MD Whistleblower

As I begin this post, the federal government has been shut down for several days..  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were able to reach the 60 vote threshold in the U.S. Senate to advance their respective legislative plans.  The GOP insisted that a ‘clean’ continuing resolution (CR) be passed without conditions. Democrats demanded that the government extend expiring Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies enacted during the pandemic, and restore Medicaid cuts contained in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed months ago as the price of their CR support.  The GOP expressed willingness to discuss these health issues, but only if a clean CR is passed first.  The Democrats countered that tying their legislative priorities to the CR gives them leverage to achieve their desired health policy objectives.  Interestingly, this past March, many Democrats supported a clean CR without adding on their legislative preferences.  Hmm… By the time this is p...

Kids are smart.  We know this because many of us have kids and all of us were kids.  I’m not suggesting that every kid is an Einstein who regards the laws of physics to be... ‘child’s play’.  But in many circumstances, they punch above their juvenile weights to get stuff done.  At times, they are master negotiators.  Here’s a vignette illustrating one of their master techniques.  Act I, Scene 1 “Mom, can I have ice cream now?” “Johnny, of course not!   You haven’t even had breakfast yet!” Act I, Scene II “Dad, can I have ice cream now?   Mom said it was ok.” “Sure, son.   Go ahead.” Sound familiar?   We parents know that we do better when we speak in one voice to our youngsters.   When we don’t, our wily progeny can exploit this with great skill.   Kid vs parents - n ot a fair fight!   The value of speaking with one voice applies to us adults as well.   Let’s look briefly at some rather conflicting mes...