Tag Archives: Obamacare

The Republican Budget….

Aside, Healthcare, Politics • Tags: , ,

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Source: Will Fractured House Republicans Unite on Budget? – ABC News.

“When you’re looking at a budget, you’ve got a watch the gimmicks,” Ryan warned.

Gimmicks indeed.  One of the tools Mr. Ryan proposes to balance his so-called budget plan is the total repeal of Obamacare.  Is he the only one to see that as impossible?   As usual he wants severe cuts to the safety net while actually increasing military spending.  Yes, Mr. Ryan I am “watching the gimmicks”.  Like the battles for Social Security eighty years ago the battle for even a limited version of universal healthcare were hard fought. Does he really think we will simply eliminate them so the rich can get a few more tax cuts?

If you are really serious about your concern for deficit spending you can’t ignore the place where most of our discretionary money goes and that is to the military black hole.  Gimmicks Indeed…..

In order to balance his budget he assumes that unemployment levels will reach historic all time lows in the coming years.  He assumes that seniors will blindly accept the pennies on the dollar vouchers in place of universal healthcare. Gimmicks Indeed…

I realize that these budgets are purely political documents so gimmicks are the primary tool to make them balance. That doesn’t bother me too much.  What bothers me is the seemingly heartless approach that Mr. Ryan takes toward balancing his budget proposals. But then again he is just being true to his idol Ayn Rand in that regard.

Living As Cheaply As The People……

Healthcare, Money, Politics, Quotes, Will's Quotes • Tags: , , ,

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What the government has got to do is live as cheap as the people.           21 December 1932  Will Rogers

Speaking about money not being wisely spent this morning got me to thinking about Will’s quote above. If you have read much on this blog you will know that I am a proud social progressive but also a fiscal conservative. In that light I certainly agree with Will here. Our government needs to learn how to live as cheap as its people. That doesn’t seem to be possible anymore. There is always that new model of military drone the DOD wants to buy in the thousands of course. There is always some other group including many corporations that need some type of incentive to provide jobs. Besides getting the drilling rights at gut cheap prices from government land the money bloated oil companies say they need more bucks to help them find the oil. But when it comes time to sell the oil they will only give it back to us at world prices! There is always someone with their hand out and our government can’t seem to keep their wallet in its pocket. More…

As Usual – Half Truths or Half-Lies….

Aside, Politics • Tags: , , , , ,

Source:  Fact check: Christie’s keynote address – USATODAY.com.

Christie: Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world’s greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an American citizen and her doctor.

Fact Check comment:  As we just said in our first item on the convention, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t create a government-run system, like that of Britain or Canada, nor does it regulate the work of doctors. Republicans often call the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which would recommend ways to slow the growth of Medicare spending, “bureaucrats” that would ration care. But the IPAB, made up of health care professionals, economists and others, wouldn’t have the power to do that, according to the law.

I just came across this fact-check article about Mr. Christy’s keynote speech last night. As usual it was filled with mostly half-truths or half-lies, whichever you prefer.  I guess that makes him a good lawyer. But as the quote above indicates there were also some outright lies.

I don’t expect much better than this from the politicians especially during their conventions/infomercials but I hope others are like me and can see through this kind of rhetoric for what it is. Don’t base your vote by what they say. Base it on their actions or at the very least what their solutions to the problems are. Talk is cheap and ranting without solutions is even worse…..

Get Rid of It!!! 4

Government, In The News • Tags: , , , , ,

It was 1965 when Medicare was enacted. I was just entering college so I still have some vivid memories of what went on around it.  I remember the conservatives in congress were saying such things as:

We’ve got to repeal this law, it is bad for the country.

Its Socialism.

It takes away choice.

It will bankrupt the country

And the most typical comment that also goes with increasing the minimum wage

Businesses will fail because of this law.

Now almost a half a century later the same thing is being said about the Affordable Care Act that recently got a pass from the Supreme Court. For some reason they want to take the meager advances given to lower-income folks in this, like many other areas, away from them.  Maybe if they put out a comprehensive plan of their own their “get rid of it all” rants might get some traction. Without that they just seem to be against helping others less fortunate than they are, and that is almost everybody.

They seem to say that everything is fine the way it is in healthcare. They also seem to say if we got those 30+ million people any form of healthcare they would overwhelm our system. While that was true to an extent when Mitt Romney instituted universal healthcare in his State it looks like that is working its way out. I can remember pre-candidate Governor Romney bragging that his model of healthcare should be implemented across the country. When did it become so bad even for him??

It’s ironic that the conservatives in congress over the years have been against what most of us consider  many of our biggest successes. First it was Social Security in the 1930s, then civil rights in the 1950s and 60s, Medicare in 1965, and of course every time that we raised the minimum wage almost always in democrat administrations. They seems to be on the wrong side of so much I can’t understand why they have lasted as a viable party as long as they have?

I know those guys in congress are anti-socialism to their core and anything that has even a slight smell of socialism brings up their ire and their “get rid of it” mantra.  They need to get over that ;) We are first a diversified nation but our second biggest success is that we in the past have also be a pragmatic nation. We find out what works and then go about implementing it. We seem to have lost that ability in the last couple of decades. We desperately need to get that back.

