The airwaves are thick with heated commentary on how President Obama overstated the simplicity of his signature health insurance legislation, popularly known as Obamacare. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” was how the refrain went throughout his first term. It was an unqualified statement and, indeed, an emotionally potent oversimplification of the type we see in political rhetoric, I don’t know … how about all the time?
Right, so, he lied in the sense that what he said was not accurate for 100% of the people who have health insurance, 100% of the time. It is, however, accurate for about 95% of the people 100% of the time, and for the other 5%, only some of the time. If you have a super crappy individual health insurance plan with an enormous deductible and you signed onto 
it before implementation of the Affordable Care Act, sure, you can keep that dog – it’s grandfathered in. The insurance companies simply can’t continue selling those policies now that the law is in effect because – and this is important – THEY SUCK TOO BADLY, and because of that, they do not comply with the law.
To hear t.v. commentators of nearly every stripe talk about this, you would think individual life insurance is some kind of Eden from which subscribers are being exiled by pitchfork-wielding devils. Let me tell you, I spent many years in the private insurance market. I had a plan with Mutual of Omaha and one with Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. Mutual of Omaha paid for exactly nothing; the money went one way, from me to them. BCBS was mostly BS – I had a high deductible, as did my wife. I remember once going to my doctor because of a persistent cough, having to get some blood work, and being declared well. That cost me $500 (in 2005). My wife had an emergency room visit that came to $2,000. (She was fine, also.)
My point? Jon Stewart made it best. The people who are yelling “liar!” the loudest are the same ones that have been telling ridiculous lies about the ACA since its passage. In the liars hall of fame, Obama’s “never” clause ranks far behind “death panels” and not even in the same league as “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”
luv u,
jp
Louis? We can’t even get to the moon, for chrissake. Then there’s always the option of telemetry – just flying the ship here by remote control. But with Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, in a hammock in Madagascar for the fourth consecutive month, we haven’t the means of contriving such a device.
Then, of course, the Austerians came to power in 2011 and set us on the righteous path of Japan in the 1990s – the path we are crawling along today on our bloody hands and knees. Millions are still out of work, millions more under-employed with zero security, many more working their asses off and still needing SNAP benefits, still needing the support of food pantries. These millions of people are now the favored target of the Austerians. If people are in need, surely it’s their fault and not the fault of policymakers who will do anything rather than invest in economic growth. SNAP has grown to $80 billion a year! they exclaim. What’s their solution? Allocate money for, say, public works projects while interest rates are low so that we can repair and replace our aging infrastructure, invest in our future, and create jobs? God, no! Cut SNAP by $40 billion.
Don’t know if you know this, but underworld booking agents take breach of contract kind of seriously. That’s why we’re resorting to just about any means of getting from one planet to the other. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) helpfully suggested a design for a new space craft, but it seems a little ambitious, to be perfectly frank. I’m not certain that we need anything with forty-story legs and a cavernous exercise room. I was thinking something more on the modest size. Maybe a step up from the 1954 GMC city coach, but not a large step.
majority of whom are working poor, will have no access to health coverage simply because the governors and legislatures in their state capitals are intent on making a political point. Throw needy (working!) families under the bus, and that’s fine. But build a buggy Web site? Unforgiveable!
Right, so … using Mitch’s credit card, I ordered a do-it-yourself space ship from Heathkit. (Yes, I know … they no longer exist. I had to go through Mitch’s time portal to place the order.) So here I am, perhaps the most technically challenged member of Big Green, a man without a smart phone (I still use that brick phone my dad lent me in 1989), assembling a deluxe interstellar space cruiser stick by stick, armed only with a soldering gun and a pair of superannuated pliers.
The fact is, the minority of House Republicans that make up the “tea party” caucus, led by their Senate mentor Ted Cruz, caused about $20-25 billion in losses to the U.S. economy. Much of this is irretrievable, as it represents lost contract fees, lost purchases by government employees (i.e. lunches, cups of coffee, etc.), and so on. And it was done pointlessly: nothing was accomplished, for good or ill. We could have had the final deal on the first day, but it was never brought to a vote.
NAFTA, and other similar instruments, the TPP would establish rules and requirements that would supersede those of national governments. That means environmental, food safety, labor, and a host of other regulations could be overridden in what would amount to a race to the bottom in pursuit of unfettered corporate-driven capitalism.