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The recent trump campaign trip to Florida shows that some of the people are still fooled!
There is pain in seeing what is unfolding towards a Fascist dictatorship.
The real pain was seeing it coming before becoming undeniable!
The republicans have been working since before Ronald Reagan to ensure the middle class is kept poor and obedient. If things had gone as they should have everyone would be living more like the jetsons than the flintstones.
They self proclaimed task masters have decided the AI's will replace the common worker, as they can work 24/7 365 days and not complain. I wonder if they know about the ghost in the machine?
To ensure the republicans understanding we need to take burning torches and pitchforks to the town hall meetings. Give them a real reason for running away.
Your comments show your lack of knowledge of the history of this ACA.
First it was originally a republican party plan, mostly just to get votes, but was set aside. The democrats picked it up and started pushing it. The republicans insisted on making a few needed changes. The things that would make it start be costly slowly, they are good at that.
So now that millions of people are dependent on the ACA to stay alive and the total commitment of the corrupt republicans to try 52 times to kill it, will take themselves with it.
Kend, quit blowing smoke, eh. Those are all Canuck canards, spoken like a true warrior for the private insurance industry ...or someone who watches too much Fox Faux News.
Evidently, you are the outlier. I happen to live in a popular tourist area on the border and have had the opportunity to speak with many wonderful Canadians from the different provinces over the years. While some have griped about the flaws anecdotally (No system is perfect, and improvements are always works in progress.), not one of them, when asked directly, wanted to replace their coverage with our privatized hell. And that is exactly what all the polls clearly demonstrate.
Those same sentiments are consistent across the board in every Western democracy, except ours, that enjoys whatever universal version has evolved to suit their unique population. It's true there are different combinations of single-payer and private insurance in the various countries, but when it comes to primary healthcare, as opposed to elective secondary healthcare, everyone is guaranteed coverage, the cost is spread out across the whole population, making it much cheaper per individual, and the government heavily regulates the insurance industry and monopolized providers so they can't rip off citizens, which they are wont to do. Unfortunately, these greedy bastards are busily trying to corrupt every nation on Earth; it's a never-ending battle against the forces of evil.
In our country, Medicare -- also a true single-payer program, albeit requiring private supplements to plug the giant holes created by (mostly) Republican puppets to satisfy their masters -- is wildly popular with those actually in the program, both Democrats and Republicans, as opposed to those on the outside who merely philosophize in the abstract. Less hassle, less paperwork, better coverage, and easily affordable, it's a system that runs quite smoothly with only about a three percent overhead. Before the ACA restricted them to twenty percent, which is still ridiculous, the private sector was skimming thirty to forty percent off the top to meet the obscene profit targets that their blood-stained investors demanded.
Furthermore, contrary to right-wing lies, most doctors and other providers readily accept Medicare with no compunction whatsoever. That is the experience of the vast majority of recipients and providers who have been polled about their level of satisfaction, despite the usual grumbling and grousing attributable to human nature over comparatively minor issues.
No matter what logical fallacies industry hacks throw out, there is simply no good reason to place extraneous profit-takers between a sick person and a provider. These vampire greed-mongers, who themselves provide not even one bandage, are nothing but low-life money changers who suck blood out of the system by overcharging for premiums and denying claims, which has led to the needless deaths of millions over the decades.
My own mother died too young because she didn't have adequate coverage for regular checkups and follow-ups that might have caught her cancer at a curable stage and the family couldn't afford the astronomic cost of belated treatments. So please restrain your arrogance, and don't preach to us -- given that U.S. citizens have long suffered a sad history under an unworkable, profitized healthcare jungle!
By contrast, in your own nation's history, as you should well know, Tommy Douglas, a social democrat like Bernie, was the first politician in our hemisphere who fought for and won a single-payer system, which covered everybody in Saskatchewan. It soon spread like a prairie fire to the other provinces and became the model for your national system. Largely because of this very important issue and his tenacity to do what was right for the people, this great man is one of Canada's most beloved heroes.
Whereas, we have Junkfood Pussgut, Paul Puppydog, and Mitch McTurtle to light our way ...backwards.
Trumpty Dumpty built a border wall.
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Trumpty Dumpty has decided that people don't have to have health insurance if they do not want to. Those suckers who do buy it should be paying for those who don't, according to the Trumpeter.
