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Alice I could not open those links but I will. They are just typing not a link. I promise I will read or watch them.
@RichardofJeffer #1 - As Thom stated the wrong judgment from a Conservative majority SCOTUS could lead to the death of several thousand Americans who would be denied healthcare. We have been killing almost fifty thousand low income Americans every year for several years who have been denied any meaningful healthcare due to the high cost of access. Maybe it's going to take such a tragic event to finally wake up a complacent population that will finally demand healthcare for all like all other modern democratic countries on the planet. As for the Supreme Court in general, many founding fathers argued against the implementation of this branch of government as designed because it would be essentially immune from any oversight from the other two branches. At least we should pass a Constitutional Amendment that limits the term of supreme court judges, many of the Bush appointees could potentially remain members of this virtual Star Chamber well into this century.
Reply to #12: Excellent points, Greenthumb.
I’d like to clarify why I just came down so hard on Kend. Because whenever this Canadian has anything to say about our problem with healthcare in America, nine times out of ten he’s bleating about the cost and how he thinks a few million more people with health coverage isn’t worth the cost. All this bull crap from someone on the northern side of the border where no one is bankrupted by illness or injury, where no one dies from a preventable, treatable condition. Rubs me the wrong way, knowing that while reading Kend’s stupid, redundant drivel on the subject of healthcare. Occasionally I lose my patience. Hence my last post.
Did you check out either of those links, Kend? No comments eh? Uh-huh… Whatever stakes you've had in that big-ass pipeline will have to be your problem, sir. In a country like this with no viable healthcare system, the last thing WE need is that toxic, filthy sludge passing through our turf.
By the way Kend, I don’t hate you. But I really hate some of your opinions. Have a nice weekend.
Kend I have heard of pipeline spills - one very recently (in Oklahoma? one of those states) where the press was not allowed in to report. Another in Michagan that they're still trying to clean up. Sorry, but I don't have time to do thorough research on comparing pipeline spills vs train crash spills - perhaps another commenter knows more (there's a HUGE list to be sorted through on Wikipedia). But, I don't think either is safe. AND if we could accomplish the changeover in 30 years, I'd also be pleased. I know we cannot accomplish this immediately - sure wish we had seriously started during the Carter administration and that Reagan had not discouraged alternatives and torn down the solar power symbols on the White House. And I'm afraid we will have to invest trillions for the changover (somehow we don't seem intimidated by sums like this when war is concerned). And the cost of not addressing Climate Change will be way more than addressing it. There's no easy, cheap way to solve the mess we've gotten ouselves in.
Obamacare survives. To much has been done to intergrate it into society. To much money has been spent. Yes, it will be tweeked, mostly by individual States, but it remains. And for the record, I still support a single payer program. It would have been easier in inplement, monitor, enforce, and much cheaper. I can only wish that the presnet system is converted to a single payer program, but that just won't ever happen unless, just maybe, it can be done by individual States.
The election of Obama proved nothing Yes, Obama is part black (black father, white mother, largely raised by a white family; Of questionable intellectual ability and no real world or political experience). The result is an America more divided across a mulitude of line than ever before. An America in decline. Was it in decline before Obama? Yes, but under Obama it has excelerated.
As to King, he invisioned a color blind America, and I would say, an America where there were no forms of discrimination---gender, age, race, religion, etc. While much is better, it's certainlly not gone. Indeed, when it comes to race, we even have cases of reverse rascism. "Political correctness" has lead us down the wrong path. It has caused more harm than not. King wanted a society where everyone was equal and treated as such. Not one where one group gets a preference or another. Government was to provide a level field where everyone had the same opportunities. No one where someone pulls the "race card" everytime some disagrees with them or someone doesn't get their way. What was once a serious charge is now used as a means to intimidate and extort, and a s result, carries no weight anymore.
Poverty has not only not gone away, it's gotten worse. Whereas people once hoped to advance into the Middle Class, there is no longer a Middle Class. King warned of too much government "help" as trading one master for another. Well, in that issue he was right. We are all now economic serfs. Nowadays there's a sense of entitlement. People rarely achieve based on their own abilities. Slums still exist, except it's just as likely to include whites, Hispanics as black. The black family unit is still broken, and nowadays, the white family unit is just a likely to be broken too, especially at the lower economic end. On a plus side, we see more mixture of races. Whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics are more likely to mix todays. In short, I think King would be very disappointed if he could see where we are today.
