The addition of home health aides to Medicare is … in principle … a universal benefit. Except to the families that will have to find workers in the fragmented, no job ladder, no benefits crap work labor market that is home health.
The sector needs to be formalized & professionalized to benefit the workers, the families & the care system.
To use Medicare $$ the sides must work for an agency. Agency bills Medicaid $50/hr, pays aide $19/hr. Estimates are that >50% of HHA work off the books.
Yes by all means include this care for our seniors. Yes yes yes!
But also direct attention to improving the working conditions of the mostly female workers.
If this were not my country, I would laugh my ass off about Lying Don. It's also really hard to be amused about the MAGA crowd and their constant threats to people just trying to do their jobs.
I guess I never thought I'd turn on PBS and hear them say the former President is lying, and this is the outrageous thing he said today. It's pitiful, but we must report---if PBS can do it, so can we. Learn. Educate. Vote.
Lying about how elections are held while actively stealing millions of people's right to vote isn't funny either, but it is effective. So I hope everyone checks their registration, and then has a meaningful and happy experience actually voting. Make it a good day.
Thank you Thom and thank you Greg.
And by the way, John Roberts has turned his Court into the laughing stock of this nation. The King has no clothes and his Court's Righteous Six have no robes.
The immigrants legal and illegal have been used to bust our unions and lower our standard of living. Has an FDR Democrat I have despised the Reagan democrats who have taken over the party and force me to become independent. They have made liberal a dirty word now. The Republican party is now the fascist party and the late Democratic party is now the Republican party. The progressives are hiding in the basement at the White House. The left has always supported sustainable growth, not breed your brains out!
That Tesla robot sounds more human than Musk. [Not that Henny Youngman!}
I didn't get to hear Alex Lawson. Wonder whether he was aware of my proposals re endowments of trust funds? As of the second quarter of 2024, the total assets of US foundations are estimated to be close to $1.6 trillion. This is a 2% increase from the previous quarter, and a 60% increase over the last five years. Yesterday I posted my 2011 ABA letter to probate lawyers, "Social Security—Maybe Charity Should Begin at Home."
At one time, Medicare Part C covered home health care and assisted care. In a nutshell, needed a prescription from a physician (plan of care) establishing the need for attendant or skilled nursing care. "Skilled" is a term of art. My wife and I, both federal retirees, both who worked with this stuff, who had parents and even siblings caught in the system, bought government sponsored long tern care. Will not cover everything..... Only a small percentage of federal retirees can afford the premiums.
At one time, I was also the judge who heard most (if not all) Medicare Hospice cases. A physician must state under oath the patient only had 6 months to live.
Statistically, most expenses come at the end of life. People like Trump say "let 'em die."
I'm still looking for the wormhole in space that will let us pass ourselves in age. To paraphrase Dylan, ah, I was much older then, I'm younger than that now. .
Corporate hurricane profiteers help Republicans spread disinfo about FEMA and disaster relief. Follow the money with this interactive map. How do FOX NEWS and GOOGLE profit from spreading Hurricane Helene disinfo?
John Roberts will go down in history as one of the worst Chief Justices, running one of the worst, if not the absolute worst of courts in this nation's history. His court removed protections for voting rights, the environment, and women's healthcare, allowed unfettered campaign spending and legalized bribes as tips. He's as much of a crook as Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, he just behaves in a more composed and patrician way to disguise it.
So so so depressing! What would you advise me please… rope, knife, poison, bullet? No answer? Ok ok… i’ll just forget about suicide and open a good bottle of chardonnay!! 😇. Fuck trump and maga. Incredible how this coup against democracy was this time well planned and set into motion. They did learn from 2020. And Dems did not do much to counter it. Unfortunately for America and the rest of the world. Forza Kamala anyway.
