Political & Elections

longprime · Guru

RE: Edward Snowden

winchester · Guru

Well, yes, applying for non-profit, tax exempt status is a way to avoid taxes.

Income is taxed. If you have no income then you pay no tax. If you register with the IRS as a non-profit then you're "on record" with them as such and are exempt from paying tax.

The problem is that the IRS targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny much more often than other groups. It was politically motivated.

The extra scrutiny was so intrusive and it delayed the approval process for so long that it was arguably voter intimidation.

And since it was conducted by the IRS it was government sponsored and executed.

Politically motivated, government sponsored and carried out, voter intimidation, in my opinion, is an immeasurably more sinister problem than one person who takes it upon himself to expose government secrets.

longprime · Guru

I would just have all political contributions be nonqualified. It's kinda ridiculous to limit campaign contributions anyway.

Several election cycles ago, some traditional Black Churches were threaten with their taxfree status because they were entering the political arena. I can't remember who were the P candidates.

IMO, it's just another way to avoid pay taxes.

winchester · Guru

I really don't care all that much about Snowden. People like him come along every once in a while. He's one person who acted on his own. Whether he's a hero or a traitor is matter of legitimate debate.

I'm much more bothered by the IRS scandal. Here we have a government agency, with the coercive power and relatively unlimited resources of the federal government behind it, bullying and intimidating citizens purely for their political beliefs.

winchester · Guru

hope said: “I'm not buying that one’s political beliefs and value system are genetic”

Nobody says they are. Genetics is only one influence among many, but a strong one. As the quote in my note says, “genetics explains between a third and a half of the variability among people on their political attitudes.”

As I said, genes create a “tendency” not a predetermination.

And as I also said, “There’s a lot more to it, of course. Human psychology and social interaction is a big, wide, rich field full of complexities, subtleties, and nuance. And young minds full of mush are more vulnerable to the influences of the liberal brainwashing that hope points out.”

This part of my note alludes to Churchill’s sentiment: “This explains, in my opinion, why children can spend essentially their entire formative period, from the time they’re born all the way through college and beyond, awash in the sea of liberal indoctrination via education, entertainment, and news, and still end up, as blankmind said, figuring it out for themselves.”

With all that said, the science is clear, and abundant. Here are two examples:

A research team led by Gary Lewis, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Sage Center for the Study of the Mind, has found structural differences between the brains of individuals who have different moral values.
www.psmag.com/politics/red-states-blue-states-gray-matter-44331/

One 2006 study in the Journal of Research in Personality found that women who called themselves liberals as adults had been rated by their nursery school teachers as having traits consistent with threat insensitivity and novelty seeking.

Future liberals were described as more curious, verbal, and self-reliant, but also more assertive and aggressive, less obedient and neat.
Innate tendencies like these also influence how OTHER people react to US. Continuing the above quote, which is talking about fraternal twins, one of whom is liberal and the other is conservative:

So if we could observe our fraternal twins in their first years of schooling, we’d find teachers responding differently to them. Some teachers might be drawn to the creative but rebellious little girl; others would crack down on her as an unruly brat, while praising her brother as a model student.

reason.com/archives/2012/04/10/born-this-way/1

Here’s another study: The Heritability of Partisan Attachment

If that doesn't work, here's a different link to the same study: http://prq.sagepub.com/content/62/3/601.abstract

And here's a different study: The Heritability of Partisan Attachment Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?

-- Edited by winchester on Friday 5th of July 2013 07:58:24 AM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

I believe he is a Libertarian.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

I was extremely liberal in my youth. Turned conservative and now libertarian.

In terms of growing up my dad is pretty far right.

I agree with Churchill's comments on that subject.

hope · Guru

Winchester, I'm not a scientist, but I'm not buying that ones's political beliefs and value system are genetic. confuse

For one thing, there have been far too many cases of people who started out liberal in their youth, and turned more conservative as they got older. whether or not Churchill really said it, the saying the gist of which is "if you are not liberal when young you have no heart and not conservative when older you have no brain" certainly seems to hold true for a lot of people (myself and SLS included).

i think it's more a case of cognitive dissonance kids experience on some of the more liberal college campuses that many kids don't have the identity strength to withstand. Our own son was faced with a lot of challenges (personal things I won't go into here) which happened to coincide with his college years.

