Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States on Monday confirmed issuance of visa to ailing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh for a limited time to undergo medical treatment but refused to divulge time-period for which the visa is issued.

“We have issued a visa for Ali Abdullah Saleh,” said Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson, adding, “It is strictly for medical treatment, and our expectation is that he will leave the United States when his medical treatment is complete.”

Asked to comment on the time period for which this visa is issued, Nuland said, “He’s got a visa for the period that he anticipated the medical treatment would last. If the treatment goes on longer and he needs to apply for an extension, he would do that with Homeland Security.”

Yemeni political players are expecting to utilize President Saleh’s absence to move the country “on a concrete transition plan to a more democratic Yemen,” said Nuland, adding, “We do believe that Saleh’s absence from Yemen at this critical juncture might, in fact, facilitate that dialogue and facilitate the transition process.”

Agreeing that, “it might be helpful to the transition process that he’s out of the country now,” Nuland reiterated, “It (the visa application) was not approved for political purposes. It was approved for medical treatment. The timing, we think, is fortuitous, however, and we hope that the Yemenis will use the time well.”

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – By agreeing today to hear challenges to President Obama’s 2010 health care law, the Supreme Court set the stage for a decision — probably in late June and in the midst of the presidential campaign — that could be among its most important in decades.

The case, which will probably be argued in March on a date still to be announced, is especially momentous because it not only will determine the fate of President Barack Obama’s biggest legislative achievement but also will cast important light on the Supreme Court’s future course under Chief Justice John Roberts on issues of federal government power.

The central issue — but not the only important one — is whether Congress exceeded its constitutional powers to regulate interstate commerce and to levy taxes when it adopted the so-called “individual mandate” at the heart of the health care law.

That provision would require millions of people starting in 2014 to buy commercial health insurance policies or pay financial penalties for failing to do so.

The court also agreed to decide a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s provision essentially requiring states greatly to expand their Medicaid spending.

The court made clear that if it decides to strike down the individual mandate or Medicaid provision, it will also decide which of the 975-page law’s hundreds of other provisions should go down too, by divining whether Congress would have wanted some or all of them to be effective even without the voided provision or provisions.

Finally, the court agreed to decide whether — as one federal appeals court ruled — the litigation surrounding the individual mandate must be deferred until 2015 because of the 1867 “Anti-Injunction Act,” which bars courts from striking down tax laws before they take effect.

The court allocated an extraordinary five and one-half hours — the most time in many decades for related challenges to a single new law — for argument on all these issues combined.

How The Case Got Here

The court’s announcement Monday centered on a challenge to the law by 26 state governments. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta voted in August to strike down the individual mandate but to leave standing the rest of the health law, including the Medicaid expansion. All three of the petitions granted today involve that case.

In other action, though, the D.C. Circuit and the 6th Circuit, centered in Cincinnati, have upheld the individual mandate, with opinions supporting the Obama position by two of the nation’s leading conservative judges, the D.C. Circuit’s Laurence Silberman and the 6th Circuit’s Jeffrey Sutton.

Another appeals court, the 4th Circuit, said courts have no power to decide the individual mandate issue until 2015, when the first monetary penalties will be due for failing to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance. This decision held that the penalty provision is a “tax” within the meaning of the Anti-Injunction Act, as described above.

If the justices agree that the Anti-Injunction Act applies, this year’s case will be perhaps the greatest anticlimax in Supreme Court history. And, the justices’ assignment of a full hour of oral argument to this question suggests that some take this issue very seriously.

Meanwhile, the purpose of the individual mandate is to force millions of Americans to obtain health insurance — whether they want to or not — in order to offset the costs that health insurers would bear under the health care law’s requirement that they sell insurance to everyone without charging those with especially costly health problems more than healthy people.

The lower court judges who have struck down the mandate have cited as their reasoning the lack of any precedent for Congress to require people to buy a commercial product they don’t want and the government’s failure to show how — if the individual mandate is upheld — a limit enforceable by the courts could be applied to this exercise of congressional power.

