Medicare For All: Surest Way To Bankrupt America

Democrats, egged on by the party's rising socialist wing, are recycling a free health care idea with a shiny new label.  They are advocating "Medicare for All" with the lure of no co-pays, no deductibles and no-cost sharing.  Free healthcare for everyone.  It's political seduction.

A similar idea was first trotted out in 2016 by former presidential candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist. The 77-year old independent won over swooning young people with his Utopian idea of free healthcare.  But the scheme faded along with Sanders' presidential aspirations.

Then 29-year-old first-term Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez burst onto the political scene in January, resuscitating the concept with a catchy twist, "Medicare for All."  When the idea fueled flattering media coverage, many Democratic presidential candidates leaped on the bandwagon.

Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is a fervent disciple of a single-payer system.  Under her plan, all healthcare financing is provided by one entity, in this case the federal government.  Everyone receives coverage, regardless of income, occupation or health status.

With single-payer, about 156.1 million people covered by employer health insurance would be forced to give up their plans.  Private insurance firms would cease operations leaving every American solely dependent on the federal government for primary health coverage.  There would be no other choice.

Despite the allure of a government freebie, healthcare would not magically become free.  People may not pay the doctor, however, Americans will be on the hook for a steep bill for healthcare in the form of higher taxes and budget deficits.  The tab for the plan worries economists and financial experts.

Bloomberg News, a liberal media voice, unveiled an analysis of "Medicare for All" prepared by the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia.  Assuming the program was launched in 2022, the price tag for the first ten years ranged from $24.7 trillion to $34.7 trillion.

All those zeroes are difficult to grasp without some perspective.  For instance, the total federal spending for providing Medicare coverage in fiscal year 2018 was $712 billion.  Expanding the plan to cover all Americans would append an estimated $3.7 trillion annually to the cost of the program.

The government can barely afford its existing healthcare obligations.  The latest Medicare Trustees report released in 2017 calculated that the Part A Trust Fund, which covers payments for hospital care, will be exhausted in 2026.  That's three years earlier than the previous year's estimate. 

Consider in fiscal year 2018 total federal government spending stood at $4.1 trillion. Adding another $3.7 trillion would increase the nation's debt while triggering catastrophic tax hikes. America's debt has already crept past $22 trillion, double the amount at the end of 2008.  More debt is not free.

In the last fiscal year, taxpayers ponied up $364 billion in interest payments for the nation's ballooning debt.  That represented 8.3 percent of the federal government's total budget.  With interest rates rising, each new dollar of debt will be more costly to finance, hiking future interest payments.

Democrats' solution is to raise taxes on billionaires.  That always polls well with voters.  However, even if the Internal Revenue Service confiscated the current entire wealth of American billionaires--$2.39 trillion-- the figure would not even cover one year's worth of costs for "Medicare for All."

The economics of "Medicare for All" have already discouraged a several states from enacting their own ambitious single-payer healthcare programs. Last month North Carolina deep-sixed its plan after the costs were estimated at $101 billion a year.

Even that liberal bastion of free, California, pulled the plug on single-payer legislation even after it was approved in the state senate because questions cropped up about the source of funding $400 billion in annual costs.  Vermont also abandoned a copycat plan over the bloated expenditure.

For the sake of argument, let's assume "Medicare for All" becomes a reality.  The plan will exacerbate a problem no proponent ever talks about while plugging the virtues of Medicare, a program originally designed to cover seniors 65-years old and up.

Medicare coverage is no panacea.  It pays for substantially less services than private insurance plans offered by companies to their employees.  For example, it will not bear the expense for long-term care, most dental care, eye exams for prescription glasses, hospice care or routine foot care.

Ocasio-Cortez counters her plan will tack on vision and dental care under "Medicare for All." A grandiose gesture but Medicare reimburses doctors anywhere from five-to-40 percent less than private insurers for the same services. As a result, thousands of doctors no longer accept Medicare.

