Biden "Panic On Medicare Part D Insurers To Spike Premiums"? That 'Panic' Saved Me Nearly 13 Grand On Latest ADT Drug

The UC Health team that contributed to my focal cryotherapy  surgery and recovery in 2017

Nubeqa- the ADT med that finally got PSA near zero - at a cost.

 The midterms are now barely 29 days away and the benighted WSJ editors continue to pump out their malarkey of hyper-spending and scare-mongering Dems to try to save Trump's bacon - and Reepo House, Senate seats. We already saw how these nattering nabobs of negativity tried to pin the bogey of high prices on the Dems (instead of Dotard), e.g.

WSJ Editors Boff It Again, Claiming: "Dems Are Responsible For Unaffordability". Why These Nabobs Suffer From TDS

Now they are trying to confabulate "another Mediscare" to put on the Dems, e.g. 'Another Election, Another Mediscare' (WSJ, Oct. 5, p. A16,) babbling:

"Democrats create a phony scare whenever a government subsidy ends, and the Trump administrations recent elimination of a fillip for Medicare Part D plans is no different. Still, it's worth exposing how Democrats are trying to exploit problems they created in the Part D program."

This blabbery refers to the change the Biden administration made in Part D plans toward the end of 2024, i.e. to keep Part D premiums from spiking. Especially for much higher cost cancer drugs - two of which (degarelix, Nubeqa) I am now taking.  The clueless WSJ nimrods complained: 

"The Biden crowd panicked when insurer bids for providing basic Part D benefits surged to $179.95 for the 2025 plan year....Ergo, the Biden Administration funneled  more money to Part D plans to keep premiums from rising. Surprise! Premiums are rising far less than Democrats warned this summer when the Trump team canceled a Biden subsidy."

However, I am glad the "Biden crowd's" Part D premium protections from 2024 were left in place. Which I discovered when I went to collect the official (beyond the sample)  refill of the new ADT med (Nubeqa) last Wednesday. On collecting the bottle of 120 pills I was shocked to learn I had to pay $2,073 up front to cover the year, instead of monthly instalments. 

So I had to pull out my credit card and pay because there was no way I was stopping this added ADT (taken daily as two 300 mg pills - morning & night), which had taken my PSA down to an all time low of 0.2.  This is the lowest it's ever been, including after my initial brachytherapy treatment in Sept. 2012.  That post-radiation PSA only reached 2.0 and then proceeded to go back up to 4.0 then 6.0, leading to a focal cryotherapy in June, 2017.  Which then proceeded to rise again 6 months later.

To cut to the chase, I had to ask the medical dispenser at the urology desk why the cost was so high. He replied: "You can thank the move to keep Part D premiums down, because otherwise you'd be paying $15,000."

Yeppers, you read that right: 15 grand, or nearly  $13,000 more than what I actually paid. I was the beneficiary of the Biden 2024 changes that provided for a 2026 Out-of-Pocket Cap for Medicare Part D plans.  These to have a maximum $2,100 yearly cap on out-of-pocket spending for covered prescriptions.

But leave it to the entitled whiny WSJ editors to moan about the Biden Part D changes while ignoring the Reeps' H.R. 1 ('Big, Beautiful Bill").  An atrocity which has single-handedly made our entire health care system unstable and nearly unaffordable.  This after making it much more difficult for people to stay on Medicaid by introducing work requirements and demanding people reconfirm their income and address every 6 months rather than every year.

And it's not just loss of Medicaid coverage leading to instability.  As a TIME report ('The Coverage Crisis', Oct. 12, p. 11) notes:

"It's not just that H.R. 1 is projected to make more people lose Medicaid coverage, Congress also decided not to renew subsidies for the Affordable Care Act in 2026 - meaning thousands of families are seeing the cost of insurance skyrocket.  They are dropping coverage instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for it. All told, the Congressional Budget Office projects 10 million people to be uninsured by 2034."

Of course, this also impinges the rest of us.  The reason is that the costs of treating all those additional uninsured patients will now be passed on by hospitals to the insured patients.   As the piece notes:

"This isn't just a Medicaid problem. There's going to be a cascade of failure in terms of access. ...Everyone is likely to face longer waits, experts say, and fewer available services as hospitals and medical systems sag under the weight of more uninsured. We'll all be worse off for having let people get sicker and needing more expensive care."