As background, the two Supreme Court decisions since’37 that have struck down acts of Congress as exceeding the commerce power, one in’95 and one in 2000, stressed that Congress’ commerce power must be restrained by some principle that could be enforced by the judicial branch of government.

Defenders of the individual mandate stress other Supreme Court precedents suggesting that even economic decisions that have a tiny direct effect on interstate commerce — such as a person’s decision not to buy health insurance — cumulatively have major effects on interstate commerce and thus can be regulated by Congress.

With the court’s announcement today, none of the justices recused themselves from hearing the case. Some conservative opponents of the health care law have suggested that Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself because of her prior work as President Obama’s Solicitor General. And some liberals have suggested that Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself because of his wife Virginia Thomas’s political activities opposing the health care law. But the decision on recusal is left to each individual justice and it would have been announced with today’s order.

Meanwhile, as is customary, the Court announced the grants of review with no comment or indication of the vote. Any four justices can agree to review a case. And, given the importance of the issues, with federal appeals courts divided, today’s announcement was widely expected.

Most but not all Supreme Court experts predict — some very confidently, some cautiously — that the Court will uphold the law. The Supreme Court’s four liberals are certain to uphold the law. They would need only one more vote to prevail. While Justice Clarence Thomas seems a sure vote to strike the law down, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito are harder to call.

A decision in June — or before — would help make the future of health care law a central issue in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Taylor, an author and journalist, is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – Disability insurance is one of those under-the-radar benefits you may take for granted, especially if your employer picks up the tab for the coverage, as many firms do. Because of that, as annual benefit enrollment time approaches you probably aren’t worried about examining your disability coverage details and costs the way you will your health insurance plan options. But you should.

The same pattern that has emerged in health insurance — employers’ shifting more costs onto workers’ shoulders and trimming or eliminating benefits — is occurring in disability coverage. This fall, as employers spell out insurance options for next year, evaluate what’s offered and what it will cost, and make sure you’re adequately covered.

Of course, one of the main reasons people give disability insurance short shrift is that they don’t think they’ll ever need it. Meanwhile, they routinely buy coverage to protect their lives and their homes, even though “for most people, the risk of long-term disability is far greater than of [early] death or their house burning down,” says Rich Fuerstenberg, a partner with human resources consultant Mercer.

According to the Social Security Administration, a 20-year-old has about a 30 percent chance of becoming disabled by the time he retires. Although many people assume that accidents are the most common reason for a disability insurance claim, illness accounts for 90 percent of all claims, says Barry Lundquist, president of the Council for Disability Awareness, a nonprofit education group funded by the disability insurance industry. The top reasons for new claims last year, according to the organization’s annual claim study, were musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis or back problems, followed by cancer. A typical disability insurance claim lasts about 2.5 years, according to research compiled by CDA.

When Monica Soltes took a buyout from Merrill Lynch and decided to start her own financial planning business 10 years ago, she made sure she had health insurance but never considered buying disability insurance. “You’re 38 years old and you think, ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ I didn’t even think about it,” she recalls. Soltes moved from the Detroit area to sunny Del Mar, Calif., and rented an office with a view of the ocean.

Not long after the move, she slipped when she stepped off the porch at her cousin’s Santa Monica home and shattered her elbow. After multiple surgeries and an unsuccessful bone graft from her hip, she was no better off. Inadequate supply of blood to her upper arm and hip caused those bones to, effectively, die. Soltes also received a diagnosis of Cushing’s disease, a hormonal condition in which the body produces massive amounts of the hormone cortisol, which can cause bone loss.

Unable to work because of Cushing’s and other medical problems, Soltes moved back to Michigan, where she lives with an uncle. She receives Social Security disability benefits and is insured through the Medicare program. She hopes to start another business soon, perhaps helping disabled people get back to work.

A long-term-disability insurance plan could have helped Soltes maintain some of her income following her accident and subsequent medical problems.

If she was unable to perform her job, both individual and group plans would typically pay an amount replacing roughly 60 percent of her salary. In a group plan, payouts would be reduced by the amount she received in Social Security disability payments; individual policies would not deduct those payments.