It is inconceivable dentists and ophthalmologists would agree to reduced reimbursement schedules after never having to take such a haircut for fees.  Physicians have operated under the Medicare burden for years and they are bailing.  Why would these specialists accept Medicare patients?

In 2013, an annual report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent congressional agency, found that nearly one-third (28%) of its beneficiaries had trouble finding a primary care physician willing to treat patients with Medicare coverage.

Every year more doctors are hanging out signs in their lobbies that read: "Not Accepting New Medicare Patients." According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 9,539 doctors quit serving patients with Medicare in 2012 because of lower payments for fees.

If millions of Americans are added to the rolls of Medicare, there is the looming threat more doctors will follow suit.  What good will Medicare coverage be if your primary care physician no longer accepts the plan?  "Medicare for All" advocates appear unconcerned about this prospect.

Even if doctors are coerced into taking patients with Medicare, there will be an insufficient number of primary care physicians to handle the anticipated increase in office visits.   According to national projections, there will be a shortage of 200,000 primary care physicians by 2025.

Before Americans fall in love with "free" healthcare, they would be advised study the consequences of such a plan. However, don't expect politicians to enlighten the populace.  They believe they can dupe naive American voters by just repeating the word "free" over-and-over-and-over.

What's Driving Push For Late Term Abortions?

Democrats are unfurling legislation in states across the country to expand laws allowing abortion up to the point of birth.  An early success in New York state has ignited a wave of similar proposals, fueling a simmering national debate that is roiling an already contentious political climate.

The initial shot was fired last month when the Democratic-controlled New York legislature authorized sweeping new measures to allow so-called late-term abortions.  The bill was promoted under the pretense to save women from traveling out of state for abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy.

The bill doesn't just preserve abortion rights, which are legal in every state, it allows the procedure past the 24th week if the health of the mother is endangered, which can be interpreted as mental or emotional conditions.  Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic, championed the legislation.

A similar law was voted down in the Virginia legislature after an advocate, Kathy Tran, described the grisly details of a life-or-death decision occurring even as the baby is being born.  That chilling prospect had opponents labeling the law "infanticide." Virginia's Democrat governor backed the law.

Vermont lawmakers are considering a bill that would go beyond the New York law. The proposal would allow for the procedure to be performed up until the point of birth for any reason.  The proposed law states "a fertilized egg, embryo or fetus shall not have independent rights" in Vermont.

Americans might be bewildered by this blitzkrieg for extending term limits on abortion.  A Marist poll of adults nationwide found that 76 percent of Americans favor limiting abortion to the first three months of pregnancy. That number included 60 percent of adults who self-identified as pro-choice.

No evidence was presented during the New York debate to suggest women are clamoring for the right to abort babies up until the moment of birth.  It begs the question: Why was the Democratic dominated legislature aggressively pushing this agenda?

No factual argument can be made there is limited access to abortions in the United States.  Just since 2000, there have been 11,204,207 legal abortions, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The abortion rate in 2015 was 118 abortions for every 1,000 live births.

In New York, the state's figures were among the highest in the nation.  A CDC report shows New York City preformed 544 abortions for every 1,000 live births. That means about one in three unborn babies were aborted.  Abortion access is a red herring to promote the aggressive expansion.

To justify their campaign, Democrats are spreading fear that the current Supreme Court will limit the right to an abortion.  This smoke screen is one Democrats have used ever since the landmark Roe vs. Wade high court decision in 1973 confirmed a women's right to have an abortion.

After 46 years, the decision remains intact.  To demonstrate the folly of their claims, last week the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to temporarily block a Louisiana law that placed restrictions on abortion clinics, requiring providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

Isn't it time for Democrats to stop using this canard?  The late-term abortion issue has nothing to do with their fabrication of a Roe vs. Wade reversal. The party is eyeing the pivotal 2020 presidential election and planning to once again play identity politics with a "women's right to choose."

