health.


2. You can't wreck your car, and call Allstate the next day and demand insurance can you? Why not? Because the premiums you DID NOT pay over the last 5 years CAN NOT ensure that Allstate can afford your coverage. You understand that what this idiotic law has done is ring the death knell for private health insurance? No one can be profitable in that situation - not without tripling, quadrupling, or MORE the premiums of anyone stupid enough to continue paying for healthcare.

This isn't about who gets it. Ultimately (and Mark Levin has proved a number of times), we're talking about less than 20mil people that "need" healthcare - the rest are foreigners, wealthy folks (making more than $75k a year) that choose not to carry coverage, and also younger folks who are generally healthy and don't feel they need insurance.

This IS about NOT reforming medical tort laws, where Doctors must still pay exorbitant amounts of money to cover frivolous malpractice lawsuits, and order all manner of extra and unnecessary tests to try and prevent same, increasing the costs to insurance companies.

This IS about a Nation that somehow believes that they deserve the latest, most expensive treatment that has a low success rate, even if they can't afford it. I'm sorry, but if you can't pay for a plan that can cover it, you don't deserve the latest in whizbang tests and surgeries.

This IS about not having to wait four or more months for cancer tests, MRIs, etc. This IS about not having to ration care because people overuse the system since...after all, it's free!
This IS about not losing many of your Doctors because, shock, they don't feel like putting up many thousands of dollars only to be told they make too much and should work for peanuts.

Here is basic human behavior as I channel Joe and Jane Everyman:

If my choice (after my company drops my insurance plan because the premiums just doubled - and THEY ALREADY ARE DOUBLING), is to pay $1k a month (or more!) for health insurance (and I have always kept myself covered up until now), or to save $12k up (12 months, $1k saved per month by not enrolling in Obamacare), pay the fine for not having coverage at the end of the year ($2k), and if anything happens in the mean time, fuck it, I'll go DEMAND coverage since they can't turn me down for pre-existing conditions, what do you think I (and 99.5% of the rest of the country) is going to go do?

And when we all drop our plans (after our employers drop them as well), and start showing up demanding coverage all of a sudden when we get cancer, break something, have a heart attack, etc, what's going to happen to Insurance Companies - right, out of business. That'll just leave Uncle Sam to take care of it. Just like they took care of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Post Office, etc. etc. etc.

Please read the articles I've linked. They're not about politics, they're about simple economics, human behavior, and basic math.

Healthcare as it stood before this bill was DEFINITELY broken - no one disputes that. What this new law has done, though, is put Government in charge of the broken system because somehow (and they NEVER EVER EVER EVER HAVE IN THE PAST), they're going to lower costs, increase coverage, and improve services.

That'll be the day.