Kaiser Permanente

Both my wife and I have coverage at Kaiser Permanente. I am covered under their Senior Advantage plan at the same rate as Medicare Part A and B. That includes Medicare Part A and B, special rates for lab test other procedures and they provide low cost prescription drugs as well. My wife is not old enough to qualify for Medicare and we must pay the premium for the group in the age range 60 to 65. That amounts to $387 per month and we pay a $50 co-pay for each office visit. Her plan does not provide any drug plan thus many of her prescriptions are filled at Costco.

Talking to friends and relatives, I find many either love or intensely dislike Kaiser. I call it the McDonald’s of health care because they fill the needs of most people at a low cost. The nearby facility in Woodland Hills, California has a hospital, all the labs, urgent care, and doctor examination facilities for every imaginable kind of ailment. It is truly a “one stop facility” for all your medical needs.

There are doctors there that I do not like but there are many that are very good. When I collapsed at a party with vertigo on a Saturday night my wife took me to urgent care. They put me through a battery of test that included a brain scan at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning. They came up with the vertigo diagnosis.

What is wrong with Kaiser? They rarely send patients outside of their facilities for any treatment. They most likely will not send you to City of Hope, UCLA, Mayo Clinic, etc. The big advantage of a PPO is that you can go to those famed hospitals and the doctor of your choice.

The Death of Newspapers

Jon Fine’s weekly column in Business Week entitled Media Centric has been writing about the slow death of daily newspapers for the past two years. Here in Los Angeles we have seen the Los Angeles Times shrinking away along with its many smaller localized newspapers. The Orange County Register and the Daily News of Los Angeles have been the Times primary competitors. Sadly they too have been shrinking before our eyes.

The Daily News has had a 4 page opinion and editorial section every Sunday. It has featured some of America’s best columnists. Those writers have included Thomas Friedman, Richard Cohen, David Brooks, Bill O’Reilly, Maureen Dowd, and Thomas Sowell. Today they announced the shrinking of that section to two pages buried in the front section. http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_9661925?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com. Clearly we will see less of their writing in print in the future. Blame it on the internet. The Daily News only printed about one third of all the letters I submitted to their opinion page but it was always fun to know that my letters might appear. That is why I was motivated to start two BLOGS. They are https://coastcontact.wordpress.com and http://coastcontact.blogspot.com/ . The same items do not appear in both BLOGS. This entry is the exception.

Tell me again, this is progress, right?

What Has Israel Done That Is So Great?

For starters I must tell you that I am a Jew. That is my religion. However, I am not a Zionist. I am an American and proud of it. I have never been to Israel. If I should go there it would be as a tourist.

My view is that the U.S. should help all nations regardless of their race, color, religion or origin. Israel is a parliamentary democracy. Parliamentary democracy originated in Great Britain. Israel has been an ally of the U.S. since it came into being in 1948. Israel has depended upon the U.S. to help defend its borders but no Americans have ever fought there. Aid has always been in the form of money and military arms.

So what has the U.S. gained from this relationship? This web site tells it better than I. http://www.ads4israel.com/ .

World Oil Crises

The world has been using oil as far back as 347 B.C. http://www.geocities.com/mudsmeller/history.html#ancient_to_present and there were some sources even farther back in history. The 20^th century brought the widespread use of oil in cars, trucks, and industry that have brought us to this dilemma. Today’s dwindling supply has created the world wide crises.

Articles by Kenneth Deffeyes http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html and Paul Krugman, a well respected economist who writes a column in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Paul+Krugman+may+12+2008&st=nyt&oref=slogin are indicators of how complicated this issue has become. An article in my local newspaper entitled “understanding ethanol” written by Renee Schoof and Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy-Tribune (not accessible on the internet) left me with more questions than answers. I have not heard or read any reasonable plan proposed by any politician.

Going forward I am going to track the progress of this very serious world issue. Inputs and links are appreciated.