When my parents were in their final years I was out voted by my siblings, so we put them in a dementia care facility. The place cost more a month than I pay rent in a year. My mom still had a couple falls, the food had to be safe for everyone there and to me it was horrible cafeteria like fare. My dad hated being there, my mom couldn't speak more than the occasional "no", but I believe she hated it too. I hope Kamals home care comes to fruition and is sound, but I imagine it will be fought by the elderly care industry.
Mr. Hartmann, I will begin to believe computers are having "human desires" when I, see them holding hands, fighting with one another to gain access to electric sockets in my house. Hell, even if they are attempting to gain access to the electric outlets on their own initiative at all, this will impress me. When they create visual art, music, cities, war, cultures; I will be impressed. When they begin to create language I will be impressed. They are not creating language. They are only reproducing the electrical, meaningless bytes in their semiconductor circuits which some human being has introduced into them in such a way as to associate these bytes with human language symbols. Computers are engaged in something similar to that old saw: if you allow an orangutang enough time to play with a keyboard; that ape will write the Shakespearean canon. At least the ape has real desires and needs which it recognizes and acts upon spontaneously. We cannot say this about a computer. The computer is a tool, nothing more. It is a tool which is capable of allowing us to store an immense amount of human information and make that information retrievable by us. Please notice: I do not say computers store Knowledge. They store information. What is consciousness?
Throughout our existence we humans have been engaging in a process which occurs in only one direction. It is this: as time goes by we are able to create and store more bits of information per capita than before. This process never reverses. Writing on a papyrus allows us to store information. Printing on paper allows us to store more information per capita. Our semiconductor machines have allowed us to store an incomprehensibly huge amount of information per capita. Let us not be misled. This is only storage of what we put into the transistor circuits. Nothing more. What is consciousness?
There are some things in this universe which will always be beyond our ability to understand and explain. Consciousness is one of them. Conversely; the death of a human being is another. Our death is not simply the cessation of biological activity in our bodies. It is the cessation of consciousness. This cessation of consciousness is something which, by definition, we will never experience. We all die; but we cannot experience death. Death is, by definition NOTHING..... NONE-EXISTENCE. So, what is consciousness? I understand there are many religious people who believe in religious alternative conscious lives. But I hold this to be nonsense.
The astronomers tell us our solar system has existed for 4.5 billion years. The planet Earth has revolved around the star we call the Sun 4.5 billion years. It will revolve another 4.5 billion times before the Sun expands into a red giant and destroys Earth. After I die I shall feel no love, hate, desire, urge, longing, needs, pain, pleasure.......nothing. Something religious people do not often talk about [except for some Hindus] is: what life did I have during the 4.5 billion years before today? Western religions all talk about the "eternity" after today. What is this "eternity?" Unlike Hindus, Western religions are silent about my consciousness during the 4.5 billion years before today. What is consciousness?
I am talking about 9 billion revolutions of Earth around Sun; an incomprehensible period of time. The existence of all human consciousness is not even a metaphorical eye-blink during this period. In all likely-hood the existence of all conscious and unconscious life as we know it is less than an eye-blink.
What is consciousness?
What do we really know about consciousness? I cannot define it. But I know it when I feel it. Cogito ergo sum. Bishop Berkeley was wrong. Rene DesCarte was correct. I will go so far as to say I know it when I see it in others. I even see it in my Boston Terrier. I love my dog. In its own way, my dog loves me. I see consciousness in my neighbor's Pit Bull. I hate my neighbor's dog. My neighbor's dog, in its own way, hates me. What is consciousness? Computers do not have it. I do. You do. Dogs do.
Russia's loss of soldiers: That 600,000 number is not deaths, but total casualties. It's nearly impossible to find a source that counts actual deaths. The number is closer to 200,000.
In the 1920's Germany was a democracy with a weak president. Hitler's rise to power is well documented. We white people are descended from the same Northern European stock. We seem doomed to the same fate.
We are conditioned to accept the absurd as normal.