I don't expect him not to have changed, and it is not a bad thing to have ones's values questioned. I just think any time there is an extreme change in belief/attitude it is cause for concern.

winchester · Guru

blankmind’s comment highlights something that I’m sure most people here are already aware of, but which I see as a potential saving grace for conservatism in the culture wars. I believe it explains why blankmind's kids both came out of college as non-liberals. On a broader level I think it may also answer the question, “If the education system is the liberal indoctrination system that conservatives claim it to be, then why are there still so many conservatives?” The answer, I believe, might be this:

Genes contribute, somehow, to just about every aspect of our personalities.

We're not just talking about IQ, mental illness, and basic personality traits such as shyness. We're talking about the degree to which you like jazz, spicy foods, and abstract art; your likelihood of getting a divorce or dying in a car crash; your degree of religiosity, and your political orientation as an adult.

Whether you end up on the right or the left of the political spectrum turns out to be just as heritable as most other traits: genetics explains between a third and a half of the variability among people on their political attitudes. Being raised in a liberal or conservative household accounts for much less. - The Righteous Mind, pp 323-324, paperback version.

It is not the case that the mind is a blank slate at birth such that our tendency to be liberal or conservative is purely a matter of how we’re brought up. Rather, evolution has placed in each us a set of psychological mechanisms which help us to survive and to thrive in the cooperative environment that is human society and culture. Of the six predominant mechanisms that have been identified so far conservatism relies on all of them in equal balance, and liberalism relies on about half of them, and of that half mostly just one of them. It should come as no surprise, however, that since these mechanisms are common to everyone – coming as they do from natural selection, and thus performing a key role in human survival - the majority of people, cultures, and moralities worldwide rely on all of them. The human genome leans conservative.

This explains, in my opinion, why children can spend essentially their entire formative period, from the time they’re born all the way through college and beyond, awash in the sea of liberal indoctrination via education, entertainment, and news, and still end up, as blankmind said, figuring it out for themselves.

There’s a lot more to it, of course. Human psychology and social interaction is a big, wide, rich field full of complexities, subtleties, and nuance. And young minds full of mush are more vulnerable to the influences of the liberal brainwashing that hope points out (the field of political science, I understand, is one of the more egregious examples, and I'd bet that a concentration in international relations only compounds the problem). Nonetheless, the methods, technologies, and evidence of modern science are slowly, yet one hopes inevitably, pulling moral and political science, kicking and screaming, away from its 200 year rationalist tangent. And if science really is interested in the truth, some of these sorts of findings, eventually, will find their way into mainstream thought.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, longprime. Many kids do not embrace what their parents believe in when they are 20 years old - they tend to rebel from what we think. I know I did. Most of my peers, too.

So after K12 and college being taught largely the principals of liberal thought throughout many of their required courses, is hope's son really thinking for himself? Or is it the same thinking that had been happening throughout his education?

The case I illustrated with the teacher teaching a course that had nothing to do with current events or even US History threw in cultural and political voewpoints that were not part of the subject matter that should have been taught.

If he taught math or science, he would be fired.

longprime · Guru

Me,

All I want is a chance with the opportunity; With the crooks and those who done me (collectively) wrong burn in hell.

Is Eddie Snowden, a Libertarian, Republican, or Democrat?

-- Edited by longprime on Wednesday 3rd of July 2013 01:56:08 PM

-- Edited by longprime on Wednesday 3rd of July 2013 01:58:10 PM

blankmind · Senior Member

There's still hope, hope! I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that my 2 kids have both come out of college as non-liberals!!!! (Well, one is only half way through, but he actually joined the college republicans). My d started off in 2008 fully on the obama college bandwagon, and I really encouraged her to get involved and follow whatever she believed in. She managed to figure it out for herself.

hope · Guru

Good to hear that, blankmind! I am hoping the "real world" will challenge some of his ivory tower beliefs.

it is more jarring for us because he was always a conservative thinker. He used to joke about the pushing of multi-culti literature in his English classes, for example, and other obvious liberal agendas. As recently as two years ago he still called himself conservative. I know he was looking for a moderate Republican to vote for last fall. so the turnaround has been very abrupt...which makes it seem all the more like real brainwashing (apologies for drama, but that's how it appears to us).

