{sigh} We have seen the future, and it is…the Dark Ages. The Party of No has wrested control of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Party of the Half-Baked. No hope for relief from the metastasizing mean-mindedness and outright viciousness that have invaded our body politic is to be found, anywhere.
Here in Arizona, voters have approved a measure that exempts citizens and businesses from the national healthcare plan. The comically moronic Governor Jan Brewer (she of “uhhhhhh………..tee hee!……..uhhhhhmmmmmm”) was re-elected, of course, and the craven pol who presided as superintendent of public instruction while Arizona’s school system sank to the bottom of the national rankings is now, God help us, the state attorney general.
Now I’ll have to say, I wasn’t pleased with Obama’s healthcare plan. Without a national option, it’s just another iteration of what we already had: it threw us into the lion’s den with a pride of hungry insurance companies. We needed an option to make something like Medicare available to everyone who wished to accept it. Medicare is expensive — even after the state’s insurers raised their rates, my employee plan cost an eighth of what I’m paying to be fully covered under Medicare. However, for what I’m paying, coverage is better. If I fall ill and have to go doctors frequently, my overall costs will be much lower. Requiring everyone to sign up for full coverage with private insurers while blocking insurers from shafting people who really need care simply guaranteed that everybody’s costs would go up, coverage would be no better than what we have, and the well-heeled insurance industry would be joined by every other well-heeled industry in mounting a no-holds-barred campaign against the Obama administration.
Accepting compromise on healthcare was stupid. If the Democrats couldn’t swing a national healthcare option, then they should have dropped their plan until they could.
As for the Afghanistan mess: We were in Afghanistan long before Obama came along. Matter of fact, it seems to me we entered the war in the Middle East because a certain pack of lies emanated from a previous administration. Afghanistan was where the perp was hiding, but instead of going after him, we took it upon ourselves to depose a dictator who was formerly our ally, not because he was much of a threat but because, said our then-President, “This is the guy who tried to kill my dad.”
So…now we have in office some folks who think it’s acceptable to stomp on the head of a woman who disagrees with their doctrine.
Time to get out our brown shirts and iron them. And if you still believe you’re in the middle class, say good-bye to all that.
We’ve seen worse, sadly. Scary days in any event.
Oh Man! I have to call BULLSHIT on the party of No rhetoric:
http://www.myjourneytomillions.com/articles/party-garbage-populist-rhetoric/
Before the mid term elections:
Number of Total Senators = 100
Number of Democrat Senators = 58
Number of Republican Senators= 40
Number of Independent Senators = 2 (Both caucus with Democrats).
Number of votes needed to pass ANY legislation = 51
***
Total Number of Representatives in The House – 435
Total Number of Democrat Representatives = 256
Total Number of Republican Representatives – 178
Total Number of Independent Representatives = 0
There is currently 1 vacant seat.
Number of votes needed to pass ANY Legislation (51%) = 222
DEMS HAD THE POWER TO DO ANYTHING THEY WANTED!
@ Evan: Isn’t that the dammdest thing! None of them seem to have their acts together, do they?
A note on the health care reforms: two years ago I had to take my 19 year old son off my company insurance because he was not a full time college student. I bought him a limited coverage policy with Blue Cross, against which he has never filed a claim. The premium has gone up more than 40% in two years. With the reform, I can re-enroll him effective this January, theoretically (unless the changes are repealed) until he is 26. The cost to add him to my insurance is ONE HALF the Blue Cross premium, with much better coverage. The kicker is that the company insurance is Blue Cross, too!!!! That’s good news for me, as I am on a mission to save Big Time for my bailout, er, I mean, retirement. It is the power of a Large pool of insureds, like my large multi national company with thousands of employees, that can negotiate better terms with the insurance companies than an individual can. So why wouldn’t national health care work? We would basically be one big pool of people, with the risk spread out over millions of people, rather than thousands, like a large company. And unlike Medicare, the average age of this “pool” would be lower, and should have lower claims and costs. This makes sense to me, why not to our elected officials? The biggest obstacle to me retiring at 62 vs. 65 (or 66 for me to get full SS) is the cost of health care. I have enough money now and live frugally enough to go at 62, IF the cost of insurance wasn’t such a wild card. This frustrates me no end.
Still Hanging,
The problem with a National Option is the theory known as Adverse Selection. Why would I, a healthy (dare I say virile) 29 year old male want to buy into the system when the corporation I work for has a better option?
If you are talking about the government being the only option then you are on a whole different problem of the government providing/paying for health care and I dare you to tell me ONE, a SINGLE, entitlement program that is ran efficiently. So you’ll have TONS of waste that will make the social security problem look like penuts.
Evan, I agree with you completely. Given the choice of having insurance through my employer or through a government program, I would choose the employer version every time. But if I were unemployed, or working at a place that did not offer insurance, I would prefer to have some form of insurance that I could afford vs. none at all. And with individual policies as expensive as they are, it would likely be no insurance at all.
Twice in the last 37 years I have been unemployed. The first time my son was three and diagnosed with epilepsy, which he eventually outgrew. It was a “pre-existing” condition and the insurance companies would not touch him. We had to buy through a state pool for high risk persons and it was terribly expensive. The second time my husband was in the last month of chemo for cancer that eventually killed him and my COBRA ran out. Again, uninsurable because of “pre-existing”, and he was 3 months short of qualifying for Medicare.. So, many tens of thousands of dollars out of our pocket and we nearly lost our house because of the debt. So I take the health insurance topic very personally because of my experiences, and ask those who have never had to go without coverage to understand the despair and panic one goes through when you’re without. It’s not just a theoretical argument for me….it’s Real.
Think AZ is bad, the wise state of Iowa voted to throw out three Supreme court judges because they are too liberal!!!!!
Now we have political pressure on how the Iowa supreme court rules….
check it out!!!