Unfair? Not right? Blame Trump and his Reeptard Congress who supported this abandonment of the ACA subsidies, which the WSJ editors believe is justified. Oh, and Dems ought to stop spreading "Mediscare" stories.  But here's the real Mediscare: Within 5 years our whole system will be on the verge of collapse because fools, poltroons and renegade imps would rather spend on a Trump war than on ACA subsidies. Now,  thanks to  the knock-on effects of H.R. 1 it is  estimated employee insurance plans "will increase by 11 percent in 2027." (Ibid.)

Ranking member of the House Budget Committee Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania contrasted the war's cost with the less-than $40 billion price of extending Affordable Care Act subsidies. (Time, op. cit. p. 14)

But the Journal editors would rather see the whole medical system crash and burn - except for the ultra wealthy getting their concierge care- than acknowledge Democrats did a good thing trying to preserve subsidies.  All this huff and puff to try to protect the orange traitor in the Oval Office, who outdid himself in his high treason at a Nebraska rally last night. There, this puss-wad invited Iran to "take out" two California (Dem) cities, Los Angeles and San Diego.  Any words about that from the illustrious WSJ editors? Nope, not a peep. See no evil, hear no evil, but they damned well KNOW it's there and they're helping to protect it.

Oh, and also to protect his sycophant slaves in congress - only there to do his bidding-  which is to protect the fecal fungus from any oversight, any investigations.  But the outcome of the midterms may finally put an end to this nullification of checks and balances, and finally make the orange traitor accountable, whether the WSJ editorial nabobs like it or not.

See also:

Brane Space: After Learning About New ACA Premium Hikes Americans Ought To Beg Dems To Continue The Shutdown

And:

Obamacare premiums are soaring as subsidies expire. Meet affected families. - The Washington Post

Excerpt:

Americans are coming face-to-face with the rising health insurance costs at the center of the longest government shutdown in history — and what it means for their pocketbooks next year.

Since open enrollment started Nov. 1, they’ve been able to buy health plans for 2026 on Healthcare.gov and state-run marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Nearly all are finding they will have to pay more — some, significantly more — for their monthly premiums. Costs are soaring because health insurance is getting pricier and enhanced subsidies Congress approved nearly five years ago are going away.

The government is shut down because congressional Democrats won’t vote for a spending bill unless it extends subsidies beyond their Dec. 31 expiration date. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said Friday his caucus would vote to reopen the government in exchange for a one-year extension of the subsidies, but Republican leaders dismissed the proposal.

The stakes of this standoff are now apparent to Americans looking to buy health insurance.

And:

All You Need To Know About The 'Big, Beautiful Abomination' - And Why It Must Be Slain In The House

And:

How the new H-1B visa fee is upending health care in rural America

The Trump administration’s demand for firms to pay $100,000 to hire an immigrant using the program for highly skilled workers created turmoil for rural health providers.

And:

WSJ Regular Pages Expose WSJ Editors' Claim of "Democratic Assault on Medicare Advantage" As Codswallop

Solutions to Math Of Spherical Harmonics Problems

 1)Suppose the solar p-modes create a surface pattern of nodes and waves such as shown below:

 

Use this diagram to deduce the values for ℓ  and m.  

Solution:

Since ℓ = 10 = m on inspection)  then there are no lines of latitude because these are defined: (ℓ  - m), so (10 – 10) = 0.  Since m = 10 we have an azimuthal order of 10 which indicates 10 nodes (each with embedded contours) around the equator on the three dimensional spherical surface. Five of these are shown and the remaining five can be counted by using the spacing in the sphere foreground.

2)   Explain the appearance of the spherical surface shown below if it describes m= 5 and ℓ = 5. Thence, find the associated Legendre function: P _ℓm (q ) and also Y _ℓm (q,j) assuming q = p/2: (Assume  n _nℓm =  1 /s)

Solution:

Since ℓ = 5 = m then there are no lines of latitude because these are defined: (ℓ  - m), so (5 – 5) = 0.  Since m = 5 we have an azimuthal order of 5 which indicates 5 nodes (each with embedded contours) around the equator on the three dimensional spherical surface. Three of these are shown and the remaining two are on the distal side of the sphere.