There are other wrinkles in these policies: The group plan payout may be capped at $5,000 a month, for example, and after a few years many plans will continue to pay benefits only to claimants who are unable to perform any work that they’re suited for, not just the occupation they were trained for.

About a third of working Americans — about 50 million people — have disability insurance of some sort, says Lundquist. Since Soltes was self-employed, she would have to have purchased an individual policy. The majority of people with disability coverage, however, get it through their jobs.

But employer coverage no longer offers the protection it once did. For one thing, only 47 percent of employers offer long-term-disability coverage to their employees, according to Limra, a financial services trade association. (Companies with at least 100 employees are almost certain to offer some sort of disability benefit, say experts.)

Of employers that do offer disability coverage, just 37 percent paid the entire premium last year, down from 49 percent in 2002, according to Limra. At the same time, voluntary programs for which the employee pays the entire premium now make up half of all long-term-disability offerings, up from 41 percent in 2002.

When employees have to pay the entire premium, only about 40 percent generally sign up, says Lundquist. A typical employee-paid disability plan cost $350 a year in 2010, according to Limra. (Individual plans are more expensive but may also be more comprehensive, say experts. They typically cost between $600 and $2,000 annually, says Limra.)

In addition to being pricier than before, employer coverage is sometimes skimpier. The benefit may cover only 50 percent of an employee’s salary, rather than 60 percent. Some plans may offer employees the option to “buy up” to the 60 percent level, but that extra coverage may be costly because people who choose it are probably at higher risk of becoming disabled, says Richard McCabe, a director in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Human Resource Services health-care practice.

If your own company’s coverage is inadequate, consider supplementing it with an individual policy, say experts. No insurer will write a disability policy that replaces 100 percent of your salary: With that kind of coverage, no one would have an incentive to go back to work. But a combination of employer and supplemental individual coverage will generally replace 70 percent of someone’s income, says Lundquist. And that can buy you some peace of mind.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – This week, we address readers’ questions about health insurance coverage and costs.

My son was denied coverage on the basis that he had been drinking before going to the ER with a broken shoulder. Is drinking a legitimate reason for denial of coverage? John Johnson, Tucson, Ariz.

More From This Series Insuring Your Health

As of 2008, 36 states allowed insurers to exclude coverage for injuries related to alcohol and/or drug consumption, according to research from George Washington University’s Department of Health Policy at the School of Public Health and Health Services.

The practice dates to’47 when, as a way to discourage drinking, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners adopted a model statute that excluded coverage of alcohol-related health claims. More than 40 states and the District subsequently passed such laws.

But as the benefits of drug and alcohol treatment programs became apparent, these laws were recognized as counterproductive, since they discouraged emergency department and other medical personnel from screening people for and counseling them about drug and alcohol abuse. In 2001, the NAIC reversed course and recommended that such laws be scrapped.

My husband had a stroke in December, and the insurance reps refused to discuss his account with me because they didn’t have his signature on a form, and he couldn’t tell them over the phone it was okay to talk to me. And it is MY insurance! They said they had to follow HIPAA [the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects patients' medical privacy]. Is this true? Name withheld, Lawrenceville, Ga.

It’s a common misperception by health-care providers and insurers that HIPAA prohibits them from discussing patients’ medical information with family members, says Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group that promotes health privacy. “It’s not true; it has never been true,” she says. Unless the patient objects, such information can be shared with family members.

Advance planning documents can help avoid confusion and heartache, say experts. A living will spells out what if any measures you wish to have taken to prolong your life — being put on a breathing machine or on dialysis, for example. A health care proxy names the person you choose to make medical decisions for you in the event that you can’t do so yourself.

In addition, most states have surrogacy laws that assign decision-making responsibility to family members based on their relationship to the patient. Typically, if someone is incapacitated, state law would assign decision-making to the patient’s spouse, says Jay Horton, clinical program manager at the Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. If there is no spouse, the laws spell out who would be assigned to make decisions instead, based on their relationship to the patient.

