I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Off-Topic => Political Debates - Thick Skin Required for Entry => Topic started by: KarenInWA on June 17, 2018, 01:27:17 PM
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Opinion
G.O.P. to Americans With Health Problems: Drop Dead
Paul Krugman
By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
Polls suggest that the public considers health care the most important issue in the midterm elections. This immediately raises the question: Do voters understand what’s at stake? In particular, do they realize that if Republicans hold Congress, they will strip away protections for the 52 million Americans — more than a quarter of nonelderly adults — who have pre-existing conditions that, before passage of the Affordable Care Act, could have led insurers to deny them coverage?
In fact, the Trump administration is already trying to take away those protections via the courts. It probably won’t succeed. But it might, in which case an estimated 17 million Americans would lose their health coverage.
And even if the lawsuit fails, the administration’s support for an incredibly flimsy legal challenge — one so indefensible that three career Justice Department lawyers withdrew from the case — is a clear signal of Republican priorities: G.O.P. to Americans with health problems: Drop dead.
By the way, some people seem surprised by the administration’s moves here, since Donald Trump has promised many times to protect people with pre-existing conditions. But remember: The campaign against the Affordable Care Act has been based on lies every step of the way.
First there were lies about what was actually in the act. Remember “death panels”?
Then there were lies about the law’s effects. For a while, the Koch brothers-financed group Americans for Prosperity was running ads featuring supposedly real stories of Americans facing terrible hardships because of the A.C.A. But none — none — of these stories stood up to fact-checking. So the ads became vaguer and vaguer, and eventually featured actors pretending to be A.C.A. victims rather than featuring real victims, who were apparently too hard to find.
But the most enduring lie from A.C.A. opponents — not just Trump, but all of them — is their claim that they want to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions. They don’t, and they never did.
You can see why they claim otherwise. A huge majority of voters, including 59 percent of Republicans, want to maintain rules that prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on someone’s medical history. So there is a powerful incentive to pretend that you’ll protect people with past health problems.
But the falseness of the pretense has always been obvious.
This falsity was obvious on sheer logical grounds even before Republicans began proposing supposed replacements for Obamacare. If you’re going to guarantee coverage regardless of medical history, you have to induce people to sign up for insurance while they’re still healthy, so that insurers have a manageable risk pool. That means some combination of subsidies to make insurance affordable and penalties for going uninsured — in other words, it requires a system that looks a lot like the Affordable Care Act.
So demands that the A.C.A. be scrapped always meant taking away coverage from the people who need it most; Obamacare opponents just hoped people wouldn’t notice that fact. And the truth is that they mostly got away with it until last year, when Republicans had to offer specific health care legislation.
At that point the game was up. It immediately became clear that every Republican alternative to Obamacare would, in fact, hang Americans with pre-existing conditions out to dry. And the public backlash against that revelation is basically the reason the G.O.P.’s repeal effort failed. But it only failed narrowly. And if Republicans still hold Congress next year, anyone who has a history of medical problems and doesn’t get health insurance from his or her employer will lose coverage.
In fact, even getting a job with insurance coverage might not be enough: If the Trump-supported lawsuit succeeds, employers could refuse to cover new employees’ pre-existing conditions.
What may seem puzzling about all this is the cruelty. O.K., Donald Trump is obviously a man utterly lacking in empathy. But don’t other Republicans feel a bit bad about the prospect of taking health care away from millions of Americans who have done nothing wrong besides having past medical problems?
Actually, no. Consider Rick Scott, the governor of Florida (and current Senate candidate), whose attorney general has joined the lawsuit to eliminate protection for pre-existing conditions. While refusing to say whether he supports the suit, Scott declared, “We’ve got to reward people for caring for themselves.” Right, because if you get cancer, or arthritis, or multiple sclerosis — all among the pre-existing conditions for which people used to be denied coverage — it must be your own fault.
By the way, a note to older Florida voters: You may think that none of this matters to you, because you’re covered by Medicare. If so, think again: If Republicans win in November, they’ll be coming after Medicare next, to offset the cost of their tax cut. Who says so? They do.
So, as I said, voters need to understand the stakes in these midterms. They will determine whether people with medical problems get the health care they need.