Finally we have the angular degree ℓ or the number of nodes along longitude or meridian lines. Again 3 of these (“doubled” longitudes each enfolding a node m) are shown, and 2 others are on the other side of the sphere.     The associated Legendre polynomials are given by:

P _ℓm (q )  =  (1 – z²) ^m/2 / ℓ! 2^ℓ   d ^(ℓ+m) / dz^(ℓ+m)  (z²   -1) ^ℓ

But ℓ  = m = 5 ,  so:

P _ℓm (q )  =  (1 – z²) ⁰ / 5! 2⁵   d⁽⁵⁺⁵⁾  / dz⁽⁵⁺⁵⁾   (z²   -1) ⁵

For q = p/2 ,  d⁽¹⁰⁾  / dz⁽¹⁰⁾   (z²   -1) ⁵= 0  (since z = cos  q)

Therefore: P _ℓm (q )  =  0

Y _ℓm (q,j) =  (1) ^m [2 ℓ +1 (ℓ - m)!/ 4n ((ℓ +m)!] ^½ P ^ℓ_m (z ) exp (i m j),

But since P _ℓm (q )  =  0  is a factor then: Y _ℓm (q,j) =  0   

Liberal (Non-Orthodox) Jews "Spiritually Impoverished" For Not Accepting A Personal God? Hogwash!

 

The recent essay 'Jews Need To Get Personal With God' (WSJ,  Sept. 11, p. A13) - by law professor Roberta Rosenthal Kwall - badly exaggerates the value of personal deity belief. Indeed, the underlying trope is that lack of such belief is an "impoverished form of spiritual sustenance."  But  to use the term 'impoverished'  assumes the belief in a personal deity more real, and more authentic than simple acknowledgement of a higher power-  which is patently false.  Reason? There is no evidence of a personal deity.

Prof. Kwall cites a number of statistics, however, including:

- "77%   of American Orthodox Jews maintain a widespread belief in a personalized conception of God."

That is, they "fully believe" that God is involved completely in their everyday lives.

- "A further 12 percent continue to believe the same"

But among "religiously liberal Jews:

- The majority "believe in a higher power but don't typically believe a more personalized conception of God"

Across the liberal Jewish religious spectrum the same Pew study found only "12 to 37 percent showed belief in a personalized God" so the rest were deemed by Ms. Kwall to be "impoverished of spiritual sustenance"

But on what basis? What REAL basis?  There is none because all God concepts are relative one to the other. For example, the typical Western -oriented Christian regards his or her deity as a personal God, while the typical Hindu regards his or her deity (Brahmin) as impersonal. Even if all other things are equal, how can there be such a vast gap in human perceptions? The fact of such a perceptual chasm must mean either: a) God does not exist - at least as specified by either group, or b) God exists, but no human mind is capable of grasping even the most elemental conception accurately. Philosopher Joseph Campbell observes[1] :

"’God’ is an ambiguous word in our language because it appears to refer to something that is known. But the transcendent is unknowable and unknown. God is transcendent, finally, of anything like the name of "God". God is beyond names and forms.”

James Byrne[2] is equally adamant:

"The idea of God as Being is the creation of the philosophical gaze, a result of the drive to objectification which is the hallmark of the history of metaphysics. It is the ‘God’ which is argued about in theism and atheism, and which can only be a projection of humans"

This is the first hint that "God" does not really exist other than as an artificial construct in the human mind. So when humans invoke the word "God" - whether in a personal or impersonal sense - they are really objectifying something they don't have a clue about. (This is buttressed by the fact that so few are able to provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for it to exist.)

Byrne then goes on to cite the work of French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion (from his work, ‘God Without Being’, 1991) who challenges people to think of -G-O-D- or God in a non-conceptual way. That is, only with a strike through when the word is written, to indicate no one has the capacity to describe, grasp, conceptualize or manipulate the underlying entity. In effect, as Byrne observes, “to think -G-O-D- is unthinkable is to reject the entire basis of onto-theology.”

If then the entity is de-conceptualized it can’t be debated, nor can any devotee, theologian (or law prof) laud one approach, i.e. belief in a personal deity, over its opposite. Hence, Roberta Kwall muddles the issue when she insists based on the Pew survey statistics (ibid.):

"These findings suggest why most American Jews - who are religiously (and politically) liberal - don't think of faith in God in the same way as Orthodox Jews. Further, the autonomy ethic that is so comfortable for the non-Orthodox Jewish Americans can be seen as diametrically opposed to the ideas of divine command and judgement so deeply embedded in traditional Judaism".