Our doctor recommended that my husband get a preventive colonoscopy since it had been five years since his last one. The doctor found two benign polyps and removed them. Our [health] plan was to cover 100 percent for a preventive colonoscopy. Because the doctor removed the polyps during the procedure, it is now not covered. We have to pay the deductible, and the balance owed. I can assure you that many, many people will not have this procedure done (as I will not) when they are made aware of the additional costs involved. Pam Nevin, Rutherfordton, N.C.

Under the new federal health law, Medicare beneficiaries and members of new private health plans starting this year can generally receive free colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer if they meet age and other criteria.

Unfortunately, like you, others have been hit with sometimes substantial charges if a growth or mass called a polyp is discovered during a routine screening colonoscopy they thought would be free. Once a preventive procedure turns into a diagnostic procedure or other type of treatment, providers can charge you for it under the new law. According to the interim final rules: “A plan or issuer may impose cost-sharing requirements for a treatment that is not a recommended preventive service, even if the treatment

results from a recommended preventive service.”

Some experts have expressed concern that colonoscopy charges raise questions about what other newly free preventive services might incur similar hidden costs. Fortunately, it doesn’t appear that it will be a widespread problem, says Stephen Finan, senior director of policy for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. The reason: Colonoscopies appear to be the only procedure covered under the new guidelines for free preventive care where both prevention and diagnosis happen during

the same procedure. Usually they’re separate, as when something suspicious turns up on a woman’s mammogram. In that case, a separate procedure such as a biopsy would be scheduled to diagnose the problem, says Finan. “Colonoscopy is a very unique scenario,” he says.

Got a question for Michelle Andrews to answer in a future column? khnquestions@kff.org

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – What’s worse: Losing face or losing money?

Under laws in more than two dozen states and new Medicare rules that went into effect earlier this year, hospitals are required to report infections, risking their reputations as sterile sanctuaries, or pay a penalty. That’s left hospital administrators weighing the cost of ‘fessing up against the cost of fines.

For Clark Todd, CEO of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, there’s only one way to go: “If we hide from the public then the tendency to keep the status quo is stronger than ever,” he said. “And that’s just not going to get the job done.”

It’s been more than a decade since a panel of top scientists declared hospital safety a national priority. Yet, about 90,000 patients still die each year from preventable infections resulting from routine surgeries and hospital care, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Examples include infections resulting from contaminated tubes that deliver food and medications, and catheters that remove urine. Staph infections, which can be deadly, are a particularly serious problem.

Many more patients are irreparably harmed. Dave Meyer of Fair Oaks, Calif., a Sacramento suburb, was a general contractor before he broke his ankle in a motorcycle accident. Records indicate he contracted an infection at a local hospital that prevented his ankle from healing. He endured several surgeries and excruciating wound cleanings.

“Imagine taking an ice cream scoop and just taking half of your foot off. It looked like just this gaping hole,” said Meyer, adding: “I know that it would have been so much better if they used the proper hygiene in the hospital.”

Dr. Alfonso Torress-Cook of Pacific Hospital couldn’t agree more. “Hospitals are dirty,” he said. An epidemiologist and head of the hospital’s infection control program, Torress-Cook came to this for-profit teaching hospital five years ago with a clear goal: to sharply reduce the hospital’s infection rate.