That to be free, we must gain what we don't have, to fill an emptiness, a nothingness we don't understand and are afraid to face. Yet, there it always is, buried deep inside, a constant companion from birth to death. Society teaches us to fulfil, to satisfy, to succeed, to control. Without ever fully exploring that which we cannot control — the void within us, the reality — we are forever running away, striving for something, anything, goals we never quite reach, or if we do, constantly setting new ones. For some, it's the endless accumulation of material wealth; for others, it's the quest for knowledge for knowledge's sake, useful or not. Some escape into mindless pleasure, shallow sex, drugs, or alcohol. Some of us can't handle all the many conflicts and stress of society and simply go insane.
And this is what we call life. But can we look at it directly without all the excuses, the simple truth of it: all of us together as we live our daily lives — all the successes, all the failures — have created this monstrous existence of haves and have-nots, of violence and cruelty, of selfishness and pettiness. We throw around the word love as if it's something we know, something to possess, something to gain, some emotional state of mind that we must only learn through time how to achieve, mostly fooling ourselves into thinking that maybe we've finally found "it" in this godless world of hate.
Finally, when physical death comes for us, as it must, and we lose everything, the emptiness returns; or rather, it has always been there from beginning to end. Realized or not, it cannot be denied. So, do we dare ask ourselves the questions with no answers: Is true love beyond all the striving of our petty, self-absorbed selves? Does it come into being when there is absolutely nothing left, when the mind is finally, mercifully quiet, no longer searching, creating nonstop disturbances with incessant noise and nonsense, unquenched desires, senseless fears? Is love an emptiness that is life itself, a moment by moment phenomenon, a nothing that contains everything? And can we die psychologically in each moment of life? Is that true love, true freedom?
The addition of home health aides to Medicare is … in principle … a universal benefit. Except to the families that will have to find workers in the fragmented, no job ladder, no benefits crap work labor market that is home health.
The sector needs to be formalized & professionalized to benefit the workers, the families & the care system.
To use Medicare $$ the sides must work for an agency. Agency bills Medicaid $50/hr, pays aide $19/hr. Estimates are that >50% of HHA work off the books.
Yes by all means include this care for our seniors. Yes yes yes!
But also direct attention to improving the working conditions of the mostly female workers.
If this were not my country, I would laugh my ass off about Lying Don. It's also really hard to be amused about the MAGA crowd and their constant threats to people just trying to do their jobs.
I guess I never thought I'd turn on PBS and hear them say the former President is lying, and this is the outrageous thing he said today. It's pitiful, but we must report---if PBS can do it, so can we. Learn. Educate. Vote.
Lying about how elections are held while actively stealing millions of people's right to vote isn't funny either, but it is effective. So I hope everyone checks their registration, and then has a meaningful and happy experience actually voting. Make it a good day.
Thank you Thom and thank you Greg.
And by the way, John Roberts has turned his Court into the laughing stock of this nation. The King has no clothes and his Court's Righteous Six have no robes.
Hitler had The Enabling Act. Trump has the Roberts Court and immunity.
MYTH: Millions and millions of illegal immigrants are pouring across our borders.
FACT: Millions and millions of voters are purged from the system.
The immigrants legal and illegal have been used to bust our unions and lower our standard of living. Has an FDR Democrat I have despised the Reagan democrats who have taken over the party and force me to become independent. They have made liberal a dirty word now. The Republican party is now the fascist party and the late Democratic party is now the Republican party. The progressives are hiding in the basement at the White House. The left has always supported sustainable growth, not breed your brains out!
That Tesla robot sounds more human than Musk. [Not that Henny Youngman!}
I didn't get to hear Alex Lawson. Wonder whether he was aware of my proposals re endowments of trust funds? As of the second quarter of 2024, the total assets of US foundations are estimated to be close to $1.6 trillion. This is a 2% increase from the previous quarter, and a 60% increase over the last five years. Yesterday I posted my 2011 ABA letter to probate lawyers, "Social Security—Maybe Charity Should Begin at Home."