He was a poli sci major with an International Relations concentration, so I know there was plenty of opportunity for professors to teach their bias.

It's just very strange--on political and social issues he's done a 180 In a very short period of time. It reminds me of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"!

-- Edited by hope on Wednesday 3rd of July 2013 08:29:18 AM

winchester · Guru

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.

A Time for Choosing, Address on behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater,
Rendezvous with Destiny, October 27, 1964

hope · Guru

Maybe he could agree with me on one or two things? cry

As long as he doesn't run off and get married, I will cope. :)

longprime · Guru

Snowden, A good Libertarian, but now a Man Without a Country.

longprime · Guru

It would appear, Hope, that you raised children who can make their own decisions despite your efforts to sway them to your side. confuse I think you did a successful job. Two for 2.

evileye

hope · Guru

Nope, you are not wrong.

Which is part of the reason why it is over, IMO.

As for Mitt's statement - he as just stating the politically incorrect obvious.

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. ... My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." -Mitt Romney, in leaked comments from a fundraiser in May 2012.

Obama ticked off a large segment of the population with his "bitter clingers" statement, but who Cares..those people are not politically correct protected groups, are they.

Check out some of the surreal recent threads over at CC to learn more about what one is permitted and not permitted to say/think in present day America.

hope · Guru

I came to realize that my kids' middle and high schools (looking back, even grade schools) were nothing more than indoctrination centers. I put the younger one in private school. Fat lot of good that did! Four years of college did the trick anyway.

Recently, he's been critiquing my "critical thinking skills," something I was shocked to hear come out of his mouth. I wasn't familiar with this new addition to the left's educational brainwashing arsenal.

The insufferable arrogance.

-- Edited by hope on Tuesday 2nd of July 2013 06:55:10 PM

longprime · Guru

Don't know how other people voted.

Mitt Romney 47% statement is indicative of the R mindset. They tend to piss 47% of the electorate just when they need just 10% of that electorate to win. As David Brooks said last week about the Immigration Reform, 'it probably won't pass the Republican controlled House because of philosophy and in doing so, the Republicans will commit collective suicide. ' hmm

I have a pet peeve with the R's: In the late 90's, Newt successfully forced BC to balance the budget by limiting entitlements and services (border security). In the 2000's to 2006, GWB allowed loose money to pay for Wars that took domestic manpower out of the economy, which shifted the concern from border security to international security, which allowed undocumented to fill jobs, traditionally taken by young people just starting out. These undocumented immigrants have babies, overwhelming public education. So 20 years later (2020) most of the current Red States will be solid Blue. disbelief So, please tell me that I am wrong. evileye

winchester · Guru

It's never over.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Of late, I have been a fly on the wall of a high school history course. It is a popular teacher, beloved by many.

Well, if you believe the same things he does, that is. The kids who don't are shamed into the humiliation of being the "Othere", those kids who question this teacher's political beliefs. Then it is a pretty miserable experience.

What I find absolutely fascinating is how this teacher slowly indoctrinates his students with his worldview. I also find it amusing since the actual class should never even discuss his own perspectives, at all.

over the last few weeks, he has said things like:

this is a fact. (He says this a lot, when it is unproven and wouldn't pass the smell test or when it is his opinion.)

corporations are evil

Walmart drives out mom and pop stores - "fact" not a single community with a walmart has mom and pop stores left. Which is interesting, since there are three in a 10 mile radius, and each has a plethora of mom and pop stores in their communities.

That he is running for Congress and hopes the kids will vote for him one day.

That R's are backwards and don't have critical thinking skills.

That R's are racist homophobes who care only about themselves. And money.

He is offended because teachers make less than garbage collectors.

He is offended because legislatures are saying teachers are bamkruptimg their states.

so much more, too.

So what is a student to do? Absorb it and think it. Repeat it. The cycle begins anew.

I had a teacher just like him in high school. It is uncanny the kinds of things this man says on a daily basis that have nothing to do with subject matter.

But everything to do with influencing students to take on his ideas as their own. Diabolical, really.

