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I agree Obama Care appears to be in trouble, however I think that was the idea all along. Obama Care is the response of an over-reaching government to challenges it is wholly unprepared to address. Now we live with the results!!! I know for me and my family we are being battered by outrageous costs for premiums and deductibles on one side and for profit insurance companies staying true to their first priority...remaining profitable on the other. What's wrong with us? How can we as Americans be so stupid as to permit government to play such a personal role in our lives? Oh sure poor Americans have access, non-Americans have access, wealthy have access, but those in the middle which makes up the majority...are made to suffer. To borrow from Hillary Clintons famous choice of words, how disgusting and deplorable that is. Well fine, destroy that foundation which made you great America and suffer the same fate of great countries who preceded you.
I should also mention. You guys are getting ripped off so badly on your medicine. I needed a eye drop here in Canada before my insurance plan it was $22.00 Canadian dollars about $16.00 US dollars in Scottsdale AZ it was $108.00 US Dollars same exact brand both at Safeway pharmacy, not even close. Maybe being the far right wing capitalists that I am I should start a medicine tourism business , for the love of god how can it be sooo much more by the way my insurance plan is $1,200 a year covers 90% of Meds , ambulance rides, and that is a private provider
What people don't know or don't remember is that health insurance costs were skyrocketing long before "Obama Care." The last three years I worked , I worked for a major defense contractor with pretty standard, pretty good healthcare options. I took the "high deductible, low premium" option because, up until then I had had very few medical expenses. The first year, the "high deductible" was $1,700. The second it was $2,600 and the third it was $3,700. It more than doubled in less that three calendar years. And this was not Obama Care. It was employer provided health insurance bennies. I'd had it for years and it had been going up steadily for years. When I worked for EG&G in the eighties it was free for the employee, with very affordable surcharges to cover the employee's family. By the time I retired, the Cadillac Plan cost the employee thousands a year and the employer was also paying thousands a year.
Of course, our Cadillac healthcare system, the most expensive in the world, does provide us with almost the 23rd-best healthcare outcomes in the world. So, you get what you pay for. Or, wait . . . Who gets the 22nd-best healthcare? And the the 21st-best? And the 10th-best for chrissake? We might want to rethink this whole deal.
Second the comments about a state by state approach.
But expect nothing to change.
Congress was designed for gentlemen farmers, and not the intense
party divide we now have in the US.
ct
I have never figured out why health ins cos even exist. They provide no health nor care, right? They take premiums, then dole out IAW their actuarial tables and skim off the rest not just for humongous profit but also to plow back into their bought-off legislatore - Fed & State. What're we, stupid. Oh, yeah.
ABC news reported today that the affordable care act was called Hillarycare before it was callled Obamacare???? I'll correct them: It was called Romneycare before Obamacare. It's always been a conservative/Teapublican Heritage Foundation plan to keep for profit health insurance .
Hillarycare would have worked...it was an early 1990's universal plan, but as usual, right- wing money and power won, and "We the People" got the shaft.
Kend - For once, I have to agree with you. A one-size-fits-all health care system is NOT going to work in a country this size. But, whether we change state-by-state, or nation wide, no health care system is going to work until we remove the profiteers from the health care system; Obamacare is failing because the profiteers aren't making as much profit as they want. Heath care should not be a for-profit endeavor.
Or, as a third option we could eliminate all retrospective payers like the original HMO's and just sign up with a medical delivery system. Schools don't send out claims for every discreet service. Why should medical and health providers? The current Third Party Payers could calculate the cost for each of us using health risk, medical history, moral hazard, income and assets. A political process would need to determine the subsidies.
UNC Tarheel: Trump picked Mike Pence as his running mate...need I say more????
I will say more! Trump if elected plans on putting Pence in charge of the actual responsibility of being President. Trump only wants to hold the scepter and "oversee" the young female staff.
Ryan and Pence both stand behind the billionaire controlled/created Tea Party....Trump knows this and supports it, although not openly. Trump could have just as easily picked Ryan to be his running mate....when it comes to screwing the 99.9%, they think alike!
We're dying of malnutrition, From industrial farming, with all you can eat and DC has no idea.
Take it from a Canadian. If you want public healthcare you have to do it state by state like we did. if you believe it is the best option start in one state when the rest see how great it is they will follow. Every state has different needs. A national plan will fail. Most Americans think Canada has a national single payer system but that is far from the truth. It is done province by province. There is a federal act that forces each province to supply a minimum amount of coverage and the Fed does fund it to a degree but Fed does not run it keep in mind Canada has a 10th of the population of the US and 10 times the government owned resources to fund it. Healthcare is just very expensive.
I am frustrated that the first year of a Clinton presidency will be taken up by rehashing the ACA. Now no other legislation will happen because Democrats would not take a stand 7 years ago and made sure a public option was included.
Kend, Trump will only interview on Fox or MSNBC Morning Joe. Hilary gets around. When all you got is Hilary you interview her. Trump will never be on Racheal Maddows show. Anderson Cooper has interviewed Pence but he just denies that he has ever heard if Trump.
