Friday Links, News and Commentary

Active rigs: 187 (steady, very nice)

Wells coming off the confidential list today have been posted.

RBN Energy: Part II of Canadian condensate demand.

I only caught one snippet of CNBC this a.m. The television was on mute, but I saw Alan Greenspan as a talking head was there, and the crawler said Greenspan considered stocks undervalued. Okay.  

This is not an investment site; don't make any investment decisions, or financial decisions, based on what you read, or think you read, on this blog.

WSJ Links

How to access WSJ links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News

The entire article at the link pertains, but a statement near the end of the article is particularly helpful:

On December 1, 2009, Google announced changes to their "first click free" program, which has been running since 2008 and allows users to find and read articles behind a paywall. The reader's first click to the content is free, and the number after that would be set by the content provider.

I find that the WSJ lets me click on about 8, maybe 10 articles, before I'm restricted. I subscribe to the WSJ but do not access it on-line; I only read the hard copy edition.

Generally, clicking on the links will not get you past the paywall; one needs to "cut and paste" the key words, generally highlighted, into the URL area and hit "return."

Now to the links:

Section M (Mansion): I generally never read this section. Did not read it today.

Section D (Arena): nothing particularly interesting.

Section C (Money & Investing): nothing; maybe I will come back to it later.

Section B (Marketplace):

• Patriot Coal asks bankruptcy court to scrap retiree benefits and terminate retirees' current health benefits. ObamaCare arriving just in time.
• Boeing fixes to be extensive. Linked article is different than the hard copy I have before me.

Section A:

• Senate slams JP Morgan on "Whale"; no link; story everywhere; JP Morgan still made tons of money; risk-taking; had the "Whale" turned out differently, JP Morgan would be beatified (grammatically correct?)

• Employers blast fees from new health law; here it comes, the small print:

Employers are bracing for a little-noticed fee in the federal health-care law that will charge them $63 for each person they insure next year, one of the clearest cost increases companies face when the law takes full effect.

Companies and other plan providers will together pay $25 billion over three years to create a fund for insurance companies to offset the cost of covering people with high medical bills.

The fees will hit most large U.S. employers, and several have been lobbying to change the program, contending the levy is unfair because it subsidizes individually purchased plans that won't cover their workers. Boeing Co. and a union health plan covering retirees of General Motors, Ford Motor Co.  and Chrysler, among other groups, have asked federal regulators to exclude or shield their insurance recipients from the fee.

Insurance companies, which helped put the fee in the law, say the fee is essential to prevent rates from skyrocketing when insurers get an influx of unhealthy customers next year. The fee is part of a new insurance landscape created by the health law that will forbid insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. 

For the record: I see nothing wrong with $63/employee; pretty inexpensive overall. It could be worse, Ole would say. But why stop at $63?

Page 3, and we've talked about page 3 before; two stories:

• Livestock waste lands Iowa in hot water; with runoff from farms blamed for fouling drinking supply, the EPA pressures state to step up oversight of facilities; note how EPA handles a known water polluter vs fracking;

• Boxing group bans headgear in bid to reduce concussions; interestingly enough, there was a study done many, many years ago that actually shows motorcycle helmets actually increases the healthcare cost and morbidity of motorcycle accidents (bottom line: motorcycle accidents convert deaths into quadriplegics)
 

• Oil exports spur more questions about pipeline; Another reason to kill the Keystone XL 2.0: it would result in more jobs for Americans; improve the US trade balance; I can't make this stuff up:

Much of the crude oil that would flow down the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline would likely be exported as refined products by U.S. companies—a prospect that is stirring further debate over whether the project serves the nation's best interest.

Backers of the pipeline, which would carry heavy crude from Alberta, Canada, through the Plains states to Gulf Coast refineries, say the exports would be good for the U.S. economy by creating refinery jobs and helping to reduce the trade deficit.

And, thus, "we" need to kill the pipeline.  I can't make this stuff up.

Op-ed: the doctor won't see you now. He's clocked out. 

Big government likes big providers. That's why ObamaCare is gradually making the local doctor-owned medical practice a relic. In the not too distant future, most physicians will be hourly wage earners, likely employed by a hospital chain.

Why? Because when doctors practice in small offices, it is hard for Washington to regulate what they do. There are too many of them, and the government is too remote. It is far easier for federal agencies to regulate physicians if they work for big hospitals. So ObamaCare shifts money to favor the delivery of outpatient care through hospital-owned networks.

The irony is that in the name of lowering costs, ObamaCare will almost certainly make the practice of medicine more expensive. It turns out that when doctors become salaried hospital employees, their overall productivity falls.

• Physicians will lead better lives; it will all work out just fine. Don't worry; be happy. Actually, a lot more physicians will find it more lucrative to review claims for insurance companies rather than actually practice medicine. The best way to cut down health care costs for insurers and the US taxpayer is to make it more difficult to visit physicians in the first place. The physician's "tool" that adds most to the nation's health care costs: her pen. The one she uses for ordering diagnostic tests and prescribing medications.