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Tuesday 2nd of July 2013 03:30:02 PM

winchester · Guru

hope is right in the observation that Dems get a pass on gaffes and hypocrisy and policies that hurt, well, everyone, because liberalism is politically correct. It's the "in" thing to be in today's culture of personality (vs. the culture of character, which we started to drift away from in the early 1900s). Whereas R's are vilified and demonized for the same sorts of things essentially because they're not the "in" thing.

longprime is also right about the electorate's perception of the "evils of the R."

The thing is, that perception speaks overwhelmingly more about the lack of comprehension on the part of the electorate about what Republicans/conservatives are really about than it does about anything Reps/cons are actually saying or doing.

The lack of comprehension is, in part, because of the framing that hope refers to, but it's much deeper than that. The reason the framing works has a lot to do with the cognitive wiring of libs and cons, and the capability each side has to intuitively grasp fundamental human nature.

Cons have a much better grasp, but the liberal side is easier to explain (which is why the framing works). The relationship between conservatism and liberalism (and conservatives and liberals) is not too different from the relationship between emotionally mature parents and their immature teenagers, where cons are the parents and libs are the teens, and the teens are certain in their belief that the parents just don't get it. Here's a blogger explaining this idea: http://www.agoyandhisblog.com/2009/09/01/compromising-with-moral-adolescence-a-losing-strategy/

Another way to explain it is through the concept of moral dumbfounding. Moral dumbfounding works two ways. The first way is when a person (e.g., the parent in the above example) has a hard time describing something that seems intuitively obvious to them. They want to say "You mean you don't KNOW why it's wrong to do that? I have to explain this to you? What planet are you from?" (not that a parent would say that, but you get the idea). The second way is the other side of that equation. It's when a person (e.g., the adolescent child in the example) has a hard time understanding something that is intuitively obvious to somebody else. They want to say "How can you possibly think that way? What planet are you from?" This is the essence of the current political divide.

The reason I say it's not over is because 1) humans will be around for at least a few more centuries which means there's still plenty of time for mid course corrections, and 2) current science is beginning to get wise to these things, and is starting to point in the direction of the necessary course corrections. In the following quote, "sentimentalists" refers to intellectuals like David Hume who believe(d) that moral intuition - our innate sense or gut feelings about right and wrong - is what really drives our political "reason."

Hume got it right. When he died in 1776, he and other sentimentalists had laid a superb foundation for "moral science," one that has, in my view, been largely vindicated by modem research. http://www.amazon.com/The-Righteous-Mind-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1332955359&sr=8-1 , Page 135.

The reason things have gotten so bad is that for a long time, because the argument is easier to "mass market" (or frame, as hope might say) the moral adolescence of liberal rationalism has had the upper hand, as illustrated in the continuation of the above quote:

You would think, then, that in the decades after his death, the moral sciences progressed rapidly. But you would be wrong. In the decades after Hume's death the rationalists claimed victory over religion and took the moral sciences off on a two-hundred-year tangent.

But the good news is that modern science's vindication of Hume (and others like him) is starting to take hold in ever widening circles of scientific, social, and political thought. Witness the following anti-rationalist commencement speech from May of this year by Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the (very) liberal magazine, New Republic: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113299/leon-wieseltier-commencement-speech-brandeis-university-2013#

Also witness this recent book: "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False", by Thomas Nagel (Sep 26, 2012) A synopsis of the book is in an article called "The Heretic: Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him?" here http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html

All three of the anti-rationalist references (not counting the blogger or the Nagel synopsis) in this post come from strong liberals who have the intellectual honesty and political courage to follow, and say, where the evidence leads.

So, hope, there is hope. It won't be easy. It will take a long time (after all, it's taken us about a century to get this far off track, and it's harder to fix something that's been broken that to just not break it in the first place). But it's not over by any stretch of the imagination.

-- Edited by winchester on Tuesday 2nd of July 2013 03:05:05 PM

hope · Guru

You think voters in the last election based their votes on the keystone pipeline, Patriot Act, coal and climate change and mortgages, lp?

longprime · Guru

Nuther problem is that the R what to fight on everything. Pick the issues that you can win, not lose.

And you are correct about the 47%, Hope. But MR didn't have to actually say the obvious. All he did was to reinforce if not introduce the electorate to the evils of the R.

