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ObamaCare pays government grants to encourage companies to implement “wellness programs.”

Paul Hsieh
forbes.com
April 25, 2013e

Recently, the CVS Caremark Corporation began requiring employees to disclose personal health information (including weight, blood pressure, and body fat levels) or else pay an annual $600 fine. Workers must make this information available to the company’s employee “Wellness Program” and sign a form stating that they’re doing so voluntarily.

CVS argues this will help workers “take more responsibility for improving their health.” At one level, this makes [...]

TAXPAYER-FUNDED TERROR? BOMBERS, FAMILY ON WELFARE

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those [...]

The Grocery Store Blacklist: 12 Food Companies to Avoid (and 95 Sneaky Aliases)

by Daisy Luther, Activist Post:

A genetically modified rose by any other name may smell sweet, but it could still have frankenthorns that might independently detach themselves and lop off your finger while you’re smelling it.  That’s not unlike a trip to the grocery store these days. There are a lot of ugly surprises in pretty, charmingly-named packages.

It seems like no matter how hard you try to avoid them, GMOs and toxic foods creep [...]

Obama Wants to Close Thousands of Businesses & Raise Unemployment

politicaloutcast.com
February 15, 2013

Many businesses in America, large, medium and small, are operating on shoestring budgets.  As Obamacare began to kick in, hundreds of businesses began laying off staff to offset the increased costs they face under Obamacare.  Consequently, thousands of people have lost their jobs, thanks to Obama and his Affordable Care Act.

Hundreds of other businesses, especially many small businesses have had to drop health benefits for their employees as they [...]

Rise Of The Droids: Will Robots Eventually Steal All Of Our Jobs?

by Michael

Will a robot take your job?  We have entered a period in human history when technology is advancing at an exponential rate.  In some ways, this has been a great blessing for humanity.  For example, I am absolutely blown away by all of the things that my little iPod can do.  But on the other hand, all of this technology is eliminating millions upon millions of high paying jobs.  [...]

More Businesses Sidestep Obammycare by Cutting Employee Hours

Add Wendy’s to the list of Employers working around Obamacare affecting hundreds of workers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/wendys-obamacare_n_2425066.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

The owner of several Wendy’s restaurants in Omaha, Neb., is attempting to sidestep Obamacare by cutting hundreds of workers’ hours so that they will not be legally entitled to health benefits, WOWT NBC reports.

Gary Burdette, vice president of operations for the Wendy’s franchise, told the news station that costs associated with Obamacare are forcing the business to reduce hours [...]

Friends with health benefits: How couples in casual relationships are more likely to practice safe sex

More likely to use condoms, study reveals
But less likely to be satisfied or able to talk about sex

 

They may be an emotional minefield to negotiate – but it seems ‘friends with benefits’ relationships do at least have one advantage.

A new study has found that no strings couples are more likely to practice safe sex than those in traditional partnerships.

An online survey of 376 people, mostly in their mid-20s, revealed at [...]

SOROS THINK TANK RECOMMENDS BIG CUTS TO MILITARY BENEFITS

A new report by a liberal-leaning think tank recommends a dramatic overhaul of military pay, retirement and health care benefits as part of a $1 trillion cut in defense spending over 10 years.

The Center for American Progress calls for capping pay raises, eliminating military health benefits for many retirees who are covered by an employer-provided plan, and reducing the value of military retired pay as well as making retirees wait [...]

‘Hundreds of thousands’ of Iraq, Afganistan vets still waiting for health benefits

Phoenix (CNN) – Mike Rioux can’t go to the grocery store without making a list, even for a single item.

He can’t drive without gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white. And he can’t stand any longer than 30 minutes because of severe back pain.

This is Rioux’s life after Afghanistan, where firefights and a roadside bomb blast left him with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

His ears [...]

USPS Bailout Imminent: Postal Service Will Miss September 30 ‘Mandated’ Payment

Color us unsurprised by this litte gem (via Bloomberg):

*POSTAL SERVICE SAYS IT WON’T MAKE MANDATED PAYMENT ON SEPT. 30
*POSTAL SERVICE COMMENTS ON HEALTH BENEFITS PAYMENT IN E-MAIL
*U.S. POSTAL SERVICE SAYS OPERATIONS WON’T BE AFFECTED

Miss a payment here, miss a payment there; never mind. It would appear that everyone wants to be bailed out before the election so they can pledge votes for taxpayer cash

 

Source: Zerohedge

‘GODFATHER’ LOSES CONTROL

Chicago teachers struck today, closing classrooms for about 400,000 students and prompting Mayor Rahm Emanuel to stop raising money for President Barack Obama’s re-election so he may devote time to settling the city’s first walkout in 25 years.

