Louis Scatigna, Author of The Financial Physician

The gold bull market is over, ………..yea right.-Lou

Gold promotion draws 10,000 buyers in China

People crowd around a gold product counter jockeying for position to pick up something in a gold store which sold its products at a price of 299 yuan per gram in a promotion – about 50 to 70 yuan lower than normal, in Jinan city, East China’s Shandong province on June 11, 2013. [Photo/CFP]

A crowd of customers waits in front of a gold store to shop during a promotion, in Jinan city, East China’s Shandong province on June 11, 2013. [Photo/CFP]

Listen to this week’s  archived  ”The Financial Physician”  on Voice America’s Variety Channel. Click on “latest episode”-Lou

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I believe single woman voted for Obama by a 70% margin. This is what they now face.-Lou

In California, Single Women Will Also Face A Doubling of Health Insurance Premiums Due To Obamacare

Forbes

In 2014, Obamacare’s blizzard of regulations and mandates will transform the U.S. market for health insurance, among people who buy coverage for themselves. Of increasing concern is the phenomenon of “rate shock,” whereby many Americans face substantial increases in their health insurance premiums. Much of the debate has focused on young men, the “bros” who will bear the brunt of Obamacare’s rate hikes. But in California, women and men will see equally high jumps in the underlying cost of individual-market premiums.

This is because the Golden State already bars insurers from charging different rates on the basis of gender in the individual market. According to the National Women’s Law Center, 10 other states also do so: Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington. A twelfth state, Vermont, limits but does not prohibit gender rating.

In other words, the rate shock that I described in mythree previous posts on California applies equally to men and women. If you compare the cheapest plan on healthcare.gov to the cheapest Bronze plan on the new Covered California insurance exchange, premiums for healthy 25-year-olds will increase by 147 percent—a median of $183 on the exchange vs. $74 today—and premiums for healthy 40-year-olds will increase by 149 percent—a median of $234 on the exchange vs. $94 today.

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This was happening BEFORE Obamacare, this situation is only going to get worse.-Lou

Primary Care Doctor Shortage Set To Get Worse, USA

The serious shortage of primary care doctors in America will get much worse unless the country reforms its graduate medical education system, researchers from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) reported in Academic Medicine.

Less than 25% of newly qualified doctors go into primary care, and just 4.8% move into rural areas, the authors added. This serious problem will only get worse unless some fundamental changes are introduced.

Lead author, Candice Chen, MD, MPH, an Assistant Research Professor of Health Policy at SPHHS, said:

“If residency programs do not ramp up the training of these physicians the shortage in primary care, especially in remote areas, will get worse. The study’s findings raise questions about whether federally funded graduate medical education institutions are meeting the nation’s need for more primary care physicians.”

The American GME (graduate medical education system) depends on public funding. It receives almost $10 billion from the Medicare program, plus $3 billion from Medicaid. Experts say that in spite of this large cash infusion, the federal government does not ask residency programs to make sure doctors are trained to work in rural or underserved areas of the country.

Medicare and Medicaid represent the major public investment in the US health force. Even so, in some geographical regions there are critical shortages of primary care doctors. There are also shortages in other specialties, including general surgery.

Dr. Chen and team gathered and examined data on the career pursuits of 8,977 doctors who graduated from 2006 to 2008 from 759 medical residency sites. They analyzed the data to determine where these recently qualified doctors were practicing three to five years later.

Overall, they found that just 25.2% of the 8,977 physicians ended up in primary care. Even this figure is probably an overestimate, the authors explained, because it includes graduates who practice as hospitalists.

Out of the 759 medical residency sites the researchers analyzed, 198 produced no rural doctors at all from 2006 to 2008. They also found that 283 sites produced no doctors practicing in Federally Qualified Health Centers, centers that provide medical care to low-income patients, among others. Many Federally Qualified Health Centers are located in struggling urban or remote areas.

The critical shortage in primary care physicians and clinics affects approximately 66 million Americans, about 1 in every 5 people. Chen added that the primary care shortage and inadequate access to proper and prompt care probably contributes to a higher incidence of more serious health conditions.

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Congress should have read the 2,700 page bill before voting for it. How ironic.-Lou

Obamacare? We were just leaving …

Politico-Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.

The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect — a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.

If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.

The problem is far more acute in the House, where lawmakers and aides are generally younger and less wealthy. Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice that they’ll be leaving over concerns about Obamacare. Republican and Democratic lawmakers said the chatter about retiring now, to remain on the current health care plan, is constant.

