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Mauiman2 ~ Um, Duh! Absolutely!
Let me ask you a question. Should anyone really take seriously any comments of an individual about something that affects everybody who can't even spell the word "people" in a one line statement? Was proof reading one sentence too much to ask? Again, DUH!!
Do you really want the peole who can't even design a web site in charge of 1/7th of the US economy??
Aliceinwonderland ~ Well, there you go. I'm I correct in assuming that Karl Rove has somehow either infiltrated a leftist organization, or perhaps misappropriated the mailing list of one? If so, which one did he send out the letter under? This is something inquiring minds want to know. Just what false pretense did this junk mail take the form of? Please don't tell me you've given your personal email address to Karl Rove?
"Democrats are desperate?" My ass! As far as I know Democrats aren't sending bogus petitions to Republican voters trying to trick them into signing and donating against their best interests. Sounds like it is the Republicans who are desperate. Poor little things. They already know they've lost in 2014 and are trying to deceive themselves and everyone else. Well they sure are good at deceiving themselves at least. Look at the dandy job they did on the last two Presidential elections. They know how to fool themselves like pros.
Aliceinwonderland ~ Thank you. Don't think that you don't inspire me as much or more. In these troublesome times we all owe each other a comforting hug. Keep up those high hopes. It looks bad, but I firmly believe we have the crooks on the ropes. Why else would they be resorting to such desperate tactics like denying needed funds to their own people and writing deceitful letters? My God, they are committing crimes and putting the evidence in writing and distributing it to the victims. How stupid and low can you get. Now is not the time to become discouraged or let up. Now is the time to let them have everything we've got.
I may have mentioned this before, but each day I receive literally dozens of messages from a vast assortment of leftie organizations seeking signatures for their petitions, donations, etc. But what I found in my in-box just now is too juicy not to be shared. I've received a message from Karl Rove!
"Democrats are desperate! With one year until the midterm elections, it is clear Republicans can win the Senate in 2014. Seven Democratic seats are up in states Romney won - six where his margin was 10%+. The entry of strong Republican candidates in all these states shows our momentum is strong! " and "Democrats are running scared. Their candidates hoped Obamacare would be their signature accomplishment, but its disastrous launch has them on the run. They’ve spent every month since the last election bragging about how smart their tech teams are, but when the big moment arrived they couldn’t even run a website! This is the same crew that wants to run your healthcare and one-sixth of America’s economy!" and "We CAN win a Senate majority in 2014, but don’t expect President Obama and Harry Reid to make it easy. Democrats know they’re in danger of losing control, so they’ve ramped up their powerful fundraising networks and have raised millions to fund their shameless attack machine..." and blah-blah-blah. However towards the end of this message is one statement I can agree with: "The stakes could not be higher for 2014." Of course they're begging for donations. In their reply box I wrote: "Kiss my socialist ass." The moral of this story: read before you sign!!! - Aliceinwonderland
Tom, I wish you had given us the name of the insurance company that is referenced in your column. I think this is vital information, and we need to know who the cheaters and deceivers are out there.
Hooray for "Annonymous"! Those guys are heros. In these dangerous, crazy times, the enemies of democracy are gumming up the works in every branch of our government. People like that, and like Assange, Manning and Snowden, could be our only hope. - AIW
Marc- Like you, I hope I live long enough to see Medicare For All.
Thank you for your eloquent and inspiring posts. If you were here in person, I'd give ya a hug! - AIW
With all due respect, Loren, I refuse to give up hope. Because hope is what gets me out of bed each morning. And I refuse to submit. Those thieves aren't getting another thin dime out of me. - AIW
Is it possible that the "train wreck" of the Health Care.gov website was sabotage and perpretrated by the same group that fixed the Ohio/Florida/Nevada presidential election results in 2000 and 2004? Thankfully they were stopped in 2008 by "Anonymous".
bobbler ~ Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. The same way Republican Governors in the Red states that tried to sabotage the exchanges by refusing to accept Medicaid funds, the insurance companies are trying to start false rumors and gain support in their anti-health care agenda via extortion. Wait till the truth comes out. This is typical of the last ditch effort of scoundrels who have lost. Hitting below the belt and hurting their own people needlessly. Surely it is a strategy that will fail miserably and hopefully cost these scoundrels the next election in the process. You cannot stand in the way of progress without consequences.