Their new tactic is to force Republicans to try to defeat this legislation so Democrats can smear the party as misogynist, Neanderthals who want to enslave women and deny them the right to control their bodies.  It is right out of the Democrats antiquated playbook to galvanize their female base.

But Democrats may have miscalculated Americans' sentiment on this issue.  As polling suggests, there is little support even among pro-choice advocates for ending the lives of babies seconds before birth. When the procedure's macabre details are explained, most Americans recoil in horror.

The latest CDC data found 91.1 percent of all abortions are performed less than 13 weeks after pregnancy.  Fewer than 1.3 percent are done after 21 weeks.  There are no facts to suggest there is an unmet demand among women for late-term abortions.  Any "evidence" is anecdotal at best.

Democrats and their accomplices in the news media appear to be guilty of overreach on this issue.  They may be surprised by the blowback from voters outside liberal states such as New York.  Virginia is a case in point.  But don't expect that prospect to alter their political skulduggery.

Writing The Great American Novel

When I retired, a slice of my identity died. For the first time in 40 years, I was unemployed.  What would I do the rest of my life? The question lingered for months while I over indulged in my favorite pastime golf. Soon almost daily rounds of golf became too much like a job. Now what? 

Then one day a thunderbolt of inspiration struck.  My passion has always been writing.  No longer shackled to an office desk, I could pursue my dream of becoming an author.  Fantasies of a best-selling novel danced in my head.  Book tours.  Autographs.  A blockbuster movie.  I was smitten. 

My first move was to gather data.  I pored over books on how to become a published author.  I boned up on what themes and genres appealed to publishing houses. Along the way, I discovered the odds of getting a novel published are astronomical.

Consider the facts: there are a few thousand literary agents.  Each one receives an estimated 10,000 queries from aspiring writers.  Do the math.  About 65,000 new books are published annually, most by established authors.  A new writer has a better chance of winning the lottery.

Undeterred, my fingers flew across my keyboard as I drafted my first novel.  It was exhilarating as the shape of a book appeared on my computer screen.  After I completed the masterpiece, I handed it to Dianna to read, expecting breathless praise.  Instead, she uttered the sad truth.  It reeked.  Skunky.

My ego shattered, I stewed over her assessment.  In reviewing the work, I arrived at the same conclusion.  It lacked drama, empathetic characters, structure and a few colons.  It was consigned to the trash along with leftover pizza.  In hindsight, I had little enthusiasm for the subject matter.

Being an author was harder work than I imagined.  Just before admitting defeat, we were vacationing in New York City when Dianna announced she had a dream the previous night about diamonds.  She thought it would be a good subject for a book.  I politely smiled and nodded absently. Whatever.

While she shopped, I ducked into a book store and scanned the shelves for tomes about diamonds to satisfy my curiosity.  I flipped the pages of a few books.  Then I spotted a magazine with an article speculating that Bin Laden had been peddling raw diamonds to finance his terror network. 

Arriving back in San Antonio, I researched every news article, book and archive for information about the Bin Laden story.  There were tantalizing tidbits but mostly hearsey.  That meant, as a novelist, I had a license to write my own fictionalized story based on a smidgen of facts.

As I dug deeper, I discovered evidence.  According to news reports, Bin Laden's jihadists had struck deals to acquire $30 million in so-called blood diamonds before the attacks of 9/11.  The diamonds came from mines in Sierra Leone.  The stones route from Africa to Bin Laden remained a mystery.

I pounded the keyboard for nearly a year, writing chapter-after-chapter.  The pacing of the book was much faster than my flawed original.  I wanted a page-turner no reader could snooze through. The copy was littered with facts about diamonds, ruthless dealers and secretive diamond trading.

The finished product in hand, I began the process of marketing the book, contacting a carefully researched cadre of agents who handled new authors.  A one-page letter and a one-page synopsis of the book was shipped to a dozen literary highbrows.  Then the waiting game began.