Its a new story in the news, that's about to have repercussions with the IRS. The Form 1040 line 61 Shared Responsibility Payment is the part of the ACA that peanlizes those without health insurance (for those who opt not to buy Obamacare & consequently risk creating massive amounts of unpaid health care costs). Trumpty Dumpty doesn't think the IRS should still assess it on those who did not claim and pay it. Why should people who claimed the penalty on their tax returns still have to pay it? If not, why not get a refund if you did pay it? How much is this going to cost the IRS, the American taxpayers? Hundreds of millions, onsidering the refunds, the check production, the postage, the employee time, the systems redesigns for auditing, collecting, adjustments,..? What is the ultimate cost? Just one more thing Trumpty Dumpty is doing without considering the repercussions.
Trumpty Dumpty built a border wall.
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Trumpty Dumpty has decided that people don't have to have health insurance if they do not want to. Those suckers who do buy it should be paying for those who don't, according to the Trumpeter.
Its a new story in the news, that's about to have repercussions with the IRS. The Form 1040 line 61 Shared Responsibility Payment is the part of the ACA that peanlizes those without health insurance (for those who opt not to buy Obamacare & consequently risk creating massive amounts of unpaid health care costs). Trumpty Dumpty doesn't think the IRS should still assess it on those who did not claim and pay it. Why should people who claimed the penalty on their tax returns still have to pay it? If not, why not get a refund if you did pay it? How much is this going to cost the IRS, the American taxpayers? Hundreds of millions, onsidering the refunds, the check production, the postage, the employee time, the systems redesigns for auditing, collecting, adjustments,..? What is the ultimate cost? Just one more thing Trumpty Dumpty is doing without considering the repercussions.
Kend -- That should have been too, not to
kend -- When you say the system will be abused, does that mean people will try to hard to stay healthy?
I don't think that the public is ready to deal with such ingrown hypocrisy as that exhibited by the republican right at all levels.
As I have mentioned before anyone can go to wikipedia.org and look up oil and gas pipeline leaks. You will find that there have been well over 400 leaks/spills/explosions since 2000 in the U.S.. And there have also been a number of human deaths directly associated with some of these leaks but the mainstream media shares in right wing hypocrisy and does not mention it. Also since the heavy bituminous crude oil has to be diluted with something like naptha, which is very flammable, it makes these latest pipeline projects even more risky.
It is a very dangerous situation in that we the public can quote the best science and gather good supporting facts for our case but republicans simply stick with their dogma and mythology and will not budge. They have power and they aim to keep it, even it means massive destruction.
Perhaps Henry Thoreau summed it up when he said "Conservatism discards prescription, shrinks from principle, disavows progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity (history) it offers no redress for the present, and no preparation for the future".
voucherize and privatize, along with tax cuts for the rich are the new republican mantras to shift all risk to working americans.
I have to hope that people will see the things that the Trump administration is doing goes against everything we stand for.
You are so wrong with single payer. Canada is the only country in the world that has a true single payer and it is poor at best. Sorry it is good if you have a very minor or very major health issue but if you a serious none life threatening problem you are in for a long wait and a lot of pain. The reason is the same as the US. Healthcare is very expensive world wide. Most healthcare systems worldwide are a combination of private and for profit systems. There has to be some responsibility put on individuals or the systems get abused. I think the best system is you pay for your own insurance but if something catastrophic happens like cancer then the government pool kicks in. this should also be done state by state not nationally. Nationally would be a disaster.
A resounding YES to all of the above!
A yea to even Diane (#2) -- that is, if she (unknowingly?) implied that single payer is the way to go, since most of the problems with "Obamacare" that she described are the predictable consequences of corporate-sponsored politicians cynically inserting greedy insurance companies between people and their healthcare providers.
It is so obvious to most everyone that a universal, single-payer system, which excludes the ravenous vultures who feast on sickness and death, is the cheapest and most moral. Only the right-wing fringe of flying monkeys, who get their marching orders from the howling banshees and warlocks inhabiting Lie Lie Land in Corporate World, think it's okay that millions of citizens should suffer ill health needlessly, while tens of thousands die each year, because they can't afford to pay ransom to rich-bastard CEO's and scumbag Wall Street investors for the right to life, health, and happiness.
When Republican politicos bitch and whine about "Obamacare" (a label spit out in vein-popping anger), notice how they always revise the history, misconstrue the facts, and flat out lie about the many positive aspects. Even more telling, notice how in their selfish narrow minds it is always about money, not human beings.
