Go Green

For those who say it’s time for universal care. I am all for it. It would be nice if we could find a way to reduce the cost of care and make it available to everyone, for anything. But it will take work to get there. Other countries with Universal Care make “Most Things available to All People”. It’s not perfect. In our country, we make “Everything available to Most People”. The question for this country, unlike others, is how we can make the best possible care and therapies, regardless of cost, to everyone ? Read @AbdulElSayed ‘s book on Medicare for All. He wisely had more questions than answers. Medicare for All ? Global Budgets ? Or something else ? It’s a difficult path from where we are to “E4E” Healthcare. ?Everything for Everyone) My hope is that we can put together a Simpson Bowles type, Blue Ribbon Commission. One that includes representatives of all stakeholders. From all different type of patients. Including rare disease parents. Rural and Urban Hospitals. The most expensive hospitals that offer unique care. Pharma companies that offer everything from genetics to Cell and Gene Therapies. You get the point Some people think we can just tell all those working in the healthcare system what to do. That’s the fastest way for this to fail. We need to be as close as we can to being on the same page. And we need to figure out a non partisan manner of running our American version of Universal Care. No reason we can’t start now

Just found the old list of patents out IP lawyers for Broadcast com were going to file but never got around to under Yahoo. Not saying they all would have been granted, but if you ever need prior art in this area, here you go lol. Potential broadcast.com Patent Applications January 4, 1999 1. Geographic IP Identification Technique for pin-pointing the geographic location of a static IP device by triangulating routes taken by IP packets and building a database of IP addresses and DNS names. 2. Hybrid Networks A commercial network of unicast and multicast enabled networks that terminates at a single point and which enables digital content to be distributed in a one-to-many fashion across multiple networks from a single initiation point. 3. Multi-Network Multicast A commercial network of multicast enabled networks that terminates at a single point and which enables digital content to be distributed in a one-to-many fashion across multiple networks from a single initiation point. 4. Reverse Auction Online auction mechanism in which a buyer who desires to purchase goods defines that desire, along with a maximum price that s/he will pay.  Potential sellers then respond by offering their goods at  a price below any previous bidders and at or below the designated maximum price.
 5. Audio Ad Delivery Software techniques for parsing files served by web server and acting upon text to perform functions such as audio ad rotation and synchronized audio ad/pop-up URL scripting. 6. Web Server Reporting System Software techniques for reporting on very large web server of files across multiple web servers in order to comply with industry-standard web server reporting practices. 7. Commerce Payment Gateway Integration Modular software routines for interfacing with a variety of payment getaway vendors (e.g. Mpact, Cybersource) for pay-per-view/listen and for traditional e-commerce. 8. Streaming Server Parsing And Reporting Software techniques for reporting on very large streaming server log files across hundreds of streaming servers. 9. Streaming Authentication System Custom database and related Software routines that extend RealAudio's 5.x implementation of user and player authentication. 10. Web Page Generation System Set of databases and scripts for automatically generating website sections such as CD Jukebox, Radio Stations, AudioBooks, etc. 11. Live Events Management System Custom data base and web-based system for managing daily events by collecting data on each event and "publishing" collected data to various groups as needed. 12. Automatic Content Promotion Set of scripts that run against live event databases and generate files for publishing to Yahoo!, Real Networks, and CMP. 13. Telephony-Based Content Publication System that allows people to call into a voice-mailbox and leave messages which are then automatically encoded into multimedia content and hosted on a website.

It’s hard to believe that President Trump started another war in the Middle East, got us stuck, and now is forced to buy Russian oil from Putin, aiding and abetting the war Putin started in Ukraine, in which he's now stuck. Trump has always weirdly admired Putin, and now they share the same hubris that got them into failing and expensive wars. cnbc.com/2026/10/09/trump-pu…

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is the most significant investment ever made to restore and protect our Great Lakes. I’ll keep working in a bipartisan way to get this commonsense bill passed into law to help protect the Great Lakes for future generations.

Jews in Michigan and around the world have endured a third year of intense emotions since the barbaric attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Last October, we watched with relief as long-suffering Israeli hostages were reunited with the embrace of their families. In March, we felt the horror in West Bloomfield, as 100 Jewish children were the targets of a terror attack on their synagogue. Through it all, we found comfort in our strong and vibrant community here in Oakland County. Today is a solemn day of remembrance – to honor the lives lost, mourn with the families still grieving, and recommit ourselves to confronting antisemitism wherever it appears. We must be able to hold this space without politics stoking more hatred and discord. I remain hopeful we can achieve lasting peace in the region, ensure security and safety for Israelis and Palestinians alike, and overcome the divisions plaguing our own country.