Agent replies dribbled into the mailbox.  The first to land were a couple of form letters with the salutation, "Dear Author."  That was the certain kiss of death.  Then a few brighter notes showed up.  One agent praised the idea of the book, but declined because she wasn't accepting new clients.

Just when my hopes were fading, two agents dispatched encouraging letters seeking the first two chapters of my book, titled "Terror Diamonds."  My pulsed quickened.  My ego soared.  I dashed off the chapters and waited.  And anxiously fretted.  Finally, two emails dropped into my inbox.

There were platitudes about the writing style, the plot and the research.  But the two agents passed.  No reasons were given for their decisions.  I fumed for a couple of weeks before working up the courage to query the agents for explanations.  Both declined.  "We don't do that," was the answer.

In a last ditch attempt to salvage my book, I fired off another round of letters to dozens of agents. More rejections knocked the stuffing out of my ego.  Deflated, I reluctantly surrendered my dream. I wasn't going to be a best-selling author.  I wasn't even going to get a single word published.

Today I have reconciled myself to treasure the experience of writing a book. Lots of folks talk about penning a novel.  Not many actually finish one.  I feel better for having tried and failed.  I never have to regret what might have been.  That provides a scintilla of balm for my journalistic self esteem.

I remain a voracious consumer of books.  Once in a while, when I read a novel I discern a fuzzy plot or misplaced comma.  I think, "My book is better than this dribble."  But so what?  This writer won the publishing lottery. That's something to admire because most of us will never experience it. 

Media Shame: Savage Attacks on Catholic Teens

Wearing a red hat in America has been demonized by the news media and those who hate the president.  A small group of teens recently discovered the depth of this loathing . They were mocked, taunted and verbally assaulted for the crime of donning Make America Great Again hats.

For their grievous sin, these students from a Kentucky Catholic high school have endured media smears, death threats and character assassination.  The media fueled furor over the incident at the national March for Life forced the school to shutter its doors for fear of violence against its students.

How could this happen in America?  The blame rests squarely on the stoop shouldered news media. Journalists, a misnomer if there ever was one, jumped to conclusions based on their own biases and spread a false narrative about an incident involving the school kids, endangering their lives.

A small group of Covington Catholic High School youngsters were peacefully leaving the pro-life rally in Washington, D.C when a handful of black Hebrew Israelites and left-wing activists hurled insults at the students.  In response, the students sang their school song, refusing the hateful bait.

Then a self-appointed Native American activist entered the fray, banging a drum and confronting one of the students.  To his credit, the student only smiled without uttering a word.  Within minutes, a video appeared on social media that exploded into bombastic news coverage by the media.

America's media, its reputation for fairness long ago shredded, based its reporting mostly on a snippet of video and the comments of Native American Nathan Phillips, who claimed to be a a Vietnam War veteran. News commentators inflamed passions by hastily condemning the kids.

Television reporters denounced the youngsters as bigots.  Journalists called them "privileged" white elitists.  Hollywood actors suggested they kids should be hunted down and punched in the face.  Some on social media called for the youngsters to be killed.

Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, an anti-Semite serving her first term in the U.S. Congress, tweeted: "The boys were protesting a woman's right to choose & yelled, "It's not rape if you enjoy it." They were taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants."

NBC called the incident "a troubling scene many are calling racist played out in Washington."  CNN, the network no one should trust, described the scene as a "mob of MAGA hat-wearing high school students." An MSNBC news panelist compared the students to neo-Nazis.

USA Today featured an interview with Phillips, who belittled the youngsters as "beastly" and having a "mob mentality." The New York Times labeled the teenagers "racists" for mocking a veteran.  The Washington Post lambasted the Catholic Church's sordid history of Native American abuses.

These choir boy-faced high school youths overnight became the most hated figures in America.  Then the media story began to unravel.  As more video surfaced of the incident near the Lincoln Memorial, it became obvious the teenagers were passive bystanders, not the aggressors.