At one time, Medicare Part C covered home health care and assisted care. In a nutshell, needed a prescription from a physician (plan of care) establishing the need for attendant or skilled nursing care. "Skilled" is a term of art. My wife and I, both federal retirees, both who worked with this stuff, who had parents and even siblings caught in the system, bought government sponsored long tern care. Will not cover everything..... Only a small percentage of federal retirees can afford the premiums.
At one time, I was also the judge who heard most (if not all) Medicare Hospice cases. A physician must state under oath the patient only had 6 months to live.
Statistically, most expenses come at the end of life. People like Trump say "let 'em die."
I'm still looking for the wormhole in space that will let us pass ourselves in age. To paraphrase Dylan, ah, I was much older then, I'm younger than that now. .
Good read this morning,Thom, and will reStack ASAP! Look forward to seeing you on the Ari Velshi program Live this morning ☕ at 11am ET on MSNBC 💯👍💙🌊
Corporate hurricane profiteers help Republicans spread disinfo about FEMA and disaster relief. Follow the money with this interactive map. How do FOX NEWS and GOOGLE profit from spreading Hurricane Helene disinfo?
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/10/12/hurricane-profiteers-fox-news-and-google-spread-hurricane-helene-disinfo-follow-the-money/
John Roberts will go down in history as one of the worst Chief Justices, running one of the worst, if not the absolute worst of courts in this nation's history. His court removed protections for voting rights, the environment, and women's healthcare, allowed unfettered campaign spending and legalized bribes as tips. He's as much of a crook as Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, he just behaves in a more composed and patrician way to disguise it.
So so so depressing! What would you advise me please… rope, knife, poison, bullet? No answer? Ok ok… i’ll just forget about suicide and open a good bottle of chardonnay!! 😇. Fuck trump and maga. Incredible how this coup against democracy was this time well planned and set into motion. They did learn from 2020. And Dems did not do much to counter it. Unfortunately for America and the rest of the world. Forza Kamala anyway.
Dems are too busy deciding what kind of cupcakes to bring to the gunfight 🤔😐
When my parents were in their final years I was out voted by my siblings, so we put them in a dementia care facility. The place cost more a month than I pay rent in a year. My mom still had a couple falls, the food had to be safe for everyone there and to me it was horrible cafeteria like fare. My dad hated being there, my mom couldn't speak more than the occasional "no", but I believe she hated it too. I hope Kamals home care comes to fruition and is sound, but I imagine it will be fought by the elderly care industry.
Mr. Hartmann, I will begin to believe computers are having "human desires" when I, see them holding hands, fighting with one another to gain access to electric sockets in my house. Hell, even if they are attempting to gain access to the electric outlets on their own initiative at all, this will impress me. When they create visual art, music, cities, war, cultures; I will be impressed. When they begin to create language I will be impressed. They are not creating language. They are only reproducing the electrical, meaningless bytes in their semiconductor circuits which some human being has introduced into them in such a way as to associate these bytes with human language symbols. Computers are engaged in something similar to that old saw: if you allow an orangutang enough time to play with a keyboard; that ape will write the Shakespearean canon. At least the ape has real desires and needs which it recognizes and acts upon spontaneously. We cannot say this about a computer. The computer is a tool, nothing more. It is a tool which is capable of allowing us to store an immense amount of human information and make that information retrievable by us. Please notice: I do not say computers store Knowledge. They store information. What is consciousness?
Throughout our existence we humans have been engaging in a process which occurs in only one direction. It is this: as time goes by we are able to create and store more bits of information per capita than before. This process never reverses. Writing on a papyrus allows us to store information. Printing on paper allows us to store more information per capita. Our semiconductor machines have allowed us to store an incomprehensibly huge amount of information per capita. Let us not be misled. This is only storage of what we put into the transistor circuits. Nothing more. What is consciousness?