-- Edited by longprime on Tuesday 2nd of July 2013 12:35:26 PM

hope · Guru

You're Right....for me it's over. Personally I'm just exhausted trying to fight the politically correct framing of every issue.

i admire those that can carry on the good fight! Good luck!

-- Edited by hope on Tuesday 2nd of July 2013 10:08:29 AM

longprime · Guru

The Left didn't frame anything for the Conservatives. The Conservative framed the issues that they chose.

ie: Keystone Pipeline. Three Years later, Refiners and Wellhead producers find that the "pipeline on rails" is better suited to maximize their profits and production. Although more expensive, rail delivery is flexible, now, without regulation, and with or without longterm commitments.

ie: Edward Snowden. Patriot Act codified and promoted massively under GWB, But its origins is an accumulation of technology and law & order thinking over many Presidents. The Law & Order mandra is the third leg of the Conservative table. But L&O takes also took us to be more dependent on technology and concentrated knowledge to few people yet at the same time increased the number of people in the government's pay.

ie: Coal & Climate Change. The result of discovery and "drill baby drill". we now have cheap NG, surplussing coal. Although USA never did really drilled more wells, we really used improved but existing technologies especially when the price of crude & NG rose to profitable levels. In the last election cycle, did you really buy into the line that PBO Carbon policy actually put coal producers-miners out of business-jobs?

ie: Banking & Mortgage. Anyone like to have your Bank risk your money in liar loans and AA securities full of fraudent mortgages? Again financial deregulation and self-policing started under a Democrat President but the R's took the credit for both the deregulation/liaise faire attitude.

hope · Guru

It's over, Winchester. I believe the left has succeeded in framing every single issue to their advantage. It's pure genius, really.

We conservatives are left just howling at the wind.

Time to work at adjusting and learning how to pursue a meaningful life in a country different from what we thought we knew.

of course we will occasionally feel the need to vent from time to time. :)

thankful for this place.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

The New Republic is not conservative.

winchester · Guru

What would happen if any conservative magazine said this?

Four Ways Obama Needs to Control His Spooks

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113685/obamas-second-term-recovery-guide-roll-back-surveillance-state

longprime · Guru

I always thought the NR was a conservative publication.

The Patriot Act merely codified what our agencies did on the sly.

Moore's Law said that processing power will double every 18-24 months. And the cost of processing will fall in kind.

Can't anyone add the two together, especially when the answer is known in the guise of super-duper computers. Did you really think that these computers only calculated Bomb yields and weather forecasting?

What is no longer a surprise to me, is that "conservatives" are too busy longing for the past and not looking at what the future could bring. They can complain all they want about PBO or whoever liberal is in office, but they do not look at their own candidate/party actions when they have the power baton.

As for the Snowden's revelation that USA bugs foreign embassies, This is news? Isn't the NSA and CIA mandated to do this?

-- Edited by longprime on Monday 1st of July 2013 04:48:59 PM

longprime · Guru

And maybe the Republican House could repeal/ amend the Patriot Act. Could be a good chance that the Senate would concur and place the repeal on PBO desk.

My Senator is Ron Wyden.

If I remember, We in Oregon had a case in mid 2000's where a lawyer was jailed without warrant (FISA or public) when he was representing his muslim client. He couldn't defend himself because he didn't know the charges. Also couldn't defend his client. Apparently FBI wiretapped client-lawyer communications under the guise of Patriot Act.

FYI, some history on FISA: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=foreign_intelligence_surveillance_act_1

soccerguy315 · Guru

maybe Obama should hire John Yoo

longprime · Guru

I really don't know what other people think. I know I would wish more people be more informed but no be political about it.

I really don't know much about the Patriot Act and subsequent adjusts in 2006 and 2010, You do know that much of the Act is secret, that disclosure of what is secret is "against the law" and our MOC did not read or had access to the Act prior to or after its passage. And our Assist AG John Yoo, another Constitutional professor (tenured, UCB) did an masterful job in collecting all the wish lists of law enforcement and Presidential authority.