No video evidence exists showing the kids shouting anything racist or mentioning rape.  The adult sponsors accompanying the youngsters publicly discredited the media's version.  A youth wearing the MAGA hat was interviewed and refuted the remarks that the activists claimed he made.

Why didn't the news media interview the sponsors and the youngsters before they rushed to judgment?  The answer is obvious.  There were not interested in the truth.  They wanted to advance the narrative of MAGA hats being a symbol of bigotry.  Their hatred for Trump was bared. 

The Native American Philips was unmasked as a career provocateur who regularly shows up a protests, representing himself.  He is not an Vietnam veteran as he claims.  He served in the Marine Reserves, spending most of his time in sunny California instead of the steamy jungles of Vietnam.

A day after the confrontation Phillips disrupted mass at Washington's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, beating his drum and marching down the aisles.  Phillips is a trouble maker not a peacemaker.  He is a charlatan.  His real name is Nathaniel R. Stanard.

As the truth emerged, some media outlets tried to walk back the story in an attempt to salvage their tattered reputations.  But too many newsrooms decided to just let the story fade away rather than apologizing to the school and the teenagers they ran roughshod over.

Beside the obvious malicious reporting, there are two recurring themes this incident illuminates.  The first is the media has abandoned all pretense of being unbiased.  Journalists are out to tarnish the president even if a falsehood has to be dressed up as legitimate news.  It is shameful and indefensible.

The second is a virulent strain of anti-Catholicism is rising in the country.  These youngsters were singled out because of their religion as much as for their alleged behavior.  This bigoted religious bias also reared its ugly head during the confirmation of Justice Gorsuch and other Catholic judges.

The Covington Catholic High School recently reopened its doors to students.  But the fallout from the media coverage of the pro-life rally will haunt these youngsters for the remainder of their lives. They have been permanently tarnished as extremists and racists.  The stain will linger.

Meanwhile, the media will turn its attention to the next scandal, unconcerned about the damage its erroneous reporting inflicted on innocent young people.  Polling shows Americans' trust in the media has sunk to an all-time low.  In the current environment, it is a race to rock bottom.

AT&T: A Cautionary Tale For Big Tech

Three American technology titans are locked in a race to become the nation's most valuable firm.  Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are jockeying for the No. 1 spot.  Apple and Amazon have reached $1 trillion in market capitalization before backpedalling as the overall stock market stumbled.

The trio are seemingly bulletproof, outperforming their peers by wide margins and posting eyeopening earnings that are the envy of corporate America.  Financial analysts are betting Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are on a trajectory that will propel the firms into the value stratosphere.

Market cap is one measure of a listed company's size and value.  The number is derived by multiplying the total outstanding shares of a firm by the current market price of a single share.  The result is the market capitalization expressed in dollars. 

Observing the three Goliath's reminds me of AT&T.  At one time, American Telephone and Telegraph was the biggest corporation on planet Earth.  The telecommunications giant ruled over an empire that spanned the globe.  Its corporate brand was the best known in America.

AT&T stock has existed in one form or another for more than 130 years. The first shares were issued in 1877 to seven original owners.  For decades AT&T was a market bellwether, it's performance watched closely as a proxy of the country's economic health.

From the 1920's through the 1950's, AT&T or General Motors swapped places regularly as the No. 1 or No. 2 most valuable company.  In 1932, AT&T represented 13 percent of the total value of the stock market.  By 1983, it was earning more than $15 million every day or $11,000 per minute.

In 1983, the communications powerhouse's assets of $150 billion exceeded those of GM, Ford, GE, IBM, Xerox and Coca-Cola combined.  It had 182 million telephone customers and a wired network of more than one billion miles.  It was the nation's largest employer with 1,009,000 workers.