Back then, the medical staff viewed infections at the 184-acute care bed facility as largely unavoidable and treated them with antibiotics, he said. The approach was costly: An infection can add $42,000 to a patient’s bill in the intensive care unit, according to the Leapfrog Group, an advocacy group that represents large employers like General Motors, Chrysler and Sprint.Now, hand washing at Pacific Hospital, especially in the ICU, is so routine nurses complain their hands are chapped. That’s just one of many changes. Nurses here wash patients every day. Janitors are given enough time to properly clean rooms. Even those coming in for surgery are asked to take a shower before showing up.Torress-Cook opened a closet to show off another weapon in the hospital’s anti-infection arsenal: an ultraviolet light, hooked up to the hospital’s air ventilation system, that kills airborne germs.At first the employees were skeptical, said Todd. But California’s new public reporting law, which went into effect in 2010, and Medicare’s decision to start withholding two percent of payments from hospitals that keep their rates secret, have helped his cause.”I think that gives administrators like me even more reason to get involved in this matter,” said Todd. “And more clout with our medical staff to work against some of these traditional behaviors.”Pacific Hospital is working to bring down bloodstream infections that result from tubes that deliver medication and nutrients, and has virtually eliminated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and surgical infections.That has caught the attention of competitors and potential customers. And it’s become a source of pride for its employees.Indeed, researchers have found concern over a hospital’s public image is an even more powerful motivator than fear of losing market share.”Many hospitals will measure quality and voluntarily put it up, even without the government involved,” said Dr. Michael Rapp, director of the Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “But certainly once it’s required for all hospitals to do that there’s the peer pressure and they’re going to be looking at how they do compared to others.” The fear of losing millions of dollars isn’t an idle threat either. Starting this year, hospitals have to reveal their catheter-associated blood stream infections if they want their Medicare bills paid in full. Next year, they’ll have to report surgical-site infections. The list will grow longer in the coming years. Rapp anticipates that nearly all U.S. hospitals will comply. Now, only half volunteer their data, he said. Still, the stigma of unclean wards and fear of lawsuits can make hospitals reluctant to report. When the law went into effect in California,’ hospitals out of 400 didn’t send in any data. State regulators, who acknowledge the first year of data collection was riddled with errors, are not imposing penalties. There are other concerns: Competitors may undercount, making more honest players look bad, and some hospitals simply do more surgeries or have sicker patients, said Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association. “The measures aren’t perfect and don’t adequately account for the differences among patients,” said Foster.For hospitals in cities like Long Beach or quieter, rural areas like Ukiah, keeping track of the frenetic activity in their facilities can be daunting.Ukiah is a verdant and woodsy town north of San Francisco, in Mendocino County. At the small, 78-bed nonprofit hospital, patients and staff all seem to know each other, trading warm hellos on a warm spring day. It’s not hard to imagine how quickly word of even one infection can spread.That’s something Sue Mason, a half-time nurse at Ukiah Valley Medical Center, worries about. “We have nothing to hide,” she said.Mason has a big job and only 20 hours a week to do it: She’s charged with tracking and preventing infections. Every morning, she checks the computerized lab tests and tries to chase down new cases. In the nationwide push for greater transparency of hospital performance, though, Mason is an overwhelmed foot soldier. She has little time to eliminate the very infections she’s charged with reporting.”I’d like to be out on the floor more with the nurses. I could monitor their hand hygiene compliance and educate them as I see them doing their job,” Mason said. Instead, she spends most her day in front of the computer crunching data.Mason must report not just the infections that occur, which are rare here, she said, but details of every surgery, every patient who tests positive or negative for gruesome antibiotic-resistant bugs, like MRSA.Even at Pacific Hospital, where infection rates are some of the lowest in the nation, hospital chief Todd preaches constant vigilance, “These initiatives have to be felt with some passion and they have to be implemented with consistency and strong will.”It will take some time before patients can know the full risk of entering their local hospital. At present, most states and Medicare publish just a short list of infections.In the coming years, though, as the federal health law continues to take effect, the noose will tighten even more. Starting in 2012, Medicare will reduce payments to hospitals with poor infection rates in their intensive care units.There is great hope, among researchers and hospital chiefs, that this double-barreled approach of public reporting and financial sanctions may be the best cure for what has proven to be a chronic condition in hospitals.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Initiative Builds on Integrated Care Model of Medicaid Health Plans WASHINGTON, May 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Medicaid Health Plans of America (MHPA) commends Health and Human Services …