But the exact same thing might be said of progressive or liberal American theists who more and more are content to affiliate and believe in a higher power, or 'Force', rather than an all-powerful patriarchal entity who rules by command and fear. (The latter choice more typical of evangelicals or those like my late brother, Pastor Mike, e.g.

Pastor Mike Challenges Me to be Honest and He Will “Leave me alone”

Yes, Mike was an extreme believer in an all powerful, punishing, control god, but I'd argue little different from the strongest Orthodox American Jew that Ms. Kwall supports.  (The key giveaway being its yen for 'judgment' - just as Pastor Mike's).

But both Pastor Mike and Prof. Kwall miss the key point predicated on the relativist nature of god concepts and so beautifully articulated by Alan Watts in his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity (p. 24):

"(True) Belief is the insistence that truth is what one would wish it to be. The True Believer opens his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. This belief clings to self-deception..

True Belief has thus become an attempt to hang on to life, to grasp and keep it for one's own. But you cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with an ocean wave in a bucket."

The last reference to trying to grasp an "ocean wave in a bucket" refers to one of the most profound takedowns of exclusionary personal deity "command and control" belief. That is Emergent Holism[3],  by which the universe (and Being itself) emerges as more than the sum of its parts by virtue of being “holographic”. Perhaps the most important “deity” construct here is David Bohm’s Holomovement, a higher-dimensional “implicate order” through which consciousness is enfolded as well as matter. Bohm’s “deity” at least has some scientific legs – sort of – since quantum mechanics has been used to fashion the end product. (Bohm uses a mathematical device he calls the “quantum potential”.)

Bohm, in his superb book 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order', refers to this oceanic state as the "implicate order" and its being a higher dimensional reality into which we are subsumed. Another term he used is the  "Holomovement". Another term often used is "the Dirac Ether". The relation of previously (living- biological) individualities to the Dirac Ether might be depicted as I show below:

INDIVIDUALITY:

___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___  

DIRAC ENERGY SEA (IMPLICATE ORDER)

 

This then gives a nice analogy, between the ocean and individual waves. The “ripples” on this Dirac sea are the distinct material forms or assorted biological individualities perceived as separate entities in the universe - because (in our explicate order) we are generally unaware of the implicate order. Nonetheless, the remarkable insight is that within this order separate forms (individualities) emerge as purely illusory. By analogy, the separate waves one sees on the ocean surface are illusions - at least in the sense they cannot be removed and placed on the beach one by one for inspection. (Hence Alan Watts reference to trying to walk off with an ocean wave in  bucket.)

The fact which neither Pastor Mike or Prof. Kwall grasped that there is no version of Theism that is absolute, or uniquely true or valid, because there is no god concept that is such. Everyone with a god-concept is working within a framework of relativity and uncertainty, and in the end the form of faith or devotion that works for a person shouldn't be denigrated as impoverished. (Unless it consigns whole religions, or groups to "eternal damnation.") So liberal Judaism's tolerance template is on the right track.

 Further, given the subjectivity, any one form of Theism can always be totally rejected by another on the basis of “sacred text” analysis and respective revelations. This is completely analogous to there being inadequate information to distinguish one religion's claims as true to the exclusion of all others. In the case of individual religions, or religious traditions, the embodiment of the respective truth claim is found in a "sacred revelation," or holy book. For example, the Holy Bible for Christianity, the Talmud for Jews, the Koran for Muslims and the Upanishads for Hindus.

The problem is that the ancient writers, for each scripture, suffered from the same limitation of comprehension that their modern counterparts do. Their neural capacity was just as finite as that of present-day humans, and just as conditioned toward a particular conceptual allegiance. Take the account in Genesis and how it describes God's behavior: one instant creating the world and calling it "good" then becoming disenchanted and wiping it out in a flood, while bemoaning that a mistake was made. 

Now, a genuine God (God-GOD) can’t make mistakes (since perfection is surely a divine attribute). However, a human brain is quite likely to project its flaws onto its own concepts. Thus, the God making the mistakes in Genesis is actually an artifact: the projection of the ancient writer’s own ego onto his God concept, writ large.