But what do I know…

My Anger Obliges Me to Take Action…

Getting Serious, Off The Top • Tags: , ,

I get a daily email from Sojourners.net containing a verse from the Christian Bible as well as a corresponding quote from someone in today’s world. Here is one I got recently:

“My father . . . used to say, ‘I need my anger. It obliges me to take action.’ I think my father was partly right. Anger arises, naturally, to signal disturbing situations that might require action. But actions initiated in anger perpetuate suffering. The most effective actions are those conceived in the wisdom of clarity.” - Sylvia Boorstein

From what I can find I think that Sylvia Boorstein is a Jewish Buddhist who is now a practicing  psychotherapists among other things. I don’t know who her father was but I expect he had deep Jewish foundations. These words have a deep philosophical meaning. There are two basic kinds of anger in the world today. One type of anger righteous anger, some call it righteous indignation. That is the type that is pointed to here.

Here is what Wikipedia says about righteous indignation

Righteous indignation is typically a reactive emotion of anger over perceived mistreatment, insult, or malice. It is akin to what is called the sense of injustice. In some Christian doctrines, righteous indignation is considered the only form of anger which is not sinful, e.g., when Jesus drove the money lenders out of the temple. (Gospel of Matthew 21)

I’m sure this is the type of anger that is being discussed here. It is anger when we see actions that perpetuate suffering.  There is plenty of suffering going around in the world today, even here in the U.S.  There are people who are dying daily because of lack of healthcare. There are people who are very malnourished here but even more so in the rest of the world. This is something that we should all be angry about. Why are their so many of who are complacent about this situation?

Being angry without a moral compass is misplaced anger. It gets us no where! There is much misplaced anger around us today. There are those who are angry about “Obamacare”, they want to see it totally abolished. They have been told it will result in Socialism here in this country and that is a bad thing at least according to those they listen to.  As mentioned in the quote above the most effective actions are those conceived in the wisdom of clarity.  I pray that we all step back and seek that wisdom instead of blindly following the hate mongers among us.

Merciless Meat Cleaver vs. Compassionate Scalpel.. 1

Cultures, Government • Tags: , ,

I see where Indiana’s Governor just signed a law to take another layer of healthcare away from those who cannot afford to pay on their own.  He is de-funding Planned Parenthood because up to 3% of what they do is abortions. The other 97% are for completely other things. This brings up the title for this post.  It seems the Republicans insist on yielding a merciless meat cleaver where a compassionate scalpel would have done the job.  I know Republicans are seen to be against abortion (I have doubts about their real sincerity on that topic) but to take away all the services of that agency is merciless in nature. He says the poor can get the same services elsewhere. Maybe they can but this seems like what seniors have to do to get Part D Medicare coverage. Most are overwhelmed by the nature of having to figure out which of the many private insurance companies with their complicated schemes is the best one for them. And then of course after they decide the insurance company can back out of anything that will allow them to maximize their profits. The bill “Our Man Mitch” signed also could be used for any doctor who has performed an abortion no matter whether it was to save the mother or not. There seem to be no exceptions to this. You terminate an unborn child for whatever reason you lose the possibility of receiving State funding.

Of course this is not the first time the Republicans have attempted to yield their meat cleaver. They seem hell bound to give insurance companies back the right to deny payments to anyone because of “pre-existing conditions”. Instead of using a scalpel to remove what they don’t like about Obamacare they just want to strike down the entire law. But this strategy is very much aligned with their totally obstructionist nature lately.  To them the words “common good” doesn’t seem to mean anything.  The Golden Rule that most people at least say they believe is “Treat others as you would like to be treated” seems to have been long forgotten by this bunch.

I wish the Republicans would take their meat cleaver to our war machine. It is so bloated that it is ridiculous. We could easily chop it in half and still maintain world dominance by several orders of magnitude.

But what do I know.

At It Again…

Government, Politics • Tags: , ,

 

The Republicans are at it again. All the presidential hopefuls are coming out in force to say how terrible Obama-care is but offering no solutions themselves. I guess they think they got the house back with this strategy so they think they can win the presidency that way too. They seem intent on giving insurance companies back the right to deny coverage for “pre-existing conditions” and taking away possible healthcare from those who cannot currently afford it. They seem intent on making healthcare a privilege for only those who can afford it and denying it from everyone else. The rest of the industrialized world treats it as a right, not a privilege. Is denying healthcare to all but the privileged really what Americans want? If it is I am ashamed to call myself one.

Surely they don’t think they can get away with just criticizing everything President Obama does and not offering any alternatives. But, that is pretty much the only thing they have accomplished since re-gaining the House so I just don’t know? There is too much complaining about everything without giving alternative ideas in the world at a whole today.  Is the U.S. becoming a country of complainers or will we get back on the track of accomplishing things for the common good?  In my opinion it could go either way!

I will have more to say about this current crop of Republican wanna be President soon.

But what do I know….