Although the Affordable Care Act has saved millions of lives, it was hugely flawed because Senate Democrats in committee, when negotiating the bill with Republicans, abandoned the public option, which could have easily evolved into universal single-payer once people realized it was cheaper and better than whatever crap private-sector companies were hawking. This major strategic error of omission was at the behest of the insurance industry -- one of the most powerful lobbies of all -- and was also a nod to Republicans who were, and still are, fiercely opposed to "guvmunt-run" insurance.
We'll soon find out what kind of "corporate-run" abortion the lying pricks slap together. If it's anything like the profitized nightmare designed to deny benefits that existed before the Affordable Care Act, it will be too expensive for millions of people, unless it is massively subsidized by taxpayers -- public money that will end up in the private pockets of the investor and donor class of the privileged few, as usual.
When Congress Cons finally scrape up enough votes to "repeal and replace," and their bloodthirsty rampage inevitably leads to millions of sick and unhealthy fellow Americans and almost fifty thousand unnecessary deaths every year, as was the case before the ACA, then they will have solidified their reputation as a gang of goddamn mass murderers -- literally! Voters who lose loved ones will never forget, and neither should anyone else!
On the other hand, if Republicans could ever catch a ray of enlightenment somewhere in their dark hearts to help little people instead of Big Insurance, they might replace "Obamacare" with "Medicare-for-all," from birth to death -- no strings attached to criminal cartels, no holes to plug with spendy supplementals, no mountains of paperwork stamped "CLAIM DENIED!"
Don't hold your breath ... and don't get sick.
And yet we still have problems until we get single payer. My article brings up only a few, but commenters bring up even more:
Why r veterans under Affordable Care Act? Article The Urgent Need for Medical Resources |Veterans too? OpEdNews http://bit.ly/2l92tHM
Comment: Thanks for writing this, Pal. My wife and I are 79 and have the same difficulties here in Fort Worth. I strongly suspect there is fraud in billing medical services too. When a surgeon billed $13,970.30, and Medicare approved $2,363.07, and the surgeon accepted this as payment in full, the surgeon got a tax deduction of $11,697.23. This fraud allows the surgeon to offset the profits he makes on investments this year. This is just one of the surgeon's overbilled surgeries. We are equally frustrated by the paperwork we have to deal with on insurance/tax issues. We feel your frustration and helplessness immensely.
PS: If public-funded/administered/no profiteering health insurance ever comes to the USA (as it has to so many countries), alternative jobs for insurance employees are readilly available (and sorely needed) in areas of infrastructue maintenance, public transit, rebuilding and staffing public schools, prosecuting industrial polluters, solar and other alternative energy areas, corporate-free public broadcasting, hemp and marijuana agriculture and products, VA and prison health care, and etc.
ObamaCare (the ACA), RomneyCare, Heritage Foundation Care (generally all the same thing) are really Insurance Industry Care...supported by sold-out "representatives" in both of the bizness-uber-alles parties.
It's not that we'd be thrown back into the clutches of Big Insurance without the ACA...the ACA is itself ABOUT compelling patronage of, or providing no option to, private health insurers. Repugs are just trying to concoct an Insurance Industry system that doesn't have a Democrat African American's name attached to it.
Apparently mainstream "heartland" populations don't know (yet) that "Single Payer" is insurance-industry-free, public-funded, public-administered health care for everyone in the country...even guys sleeping under the bridges...and enormously cheaper than any scheme that involves private, profiteering, utterly unnecessary, middle-man insurance corporations.
For-profit insurers, just incidentally, happen to be multi-Billion dollar investers in (part owners of) the likes of cigarette manufacturers and junk food...not to mention OTHER health-damaging industries like oil, coal, GMOs, chlorine, pesticides, pharms that make tobacco pesticides, military contractors, fracking, and the whole sorry rest. Who, if they knew, would choose such a health insurer?
Single Payer is the answer, always has been, and will continue to be....the rest of the world got it right.
BTW: Why didn't Obama scream "fake news" about Fox News? That would have been telling the truth. Instead we have to listen to the orange numbnut screaming "fake news" about factual reporting....and then he has the nerve to pull a Kellyanne Conway and refer to a Swedish terrorist incident that never happened. And guess what... he got that info from Fox fake news..LMAO.
Legend: Brainwashed Righties armed with the notion that free market capitalism is the answer to affordable health insurance are indirectly responsible for your relative's death. It's what I call discreet conservative economic violence. Righties whine and cry about frustrated youth protesting Trump by breaking a couple windows and tipping over garbage cans, but conservative economic violence is real.....people die.