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(NaturalNews) A mugger confronts a business man walking down the street, flashing a sharp knife. “Give me all your money. I’ve got kids to feed,” he insists. The business man calmly responds, “Well that’s not fair, I’ve got kids to feed, too.” Momentarily flummoxed, the mugger works out a bit of math and retorts, “Okay, I’m gonna take a balanced approach with you. Just give me HALF of all your money, and we’ll call it even.” Such is the logic of the Obama administration, which now absurdly proposes that spending America into a total debt collapse is somehow a “balanced approach.” Sure, it is balanced in the same way that a man walking a tightrope strung 35 stories above the city street, carrying two suitcases stuffed with hundreds of pounds of T-bills, with strong winds and a forecast of an approaching hail storm is also “balanced.” That Obama could even pretend such a scenario is healthy for the future of America just goes to show you the depth of financial insanity that has gripped the players in Washington D.C. — on both sides of the aisle. Today, President Obama proposed spending cuts of $4 trillion over the next 12 years, but just as we figured, virtually none of those cuts kick in until Obama is out of office. They’re all “back-loaded” cuts that happen at some theoretical time in the future rather than right now. It’s like a heroin addict who says, “I’ll quit my habit tomorrow. Just not right now” as he takes another hit. Notably, Obama’s so-called balanced budget cuts don’t balance the budget . A $4 trillion cut in spending over 12 years is still a complete joke, and here’s why: The U.S. government will likely rack up at least $30 trillion in new debt over those same 12 years, just based on a very conservative estimate of current growth rates in the debt. In other words, under Obama’s new plan, the national debt will grow by $26 trillion over the next 12 years . Obama’s debt spending is accelerating so rapidly that the mathematicians now call it a “blowout phase” of government debt. And what, exactly, is getting blown out? Your future, of course. But according to Obama, that’s a “balanced approach.” He’s going to burden your children and grandchildren with the greatest debt the world has ever seen — a debt so large and growing so quickly that no nation can conceivably escape from under its weight… especially a nation that has lost its manufacturing base, that has dumbed down its education system and that has routinely poisoned its population with fluoride, medications and chemical food additives. The odds of America ever paying off its national debt are approximately the same odds of a Japanese senior citizen surfing a 5-meter-high tsunami wave to the safety of dry land. Enter the realm of economic voodoo (not to be confused with voodoo economics) Debt apologists and deniers, of course, will calmly explain that it’s all no problem. “America can handle a little more debt,” they say. “We can just pay it off down the road, who cares?” History will soon show these people to be fools; and those who follow them cowards. The beautiful thing about the English language is that it offers the breadth of possibilities to express almost any idea you can think of; but words alone don’t make ideas true. The utterance that “We will balance the budget over the next ten years” doesn’t actually make it happen. It is merely a moment of wishful thinking; like a wish upon a star: Star Light Star bright, The first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight. Let the national debt be ZERO! Shazam! Like some sort of modern economic voodoo, we can wish away all our debt. You just have to BELIEVE in it, folks. You have to have faith, you see. Obama’s New Ministry of Economic Voodoo In this way, Obama’s “balanced approach” fiasco has become The New Ministry of Economic Voodoo. It is a non-denominational church where people of all races and national origins are welcome to join. But the most important factor necessary to join Obama’s New Ministry of Economic Voodoo is that you completely abandon any attachments to economic reality and the laws of mathematics. Those things are mere burdens and have no place inside the New Ministry of Economic Voodoo. They will also distract you from the “faith” to be placed in the “savior” of Obama whose angelic powers will soon overcome the laws of economics, we are promised, much like Moses parting the Red Sea. The Heaven’s Gate cult which ended in 1997 with the mass suicide of its 39 members promised eternal life in Heaven if you would only kill yourself on command (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_%28religious_group%29). Obama’s New Ministry of Economic Voodoo promises eternal budget surpluses if you will just kill your rational mind and surrender to the power of scripted verbal rhetoric. Obama is to the U.S. economy what Marshall Applewhite was to the members of Heaven’s Gate: The bringer of destruction, disguised as a savior. They both speak the language of salvation, but they only deliver the outcome of destruction. Both Applewhite and Obama are, by any reasonable reckoning, false prophets who use their powers of persuasive rhetoric to gain power over the very people they are harming the most: their followers. The message of the false prophet A false prophet says, “I am going to save you. Follow me and stop thinking for yourself.” A genuine prophet says, “I am going to show you how to save yourself. Follow your inner wisdom and learn how to think for yourself.” Do you recognize which message Obama is spouting? A false prophet comes to you dressed in a slick business suit, with a P.R. team and a cadre of image specialists who check his makeup, lighting and hair style to make sure the presentation is exactly right. A genuine prophet may be dressed in ragged clothing and have holes in his shoes. His hands may still have soil on them from the garden, and his image is largely based on who he is from the inside out, not what he wants you to see from the outside in. A false prophet needs a teleprompter for every speech because he has no inner wisdom to guide his words. His soul, and his mind, are empty. A genuine prophet can speak from the heart, spontaneously and without rehearsing his words, because his speech comes from a place of authentic truth, not a scripted agenda. A false prophet is obsessed with how the public sees him; he is constantly running polls and surveys to see what people think, and he uses those results to determine his direction. A genuine prophet cares little about what others think; he is driven purely by principle, and his direction stays true to his intention regardless of the changes in public sentiment. A false prophet practices the skills of oratory and persuasion in order to persuade people to close their minds and follow him without question. A genuine prophet develops the skills of oratory and persuasion as a natural extension of the truth in his message, and he uses those skills to persuade people to OPEN their minds and start ASKING questions. Here at NaturalNews, we don’t claim to be prophets, but we do encourage everyone to open their minds and start asking lots of questions about health, freedom, government, environment, money and other topics. If you’re new to NaturalNews, I’m the volunteer editor, and I’ve been writing articles like this for over seven years. Lately, I’ve been unleashed in my writings due to the rapid acceleration of troubling world events and the need to reach people with articles that don’t hold back and don’t try to sugar coat the situation. Subscribe to my free email newsletter to receive a daily email update linking to each day’s breaking news stories: http://www.naturalnews.com/ReaderRegistration.html In the mean time, stay on your toes, folks. We are all being fed a complete load of lies by the members of both political parties in Washington. The future of our nation’s financial solvency is at stake, and these jokers are only making the problem worse with each passing moment. Frankly, I now do not expect a solution to come from within the current system. This system is headed towards inevitable collapse, and we can only hope that what comes out of it in the aftermath will be more sensible and sustainable. The idea that we should all just vote for whichever professional politician tells the best-sounding lies has proven it doesn’t work.

