Confronting Liberal Media Bias

Healthcare costs (Balancing out the Liberal Media Bias with information not reported on, nor emphasized or just flat out biased that may have an impact on voters)

Morning Bell: Encouraging Fraud and Waste Is No Way to Stop Rising Health Care Costs-Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) writes in The Nation....“Medicare has lower administrative costs than any private plan on the market.” But as CATO’s Michael Cannon noted last week, those low administrative costs come at a steep price. According to law enforcement authorities, U.S. taxpayers are the victims of more than $60 billion in health-care fraud every year....And why can’t Medicare buckle down and prevent all this fraud? The Post again: “Officials who oversee the Medicare program say they are vigilant despite time pressure and limited resources. Employees review fewer than 5 percent of the nearly 1 billion claims filed each year.” In other words, the famously low administrative costs that advocates of government-run health care so adore are the exact reason why Medicare is such a great tool for criminals to defraud the American public....He also wants to make sure medical equipment suppliers can inflate health care costs legally through government price controls. Currently, Medicare buys medical equipment for seniors using a centrally planned fee schedule. So despite the fact that an average citizen can buy a power wheelchair for $2,174, Medicare pays $4,023. In 2003, Congress passed a law that allowed the Department of Health and Human Services to phase out the fee schedules in favor of competitive bidding. But just as this new process is about to begin, saving taxpayers an estimated $1 billion annually, Stark has introduced a bill that would preserve most of the fee schedules through 2011 and some until 2015. The proposed delay would cost taxpayers $3 billion in wasteful spending...encouraging fraud and waste by expanding Medicare and preventing free market reforms is not the way to do it."

Global Warming

Gore's Mansion Uses More Energy After 'Going Green'-"Using data obtained through a public records request to the Nashville Electric Service, the Center determined that during the past year, Gore's mansion in the Belle Meade area of Nashville used 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month. As Cybercast News Service previously reported, the Center revealed in February 2007 that the former vice president's home "consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year." A few days later, President Bush's "Western White House" in Crawford, Texas, was praised as an "eco-friendly haven" by the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute. Gore promised to make his mansion -- an 80-year old house that received a gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council -- more efficient by adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models and overhauling the home's windows and ductwork. While a spokesman for an investment firm co-founded by the former vice president told Cybercast News Service that Gore has not been profiting from his crusade against global warming, Johnson strongly disagreed."In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore won an Oscar, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize," he said. "In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria....However, Gore spokesperson Kalee Kreider disputed the Center's claims.The utility bills for the former vice president's mansion have gone down 40 percent since the makeover, Kreider told The Tennessean. The drop was largely due to the home's new geothermal heating and cooling system, which relies on the stable temperatures of the earth or groundwater beneath a building to power its heating and cooling systems.As for the increase in the electric bills, Kreider said that the three-year renovation on the structure wasn't completed until November, so it's a bit early to attempt a before-and-after comparison."

Iraq

IED-Caused Casualties in Iraq Down 89 Percent Since Surge