"I'm saying you have to think for yourselves, you have to challenge authority"--Nick Naylor from Thank You For Smoking [VIDEO CLIP]

I absolutely love this movie. I got a copy when it first came out, my mother was hesitant because it was about smoking, but she knew at that age I wouldn't have ever smoked (I do now). My mother and my aunty who raised me say that Nick Naylor reminds them of me. I take that as a huge compliment.

The point of this is to stress the importance to challenge authority. If you just listen and obey, you have thrown away free will. Instead, get out there, talk to people, read/watch the news, get active and form your own opinions and values. That is what this blog is all about. Being skeptical, and not in a conspiracy theorist type of way. But rather questioning what you are told, thinking it through and forming your opinion, after much self deliberation.

This is why I say anybody that votes for 1 party on every issue is ignorant. I call myself a "leftist or liberal" but on issues like gun control and military intervention I am conservative (in the US sense). I study the issues, and form an opinion and take that stance.

Bottom line is...BE SKEPTICAL AND THINK FOR YOURSELVES!!ENJOY YOUR FREE-WILL!!

Campaign Focus Turns To 'Medicare'

8/18/2012
12:32 PM

For the past few days, media attention regarding the United States presidential election has turned from the economy and jobs, to Medicare, the government funded health care system for retirees. With both candidates attacking the records of their opponent, and me viewing Medicare as a serious issue, I was curious as to who will protect the program.

We can make the assumption that since Obama is a democrat and Romney is a republican, that Obama would be the obvious choice. Democrats have a long history of increasing funding of most social programs, and Republicans have long attacked programs such as Social Security, Government Health care and Social Welfare. But with an ever changing political landscape, and Romney's recent decision picking Rep. Paul Ryan as a running mate, I think we better look at statements, voting records and stances on the issue.

The main reason I don't want to assume President Obama is the favorite among retirees regarding Medicare, is because of the "Affordable Health care Act" aka "Obamacare". I wasn't too sure on how this would affect the Medicare system, so I searched every corner of the Internet and I found out some pretty interesting stuff that voters on both sides should know. Under the "Affordable Health care Act" Medicare will sustain about 700 billion in cuts. Though it seems that those cuts are being re-invested in the health care system. The President has recently been attacking the Romney ticket over Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed Medicare overhaul. "Mr. Romney and his running mate might have a different plan" Obama said. "They want to turn Medicare into a voucher program. That means seniors would not have the guarantee of Medicare". Obama went on to say that Romney's plan for the program would force seniors to pay as much as $6,400 for health care costs per year. Now if Obama is making 700 billion dollars in Medicare cuts, where is he making said cuts? Most of them seem to be concentrated in two areas. First he proposes cutting "Medicare Advantage", which according to its own website "A Medicare Advantage program (like a HMO or PPO) is another Medicare health plan you may have as part of Medicare." This might not be a problem except roughly 11.5 million or 25% of Medicare beneficiaries participate in the program. Allies of Obama's Medicare plan say that Medicare Advantage is too costly, as the government is subsidizing private insurers, and that Obamacare is simply cutting payments. The problem with this is, if you look at the Medicare Advantage website (linked earlier), the reason the program costs more is because beneficiaries receive more benefits. If the government makes cuts to this, providers will have no choice but to cut benefits. You can see how 11.5 million people would be against that, and in a swing state, that is a whole lotta votes!

The next set of cuts under Obama's Medicare reform is geared toward health care providers, such as hospitals and nursing agencies. This is where the allies of his Medicare policy get a tad circular in their reasoning. They say that recipients won't have their benefits cut because under Obamacare, nearly 30 million Americans will be newly insured, and the providers will make up the difference in profit there. But this is a fallacy, and an obvious one at that. If providers are going to be making their profit off of the newly insured under Obamacare instead of Medicare, wouldn't they just focus their services to those insured under Obamacare, Hell I wouldn't doubt that most of the providers would withdraw from Medicare completely. Essentially Medicare beneficiaries have the same benefits on paper but not in practice. According to the 2012 Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services trustees report, it is predicted by Richard Foster, the chief actuary for CMS "Without unprecedented changes in health care delivery systems and payment mechanisms, prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs providing these services. By the end of the long range projection period, Medicare prices for hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health, hospice, ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic laboratory, and many other services would be less than half of their level under the prior law. Medicare prices would be considerably below the current relative level of Medicare prices, which have already led to access problems for Medicaid enrollees and far below the levels paid by private health insurance. Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result." The main problem Obama runs into with this is where the cuts go, and the financing of the program (Medicare). Well we already have established that the cuts will go to help fund Obamacare, but he claims that it will also help extend the life of Medicare. Again that is a tad circular. You cannot simultaneously cut Medicare to fund Obamacare while still helping Medicare without running a deficit equal to those cuts (700 billion). As the Congressional Budget Office has put it, " To describe the full amount of (Medicare Health Insurance) trust fund savings as both improving the governments ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the governments fiscal position." Basically he cannot cut Medicare to fund Obamacare while also improving Medicare without running a deficit, which is the exact opposite of what anybody wants right now. It seems like something they should hammer out soon, especially if he wants to grab swing-states with a large retiree population such as my state of Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa.