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Comments
The Times needs your voice. We welcome your on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/opinion/pre-existing-conditions-health-care-republicans.html
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I know the above is an opinion piece, but this is exactly what I feared on that fateful election day back in 2016. Do I bother to continue saving for my retirement? What's the point?? :waiting;
KarenInWA
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Big picture The Boomer generation - of which I am at the very tail end - has spent a great deal of the public and civic equity that previous generations created and invested in to build. Infrastructure, Education, and National Confidence have all been eroded due to neglect and Boomer selfish unwillingness to pay their way. Not paying their way is a hallmark of the Boomer generation, look at the debt that will be added this year (and next and next...) to our national balance sheet - over a trillion a year in an economy that has been at or very near full employment for the last couple years.
The sides were chosen in the early 60s - conformist v nonconformist - and they have been going at each other to our Nation's great detriment ever since. Thankfully the poisonous boomer generation is giving way to much more sober and impressive generations. They have seen the poisonous fruit of a 60 year old fight that each side have lost track of what it all started over. Boomers should step aside and accept that our generation dropped the ball in many important ways.
Going back to 2008 RE: health insurance/provision of healthcare, is just the latest version of not supporting infrastructure that was built and supported by our parents and grandparents. The latest version of boomers not wanting to pay their way because at the root selfishness. America has no reason to be a selfish country.
We in this country, even our poorest citizens, live in unimaginable safety and freedom from the point of view of basically everyone who has ever lived. If you, standing tall, represents everyone who has ever lived, the few people who have had more freedom and safety as you and I would be the dandruff on your scalp.
Yet the boomers lived and continue to live a life of grievance and selfish victimhood. What a waste.
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I know the above is an opinion piece, but this is exactly what I feared on that fateful election day back in 2016. Do I bother to continue saving for my retirement? What's the point?? :waiting;
KarenInWA
You don't have outrun the bear. You have to outrun the people you are with - our new everyone for themselves policy will leave wealthy states wealthier and poor states poorer. The bear will be busy down south.
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I have a tee shirt that says if you are old and eating cat food out of a can thank a republican. Every other Presidunce has destroyed the American economy. First regan- bush from 1980 to 1992 the Republicans slashed taxes and strangely raised spending resulting in the 1990 recession that caused the economy to contract leading to massive layoffs. The result Clinton was elected , he spent 8 years rebuilding the economy raising taxes and reducing the national debt. Next G Bush the lesser is elected once more tax cuts trickle down BS the result the worst economic down turn since the Great Depression. During his last year in office Bush had to borrow a trillion dollars for a economic bailout caused by 7 previous years borrowing to pay for more tax cuts. Obama spent 8 years rebuilding the economy and once more Republicans are cutting taxes. In about 6 years I predict another complete collapse. Why increased spending tax cuts that will require more goverment borrowing. Money in reality is a commodity, as the republicans borrow more and more to keep the triple down lie alive they will drain spare cash out of the economy making infostructue work come to a grinding halt. It’s happened twice before. It’s all lies built on lies, we will protect Americans with prexisting conditions and then do every thing to eliminate the protection.
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My republican congressman held a town hall (finally) in April of last year. The GOP's health insurance plans had just been made public, and of course there was a lot of angst about the pre-existing condition pillar. Our congressman stood there, in front of all of us, and declared that he would not back any legislation that would undermine care for this population.
He lied to our faces. When the vote came, he voted FOR the new bill.
He will now most likely lose his seat. His midterm challenger is a young woman who is a nurse...with a pre-existing cardiac condition.
I would very much like to hear President Trump address the American electorate to let us know what he is going to do to protect us. He promised we would all have the best health care, the most affordable health care. He is going to have to fight Congress.
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Not to worry, Bill Peckham. Trump is a boomer, and he has promised to revive American infrastructure!!
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Not to worry, Bill Peckham. Trump is a boomer, and he has promised to revive American infrastructure!!
Rather than see Obama to Trump through an identity frame, think of it through a generational frame. Bush pure boomer: face difficult problems, make them worse and then step away. Obama post boomer, spends eight years picking up the pieces, the same way his generation and the generations to come are going to have to pick up the pieces and deal with what the boomer generation is and has wrought.
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Just to be clear, I was being sarcastic.
I'm currently reading David Frum's (conservative Republican) "Trumpocracy: The Corruption of The American Republic", and it has my wheels spinning and my head exploding. I don't claim to be coherent at the moment.
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Adolph Hitler won his one election by using “Make Germany Great again” now we are becoming victims of the “Make America Great Again Movement’ lead by the wanna be dictator trump. No rights are safe no lives protected have a medical condition unless you are rich no treatment for you. Parents are caught at the border their children are seized and sent to a concentration camp where 1500 are being kept in a former big box store in which no congressman or Senator is allowed into to check conditions.