One man birthed the telephony revolution.  In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell was granted Patent No. 174,465 for his invention, the telephone.  For many years, it was considered the most valuable patent ever issued.  With two financial backers, Bell started the company that would become AT&T.

Over the decades, AT&T churned our inventions such as the transistor, fiber optics and cellular telephony. Its scientists earned seven Nobel Prizes.  It demonstrated the first television service, opened the first radio station and inaugurated transpacific telephone service across the Pacific Ocean.

It was a technological juggernaut that spread its telecommunications tentacles from coast to coast and throughout the world.  Its staggering size and market dominance dwarfed its competitors in the communications industry.  Eventually that proved to be its undoing. 

The Department of Justice filed an anti-trust suit in 1974 against AT&T.  A settlement was eventually reached and in 1984 the Bell System was given a corporate burial.  In its place, Ma Bell became a long distance company and released its seven children: the operating telephone companies.

One of those offspring, Southwestern Bell Telephone, soon began a string of mergers with other Bell siblings.  With the added financial muscle, the firm--then known as SBC--purchased its former parent AT&T in 2005 for $16 billion, completing one of the strangest corporate family episodes. 

The "new" AT&T was no longer one of the country's biggest firms.  In its place, new technologies and e-commerce spawned corporate colossus, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google (Alphabet).  They would be well advised to learn from AT&T.

The first lesson is that size matters to trustbusters. Each tech firm has near monopolistic share of its market.  Amazon controls 43 percent of all online sales, soaring from 25 percent in 2012.  Goggle has a domineering presence online with a 78.8 percent share of all search traffic.

Microsoft rules the desktop personal computer space.  The firm's signature product Windows is the operating system of choice on 82 percent of desktop PC's.  The next closest competitor is Apple's MAC OSX operating system with just a 12.9 percent share.

The Department of Justice has already shown interest in the hiring, anti-competitive and privacy policies of these high-tech companies, especially Facebook.  How long will it be before the government lawyers begin sticking their noses into the firms' virtual market monopolies?

The leaders of high tech companies should study how a dominant position in a market can evaporate overnight with a single anti-trust suit lodged by the DOJ.  What are the firms' plans if they are forced to shed assets or open up large swaths of their businesses to more competition?  A plan B is a must.

Antitrust is not the only threat to tech Titans.  The tempo of innovation in Silicon Valley, Austin and other technology hotspots can disrupt an entire industry.  Look how Uber and Lyft have upended the taxi business.  Change is occurring at the speed of light and those who resist lose. 

Just as an AT&T innovative device the telephone propelled the company's early growth, Apple has owned the smart phone market since the introduction of its iPhone 12 years ago.  But the market for the once-revolutionary device is saturated and sales are beginning to falter for the first time.

Although the iPhone outsells 96 percent of the companies on the Fortune 500, its market share has slipped to 15.6 percent of all smart phones purchased worldwide.  Industry analysts are beginning to fret that Apple cannot depend on its iPhones to drive its long term growth.

It is eerily similar to AT&T's dilemma.  The telephone was an AT&T invention that spawned an industry, just as the iPhone built robust demand for a rich-featured wireless device that connected seamlessly to the Internet.  Creating a market does not guarantee it will be yours forever.   

AT&T has withstood antitrust suits, erosion of market share, disruptive technology and the rise of competitors for 130 years.  Will today's tech Godzilla's--Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google--be around for another century?

Given the simmering pace of inventions and technology and the prying eyes of the Department of Justice, it seems like a stretch today.  Survival in today's corporate world requires visionary leadership, nimble competitive response, constant innovation and less government interference.

Drew's View: Fear Grips Stock Market

Since October, prices of stocks have been on a roller coaster ride.  The market soars to dizzying heights before plunging to nauseous depths. Investors are left with churning stomachs and hand-wringing anxiety.  Even the stock experts are left shaking in their shiny cap toe shoes.

