It is no secret that Mitt Romney and his running-mate, Representative Paul Ryan, are opponents of abortion rights. When Mr. Ryan was asked at last week’s debate whether voters who support abortion rights should be worried if the Romney-Ryan ticket were elected, he essentially said yes.
They would depart slightly from the extremist Republican Party platform by allowing narrow exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the woman. Beyond that, they would move to take away a fundamental right that American women have had for nearly 40 years.
If Roe v. Wade Goes | The New York Times
Source: The New York Times
Paul Ryan’s Soup Kitchen Photo Op
According to The Washington Post:
Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.
“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”
He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.”
Source: Washington Post
Martha Raddatz lays down the law in the SNL Vice Presidential Debate.
Source: sinidentidades
We are in debt because you [pointing at Paul Ryan] voted to put two wars on a credit card we can’t afford. I was there, I said we couldn’t afford that.
VP Joe Biden - Sorry Joe, you voted for the authorization of both the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. (via americas-liberty)
Joe:
(via proudblackconservative)
(via lalibertarienne)
Source: americas-liberty
What's wrong with Obamacare?
Paul Ryan doesn’t seem be entirely sure.*
But fortunately, this article explains, in detail, the involvement and motivation of the Big Hospital lobby in supporting Obama’s health care reform, and how it pertains to restricting competition by dealing a lethal blow to Physician-Owned Specialty Hospitals (PSHs). It’s worth a read, especially if you’re interested in the politics behind, and the content of, Obamacare—it’s not like you’re going to get factual answers from any of the candidates.
A select few stats I picked from the [fairly lengthy, but very solid] article on the fatal inefficiencies of general hospitals:
- One academic study measured the efficiency of transferring patients between different units of a hospital by examining how the process was affected by administrative delays, unavailable beds, unavailable staff, the readiness of units to receive patients and breakdowns in communication. The process was over 87% inefficient. (Nursing Economics, July-August 2005 pp. 157-164)
- An article in Health Services Research found that hospital “outputs”—patient admissions, outpatient visits, surgeries, and births—could be increased 26% by eliminating inefficiency. (October 2008, Vol. 43, No. 5, Part II, pp. 1830-1848)
- Different hospital departments often do not relay information effectively to each other. One study in the Journal of Healthcare Management suggests that hospitals waste $12 billion annually on inefficient communication. (July-August 2010, Vol. 55, No. 4, pp. 419-431)
- A study examining “hospitalists”—physicians who focus solely on the management of hospital inpatients—found that hospitals that employ them could reduce the average patient length of stay by about 37% and average per admission costs by almost 24%. (Health Services Research, June 2003, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 905-918)
- Inefficiency affects patient mortality. An article in Health Economics found that a one-percentage point reduction in a hospital’s cost inefficiency was associated with one fewer death per 10,000 patient discharges.(2006, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 419-431)
*I have seen a very eloquent explanation by him of how Obamacare actually increases health care costs and only appears to decrease them because of accounting involving money laundering—not sure what happened in the VP debate.
It turns out that the Ryan budget, which he says repeatedly will change Medicare only for people 55 and under, does have potential implications for current seniors enrolled in traditional Medicare, whose payments for prescriptions and preventive care would likely increase according to some studies. And if Romney spends that $716 billion, it would lead to faster insolvency for the Medicare Trust Fund. It’s all fairly complicated stuff, but somehow it—or something—got through, because the Romney-Ryan numbers on Medicare tanked. And everything culminated in Ryan being booed—not once or a few times, but steadily and loudly—at a speech before the AARP (again with Mom in tow).
Women haven’t exactly been wowed either. Ryan’s social and cultural views, particularly on abortion, are if anything more extreme than his economic ones. He opposes the right to an abortion even in cases of rape and incest and co-sponsored legislation to that effect with Missouri representative (and Senate candidate) Todd Akin, now notorious for a welter of reactionary statements about women.
-The Daily Beast, “Michael Tomasky on Joe Biden’s Turn to Take Down Paul Ryan”.
Paul Ryan is certainly a dynamic character. I disagree with nearly all his policies and even I feel drawn in when he speaks. And yet, things just don’t add up. Read this article, and cross-reference it with my early-posted Breakdown of Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity. And while you’re at it, take a look at the fact check of Ryan’s VP acceptance speech. I’ll be looking forward to the debate on Thursday.