Prof. Kwall would do well to appreciate that before admonishing liberal American Jews to commit to a relationship "with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."  But why do that when it's no more real than committing to a belief in just a higher power?

Kwall's answer is suspect: "American Jews have been experiencing unprecedented trauma and despair with escalating antisemitism around the world...they could benefit from a personal relationship with God in our increasingly insecure environment."

But how can one have a "personal relationship" with an entity that is "the creation of the philosophical gaze"?  (James Byrne's definition based on the tendency to objectification.)  It would seem to me, the ubiquitous insecurity of any believer (not just Jews) would be more likely reduced by embracing the nonjudgmental, everyone is welcome stance she ties to the liberal, higher power believers as being "impoverished".

It is truly amazing more otherwise intelligent people can't see this, something I can only attribute to intellectual blindness.

See Also:

Opinion | Why My Gen Z Students Are Fascinated by the King James Bible - The New York Times

Excerpt:

At the liberal arts college where I teach Renaissance literature, few of my students seem to practice any organized religion. For some, even the names Adam and Eve prompt only vague recognition. So when I assigned bits of the King James Bible last spring, I was surprised by the fascination it inspired.

My students marveled at how its language was used by 17th-century writers, appearing in daring poetry and polemics against retrograde social norms. They were perhaps even more impressed by the history behind the text: how some 50 mostly forgotten academics created a book that bridged chasms of geography, gender, race and class as the default English Bible for Protestants for hundreds of years.

We were ahead of the curve. These past few months, more Americans have been discussing the King James Bible — just not for the right reasons. In June, Texas moved forward with a plan to make passages from the King James required reading for public school students. Despite some notable defenses, the plan has caught major flak for its dubious constitutionality and mandated curriculum. I won’t try to redeem it here.

But I do thank Texas for putting the King James back onto our cultural radar. The text is a master class in collaboration, close attention to language and ideological humility. It’s exactly the book we need now, in our lonely, laconic times..

And:

Brane Space: "True Belief" as a Disease of the Mind

And:

Examining Theism - And The Necessity Of Invoking God Concepts

And:

DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf (gci.org.uk)

And:

 The Difficulty Of Communicating Absolute Truth Statements

References:

[1] The Power of Myth, Anchor Books, New York, p. 56.

[2] James Byrne, God, Continuum Press, 2001, p. 151.

[3]  The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, Ed. Ken Wilber, New Science Library, 1982.

Solutions To Diagonalization of Tensors & Obtaining Principal Axes Problem

   Problem:

In a certain rectangular coordinate system, the directions of whose axes are given by the unit vectors i, j and k, the inertia tensor of an object is given by:

I = K x= 

(1….0…..0)

(0….1…..1)

(0….1… ..1)

a) What are the principal moments of inertia of the object (the moments of inertia along the principal axis) relative to the origin of the above coordinate system?

b) What is the direction of the principal axis corresponding to the principal moment of inertia and equal to K?

c)If the origin of the above rectangular coordinate system is at the center of mass of the object and the total mass of the object is M, what is the change in the inertial tensor of the object if the rectangular coordinate system is displaced parallel to itself a distance r_o in the direction

 (1/ Ö2)j +  (1/Ö2)k?

Solutions:

a) We have:  I = K x 

(1….0…..0)

(0….1…..1)

(0….1… ..1)

 We write out the determinant with eigenvalue  l:

(1 - l….0…..0)

(0….1 - l   ..1)

(0….1… ..1 - l)

Leading to the characteristic equation:

(1 - l)³ – (1 - l) = 0

Factoring:

(1 - l) [ ((1 - l)² – 1] = 0 

Or:

(1 - l) (l² –  2l) = 0

Yielding eigenvalues: l= 0, l = 2

Then:

T = Kl,  so:  T1 = 0, T2 = K, and T3 =2K

Or: (0, K, 2K)  for the principal moments of inertia.

b) We have to take:  (I – T1)C

So that we obtain:

=

 (0….0…..0) (x)

  (0….0…..1) (y)

  (0….1… ..0) (z)   =   0

 

Finally:  0  =

(0)

(z)

(y)  

 Where ‘0’ for the x  element in column matrix implies the direction is i.

c) By the analog of the parallel axis theorem:

I _o = I_G -   M(R² I – RR) 

D I =  I _o -  I_G   =    M(R² I – RR)

RR =   

And:

D I =   

Finally:  D I =