Loren Bliss ~ I see where you are coming from. However, I must respectfully disagree for two reasons. First, the original passing of Medicare. Sure it was allowed because it saved insurance companies a fortune. It was, as they might say, "A necessary evil." And what an evil it is going to prove to be to those very same insurance empires. Medicare has shown the ability of the Government to handle health care in the most critical of environments and it has got a soaring grade of A+ in the process. In the same way that penning in the Declaration of Independence the words, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." was secretly acknowledged by every signer of that document that those words would eventually lead to the abolishment of slavery the same fact can be applied to every vote that was cast for Medicare. The long and successful history of Medicare--along with the almost universal approval of the institution--proves that single-payer health care is alive and well; and, here to stay.
Secondly, one only needs to look around us at every other industrialized nation in the world to realize that single-payer health care is a justifiable modern norm in the evolution of nations and modern civilized society. To think that this country is "special" because of all the unearned cash that is flowing around is to truly be affected by a "pipe dream." Like the abolishment of slavery the United States tends to lag the world in civilized development on a grand scale. Yet, as the Emancipation Proclamation taught us, we are not immune to the wheels of change. It is my firm belief that the day will come when Medicare for all in this country is a reality. When that day may be is the subject for much conjecture. However, I truly hope that I live to see that day in my lifetime. If not, oh well--whimpering and submitting about it are two things that are not on my agenda.
They are probably sending these cancel letters, then dramatically raising prices, to "lie," that obamacare is at fault (when they are the ones doing it). Im sure there will be a few real examples for fox news and talk radio conservatives to lie about (the worst lies have some truth that makes the overall lie believable).
Wake up, people. Medicare for all -- or any other sort of humanitarian single-payer/public-option health-care plan -- is nothing more than a pipe dream. Indeed it is merely another example of the imbecility of hope...the last resort of slaves.
Why? The Republicans won't ever support real health-care reform. Neither will the Democrats -- the other half of the One (Ruling Class) Party of Two Names. And the secret-police apparatus of the USian Empire's total surveillance state guarantees there will never be an effective third party -- that the lack of a suitably powerful alternative to Ayn Rand capitalism is forever -- that is, until Mother Nature rises up in anger and renders our species extinct.
Worse still -- and this was part of Barack the Betrayer's core purpose -- the huge windfall profit handed the sultans of sickness and the insurance barons in general by Obamacare combines with Citizens United to provide an absolutely unbeatable financial advantage that not even the most determined resistance could ever defeat.
To paraphrase an old lament, the original of which mourned the final collapse, at Culloden Moor in l745, of the 700-year Scottish resistance to English tyranny:
Wall Street thugs we could disdain
But Wall Street gold has been our bane
Such betrayers and thieves rule the nation.
That's where it's at, folks, and there's not a fucking thing any of us can do about it except whimper and submit, just as we're doing now.
Thank goodness someone states the obvious: Medicare for All! Thanks Thom!
We already have a single payer system that has the lowest overhead of any system in our great country and it is called Medicare. For some "unknown reasons", conservatives hate this option since it is too much government, and the DEMs don't like it much either. Just like when the American Medical Association (AMA) fought so hard in an attempt to prevent Medicare from starting in the 60s, there continues to be a strong push from both sides of the isle in preventing Medicare for ALL.
Why is there so much opposition when it has the lowest overhead, is completely mobile, and you can buy supplemental insurance on top of it? Answer: the insurance industry would be unable to continue to rape the American people!
Perhaps if we had real election reform we would not need to ask such rhetorical questions! The insurance industry bought both parties for the past three decades, to the detriment of all Americans!