That’s *renovations*. Not new construction. Why work with Mom and Pops when you can just raid the city treasury?

Thank you, President Trump for bringing together the Oligarchs who run our country. While working families struggle to survive due to your disastrous policies, they are now worth over $1.7 trillion, including: Elon Musk: $920 billion Jeff Bezos: $368 billion Mark Zuckerberg: $250 billion Jensen Huang: $200 billion Obscene.

I’m relieved that every passenger made it home safe tonight. This was a clear act of terrorism by a madman who tried to hijack a plane to kill innocent people and attack the state of Israel. The passengers who stepped in to save the lives of everyone onboard deserve our full praise. Praying for the injured pilot and wishing him a speedy recovery.

The U.S. Government is up on TV with this spot -- It aired nationally on FOX yesterday during Illinois at #7 Ohio State and also during Fox News Sunday this morning

The U.S. Government is up on TV with this spot -- It aired nationally on FOX yesterday during Illinois at #7 Ohio State and also during Fox News Sunday this morning

absolutely demented. like a scene from a horror movie

Last night I planted an olive tree at Gracie Mansion with Palestinian families from Gaza.  May peace be our future.

Share this with your governor. Share this with every politician you know. It will cut the healthcare costs in your state. We started Cost Plus Drugs because the prescription drug market is too complicated, too opaque and too expensive. Our model is simple: we show what we pay for a drug, add a transparent markup and pharmacy fee, and show the customer the price. No games. No hidden spread. And a large percentage of our customers already have insurance. They come to us because our cash price is often lower than what their insurance plan asks them to pay. That tells you something is wrong. Here are five things Texas can do about it. 1. Let patients shop for cheaper drugs If someone's insurance says a prescription costs $500, but they can buy the exact same drug for $100 cash, let them buy it for $100. Then credit that $100 toward their deductible and out-of-pocket maximum wherever Texas has authority to do so. Patients should be rewarded for saving themselves and their health plan money. They shouldn't be punished for it. That's how you create something healthcare desperately needs: Price competition. 2. Standardize PBM and TPA contracts Texas should require the state, cities, counties and school districts to use standardized model contracts and mandatory terms for PBMs and TPAs. I've reviewed these contracts. They routinely run hundreds of pages. I've seen contracting packages longer than a thousand pages. There is no human being—or group of human beings—on this planet who can stay awake and understand every provision in contracts that complicated. I don't care how much coffee they drink. I call it contractual terrorism. The vendor only has to sneak a couple of tricks through hundreds of pages. The employer has to find every one. It can't. I've developed a model PBM contract designed to eliminate the major tricks and hidden economics we've identified. Texas can have it for free. Use mine. Improve it. Open source it. I don't care. Just stop making every government entity negotiate these contracts from scratch. 3. Make the economics public If taxpayers are paying the bill, taxpayers should know the price. Pricing. Fees. Rebates. Guarantees. Pharmacy reimbursement. Affiliate compensation. Audit rights. Make them public. I'm not talking about patient information or legitimate security information. I'm talking about the money. You cannot have an efficient market without price discovery. Without price discovery, you get information asymmetry. And when one side knows dramatically more than the other, guess who wins? Not taxpayers. Not employers. Not patients. Open the contracts up and let competitors see what they have to beat. That giant sucking sound you hear will be money moving away from healthcare conglomerates that are too big to care and back toward taxpayers, employers and patients. In the immortal words of Charles Barkley: I guarantee it. 4. Kill the gag clauses PBM contracts are like Fight Club. The number one rule of Fight Club is that you can't talk about Fight Club. The number one rule of many PBM contracts seems to be that you can't talk about your PBM contract. That's insane. Let employers compare pricing, rebates, fees, guarantees and reimbursement terms. Markets work better when buyers know what other buyers are paying. 5. Make enforcement hurt If a healthcare company commits a serious violation, give them one mulligan. But after a second material federal or Texas enforcement action within a defined period, make them ineligible for new Texas government contracts for a period of time. Two strikes. You're out. Today, some of these companies can make billions, get caught, pay a fine and write it off more easily than I wrote off an NBA fine. That's not deterrence. That's a cost of doing business. And Texas should spend more on enforcement. If Texas spends $10 million auditing contracts and analyzing claims and prevents $100 million in unnecessary spending, that's not overhead. That's a 10x return on investment