But what about Romney and Ryan? After all Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget plan, extends those same cuts to Medicare. In a nutshell what I get from reading the Romney tickets statements, and Rep. Ryan's budget proposals, is that they want to turn Medicare into a voucher system, and I don't see that working well. Basically the government will give beneficiaries money (vouchers) that will cover only part of their health care costs. As the Kaiser Family Foundation put it, "These proposals would each convert Medicare from a defined benefit program, in which beneficiaries are guaranteed coverage for a fixed set of benefits. To a defined contribution or "premium support" program, in which beneficiaries are provided a fixed federal payment to help cover their health care expenses." To me that doesn't sound too good. I don't like the idea of a fixed federal payment in a health care system that is bonkers with inflation.

I think Obama is the winner here. I think that Obama can iron out the details on his Medicare policy. Whereas Paul Ryan has already laid it out twice in Congressional budget proposals. I don't think many Americans would mind running a deficit (if they can lower the 700 bil. number), so long as the program actually works. If I was Obama, I would make the cuts to Medicare Advantage, but not to the providers. You'll get slightly lower than the 700 billion number. We would still run a deficit on this, but seniors would still get their guaranteed coverage from Medicare, and providers would enjoy unchanged funding, an influx of new patients under Obamacare and returning patients under Medicare. I never even addressed that Ryan's budget proposal hurt 44 million Americans insured under Medicaid (Medicare for children and the seriously ill). Either way, this is exactly why I wish for the days of socialized medicine similar to Canada, England and France. Then we wouldn't have to worry about retirees getting their medicine and what is getting cut from where, because it is one large, functioning, national program that insures everybody. But we will leave the socialized medicine debate for another time.


Sean Rankin
Chief Blogger
The New Skeptic

'WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Granted Asylum in Ecuador

8/17/2012
1:42 AM

On Thursday, Julian Assange was granted "diplomatic asylum" from Ecuador. Assange faces charges on sexual assault allegations in Sweden, and is currently held up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. If British police were to take custody of Assange, they would extradite him to Sweden, as they do not recognize "Diplomatic Asylum" as it is not "Political Asylum" which would entitle Assange to special privileges, instead his Diplomatic Asylum basically just protects him from extradition and arrest regarding the allegations in Sweden, and perhaps regarding WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange is the founder of whistle-blower website, one of my personal favorites, "WikiLeaks". WikiLeaks was responsible for releasing thousands of US Embassy cables (fancy word for email), Classified documents on everything from the Iraq War to diplomatic relations. WikiLeaks released thousands of other documents on other countries, almost every major country had some sort of diplomatic document released. He currently is not facing charges in England or Sweden regarding WikiLeaks, though it is implied that the United States would attempt to extradite him and arrest him, possibly giving him a life sentence.

As I mentioned before, currently he is held up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. It is basically an apartment with 5 or 6 rooms located in a bigger building which also houses Colombia's Embassy (I just read this, I've never been there). One of the supporters who met with Assange at the embassy said "It's not the Hilton", however he does have a bed, access to a phone and the Internet. Now, since he is in a foreign embassy, which is considered sovereign land, he is protected from British police as long as he stays within the boundaries of the embassy. However, due to a little known 1987 law that would allow the U.K to come into an embassy and arrest whomever they're after, this was probably in response to the 1980 Iranian Embassy hostage situation where British special forces, with permission from Iran, entered the embassy and freed the hostages. Obviously a much different scenario than the one Mr. Assange is in. British authorities insist that they will not take this option. I do not see the British government doing this, as it would be considered a hostile act, and the whole world would look down on it as a power play.

