department of health

A story appearing in the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal today saying that fast food giant McDonalds is planning on dropping it’s health care coverage for employees because of requirements tied to the new health care bill:

While many restaurants don't offer health coverage, McDonald's provides mini-med plans for workers at 10,500 U.S. locations, most of them franchised. A single worker can pay $14 a week for a plan that caps annual benefits at $2,000, or about $32 a week to get coverage up to $10,000 a year.

Last week, a senior McDonald's official informed the Department of Health and Human Services that the restaurant chain's insurer won't meet a 2011 requirement to spend at least 80% to 85% of its premium revenue on medical care.

But now McDonalds is denying this report:

McDonald's denies reports it's considering dropping health care coverage for some employees in response to a provision of the health care overhaul.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing a memo from McDonald's to federal officials, that McDonald's has warned regulators it could drop its plan for some 30,000 workers unless the government waives a new requirement in the health care overhaul.

The company says in a statement Thursday it has been speaking with federal agencies to understand the law.

Now this is funny:

Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.

As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama's birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won't give up.

"Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy," said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health's Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development.

You know, they could have a video of Obama being born and Ronald Reagan delivering him with Pearl Harbor in the background and these morons still won’t buy it. They are so removed from reality that it is really scary. Welcome to Dale Gribble’s America.

The

Washington Post is reporting that the Silver Ring Thing abstinence program
lost its federal funding yesterday. The funding was pulled because it appeared
it was going to a religious program

In order for the group to receive funding again, they must submit a
corrective action plan to the Department of Health and Human services showing
they are truly secular. The group maintains that they are secular, but graduates
of the sign a covenant "before God almighty" then receive a ring with inscribed
bible passages to remind them of "sexual sins". Really sounds secular to me
(lots of sarcasm there)

These abstinence programs are becoming the biggest danger to the health of
our young people. Earlier this year a study was released that shows teenagers in
abstinence programs are more likely to try anal or oral sex. Talk about thinking
outside the box! We should be more worried about teaching safe and responsible
sex than teaching about no sex. Through your teen years your mind is growing and
your senses are heightened. You are a monster of curiosity and you are bound to
try things out. The point is that studies have proven abstinence programs do not
work.

The program's funding was pulled three months after the ACLU filed a lawsuit
against the Department of Health and Human services stating it was using tax
payer dollars for a religious purpose. The ACLU is claiming a small victory in
this but will remain on watch for further illegal funding.