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Washington, United States (AHN) – The United States on Tuesday revealed that it had offered Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo to become a lecturer at one of its universities after leaving power gracefully, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Toner said that the State Department contacted Gbagbo’s staff and made the offer soon after Gbagbo lost November 28 election last year. However, he adamantly refused to step down.

Talking to reporters, Toner further said that they discussed about potential lectureship positions on the basis of his academia background. “Visiting professor positions offered by universities to former leaders are contingent on the fact that these leaders are gracefully departed individuals, who allow for a peaceful transition to democracy to take place. And let’s just say the train’s left the station on that, and we had stopped talking about that a while back,” he continued.

Toner, however, remained silent when asked whether Boston University had offered any such position to Gbagbo. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said that Gbagbo, who stubbornly refused African Union’s mediation offers ultimately detained earlier this week, should have accepted the offer.

Odinga is the AU’s envoy to Ivory Coast and was appointed in December last year to resolve the African country’s political crisis, which began soon after November’s disputed elections.

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Willmar, MN, United States (AHN) – Jennie-O Turkey Store, a Willmar, Minn. establishment, is recalling approximately 54,960 pounds of frozen, raw turkey burger products that may be contaminated with Salmonella, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

As FSIS continues its investigation of illnesses related to this recall, additional raw turkey products may be recalled. As a result, FSIS is alerting consumers to take extra care when preparing all raw turkey products.

To prevent salmonellosis and other foodborne illnesses, wash hands with warm, soapy water for at least 20 seconds before and after handling raw meat and poultry, and cook poultry—including ground turkey burgers—to 165° F, as determined with a food thermometer.

The products subject to recall include:

4-pound boxes of Jennie-O Turkey Store® “All Natural Turkey Burgers with seasonings Lean White Meat”. Each box contains 12 1/3-pound individually wrapped burgers.