What makes the current market gyrations so incomprehensible is the booming economy.  Market experts subscribe to the theory that stock price increases follow real growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a barometer of economic health.  However, the correlation doesn't apply today.

From 2006 to 2014, the average growth of the stock market increased at a rate four times higher than the average GDP.  In the second quarter last year, real GDP growth zoomed to 4.2 percent, the highest in more than a decade.  The third quarter was a robust 3.5 percent.  But stocks nosedived.

Stock prices also have plummeted in the face of climbing corporate profits.  American companies posted corporate profits of $3.5 trillion in the third quarter of last year, an increase of $69.3 billion.  It marked an all-time high for corporate profits.  This should translate into higher stock prices.

Some economists blame the sagging world economy for the downturn.  Others cite the trade war with China.  Many theorists also point to the uncertainty over interest rates and unrest in the Middle East.  The worry list stretches into infinity.  Stock brokers act as befuddled as the average investor.

Businesses reporting fourth quarter earnings are fueling apprehension. Apple recently attributed the China trade crisis for its tepid results.  Market gurus accepted the thesis.  The truth is the price of Apple's iPhone is five times more expensive than its Chinese competitor's.  Trade is not the issue.

You can bet in the coming weeks every American firm with weak earnings will lay it off on the China trade squabble. Analysts will nod without challenging the premise.  There is no question China's tariffs are a negative, but China's economy has softened, especially consumer spending.

No pinstriped suit on Wall Street will confess the real reason for the market skid.  It is plain old fashioned fear.  Astute market players aren't supposed to be swayed by emotions.  That's for the great unwashed individual stock pickers.  But it's the most logical explanation for the up-and-down market.

Their worst nightmare is the length of the current Bull market.  In March of 2009, the Dow Jones stood at 8,599.  On January 11, the Dow was teetering at 23,995 after soaring as high 26,186 on February 1 of last year.  That is an astounding gain of 15,396 points or 179% in 118 months.

The previous record Bull market rumbled for 113 months from October, 1990  through March, 2000.  During that stretch, the Dow rose 417 percent.  That still stands as the top gain in history.  Market technicians are certain the Bulls can't run forever.  Duh.  But no one can predict the expiration date.

That accounts for the wild swings in the market.  A day when stocks begin falling at the opening bell turns into a rout as big institutions get nervous that a huge sell-off will lay waste to the market.  If the market trends upward, all the investment whales swim in and swallow up stocks to lift prices.

This see-saw effect is a classic example of fear ruling the market.  Forget the age old investment hypothesis about efficient markets.  No one wants to be caught fully invested in the market when it plunges 20-percent that would signal the return of the hibernating Bears.

The market follows this volatility with a popular measurement known as the VIX or CBOE Volatility Index. Most specialists call it by another name: Wall Street's fear index.  The last time the index performed this way it triggered a crippling sell off.  Fear can make the savviest investor panic sell.

Stock market insiders often pooh-pooh the fear factor.  They point out that most trading in the markets is orchestrated by computers running sophisticated algorithms.  But when market trends spike, computerized trading triggers selling or buying that exacerbates the market oscillation.

A couple of indicators to watch over the coming weeks and months are measurements that make up the VIX gauge.  One is the spread between yields on invest grade bonds and junk bonds.  The other is money leaving the stock market for higher returns in Treasuries and other safe haven investments.

When you listen to the talking heads on television and read the financial pages, discount most of the skittish news about the market.  There will always be speculation about a market meltdown.  Uncertainty exists even in Bull markets.  Instead look for signals indicating increasing fear.

That is all you need to know to understand today's stock market.   So cancel your subscription to the Wall Street Journal and turn off CNBC business.  Be content knowing that all the knowledgeable investment experts have no more insight than you do about the future of the stock market index.

Immunotherapy: New Hope For Treating Cancer

He has been dubbed "The Texas T Cell Mechanic."  For the last 30 years, he has relentlessly studied this particular cell from every angle.  His dogged pursuit of knowledge has produced breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer.  This researcher's name is Dr. Jim Allison, a pioneer in immunotherapy.

