Sick...

I was just out on Yahoo News and the main picture as of this moment is this (below) in relation to the passage of the stimulus bill:

I know, I know, I know that our senators are RINOs, and I agree with Slublog that they probably are voting for what the larger portion of their constituents want (or maybe not) but COME ON!...

At this point Senator Snowe (more so than Collins,IMHO) needs to run her next election campaign as a moderate democrat and be done with it.

It was only a matter of time...

EMHS's (the system I work for) credit rating was finally downgraded. Internally we were all told it was only a matter of time given this current economic cycle and the State of Maine's continued inability to pay its bills. A hospital system with a credit rating in the "A's" is a rare thing these days anyway given that nearly 20% of hospital systems across the US have a "Junk" rating.

Two things that the BDN mentioned but basically glossed over are:

• Governor Baldacci's 2006 "promise" to have the state catch up and stay current on payments when they collectively were owed $300 million dollars, strangely that amount has grown to $424 million, not shrunk.
• While EMHS's credit rating is getting downgraded and other hospitals are on the verge of the same the State of Maine is somehow able to keep its much higher rating free from trouble.

Blue Hill Memorial Hospital...

I posted some comments over on the BDN site about their article predicting layoffs at Blue Hill Memorial Hospital (BHMH) and thought I should cross post them here for my long lost blog. The long and short of it is that BHMH used to be the hospital that everyone wanted to be and nobody could touch, they had a huge endowment and positive cash flow. How things have changed...my comments:

EMHS does not "own" Blue HIll but has a relationship with it as an affiliate. Based on the article it sounds as though Blue Hill would have shut its doors already if it wasn't for EMHS being able to lend money and expertise. It doesn't sound like Garrity or Provenzano were doing anything but cutting the brake lines as BHMH was driving toward a cliff. Things don't get this bad all of a sudden and I don't recall hearing any real measures Blue Hill was doing prior to Dr Steele showing up to stave off this disaster. Best of luck to Dr Steele as he does a task that may be very unpopular but extremely necessary.

Another Example...

Here is another great example of what is wrong with the State of Maine (cut below). Governor Baldacci has mandated %10 cuts to most of state government. As this metric is applied to the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department (IF&W) they are looking to ax over 3million dollars (including reducing the number of Game wardens by almost %10). Problem is that IF&W gets less than 3 million dollars from the General Fund with the rest (some 20+million) coming from license fees, plates etc.

Money from licenses and the like has ALWAYS been promoted as going directly back into the management of natural resources. Commissioner Martin is correct to question this as using Baldacci's methodology would take money that the state says goes to maintain IF&W and the sports we love and dump it into the general fund. Clearly this needs to be addressed as Baldacci's spokesman (Farmer) isn't interested in doing so.

“As I have discussed many times in the past, I want to say again that I do not believe that the calculations of this department’s targets were either correct or fair,” Martin wrote in a letter accompanying his department’s proposed budget cuts.

Martin said a true reduction of 10 percent, based on the amount of General Fund money DIF&W receives, should be $275,536 and $322,643 during the next two budget years, respectively. Instead, the department is being asked to cut $2.8 million and $3.2 million, respectively.

Farmer was unsympathetic to those arguments.

Baldacci’s request for a 10 percent reduction in DIF&W’s total budget again is sparking debate about funding sources. That’s because less than $3 million of the department’s roughly $24 million budget comes from the state. The rest comes from revenues generated by the sales of fishing and hunting licenses, permits and registrations for things such as boats and snowmobiles.

Please contact the governor and let him know that this isn't right.

Dirigo Health's Continued Failure

Thinking a little more about the veto of Dirigo Health's new funding mechanism and with the addition of a new article in the BDN "highlighting" (I use this term loosely) its need I can't help but go back to something that Tarren Bragdon (Maine Heritage Policy Center) said THREE YEARS AGO in reference to Dirigo's already abysmal results in a Heritage Foundation summary of Dirigo's Health program.

Conclusion. Dirigo Health is based on the premise that government officials can best control and manage the entire health care system. Predict­ably, it is being trumpeted nationally by those who support more government control and more tax­payer funding of health care coverage. In reality, it is proving to be a costly and ineffective expansion of bureaucracy and government control that will drive up costs and further undermine consumer choice and competition in the health care system.

There is a better way. Real and effective health care reform should be based on the core principle that personal health care decisions are best left up to individuals and their doctors, not government offi­cials, state legislators, or well-intentioned bureau­crats. Real reform empowers the individual with the tools necessary to choose affordable, quality, and accessible health care services and health insurance coverage. It begins and ends with personal freedom.

Not surprising that three years later we're still in the same mess with Dirigo given that we (the people of Maine, no me) just voted back into government most everyone that helped concieve it.

Change...and some things stay the same

Screedblog says it best..

Seriously, though: congratulations to President-elect Obama. Right or wrong - and I hope for more of the former, obviously - he’s my President now, dammit, and I’m not going to spend four years treating him with the contempt the Kos side heaped on Chimpy McPretzelchoker. He could turn out to be a horrible President. He could turn out to be a great one. History pushes people in unexpected directions.

On the Maine front it was business as usual with all the same clowns getting back into office by a typical wide margin, I don't understand how people can take a honest look at the shape of Maine and vote AGAIN for the same jokers. What is this 10th time is the charm?

On a positive note the new tax on healthcare bills, beer, wine and soda to prop up the much ailing Dirigo Health initiative got voted down handily...Now let it die, Please.

Taxes..

Debra Saunders posted a commentary over on Rasmussen (the polling co) about questions we all should ask about Obama prior to voting, or specifically the realities of the things he has promised. The section on taxes stands out to me...

Taxes: During the last presidential debate with GOP opponent John McCain, Obama repeatedly claimed that under his plan, the rich would pay "a little more" in taxes.

A little more? Obama has proposed increasing the top tax rate to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. He also has talked about extending Social Security taxes on those with incomes above $250,000. The Tax Policy Center noted that if Obama carried through on the idea, which is not included in his official plan, "the proposal could raise effective tax rates on labor income for high earners above 52 percent (and more than 55 percent for residents of states with high income taxes such as California)."

The Tax Policy Center also estimates that, under Plan Obama, 49 percent of Americans will not pay federal income taxes. So when Obama talks up his plan to send a $500 to $1,000 "rebate" to American taxpayers, he is talking welfare. And if half of American voters don't pay income taxes, then what is to stop them from raising taxes on the half that does? So much for Obama's 30-minute television commercial calling for a "new era of responsibility."

Quin Hillyer over at American Spectator speaks to why McCain really should be who we all are voting for and has many forgotten reasons amid Obamamania. Its scary how obvious it is on paper who should be president vs. who is likely to become so...