Going to start a trade war with everyone causing tariffs to be raised on many American industries forcing hundreds of thousands out of work. New York State is probably going to indict trump and entire family for a clear case of tax fraud by the trump foundation.
Good God the trumpets are leading this country down the slippery slope of wrack and ruin as they blindly follow the criminal they have chosen as Presidunce, a Presidunce leading this country into the same type of bankruptcy that he lead his companies to multiple times. Canada is looking better and better.
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Funny, "Dictator Trump" does not want to disarm the citizens but the Democrats do. The first thing a dictator does is either disarm the citizenry, or make sure that only trusted segments of the population are armed. No dictator lets the ordinary subjects keep their weapons. Ever.
As to separating children - it's not different than when parents are arrested for a crime in the US. They are not kept with their children. But, they should work to have more "dorm/summer camp" housing than "prison" for these kids who are not of legal age and did not choose to commit a crime, as did their parents.
It is important to not forget that attempting to enter the US illegally is a crime and, as such, persons doing so should be treated as criminals. Bail, or no-bail pre-trial release, should be granted based on the historical tendency of persons in similar situations and backgrounds to show up for their hearings.
In total, there are more losers than winners in a trade war .... though a few in protected industries win big.
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Funny, "Dictator Trump" does not want to disarm the citizens but the Democrats do. The first thing a dictator does is either disarm the citizenry, or make sure that only trusted segments of the population are armed. No dictator lets the ordinary subjects keep their weapons. Ever.
I know you love guns, but this statement is untrue. The truth is here:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/23/ten-ways-to-tell-if-your-president-is-a-dictator/
As to separating children - it's not different than when parents are arrested for a crime in the US. They are not kept with their children. But, they should work to have more "dorm/summer camp" housing than "prison" for these kids who are not of legal age and did not choose to commit a crime, as did their parents.
Oh my God. What is happening is "no different" to what happens when, like, Paul Manafort is put behind bars? Are his kids rounded up and sent to a derelict Walmart? This policy of taking children away from their parents is NOT the law, and neither is it decreed to be such in the Bible.
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And most of the migrants are here seeking asylum. This is NOT a crime. It is an international RIGHT to seek asylum. These are NOT Criminals.
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WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?!?
WHERE ARE THE YOUNGEST CHILDREN?!?
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And most of the migrants are here seeking asylum. This is NOT a crime. It is an international RIGHT to seek asylum. These are NOT Criminals.
This is true of the ones who present themselves at the border and declare such.
The ones who sneak over the border and only claim asylum when caught are criminals and should be treated as such.
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The ones who sneak over the border and only claim asylum when caught are criminals and should be treated as such.
I'm still wondering where that wall you were promised has got to! (http://www.animateit.net/data/media/august2009/th_hiding.gif)
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The ones who sneak over the border.......
Yeah, those damned Canadians! :)
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Actually crossing the border currently is a misdemeanor not a felony, this crap of seizing children and putting them in a republican concentration camp is the equivalent of stopping some one for speeding and taking their children and locking them up in a local Walmart. This policy is indefensible but the Presidunce doesn’t care about any one but his rich friends that’s why he is trying to kill health care coverage so the people needing medical treatment can just die. The Republicans railed about death committees during the ada creation now there will be no death committees every one with a expensive disease can just die.
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Ten Thousand of the "children" were sent by themselves by THEIR Parents!!! Those kids are better taken care of here in "cages" then they ever were! At least they are getting food and a bath and a bed.
Hey did you here America has free Day Care/Night Care! OMG
Don't come to America illegally. Come through the door.
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The ones who sneak over the border and only claim asylum when caught are criminals and should be treated as such.
Exactly, like how the treasonous Paul Manafort is in the VIP unit of a Virginia jail.
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Since the children are locked up in a corprate owned facility that’s has not allowed any over site by senators or congressman how do we know they are better off. The pictures I have seen many children sleeping on the floor on thin mattresses and Mylar blankets. Or hundred kids in a chain link cage. Clearly trump supporter have no heart if they think this is humane. If it’s not bad why no visits by reporters or congressmen
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Since the children are locked up in a corprate owned facility that’s has not allowed any over site by senators or congressman how do we know they are better off. The pictures I have seen many children sleeping on the floor on thin mattresses and Mylar blankets. Or hundred kids in a chain link cage. Clearly trump supporter have no heart if they think this is humane. If it’s not bad why no visits by reporters or congressmen
"You could easily end up in a situation where the gap between a parent's deportation and a child's deportation is years," Sandweg said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/former-ice-director-some-migrant-family-separations-are-permanent-n884391
edited to add
"This is why family unity was critical for us. With the numbers of families crossing ticking up, [the] Obama administration was concerned about children being left behind," said Sandweg.