(Also on POLITICO: Poll finds low Obamacare support)

Rep. John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat in leadership when the law passed, said he thinks the problem will be resolved.

“If not, I think we should begin an immediate amicus brief to say, ‘Listen this is simply not fair to these employees,’” Larson told POLITICO. “They are federal employees.”

Republicans, never a fan of Democratic health care reform, are more vocal about the potential adverse effects of the provision.
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I guess this blog and my radio show is more powerful than I thought…..lol-Lou

NSA Scandal Sends Sales of George Orwell’s ’1984′ Soaring on Amazon

A complementary commercial winner-and-loser pair has emerged from the disclosure of the NSA’s domestic data dragnet, one that would surely bring a thin-lipped smile to the face of Eric Arthur Blair, the English Democratic Socialist who wrote as George Orwell: While Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), the defense contractor that employed leaker Edward Snowden, has seen its stock plummet since the revelation of its connection to the scandal, Amazon’s (AMZN) sales of “1984,” Orwell’s classic dystopian novel of surveillance and control, have skyrocketed.

The LA Times reports that sales of the book, which concerns a discontented propagandist working for the Ministry of Truth in a time of endless war, are up 5,771 percent as of Tuesday morning. From a sales rank of 12,507 in the days before The Guardian published top-secret government documents provided by Snowden, “1984″ has risen to crack Amazon’s top 200.

As of this writing, both the Signet Classics paperback edition and a hardcover volume, “Animal Farm and 1984,” appear on Amazon’s list of “Movers & Shakers: The biggest gainers in Books sales rank over the past 24 hours,” as numbers 16 (up 139 percent) and 11 (up 274 percent), respectively. “1984″ has of course gotten a lot of free advertising over the last week, as NSA opponents have compared the government’s methods to the nightmarish excesses of the totalitarian regime Orwell imagined.

The LA Times notes that President Obama alluded to “1984″ on Friday when speaking in defense of his policies: “In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we’ve struck the right balance.” Big Brother is the novel’s Party leader, surrounded by a cult of personality and committed to rooting out so-called thoughtcrime, or inward deviations from political orthodoxy.

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Another infringement of our liberties. Where does it end? Texting and driving is certainly dangerous but this is just more of the police state America has become.-Lou

License, registration and cell phone: Bill would let N.J. cops search phones after crashes

TRENTON — License, registration and cell phone, please.

Police officers across New Jersey could be saying that to motorists at the scenes of car crashes if new legislation introduced in the state Senate becomes law.

The measure would allow cops — without a warrant — to thumb through a cell phone to determine if a driver was talking or texting when an accident occurred. It requires officers to have “reasonable grounds” to believe the law was broken.

Supporters say it could be an important tool for cops investigating crashes in a state where distracted driving causes lots of accidents and driving while using hand-held cell phones is illegal.

Opponents say it could touch off a contentious legal debate over whether giving officers such access violates a motorist’s right to privacy or protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

There were 1,840 handheld cell phone-related crashes in New Jersey in 2011, resulting in 807 injuries and six deaths, according to the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety,

“Think about it: The chances of the cop witnessing the accident are slim to none,” said the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. James Holzapfel (R-Ocean), the bill’s sponsor, who has worked as a county and municipal prosecutor. “He’s dispatched, and by the time he gets there — unless they’re unconscious and the phone is in their hands, or some passenger says they were on the phone — then he’s got to do what? Subpoena the service to see if the phone was actively used or not?”

The measure is troubling to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which said it is “likely susceptible to a constitutional challenge.”

“This bill is problematic because it infringes on the privacy rights of citizens,” said Alexander Shalom, the ACLU’s state policy counsel. “Our state and federal constitutions generally require probable cause before authorizing a search, particularly when it comes to areas that contain highly personal information such as cell phones.”

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A chilling read.-Lou

Sales of George Orwell’s ’1984′ up 69 percent on Amazon (oops make that 126%)

Sales of George Orwell’s “1984″ are up 69 percent on Amazon, according to a list on the website.

The book marked its 60th anniversary on June 6 amid a flurry of real-world news stories on secret government surveillance.

Amazon lists the paperback version of the sci-fi classic as the 19th biggest book on its Movers and Shakers list. The current sales rank is 110.

The list identifies the biggest gainers in sales rank compared to 24 hours ago.

Update: As of 3:22 p.m. EDT, sales of Orwell’s “1984″ are up 91 percent on the Amazon Movers and Shakers list.

Update II: As of 10:16 p.m. EDT, sales of Orwell’s “1984″ are up 126 percent on the Amazon list. The sales rank is now at 71 – up from 161.