Green thumb, we have been transporting by pipeline that "tar sands oil" for over 65 years. 2.4 million barrels a day from Canada to the US. The fact that you don't seem to know that tells me how safe it is moving it by pipeline. That is what has kept gas prices low in the Midwest for decades. Common sence tells you that moving it by pipeline is far safer and more enviromemtly sound then what you are doing today by tanker across the ocean into the Gulf of Mexico. If it's so bad why doesn't Obama say no. Why drag this on for over six years.
I know you want alternative energy but honestly do you think this is going to happen in less then 30 years and do you have any idea what he cost would be. We have spent trillions and have not change a thing.
Wow Alice did you get some bad weed or something. Ouch.
Yes Alice unfortunately people do lose everything in Canada because of medical bills. Our system doesn't cover everything. Most Canadians have some kind of private insurance to cover meds, eye care, ambulance etc.. Most employers provide it. As a matter of fact last night there was a lady on the news who has a ill child and is pregant who just was laid off and will lose her home because she is going to lose her health care benifits. I never said you shouldn't change your system I have always said there must be a good mix for both of us. I just mentioned that if you want single payer doing it state by state would be easier.
@ Kend: I agree with you about trying to achieve Single Payer in the US in a state by state approach - like we are achieving Marriage Equality for couples other than heterosexuals. And that, "The whole ACA seems to have been pushed on everyone with very little public debate." and that "There must have been a better way to insure them." ...Yes a single payer or Medicare for all system would have been so much better.
But I do not agree with you that "It turned the whole US health care system upside down just to insure 7.5 million people." I believe the Republicans did the "turning ...upside down."
When you say, "I think you are all reading the right wrong. They or I just don't like anything run by the Big Federal monster." ...oh yes the Right does ... It loves, loves loves our military and the "industrial complex" associated with it.
And about trains vs pipelines - I think the jury is out. We have not been using either for long enough, in the VAST quantities of Tar Sands thick sludge, to be able to assess your claim. My solution would be to phase both delivery methods out ASAP and do HUGE local, state and federal programs to phase in alternative energy supplies because we should stop using dirty, polluting fossil fuels and we definitely should leave some of them for following generations who may need them from time to time in an emergency.
And to everyone, please let yourself think about how we can reduce the numbers of humans on the planet. HUMANS are the reason we think we need so much ...(fill in just about anything here). All solutions to try and solve our human "problems," eventually return to the unchecked human "infestation" of the planet .
Wasn't that patriotic!
Reply to #8: The hell with you, Kend. Spare us the "Sorry" crap. In your country nobody gets bankrupted by medical bills or dies of a treatable illness. You've no skin in the game. And don't tell me you've something at stake here because you purchased a second home in Arizona or wherever the hell it is. We don't need to hear that bloody crap from a goddam Canadian.
Reply to #9: Far as the Keystone XL Pipeline is concerned, well boo-hoo-hoo. Go cry in your beer. And while you're at it you can spare us the usual BS about how "safe" pipelines are compared to trains. Pipelines leak, and they explode. It happens. And if you don't believe me, click on the links below. I dare you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxqUXqPzog
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUtrzxJIEbE
Then comes your reward, for braving such a sobering dose of hard-core reality. You can kiss my yankie goddam ass. - Aliceinwonderland
Sorry but I have to say I told you so. A train derailed in Virgina yesterday hauling oil. I warned you all this was going to happen. Hauling oil by rail is scary. It is just a matter of time when it happens when they are going through a town or city. And yes the railway was owned by Warren Buffet. Just as I said Obama delays Keystone so his big donor can make billions hauling oil by rail instead of moving it safely under the ground in a pipeline..
I think you are all reading the right wrong. They or I just don't like anything run by the Big Federal monster. To get the single payer system you want you need to do it at the state level. That's how we did it in Canada. Start with one and when all the other states see how good it is they will follow. At a national level you have nothing to compare how well it is run. The whole ACA seems to have been pushed on everyone with very little public debate. It turned the whole US health care system upside down just to insure 7.5 million people. There must have been a better way to insure them.
I think this is a round-the-barn attempt to kill the ACA. The real thing the insurance and medical and hospital peopl want is to do is to kill the entire bill. But the part of ACA which controls thrir future cost/premium structure was written too well and more difficult to attack directly so they are attacking some of the weaker portions of the bill. The doctors, pharmaceuticals, hospitals and insurance companies like the 15-18 per cent medical care inflation rate so they want to eliminate the ACA so they can make more billions in profitsd. They don't care if they bankrupt their patients or the contry as long as they can make more money.
I've had similar thoughts, Christopher. The outcome of the ACA getting dumped could ultimately result in something better... or it could land us right back where we started: health coverage for healthy people only; sick people kicked to the curb to die. How uniquely American is that?