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News re Trump
{... a limerick and a coda ...}
We seek to find some hope
from news-reports, - but nope.
We continue to mope.
It’s hard to cope
with so many a Trumpian trope.
… Coda:
To see the soul
of such a troll, -
- we look through a proctoscope.
==========================
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Trumpism’s’ Damage
{… a rhyme …}
Of The Donald’s impact we’ll Never be rid; -
- too much he stimulates our nation’s Id.
We’ll not keep Trumpism under the lid; -
- too much damage these folks have done did.
===================================
Simple solution? Two candidates on each ticket. Trump and Cruz versus Hillary and Bernie. First, count party votes. Then see which candidate in the winning party got the most votes....Pipe dream.
When I was working for a company which was trying to become a supplier to Western Electric, a sukbsidiary to AT&T, it was well known that no supplier could have more than 20% of the business. Thke reason was that they could control the price of the sukpply commodity.
The U.S. should apply the same principle in determining the possibility of monopolistic practices. There is a good reason why the 1890 Anti-Monopoly laws were being considered and eventually broke up AT&T, the rockefeller companies, etc. too bad Ronald Reagan instrukcted the Justice Department to NOT ENFORCE such laws.
My company was unsuccessful and went under so I had to get another employer. This was about 65 years ag!
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell don't like or support Trump. I have never seen the top republicans run away from thier parties nominee like he is a leper. They see Trump as a loose cannon and if he is elected that is the end of the republican party as we know it because that will mean an outsider was chosen over a group of Washington insiders. Anymore both sides of the aisle want to be able to exert some control to get an agenda passed and since Trump has a MY WAY or the highway attutide they are afraid of him. Just listen to him speak. He says "here is what I am going to do!"........Instead of here is what we are going to do. We being Trump and a republican Congress.
My take on the emails is this, if they are made up, then why are they illegal to read? If they are fake as Hillary claims then it should be no problem to see them. I think they are real and that is why we are being denied in seeing them.
That is the difference between an oligarch funded campaign and a non oligarch funded campaign. Trump is not liked because he will flat out tell you to kiss his a$$ if you don't like what he says. I'm not a fan of Trump. Hillary's problem is she is hell bent on becoming president because in her mind "it's her turn!" And everybody else shall get out of her way attitude that she is desperate enough to do or say what ever it takes to win. Even if she has Debbie Wasserman Schultz to rig the primary in Hillary's favour something that has never been done is a political party supporting one candidacy over another during the primary. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary and he got robbed! So much so that the DNC bought him a $600,000 house so he would not jump in the general election as an independent. It saddens me that after 30 years of his same message unwavered that he could be bought off so easily. This election cycle between the (R)'s and (D)'s is like watching 2 kindergarteners fighting over a box of crayons. WE THE PEOPLE deserve much better! At this point it really doesn't matter whether it is Trump or Hillary the people are screwed either way. Unless all those who are disgusted with Hillary and Trump join me by voting for Johnson/Weld.
It's been very hard for my wife and I to truly trust HRC. Both the wike-leaks and her avoidance of answering questions on these kind of issues leave me cold. I actually believe many more monopolies in the banking and media business should be broken up and don't think she has the perspective to do that. I've felt for many years, that her husbands presidence was as bad as Reagan and even Nixon. All the things he signed that where pushed by Newt Gindrich where terrible for middleclass america. As I've heard it, Monica Lewinski may have been the one good thing that happened in that, I believe he was getting ready to sign a bill stopping Social Security and turning it into what the Republican'ts want, but they all got distracted by the investigation and impeachment proceedings. I don't look at Bill Clinton as a real Democrat, but a throw back to the old southern Democrats which is very close to the Republican'ts we have today.
The sad thing to me is how few people know the history of our country and it's politics to have an accurate perspective of the rights we've faught for and how easily we can loose them with the wrong people selected for the Supreme Court. At least B Clinton nominated Ruth Badar Ginsberg, that was the best thing he did. One of my favorite Supreme Court Judges is Louis D. Brandeis. He did more for individual rights in the early part of the 1900's than any other judge.
Thanks Jerry Hill, Freeland, WA.
Trump made the decision to run as a Republican which makes him part of the Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell team. Thus his statement regarding the merger.... " it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," is absolutely a blatant lie. Monopoly capitalism is at the very heart of what it is to be a Republican...geeez!
Trump and Ryan both agree with and participate in the big money subversion of our democracy.
Progressives should start worrying.
Clinton can't say no to them when they make huge donations to her. Its Trumps whole thing. A vote for Clinton is telling all politicians it is ok to take pay for play as they all do both Rep. and Dems. Trump may not be the smoothest guy but at least he is not in anyones pocket.
"CNN is somewhat fair and balanced" Legend, are you sure you ever watched the Clinton News Network. They are having a love affair with Clinton.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/att-time-warner-boo-... Campaign has said this will lead to, "Higher Prices, Less Choice" .... That they too are opposed.