Tim Russert

Tim died this morning from a heart attack. He was 58 years old. He was one of the greatest interviewers of all time. Perhaps he was the greatest. I recorded and watched every one of his shows (Meet The Press on NBC and Tim Russert on MSNBC). Even as I post this item on my BLOG the accolades are non-stop as they should be. He made me feel that there was one interviewer who really asks the right questions. The Associated Press reported that many feared the grilling he would give his guests but they knew he was the conduit to the truth. http://apnews.excite.com/article/

20080613/D919FDKO0.html

Is NAFTA Good for the U.S.?

This question was posed in a letter to “The Welchway” in the April 22, 2008 column that appears weekly in Business Week. It is written by Jack & Suzy Welch. Jack is the former CEO of General Electric and is most likely the primary writer of this column. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/

content/08_17/b4081138462308.htm

The article contends that “countless American product lines have withstood the onslaught of Asian imports thanks to Nafta and partnering with Mexico.” Well the product lines may have withstood the onslaught but American jobs have not. NAFTA is part of the export of American jobs. Some have gone to Mexico and many more have gone to Asia. American workers are hurting badly and so is the entire American economy as the result of the exporting of our jobs. The result of this situation is that it is now almost impossible to buy any item that is made in the U.S.A. The third effect is that the dollar is now worth less to other nations and that is helping to drive up the cost of oil.

Of course the Jack Welchs and the Jeff Immelts (current CEO of GE) of the world are not impacted by this situation. American corporate executives now earn 200 times the average American salary. Corporations are all doing just fine thank you.

This will be an issue in the next election for president of the United States.

What does Hillary want?

Hillary Clinton asked and answered this question on Saturday (June 7) but as usual she was dishonest. The answer is she wants to be president of the United States!

Her speeches on Saturday and the previous Tuesday were all about her and how she has been mistreated by the press and unfairly attacked by everyone. She almost won the primary season but lost because of her campaign mismanagement. Instead of offering a congratulatory concession to Barak Obama she spoke and behaved as if she was the winner.

The press (media) was more than gracious in their reporting on Saturday. Even when she was almost one hour late arriving at the National Building Museum in Washington there was no comments about this manipulative tactic. I believe she planned to be late so that she could be in the public eye for one more hour. No one that I heard discussing her concession speech gave any criticism of her in any way. Her claims in that speech that sexual discrimination was the reason she lost the election were totally ignored.

Although she lost the delegate count she actually won more popular votes than Barak Obama. She is an outstanding campaigner. Her following remains loyal. She could bring many voters to Barak Obama. If he does not have a significant lead in the polls during July and August then Hillary Clinton would be his best choice for Vice President. That would not be what she wants but it would be close.

Fight for a Just Cause

Filoli is an unusual, but not well known, American country house set in sixteen acres of formal gardens surrounded by a 654 acre(2.6 km²) estate, located about 25 miles (40 km) south of San Francisco. 40,000 people visit the estate every year. My wife and I visited there last week on a guided tour. It. was built between 1915 and 1917 for William Bowers Bourn II and his wife, Agnes Moody Bourn. The Bourn family earned its money in gold mining and a water and power company that was part of the roots of Pacific Gas and Electric. The house they built is a 36,000 square foot two story mansion that was later used in many movies and television programs including Dynasty (Carrington mansion). http://www.dakan.net/filoli.htm

The name of the estate is an acronym formed by combining the first two letters from the key words of William Bourn’s credo: “Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life.” The truth is that there is no evidence that he had any good cause except living the good life.

The estate was sold to Mr. and Mrs. William P. Roth, owners of the Matson Navigation Company, in 1937. The Roth family built Filoli’s botanic gardens. In 1975, Mrs. Roth donated the estate in its entirety to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. There is no evidence that this family had a good cause either.

Perhaps that is America’s problem. How many of us Americans have a good cause or really love our fellow man? Well there are many who do have both of these qualities. Unfortunately the Bourns and the Roths are too prevalent.

I believe I do have some good causes (read the entries in this blog and http://www.coastcontact.blogspot.com/) and I believe I do love my fellow man. Perhaps that is the reason I do not live in a 36,000 square foot home. I like the credo enough to adopt it for my own.