I was trying to watch tonight's show, but the "rumble" came on and I became so upset by the rightwing asshole that just kept repeating the Republican bullshit about "paid protestors", etc., etc., etc. that I turned it off. I get enough of this everywhere else! I watch Hartman to get the REAL information and discussion of how to address the nightmare we're facing. I'm in such despair over what Trump and his evil minions are doing the last thing I need to see is more of it. I'm afraid there are others like me who will turn away from watching The Big Picture because of this. PLEASE consider replacing this with some other type of segment with people who speak truth, critical thinkers, progressive leaders, etc. Don't waste your time and ours on these rightwing assholes.
Soon or never? How about when we found that Trump was using the help of Russisn leader/thug Putin to win the election. I know the show "The Big Picture" with Thom Hartmann is on RT (Russia Television) and Thom says he has full control of his show's content but does he really? He talks about very meaningful stuff but there is almost no content about Russian hacking into our election. So, is Thom Hartmann Putin's puppet? The lack of Thom's condemnation of Putin's interferance and Trump's willingness to use that interferance would point to yes, Thom's Putin's puppet. Perhaps Thom should find some other outfit to carry his show so he can have true free speech on his show. He could do that or start talking about thug Putin, his interferance in our election, his having journalist murdered and see how long it takes RT to pull his show or how long it takes Putin to have him killed. Come on Thom, dump RT so you can be free. You have many thousands of folowers who will follow you anywhere and I am one.
This hits home. My Brother-in-law recently died at 60 years old. He had a successful business for many years that was destroyed by the Bush 2007 depression. A divorce took a lot more based on previous income (alimony). He had to sell his house for a big loss in 2008. With his divorce was a loss of medical insurance covered by his ex-wife's job . In his 50's he could not find work. Tried a couple of business start ups and failed. His health started to fail probably from stress. Lived in Texas which is 1 of 19 Republican governed states that did not expand on Medicare in the ACA. Thus turning down money so that citizens would die. My Brother-in Law was one of the deaths.
This hits home. My Brother-in-law recently died at 60 years old. He had a successful business for many years that was destroyed by the Bush 2007 depression. A divorce took a lot more based on previous income (alimony). He had to sell his house for a big loss in 2008. With his divorce was a loss of medical insurance covered by his ex-wife's job . In his 50's he could not find work. Tried a couple of business start ups and failed. His health started to fail probably from stress. Lived in Texas which is 1 of 19 Republican governed states that did not expand on Medicare in the ACA. Thus turning down money so that citizens would die. My Brother-in Law was one of the deaths.
Obamacare as it was constructed was a disaster and destined to fail from the onset. The states that were smart enough to opt out understood that the Federal support to those states that set up exchanges was going to end after a period of time and the entire burden would be shifted to the taxpayers of that state. The insurance companies that were promised subscribers of all ages were quick to discover that this was another failed government promise and their internal cost increases were passed on to the customer or the insurance company just quit selling in that state altogether.
$12,000 deductibles before any insurance kicks in is becoming the norm. Get a life lefties, this thing stinks like a rotten fish and did nothing but increase paperwork, cause people to lose and be forced to replace their longtime doctor, closed clinics, and many doctors just quit their practice or went to concierge plans where they needed no paperwork and no insurance companies or government agencies need be involved.
This is totally a Democrat party problem and to use Thom's words "look what a mess President Trump inherited".
Bring on the Romneycare comments but be prepared to add the names of all the Republicans that voted for obamacare when the final vote was taken.
That's exactly right. Democracy can't survive unless people have ready access to relevant information, which is both correct in detail and true in context. This was Thomas Jefferson's biggest worry throughout his life, and why the press is the only private industry singled out and given special protection in the Constitution.
It is supremely ironic that, in this day and age of mass communication and advanced information technologies, where virtually everyone literally has the entire data base of human knowledge tucked in their pockets, it is so difficult to get at the simple truth of things and to make informed, intelligent decisions in the political arena that affect the lives of everyone.
This new dark age is no accident. There are powerful forces that deliberately distort the truth to achieve self-serving goals, and there is a willing audience entertaining false narratives that seemingly lend support to agreeable religious and political ideologies and that assuage fear and insecurity. It is much easier to believe a comforting lie than to accept a hard truth.
Ignorance is not necessarily stupidity; willful ignorance certainly is.