There are some things in this universe which will always be beyond our ability to understand and explain. Consciousness is one of them. Conversely; the death of a human being is another. Our death is not simply the cessation of biological activity in our bodies. It is the cessation of consciousness. This cessation of consciousness is something which, by definition, we will never experience. We all die; but we cannot experience death. Death is, by definition NOTHING..... NONE-EXISTENCE. So, what is consciousness? I understand there are many religious people who believe in religious alternative conscious lives. But I hold this to be nonsense.
The astronomers tell us our solar system has existed for 4.5 billion years. The planet Earth has revolved around the star we call the Sun 4.5 billion years. It will revolve another 4.5 billion times before the Sun expands into a red giant and destroys Earth. After I die I shall feel no love, hate, desire, urge, longing, needs, pain, pleasure.......nothing. Something religious people do not often talk about [except for some Hindus] is: what life did I have during the 4.5 billion years before today? Western religions all talk about the "eternity" after today. What is this "eternity?" Unlike Hindus, Western religions are silent about my consciousness during the 4.5 billion years before today. What is consciousness?
I am talking about 9 billion revolutions of Earth around Sun; an incomprehensible period of time. The existence of all human consciousness is not even a metaphorical eye-blink during this period. In all likely-hood the existence of all conscious and unconscious life as we know it is less than an eye-blink.
What is consciousness?
What do we really know about consciousness? I cannot define it. But I know it when I feel it. Cogito ergo sum. Bishop Berkeley was wrong. Rene DesCarte was correct. I will go so far as to say I know it when I see it in others. I even see it in my Boston Terrier. I love my dog. In its own way, my dog loves me. I see consciousness in my neighbor's Pit Bull. I hate my neighbor's dog. My neighbor's dog, in its own way, hates me. What is consciousness? Computers do not have it. I do. You do. Dogs do.
Thanks, Thom.
Russia's loss of soldiers: That 600,000 number is not deaths, but total casualties. It's nearly impossible to find a source that counts actual deaths. The number is closer to 200,000.
It is hard to get honest information out of dictatorships and American right wingers.
In the 1920's Germany was a democracy with a weak president. Hitler's rise to power is well documented. We white people are descended from the same Northern European stock. We seem doomed to the same fate.
We are conditioned to accept the absurd as normal.
That to be free, we must gain what we don't have, to fill an emptiness, a nothingness we don't understand and are afraid to face. Yet, there it always is, buried deep inside, a constant companion from birth to death. Society teaches us to fulfil, to satisfy, to succeed, to control. Without ever fully exploring that which we cannot control — the void within us, the reality — we are forever running away, striving for something, anything, goals we never quite reach, or if we do, constantly setting new ones. For some, it's the endless accumulation of material wealth; for others, it's the quest for knowledge for knowledge's sake, useful or not. Some escape into mindless pleasure, shallow sex, drugs, or alcohol. Some of us can't handle all the many conflicts and stress of society and simply go insane.
And this is what we call life. But can we look at it directly without all the excuses, the simple truth of it: all of us together as we live our daily lives — all the successes, all the failures — have created this monstrous existence of haves and have-nots, of violence and cruelty, of selfishness and pettiness. We throw around the word love as if it's something we know, something to possess, something to gain, some emotional state of mind that we must only learn through time how to achieve, mostly fooling ourselves into thinking that maybe we've finally found "it" in this godless world of hate.
Finally, when physical death comes for us, as it must, and we lose everything, the emptiness returns; or rather, it has always been there from beginning to end. Realized or not, it cannot be denied. So, do we dare ask ourselves the questions with no answers: Is true love beyond all the striving of our petty, self-absorbed selves? Does it come into being when there is absolutely nothing left, when the mind is finally, mercifully quiet, no longer searching, creating nonstop disturbances with incessant noise and nonsense, unquenched desires, senseless fears? Is love an emptiness that is life itself, a moment by moment phenomenon, a nothing that contains everything? And can we die psychologically in each moment of life? Is that true love, true freedom?