Vanity Fair did a series of investigative articles in the mid 2000's. I know that Rolling Stone and Mother Jones also did articles but I never read them. VF has nice perfume samples, pretty models and purses, and the feature,I really like is the ingenue for DS. evileye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo

"In addition, in what was known as the Bybee memo, Yoo asserted that executive authority during wartime allows waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" usually regarded as torture.^[14] Yoo argued in his legal opinion that the president was not bound by the War Crimes Act. In addition, he provided a legal opinion backing the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program.^[11]^[12]^[15]^[16]

Yoo's legal opinions were not shared by everyone within the Bush Administration. Secretary of State Colin Powell strongly opposed what he saw as an invalidation of the Geneva Conventions,^[16] while U.S. Navy general counsel Alberto Mora campaigned internally against what he saw as the "catastrophically poor legal reasoning" and dangerous extremism of Yoo's opinions.^[17]"

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Most people assumed that since they weren't doing terrorist things, or hanging around terrorists, that they were not being scrutinized.

Since that is what the Patriot Act was designed for - to stop terrorism - and was supposed to be in effect for a short period of time - that is what we surmised.

hope · Guru

Who, how many, when, what, people were paying attention is irrelevant, isn'T it. We are paying attention now, thank goodness. And I think very very few "surmised and assumed."

The average American does not know who Gerald Ford was, and you think they're up-to-speed on the Patriot Act?

longprime · Guru

IMO, The PatriotAct 2001 and 2010 are essentially a War Power's Act given to the President. Snowden perhaps could be under a military code rather than a civil code, even though what he has revealed is either already widely known (for those of us who pay attention) or easily surmised and assumed.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Good point. Military justice is swifter and less forgiving than civil.

longprime · Guru

Manning is 1st under military law and not civil, constitutional law.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Probably treated better there than Manning has been. Naked and in solitary confinement.

longprime · Guru

and Snowden is now in Russia, with asylum. I question if Russia will give him political asylum over a mental asylum.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

For more paranoia, look up Michael HastiNgs. The journalist who wrote the article on McChrystal.

Died in a lone fiery car crash, after sending his colleagues and a friend an email about going off radar and writing a big story.

hope · Guru

In Obama's America, you're delusional if you're NOT paranoid....

busdriver11 · Guru

Actually, blankmind, she doesn't even remember what she wrote it for. I don't think she even remembers the visit. The last time I was there, she said, "Anxiety? What was that about?" To which I tried very hard to not roll my eyes. I don't intend on getting another job, and after retirement but before Medicare, we keep our insurance (though pay for it). Unless of course, Obamacare finds a way to make it too expensive or boot us off of it.

And yes, Samurai, maybe I am a little crazy.....evil laugh....
Geez, that sounds like a group of clueless medical professionals. Your family member is very lucky you stayed with him.

blankmind · Senior Member

You know, it occurs to me that (add snark here) this new anxiety classification could be a genius cost savings idea from our fabulous administration. Think of how much money can be saved if people stop going to the doctor because they don't want it out on the web that they have "anxiety".

blankmind · Senior Member

geez busdriver, that is ridiculous. Can you ask her to change it? Or give you a good explanation as to why she feels it needs to be deemed anxiety? It seems to me that the anxiety is on the referring doctor's part, and ought to go on his/her medical chart, not yours.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Also, busdriver...you might be a nutcase. Just saying. biggrin

We still like you, though!

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

There are a ton of new patient reasons for visit and new diagnosis classifications For Medicare. When my dad had his surgery in January, the dictor spent more time with us in his office figuring out which one applied than discussing his results.

The irony is that he could not bill correctly for the visit because it was out of the standardized time frame for post-op visit By one day. So doctor didn't get to bill what he actually did.

Yep. It is great.

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Saturday 22nd of June 2013 09:43:20 AM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Those questions they ask you busdriver are not just inane questions, Anymore. They have to ask, but guard what you say. It might be held against you, later.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

I am actually just here with a family member. He will be in a few days. I was going to go home and get some sleep, but the last shift change did not impress me when they asked him why he was here. Huge surgery? Incision? Not sure how to respond. I figured I would stay and assist him if he needs it through the night. I know I like him better than the medical team does.

They told him he could have fluids and jello tonight, then when I went to secure them, they said no. Chart says no. Worried about nausea. Well, if he has not had it yet, and surgery happened almost 20 hours ago, gee - maybe he is okay?

They also asked him if he had anxiety about being in the hospital. How to answer? No, not really, except when the nurses do not have good communication skills. If you answer, yes it is now in that medical record!