Months of tension erupted into open hostility last night when Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, called the work stoppage in the nation’s third-largest district. The teachers’ contract expired in June, and negotiations broke [...]

Here’s the latest unbelievable reason California is doomed

From The Burning Platform:

Government union employees should enjoy the remaining time in their fantasyland of high salaries, tremendous health benefits, and glorious pensions. It will all end because the promises are unpayable.

It’s simple math. The taxpayers will not pay. The localities will declare bankruptcy because they have no choice. The money isn’t there. All the promises will not be fulfilled…

… When contemplating the many reasons cities in California and elsewhere [...]

Intermittent Fasting Extends Life and Improves Health by Switching Bodies to “Repair Mode”

Scientists are uncovering evidence that short periods of fasting, if properly controlled, could achieve a number of health benefits, as well as potentially helping the overweight, as Michael Mosley discovered.

I’d always thought of fasting as something unpleasant, with no obvious long term benefits. So when I was asked to make a documentary that would involve me going without food, I was not keen as I was sure I would not [...]

Warning: This article tells you a starvation diet could actually be good for you – and make you live longer

Pinned to my mother Shirley’s fridge on yellowing, curled paper is a handwritten copy of a two-week crash diet. It has been there since 1979, the year she decided she wanted to shed a stone in a fortnight. Its survival is testament to the faith she holds in it.

Among other tortures while on the diet, she allows herself no more than half a grapefruit and a slice of dry toast [...]

Postal Service set to default on payment but there is no legal penalty for missing the payment?

The U.S. Postal Service, facing a $14.1 billion loss this fiscal year amid plummeting mail volume, will default for the first time Wednesday, on a congressionally mandated $5.5 billion payment to the U.S. Treasury.

Postal officials said Monday that without close to that sum in the bank, they can’t make the payment, which is part of a 10-year plan to set aside health benefits for retired postal workers. Another bill for roughly [...]

Post office nears historic default on $5B payment due Wednesday, and another $5.6 billion due in September

WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. Postal Service is bracing for a first-ever default on billions in payments due to the Treasury, adding to widening uncertainty about the mail agency’s solvency as first-class letters plummet and Congress deadlocks on ways to stem the red ink.

With cash running perilously low, two legally required payments for future postal retirees’ health benefits – $5.5 billion due Wednesday, and another $5.6 billion due in September [...]

CBO: Employers pay $4b more than expected in taxes for Obamacare

Business owners will pay $4 billion more in taxes under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA)  than the Congressional Budget Office had previously expected.

“According to the updated estimates, the amount of deficit reduction from penalty payments and other effects on tax revenues under the ACA will be $5 billion more than previously estimated,” the CBO reported today. “That change primarily effects a $4 billion increase in collections from such payments [...]

Default? U.S. Post Office Might Miss $5.5 Billion Retirees’ Payment On Aug. 1

While lawmakers continue to fight over how to fix the ailing U.S. Postal Service, the agency’s money problems are only growing worse.

The Postal Service repeated on Wednesday that without congressional action, it will default—a first in its long history, a spokesman said—on a legally required annual $5.5 billion payment, due Aug. 1, into a health-benefits fund for future retirees. Action in Congress isn’t likely, as the House prepares to leave [...]

WSJ: HISTORIC POST OFFICE DEFAULT AUGUST 1

While lawmakers continue to fight over how to fix the ailing U.S. Postal Service, the agency’s money problems are only growing worse.

The Postal Service repeated on Wednesday that without congressional action, it will default—a first in its long history, a spokesman said—on a legally required annual $5.5 billion payment, due Aug. 1, into a health-benefits fund for future retirees. Action in Congress isn’t likely, as the House prepares to leave [...]

Low-fat salad dressing is ‘bad for you’: Study claims calorie-light versions contain fewer health benefits

Choosing a low-fat dressing for your salad might help you keep your weight down because it has fewer calories – but you could lose some other health benefits, a study shows.

It found higher-fat dressings help the body absorb more carotenoids, compounds in vegetables linked with a reduced risk of illnesses including cancer and heart disease.

Researchers from Iowa State University fed 29 people salads dressed with butter, high in saturated fat, [...]