The innovator was recognized in December with the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his discovery of a cancer treatment that frees a patient's immune system to attack cancerous tumors.  The Nobel committee lauded his research efforts as a "landmark in our fight against cancer."

Editor's Note: Dr. Allison shared the award with Tasuku Honjo, M.D., Ph.D., of Kyoto University in Japan.

Dr. Allison's journey from the South Texas town of Alice to the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, began 70 years ago.  He acquired his interest in medicine observing his father, who was the country doctor in Alice, population 19,100.  His mother died of cancer when he was 10-years old.

Those experiences shaped his passion for medicine, which began at the University of Texas, where he earned a degree in microbiology and then a doctorate in biological sciences.  After college, he pursued his fervor for research in the cancer field, eventually concentrating on T-Cells.

T-Cells, a type of white blood cell, play a key role in the body's immune system.  The cells act as soldiers, patrolling the body, attacking old cells that have reached their expiration date.  But the cells also stalk intruders, such as bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses, destroying these hostile invaders.

The T-Cell warriors face a formidable task policing an estimated 30 trillion cells in the average human body. And T-Cells are just one of 200 cells living in our body.  Isolating and studying T-Cells was once viewed by experts as nearly an impossible mission.  But Dr. Allison persevered.

Through years of painstaking research, Dr. Allison discovered that T-Cells do not kill every bad guy.  In fact, he found T-Cells have a braking mechanism that restricts it from attacking every cell in the body, the fit ones as well as the diseased cells.  But the brakes allow cancer cells to flourish.

A determined man, Dr. Allison wanted to learn how to ease off the brakes on T-Cells to allow the cells to demolish cancer cells.  The researcher uncovered a protein CTLA-4, found on the surface of T-Cells, which act as the cell's brakes.  Then he zeroed in on how to manipulate the brakes.

Toiling late hours in the lab, he developed an antibody to block CTLA-4, thus removing the brakes and unleashing the T-Cells to attack the marauding cancer cells.  His work paid off with the development of the drug Ipilimumab, the first in a category of drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors.

Dr. Allison, who published a paper on his ingenious finding in 1995, points out that it took "way too long" for the Federal Food and Drug Administration to finally approve the drug in 2011 to treat late-stage melanoma.  There results were unprecedented.

Twenty percent of the patients who took the drug lived for at least three years and many patients survived 10 years and beyond. He remains humble about his achievements, calling it an "emotional privilege to meet cancer patients" who have been successfully treated with the inhibitors.

His pioneering research sparked fellow scientists to study other immune system brakes, which paved the way to the development of drugs to treat other cancers, such as lung, kidney, bladder, gastric, liver, cervical, colorectal, head and neck as well as Hodgkin's lymphoma.

These discoveries have opened a whole new field of immunotherapy, using the body's immune system to battle cancers. Until now, there were basically three ways for doctors to tackle cancer: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.  Now doctors have a fourth option with fewer side effects.

Even more promising, Dr. Allison believes the T-Cells will continue working long after the treatment has ended.  "The immune cells remain in the body.  If the cancer comes back, the immune cells will attack it," he was quoted on the MD Anderson website.

Dr. Allison's success led to his appointment as director at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.  He captains a team dedicated to expanding the uses of immunotherapy to not only treat but one day cure cancer.

By disabling the T-Cell brakes, Dr. Allison has toppled one more barrier in the war on cancer. As his career illustrates, breakthroughs often take decades.  But with an estimated 609,000 cancer deaths last year alone in the U.S., time is not an ally for those suffering with the disease.

More research and experimentation urgently needs to be done.  But the FDA also must dispense with regulatory red tape to speed up approval of drugs.  Allowing potential life saving drugs to languish in research laboratories robs cancer victims of an opportunity to extend their lives.