BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream

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From longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' daily Poor Denny's Almanac: On July 30, 1965, after defeating the bitter opposition of the American Medical Association in one of the monumental legislative battles of the 20th century, Medicare was created by Congress.

Editor, the Gazette-Journal:

Your Sunday columnist Ben Carson has morphed from doctor to dogmatist.

On July 13, he endorsed attractively named "health savings accounts," first proposed two decades ago by an Indiana for-profit insurer.

Significantly, Carson never informed readers what they are or how they work.

The premise seems logical: Give people cash incentives not to utilize health services, the consumer equivalent of doctors getting kickbacks for discouraging expensive tests, even if needed.

I know a Reno woman who died as a result.

The insurance lobby's goal is to develop a pool of ratepayers composed of young, healthy people reluctant to file claims in order to obtain premium rebates.

Carson was forced to admit that "the five percent of patients with complex physical maladies would need to be taken care of through a different system similar to Medicare and Medicaid."

Not to worry. HSA's will blow up both.

Health savings accounts are actually anti-insurance, designed to put Medicare in a death spiral as more and more healthy people are lured into the game of kickback roulette.

They can have insurance as long as they don't use it.

Andrew Barbano
Reno

More about Health Savings Accounts —>

The Ragpicker God / Barbwire/ 6-12-2005

Freedom Riders and Wage Defenders: HSAs come to Sparks / Barbwire / 5-15-2011

How to Shrink and Get Fat at the Same Time / Barbwire / 5-3-1998

WEB EXTRAS...

TOO LEGIT TO QUIT. The Barbwire's ongoing investigation of phony Nevada graduation rates, now in its third year, just got respectable. (Scroll down to Hiding in Plain Sight.)

Read it and weep, then review the series for yourself.

TOAST ALERT. Teachers' union gross profits tax petition supporters and opponents would do well to review the Barbwire of Feb. 28, 2013.

Passage of the tax initiative could easily lead to a successful court challenge that would at the same time blow out not only the revenue hike, but also term limits and the state's worst anti-union laws. Something for everybody. [UPDATE]

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.

PayPal monthly subscription software is now operational at the website.

A thousand thanks to those who already responded and keep sending show suggestions. Current frontrunners include (pardon the pun) wild mustangs as canned goods, education and  i-Guns with César Chávez in Nevada recently surging.

Now come queries about ballot questions. The Jan. 30 column brought a surge of inquiries about the Nevada State Education Association corporate tax petition on this November's ballot.

Stay tuned.

  Please forward additional ideas or vote on the above.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/

The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet.

This is important.

We've got work to do.

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Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

____________
Andrew Barbano is a 45-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.com/ As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

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Smoking Guns... Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential A cold shower for the NY Times Tesla gusher 40 years in the wilderness: Study says Silver State on downhill slide since 1970 Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 7-10-2014 Sparks Tribune Ask Hobby Lobby to take in refugee kids So five uptight old Catholic guys in grim reaper robes don't like contraception. Wonder if they thought that way back in college? Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 7-3-2014 Sparks Tribune The Status Quo Ante versus the Status Quo Uncle Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 6-26-2014 Sparks Tribune Tesla plants PR slants to get into the public's pants Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 6-19-2014 Sparks Tribune ...and more ammo... Washoe school boss Martinez should resign or get axed Reno News & Review Editorial 7-10-2014 The hardest and fairest questions yet asked of proponents of the teachers gross profits tax initiative Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 7-10-2014 We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series Barbwire: Nevada not really a state No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 State of Health National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 USA at crossroads: New Deal or new Confederacy? Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-10-2013 Sparks Tribune UPDATE—>Bill Moyers: Shutdown is simply secession by other means ...and more ammo yet IMF Head Says Inequality Threatens Democracy. Here Are 7 Charts Proving She’s Right. By Erika Eichelberger / Mother Jones/BillMoyers.com 5-30-2014 “The behavior of the financial sector has not changed fundamentally…since the crisis. The industry still prizes short-term profit.” The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. Not included in the RGJ online edition. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. The winning entries Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune Click here to view the show on your desktop RED flags flying low over Sparks Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune The wrath of self-righteous racism Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?   The Dean's List    The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites. RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006 The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL Barbwire / 11-30-2008 Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry Barbwire / 8-3-2008 Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here? Barbwire / 6-15-2008 The 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries The life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was

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Copyright © 1982-2014 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 45-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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