Doc Eifrig: Stop taking these supplements now

From Sean Goldsmith in the S&A Digest:

The U.S. government must be reading Dr. David “Doc” Eifrig’s Retirement Millionaire…

After years of doctors touting the health benefits of mega doses of vitamin D and calcium supplements, a government advisory panel is warning older women against taking large doses of these supplements. The U.S. Preventative Task Force – an advisory board with the Department of Health and Human Services – says there’s not enough evidence [...]

NYT: The Defense of Marriage Act “fails to meet the most elementary test of constitutionality.”

A federal district judge in New York ruled last week that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the Constitution by requiring the plaintiff to pay federal estate tax on her same-sex spouse’s estate, even though opposite-sex spouses are exempt. It follows a string of other rulings striking down the law in a federal appeals court, two federal district courts and a bankruptcy court.

With the Obama administration’sdecision in 2011 not to defend the law, [...]

The miracle molecule: Hidden vitamin found in BEER and MILK can make you stronger, slimmer and healthier

It can improve muscular performance and prevent diabetes

A hidden vitamin in milk and beer dubbed the ‘miracle molecule’ has been found to fight obesity.

Nicotinamide riboside could play an important role in preventing weight gain, diabetes and improving muscular performance, according to a Switzerland-based research team.

Experts from the Polytechnic School in Lausanne claim the molecule can provide ‘extraordinary health benefits’.

In an article in the specialist journal Cell Metabolism journal, team leader Johan Auwerx called the results ‘impressive’

‘NR [...]

Eating pizza really could be good for you: Oregano seasoning could be a powerful weapon against prostate cancer

It may not be the most obvious of health foods, but pizza could be good for you, research suggests.

Scientists have found that oregano, a seasoning commonly used in pizza and other Italian food, has the potential to become a powerful weapon against prostate cancer.

A medicine inspired by it could have  fewer side-effects than existing treatments, which can cause problems from incontinence to impotence.

It may not be low in calories, but [...]

H.R. 6407 – The Postal Accountability Enhancement Act (PAEA) that Congress passed in 2006 RUINED the USPS

In this the USPS had to guarantee full health benefits for FUTURE retirees. That’s right, for people that are not even retired or working at the the USPS or even BORN YET!

“After generating modest profits from FY2004 through FY2006, the USPS lost $5.3 billion in FY2007, $2.8 billion in FY2008, and $3.8 billion in FY2009.27″

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40983.pdf

Gee… how could that happen?? No one could’ve seen that coming!?

So… again the gullable american public [...]

Forget your five-a-day: Popcorn has ‘more antioxidants than fruit and vegetables’

Plain popcorn has already been hailed as a great diet food for its low calorie content but now a group of scientists claim it may even top fruits and vegetables in antioxidant levels.

Antioxidants – known as polyphenols – have huge health benefits as they help fight harmful molecules that damage cells.

Popcorn was found to have a high level of concentrated antioxidants because it is made up of just four percent [...]

Four Million Fewer Covered at Work Under Obamacare

A new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office states that by 2016, Obamacare will result in 4 million people fewer people getting health insurance coverage from their employers.

The estimate is a vast increase from the CBO prediction just a year ago that 1 million would no longer obtain coverage from their [...]

Absurd doctor says feeding babies raw milk is ‘child endangerment’

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Incensed by the idea that Iowans might soon be able to make their own food choices when it comes to fresh dairy products, Daniel H. Gervich, M.D., a board-certified infectious diseases and critical care medicine doctor from Des Moines, Iowa, recently declared that feeding raw milk to babies is “child endangerment.”

This outlandish claim, which was part of a recent rant he made against raw [...]

Feds: Fresh milk 150 times more dangerous

From Washington Times:

The federal government said Tuesday that fresh milk is 150 times more dangerous than pasteurized milk — a finding that bolsters thegovernment’s argument as it goes after farmers who sell unpasteurized milk across state lines.

After a 13-year review, the taxpayer-fundedCenters for Disease Control and Prevention said states where so-called “raw milk” is available had twice the rate of dairy-related disease outbreaks as states where those sales are banned.

And disease outbreaks from [...]

PAPER: Teacher in LA molest case paid to resign

Students arrive at Miramonte Elementary on Thursday, when the school reopened after a two-day closure. New teachers, administrators and others were brought in after two teachers were accused of sexually abusing students. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times / February 9, 2012)

 

By Howard Blume, Angel Jennings and Richard Winton, Los Angeles TimesFebruary 10, 2012

The Los Angeles Unified School District paid Mark Berndt, the teacher at the center of the Miramonte Elementary child abuse scandal, $40,000 to [...]