So in order to get to Ecuador so he can enjoy his "Diplomatic Asylum", he would have to exit the boundaries of the embassy to get to an airport or helipad, which would put him on British soil and give British authorities the right to arrest him, and they have stressed that they will not allow him safe passage out of the country. Basically if he steps a foot outside the embassy, British authorities will arrest and extradite him. Many have speculated about ways to sneak Assange out, such as in an over sized Diplomatic pouch or in the trunk of a Diplomatic Car (Diplomatic pouches and cars cannot be searched, as they are also sovereign property of the country bearing the pouch/car). I personally like the diplomatic pouch and car idea, it could work. Even if the   British authorities knew he was in it, they could not search it unless he was exposed and they had solid proof.

British authorities could also revoke the diplomatic status of Ecuador, allowing police to simply walk in and arrest Assange. This would likely sever ties between the two countries, I do not see this as a likely scenario either.

Both sides are basically at a stalemate of negotiations, ultimately that will lead nowhere. Unfortunately for Mr.Assange, I do not see this ending well, as I only see 2 scenarios and I think the second one will happen. The first scenario, is that the British government just lets him go, they have a sudden change of heart and let him exit the country safely. Seeing as though they have said that will not happen, and that if Sweden and the US found out, they would likely condemn the British government for allowing such an event. The second scenario is that this whole thing goes on for months and months, and eventually Assange gives himself up to authorities and tries to negotiate some plea bargain that would allow him to serve time in Australia, his native country. Unless he plead "not guilty" to the charges Sweden would bring up, in that case he could beat it, I doubt it because of the political pressure that the judge presiding over the case would be facing.

I think the whole "sexual allegation" thing is just a cover-up to get him charged regarding WikiLeaks, they did have a server in Sweden until 2010, you can find that info on their Wikipedia page. I personally think the women are either making this up or fabricating huge parts of it, hell part of me thinks that they are being paid or intimidated by the Swedish government. If America were to get a hold of him, he would not get a fair trial, pretty much anybody in power hates this man. He could face life in prison or even death for charges ranging from espionage to stealing classified documents and computer hacking.

Julian Assange is a great man. If anybody should be supporting him it is the people of the United States. Remember that amendment to the Constitution, ya know, the 1st one that states "Freedom of Speech and PRESS". Yet the United States government is spear-heading a diplomatic war against the man. Plus, Assange never hacked anything. WikiLeaks is simply a "broker" if you will of information. They receive it from a news source, or whistle-blower hacker, and then they publish it. I don't see any laws broken there. But I refuse to believe Sweden is purely after him for sexual allegations, they're making a world-wide spectacle of the whole ordeal, involving other countries. This is simply a power play against a small nation and a renegade, revolutionary, inspirational man by 3 nations who have way too much to hide when it comes to their diplomatic relations and evil doings.

I will be watching for updates on the story to see what happens. Though, like I said, I don't see anything significant happening for months, with Assange giving himself up with conditions in place. Unfortunately, I do not see a bright ending for Assange, and this saddens me deeply. I love WikiLeaks, I love the message they stand for. But this will only fuel the fire, Assange isn't the only whistle-blower with connections, more will step up and expose the corruption of the worlds most powerful countries.


Sean Rankin
Chief Blogger
The New Skeptic

Welcome to The New Skeptic

This post will introduce you to myself, and layout briefly my intentions with this blog.

I will be primarily using The New Skeptic, to bring you my opinions, and the facts on current events and social issues. You will notice, much of my criticism will be geared toward religion and conservatives, though everybody will get a little slice of that pie. Not every article will be opinionated, most will, some will just be news stories, some will be interviews with friends and strangers and some will be re-shared pictures/videos.

About me, if you have not read the little section they gave me to write about myself. My name is Sean Rankin, I am a 20 year old real estate broker in South Florida, though I aspire to be a journalist. My passion since I was a child was writing and debating, I figured I might as well get paid for it. My mother died when I was young, 15 to be exact, even though I was taking care of her a few years before that. My father was never around, nor do I care. Therefore my family is relatively small, my Aunty Gina raised me from age 13, and I have an older brother Donald who is 28, he has a wife and two kids also, but that is about it. I tend to keep to myself, I think a lot, sometimes just arguing with myself in my head, that is a huge reason I started this blog.

I chose the name "The New Skeptic" because I recently, in the past year, have become a very vocal atheist, activist and skeptic of all topics. I wanted to keep the title broad, and not bearing my name, as I hope to eventually have contributing writers. I hope that this will serve as a platform for my ideas and writings to further my dream of being a journalist. I believe we should always question authority, always be skeptical of what you are told because that is how truths come to be.

Thank You, and Here's to Future Endeavors,
Sean Rankin
Chief Blogger
The New Skeptic