Oliver News

Saw a story today that talked about the Massachusetts law with mandates everyone has to have health insurance. This started about two years ago and is already costing much more than they expected, and it is not covering everyone in the state. Sure it’s a good experiment, but now they are talking about more taxes to cover it. Looks like the idea that covering more people will save more money because of quantity is not the case with health coverage.

From a news story found at yahoo:
“They said it would get us universal coverage and reduce costs and it’s done neither,” Tanner said.

The biggest challenge is rising costs.

In 2006, a legislative committee estimated the law would cost about $725 million in the fiscal year starting in July. In his budget, Patrick set aside $869 million, but those overseeing the law have already acknowledged costs will rise even higher.

Lawmakers are hoping to close the gap in part with a new cigarette tax expected to generate about $154 million a year.

And they are talking about raising the tax on cigarettes to cover it - ridiculous. No new taxes, we need less taxes. Raising the cigarette tax seems easy to them who say divide the people and conquer them - people rarely fight as a group to stop taxing what some consider sin. That’s bad for everyone as a whole. Raising the tax on smokes will make less people smoke which will bring less tax money than they expected, it will also cause the cigarette companies to offer special deals and bonus free packs to try and keep customers, which will lead to even more loss in tax revenue. These people are so short sighted and quick fix it drives me crazy.

I am not against universal health care, but let’s not raise taxes to make it happen. Let’s also not fool ourselves into believing that more people covered means prices will come down.

When stuff like this makes it into the news I am scratching my head in wonder. Doesn’t this sound like common sense, it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist or a Harris poll for everyone to know - people have issues with stealth marketing, and do not like the idea of personal data being used in stealth ways. Sure there are people out there that willingly give up info and get ads tailored in exchange for cheaper services and such, but when it becomes not so obvious and ads are tailored to people it creeps them out.

From the article I found at yahoo:

Nearly 60 percent of 2,513 people in the United States questioned in a Harris Interactive poll said they were uneasy when Web sites use information about personal online activity to tailor advertisements or content.

Really? Boy if people only knew how much of their private data was being stored, used, bought, sold traded, hacked and otherwise taken advantage of they would be up in arms - if you only knew.

Found an article at engagenet talking about how clear channel (the radio conglomerate that runs a ton of rasio stations) is pushing the fcc to censor satellite radio. It’s kind of funny how a business that thrives because of free speech is pushing for censorship. It is a business move I guess, but it’s pretty lame that they have stooped to this low. Rather than pushing for more censorship they should be fighting for free speech. ABC and other television networks are fighting to loosen up the censorship that they face with the FCC over words and images broadcast on television, why doesn’t clear channel direct their energy that way?