All reasonable physicians, myself included, understand this. It is time for the rest of Americans to begin to understand these facts. Without a single payed option, we will have no real options!
Imagine a single payer option, where hospitals and physicians are reimbursed based on how well they care for patients rather than how many tests and medications are ordered... that is the future of the healthcare industry and that is the only way to achieve true cost containment. You would think both sides of isle would embrace such a concept but they don't!
Wake up America!
Medicare for ALL!
Fabian, much of what you say in your post is true. But to credit Bill Clinton for "giving" us Baby Bush is stretching it. The Supreme Court gave us Bush, and Bush stole both those elections. Just ask Greg Palast, one of the most tenacious investigative reporters of all time! (The guy is a friggin' bloodhound.) - AIW
"Tonight's Big Picture Rumble discusses why the GOP is against children eating..." Please give credit where it is due! It is the Clinton Democrats that brought our "war on the poor" to fruition, wiping out vitally important welfare aid, eliminating basic supports needed to make employment possible, leaving so many of the poor destitute with no way back up (try to get a job without a home address, phone, bus fare). Best of all, he made it cool to disregard the poor, simply erasing them from the story. (Of course, Bill Clinton also gave us 8 yrs of Bush.)
Kend ~ When the free market turns into monopolies it becomes evil because free healthy competition is no longer possible and both quality and price become less than perfect. For this reason we have a long standing tradition in this country of anti-trust laws. The health care insurance industry has grown out of control and is defeating it's own purpose. In doing so it is causing more harm than good in many ways. It is bleeding people dry of their money and denying them not only quality, but adequate, health care. This is why it can no longer exist. State or Federal run health care will do a better job and We the People--the free market--demand it.
Don't worry, free enterprise is safe; and, will flourish much more without the dubious task of having to finance employees health care by dolling out excessive charges to a health care insurance industry that is drunk with profits. Imagine, if you will, what our water utilities would be like if run by for profit industries? Could you imagine a water bill in excess of $1K/mo? Or a garbage bill like that? That is what happens when essential services are privatized. It is insanity! We as a country cannot allow essential life giving services to ever be privatized. That is why the health care insurance industry should not exist--because the good of the many outweigh the good of the few.
Kend- any company that provides nothing of value, whose sole purpose is to steal by extortion, has no right to exist. Did I say this was true of all companies? Last I checked, this discussion was specifically about for-profit heatlh insurance, which is a rip-off.
Thanks, chuckle. I get weary of kend's clueless responses sometimes.
Ok chuck. Just the suggestion that any company should not exist is wrong. If it isn't a good one it will not last long any way. What happened to free enterprise. I live in a country where I have no choice. I get what my government decides I will get. Be carefull what you wish for it might come true.
Yes Chuckle8 most everybody forgets that this was the Heritage Foundation Plan brought forth in the 90s. Unfortunately Obama and his minions didn't offer a public option which would have put these gougers in their place
flyguy860 -- Do you have any links or other documentation? The only reason we are becoming a banana republic is because of Reagonmics. The corporatists are in the full attack mode on Obamacare (AKA the Heritage Foundation Plan). 5 to 7 million lines of code because states will not do their own software, and the repugnants will not fund the software that needs to be built because of it. I say vote democratic and get the "card check bill", the no waivers to the Buy American Act of 1936, penalties on China for monetary manipulations, and tax credits for keeping businesses in the US. All bills passed by the Pelosi congress and filibustered by the repugs.
We these bills we could be on the road to a strong middle class. Fiat currency and the Fed are good for Fox talking points but have so little to do with our banana republic.
Kend -- The binary operator in your brain is in full function. Alice said health insurance companies should not exist. She did not say that companies should not exist. In the 60's and before Wisconsin ran its own insurance company. It was so much better than profit driven companies that the corporatists had to do away with it. France made insurance companies illegal back in the day.
Alice are you ok. If companies have no right to exist good or bad you are Cuba or China. Seriously is that what you want.