A use by date of “DEC 23 2011″ and an identifying lot code of “32710″ through “32780″ are inkjetted on the side panel of each box, just above the opening tear strip.

Establishment number “P-7760″ is located within the USDA mark of inspection on the front of each box. The products were packaged on Nov. 23, 2010 and were distributed to retail establishments nationwide.

The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services notified FSIS of a patient diagnosed with salmonellosis caused by Salmonella serotype Hadar. The investigation expanded to include 12 people in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin who also have been diagnosed with Salmonella Hadar infection, with illnesses occurring between December 2010 and March 2011. Working in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state public health partners, FSIS determined that three of the patients in Colorado, Ohio, and Wisconsin specifically reported eating this product prior to illness onset and hospitalization; the last of these illnesses was reported on March 14, 2011.

As a result of the epidemiologic investigation, FSIS determined that there is a link between the Jennie-O ground turkey products and this illness outbreak. FSIS is continuing to work with CDC, affected state public health partners, and the company on the investigation. FSIS will continue to provide information as it becomes available, including information about any related recall activity. Individuals concerned about an illness should contact a physician.

FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers.

Jennie-O Turkey Store has created an online resource for consumers with questions about this recall. It can be found on their website at www.jennieo.com/recall. Media with questions regarding the recall should contact Julie Craven, Vice President of Corporate Communications, at media@j-ots.com or (507) 437-5345.

Consumption of food contaminated with Salmonella can cause salmonellosis, one of the most common bacterial foodborne illnesses. Salmonella infections can be life-threatening, especially to those with weak immune systems, such as infants, the elderly, and persons with HIV infection or undergoing chemotherapy. The most common manifestations of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within six to 72 hours. Additional symptoms may be chills, headache, nausea and vomiting that can last up to seven days.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Advocates have welcomed a recommendation from a Food and Drug Administration panel to ban menthol cigarettes to benefit public health. Cigarette companies remain optimistic the FDA will rule in their favor after a full federal review of the effects of the product.

The American Heart Association praised the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee for “‘do[ing] exactly what Congress directed when it enacted the 2009 law granting the FDA authority over tobacco products.” The group urged the FDA to “act expeditiously and implement the committee’s recommendation.”

The statement was issued jointly with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the American Lung Association.

Legacy, an anti-smoking group established following the 1998 settlement of Medicaid lawsuits against American tobacco companies by 46 states, likewise applauded the panel for “recognizing menthol for what it is – a tool to soothe the throat and ease discomfort associated with smoking.”

“By eliminating [menthol cigarettes], we can go a long way toward preventing our nation’s youth from being recruited as ‘replacement smokers’ for those who quit smoking or who lose their lives to tobacco-related disease,” the group’s president and chief executive, Cheryl Healton, said in a statement.

The FDA committee concluded last Friday that menthol cigarettes increase the number of minors who smoke.

Citing studies, the panel said the proportion of youth smokers who use menthol cigarettes is higher than that of adult smokers. It found that younger teen smokers have a higher proportion of menthol cigarette smokers than older adolescent smokers.

According to the committee, “menthol cigarettes are marketed disproportionately to younger smokers.”

The panel concluded there is evidence that new smokers have a greater prevalence of menthol cigarette use than regular smokers. It added that a proportion of menthol cigarette use among youth smokers is increasing while non-menthol cigarette use is decreasing or remains flat.

But Lorillard, the nation’s third largest cigarette manufacturer, said the committee issued its recommendation “despite the fact that they found there was no difference in disease risk between smokers of menthol cigarettes and smokers of non-menthol cigarettes.”

The company called the conclusions “unsubstantiated” and maintained that a complete FDA review would result in the product remaining in the market.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company issued a terse statement that it “looks forward to participating in further review of menthol cigarettes by FDA.”

Philip Morris USA emphasized the panel’s report is non-binding and would have no direct effect on the availability of menthol cigarettes. The company sad it would provide the FDA with “science-and evidence-based information” this week.

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