That made me smile :))
If the five Republican "Justices" of the US Supreme Court decied to trash "Obamacare", they will end up KILLING (literally) FAR MORE AMERICANS PER YEAR than El Qeada, the Talaban, ISIS, and Boko Haram combined! That will technically make those five "Justices" the world's leading American-killing-global-wide terrorist organization! Of course, every member of Congress who voted against "Obamacare" will then be viewed from a similar point of view. The end result might be to establish a single-payer "Medicare for All" program (after most of those Republican corporate avatars get voted out of Congress in the 2016 elections).
It hasn't been explained much (if at all) why right wingers would attack the ACA...a clone of RomneyCare and the child of the Heritage Foundation.
It sure seems that they'd rather not have a black person, and a Dimocrat to boot, get credit for what is essentially a HUGE gift to Wall Street via private insurers' Billions of dollars of investments in the worst health-damaging industries, for starters.
If the Repugs kill the ACA and dump untold thousands off the system, how will those Insurers feel about that? Where are their full page NYTimes ads condemning the anti ACA factions? Don't those insurers LOVE the idea that millions of people are being compelled, under threat of IRS penalties, to patronize their private businesses?...not to mention providing tax revenues that go to insurers for low-income coverage.
It's easy to smell a fix...a contrived distraction. All this anti "Obamacare" stuff may be simply aimed at a racist Repug constituency, and the insurers understand this...so they don't raise a finger to fight the anti ACA movement. No need to. The ACA is probably a shoe-in. Compulsory capitalism for all.
This current battle benefits insurers. It nicely distracts from thoughts of Single Payer, and that little detail about big insurer investments in health-damaging, environmentally-destructive, war-supplying, anti-union, child-labor-using, etc etc etc industries
Poverty exacerbates the problem of discrimination on any issue: race, gender, belief. Blaming someone else is a way of justifying why we feel suppressed rather than looking at the why of our individual situations. The more society is moving the middle class toward poverty the more society looks to each other to blame rather than looking at ourselves having accepted the illusion that the media presents as fact.
So, lets say that the Supreme Court rules against Obamacare subsidies for states that did not open their own exchanges. Then, the subsidy would be gone but the requirement to obtain healthcare insurance would remain. That means that the rednecks (states whose exchanges are run by the Federal Government) would be cut out of the subsidy, but they would still have to either buy healthcare insurance or pay the tax penalty for not having such insurance.
Makes me almost wish that the SCOTUS rules against Obamacare!
Blast durn it all to heck... you have a point. However, the repubs are masters at lying and would be all over it as a blow for freedom, how it will save millions of lives, be the best thing ever and now we should do away with medicare, food stamps, and any social programs. It would be touted by Faux News as the fall of Obama and his reign of terror....
I don't believe any of the above responses are true. I am saying the repubs will scream long and loud and hard that they are.
As crappy as it is, as much as we need a public option, if SCOTUS guts it, it will not rise like the Phoenix, but rot like a dead fish, and take many of those without a voice with it.
Ou812 -- What I want to know are you going to believe the UN or me?
My definition of freedom is that the governing body let's me have my Playboy magazines.
Ocean Pete -- Thanks for the good reminder.
I'm not a support of the ACA to begin with, but in a way I would like to the Supreme Court rule against the ACA. I think the backlash could lead to reforms limiting the powers of the Supreme Court. The ACA exist as weak public protection that could've been a massively effective healthcare tool for the public; instead, it is a massive public subsidy to insurance company with a mandate forcing people to buy insurance from a private company, but not allowing the citizens a public option. We could trash it, for what it's worth, if it leads to a public revolt against the 9 person (SCOTUS) democracy that the US has developed into.
I agree that the Chief should be fired, and I think the entire police, Fire Departments, EMS, and local government needs to go through some sort of racial senstivity training. By the same token, I think the community leaders and pastors (especially of the black churches) need to go through a similar program to understand what the police, EMS, and Fire Department go through. We looked at crime, the justice system, gangs, education, and economic factors, and race. One big take away was the racial sensitivity works both ways.
Several years ago, we were having similar problems. As a result, the Mayor's office organzied a police violance and racial sensitivity study which included all the local community leaders, police, Fire Departments leaders, EMS, select Metro department heads, and select community activists. I was invited to attend. Both sides got to air their side, and both sides got to offer their solutions, and from that, we attempted to find commonmground. It worked for almost a decade. I think it's time we need to revist that here, and perhaps in Ferguson and elsewhere.