Well….as you know, the healthcare debate is one that hits really close to home for me since I haven’t been able to afford health insurance for the last nine years and, under any plan that the repubs have presented, I’ll never be able to afford it until I turn 65 and qualify for Medicare. One of the things that just bugs the hell out of me are all of the righties attacking the health care reform bill with the lies that it has already resulted in higher costs and people losing their insurance…when you hear these things being said, just remember that most of the law has not even taken effect yet….so any higher costs or loss of coverage is because the insurance companies have decided to make those changes, not that they have been forced to by the law. Where are the repub voices that decry the insurance companies taking advantage of these lies to further gouge the people? They will never be heard exactly because the insurance companies own the repubs and have purchased their vote to both defeat the current law and to help them get their hands on Medicare to further control the healthcare market.
So, can we at least try to make the repubs tell the truth for once and do what is best for the country instead of just themselves and their owners? Geez….
Well….was just sitting here thinking after I paid my taxes this week and a thought came to me…and it is one that should anger everyone like me that is unemployed and struggling to keep their life together. Since employers get tax credits for supplying health insurance to their employees, you and I are buying health insurance with our tax dollars for those who are still employed, even though we can’t afford to buy our own…now, how sick is that system? According to a study that I read in the Post, if we stopped this subsidy right now and applied the cost to universal coverage, we could cover everyone in the entire US….that’s all I have to say right now…just wanted to share that little bit of the bizzaro world we live in…geez…
Well…I am laughing out loud at a fact that I just uncovered in the news this morning, something I probably should have learned a couple of weeks or months ago with all of the news I read….I know you’ve read about the concerted effort by the repubs to discredit the Congressional Budget Office…the non-partisan part of the government that calculates (or estimates) the cost of proposed legislation, saying that the 253 billion dollar savings from the healthcare law is just their “opinion” and is based on untrue assumptions. They are going so far as is the tired old phrase ‘garbage in, garbage out” to describe the process used to come to those conclusions. Well…guess what? Guess where the repubs got the figures that put job-killing in the title of the healthcare repeal bill that was just passed in the House? Yep, you guessed it…from the very same analysis that reported a net savings from the healthcare reform bill….go on, you can laugh, too….
Well…here’s the shorty I promised…did anyone else laugh when one of the repub congressmen had the gall or chutzpah to get up on the floor of the house and claim that the recovery that is slowly building is because the repubs took control of the House? Nevermind that they haven’t done anything but bluster and waste time on the doomed repeal of the healthcare law since they took control. These guys are the most cynical type of politicians…those who oppose real reform and stimulus for the economy to play to their base and then, when it looks like they were wrong, come crawling out from under their rocks to claim that their actions in opposing this help was what has made the economy turn around. I just hope they keep this up, I hope they keep trying to repeal healthcare..especially when only 18% of the country wants this done…they will be exposed as the shills they are for the insurance lobby and maybe, just maybe, the American people will start to vote in their own self interests, not in the interests of the wealthy an powerful….geez…
Well…I just don’t get the repubs these days…never really have, I guess and their obsession with the healthcare reform bill passed last year is making it even worse. I know, I can look at it in the context of their complete disdain for anyone but the rich, but I think their constant attacks are going to be their undoing; especially since parts of the law are extremely popular and have proven to already be quite effective. What spurred this one was a short segment on “Countdown” last night that quoted an article in the LA Times (that I couldn’t find) that the tax credit included in the law has spurred a flurry of activity in small business; that thousands of them have started offering their employees health care since the credit makes it affordable to them. How are the repubs going to explain being against something that helps one of their core constituencies? In the last election, they rode the lies that they were the saviors of small business but I think it’s just another case of the repub disease; promise everything, deliver nothing, that has been their M.O. since the early 90′s. When are people going to learn that these guys don’t give a damn about anything but getting elected….I know, I’m becoming repetitive, but repetition helped the repubs turn lies into truth in the minds of some of the people…maybe it will work to keep the truth the truth…geez…
Well…one of the themes that has come out of the recent mid-terms is the shrinking of the “Blue Dog Democrat” caucus from 56 members to only 23. And, the losers are casting their losses to be all tied to the healthcare bill and that they were not conservative enough in their philosophy….what planet are they living on? The reason that most of them lost was their abandonment of the Democratic party and the principles of fairness and protection of the middle class that has been part of the dems ideals for more than 50 years. During the healthcare debate, and the financial regulation debate, when the blue dogs talked you couldn’t tell them from the repubs…and most of this crap was motivated by political calculations made to ensure their re-election. What they didn’t count on was that the dem voters would remember what they said, and what they did to gut the healthcare bill and turn it into a windfall for the insurance companies. This was compounded by their siding with the repubs on financial reform….and not offering any reasons other than the tired old repub talking points of “government regulation bad, free market good” that has run this country into the ground over the past decade.
So, what did they expect? When they abandoned their constituents didn’t they foresee that these same constituents would abandon them? I guess they thought that repubs would vote for them if they acted like repubs…but that was never going to happen, either. I say good riddance to them…to these Democrats in name only who showed their true colors and lack of empathy for all of us that have no healthcare and because of our age, have few prospects…that is not the America I grew up in…I hope Democrats become Democrats again and grow a spine…geez….
Well…I know, I haven’t been that prolific lately and I don’t know if I’ll get to sixty for the month but I’ll keep trying if I have something to say…and you have to admit there were quite a few less of the one line placeholders that I’ve been known to do…unless you like those better….I’ll keep doing them…but not now…
This one is about the repubs promise to repeal the healthcare law and the fact that a lot of people out there in the country agree with them…what I want to know is why? Is it better to return to the bad old days when, as soon as you get sick, your insurance company could cancel your policy or just not pay your claim? Is it better to return to the bad old days when any pre-existing condition could be grounds for cancellation of your policy…for example, if you were treated for acne and didn’t tell the insurance company, they could deny your claim for cancer treatment. Is that where we want to go? Do we want to go back to when the insurance companies held all of the cards? I know, some of you think this law is an intrusion into your “freedom”, and I admit that there is something about the individual mandate (forcing people to buy insurance) that strikes me as wrong but I understand it…that it is necessary for the system to work. And, the fear mongers in the repub party play on your fears of a “government takeover” of health care..but who would you rather have in control of the healthcare system? Insurance companies that don’t answer to anyone, or the government model where you do have influence over the elected representatives that control the plan?
As an older American that has been “going naked” without health insurance since 2002 because I can’t afford it, I would like the opportunity to take my mind off that fact, to not wake up every morning with the fear that this could be the day that my health fails me and everything I worked for my whole life will be gone. Isn’t there something wrong with that? Geez…