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Did I just read this in Global Citizen Digest?
..... the US is the only country in the world not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx).
WOW
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the US is the only country in the world not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Well those are the waters into which a ship will sail, if it has an asshole at the helm.
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WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?!?
WHERE ARE THE YOUNGEST CHILDREN?!?
@jacobsoboroff 3:30PM 6/19
"Just heard from @HHSGov again:
Of the 11,786 minors currently in the unaccompanied alien children program, 3,280 are female and 8,506 are male.
We still don’t have photos of or acces to any girls or toddlers.https://twitter.com/jacobsoboroff/status/1009199610437435397 (https://twitter.com/jacobsoboroff/status/1009199610437435397)
Just heard from @HHSGov again:
Of the 11,786 minors currently in the unaccompanied alien children program, 3,280 are female and 8,506 are male.
We still don’t have photos of or acces to any girls or toddlers."
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I am always reading about how the homeless do not want to stay in shelters because of bed bugs, lice, disease, theft, etc.. I can't imagine what a facility would be like filled with adults, children and babies all together. I imagine they are separated for the same reasons why they don't send children, spouses and partners to jail when someone is arrested. But if they did, I couldn't imagine what the conditions would be like other than very noisy, dirty and dangerous -for all. Jails are already like that.
self-edited to add: Read some of the latest articles in the Seattle Times about their huge homeless encampment dubbed "The Jungle". Filth, chaos and violence. And those are some of the people who say they don't want to go to a shelter because of filth, chaos and violence. Go figure.
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Just saw on the news Trump storm troopers are putting 1200 children in a tent city in 105 degree heat. What’s next gas chambers.
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Just saw on the news Trump storm troopers are putting 1200 children in a tent city in 105 degree heat. What’s next gas chambers.
The tents are equipped with air conditioners, bathrooms and medical facilities. They are the same ones used for hurricane victims in Florida and much like the ones are men and women in the military have to use. And be careful about gas chambers. Some are friends of Holocaust survivors and may be offended by those kind of remarks.
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How do we know if these tents are equipped with ac, etc? No one is allowed into the area to see for themselves. It's all so clandestine, so secretive, so shrouded in mystery. Why not let the world's journalists into these places to show us?
And if these tents DO have all of these facilities, what these tent-kids don't have is their parents. The tents are not the issue; the separation of children and parents are the issue.
I am certain that anyone who would be offended by the use of remarks about "gas chambers" would be equally offended by the scale of kidnapping that is taking place.
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How do we know if these tents are equipped with ac, etc? No one is allowed into the area to see for themselves. It's all so clandestine, so secretive, so shrouded in mystery. Why not let the world's journalists into these places to show us?
And if these tents DO have all of these facilities, what these tent-kids don't have is their parents. The tents are not the issue; the separation of children and parents are the issue.
I am certain that anyone who would be offended by the use of remarks about "gas chambers" would be equally offended by the scale of kidnapping that is taking place.
You can read about it on the El Paso Times and also see photos. Our military lives and works in tents similar to these, even performing surgery. They're called mobile hospitals. And our soldiers have to wear heavy uniforms. Some of them live in tents everyday in high heat for several months at a time. Some fly helicopters that are not air conditioned. In some parts of the world the weather can be pretty brutal. As for kidnapping, I suppose that's the tale a parent might tell their children after breaking the law and being placed into formal custody of law enforcement. I don't think they repeat that tale too often to a judge tho.
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OK, so you're saying that if it is good enough for our military, then it is good enough for children who have been kidnapped. OK. Of course, part of the problem is that we don't know where a lot of these kids actually are. If feels a bit Boko Haram-y. "Where are the girls?"
Parents ARE telling their tales to judges. http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/391138-federal-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-aclu-lawsuit-against-trump-over There is a reason that so many governors have either refused to send their national guard troops to the border or have recalled them. Most of us realize that this is a humanitarian/moral issue more than a legal issue. Bad laws are no excuse for kidnapping kids in the name of "border control". We can't keep hiding behind "But they're breaking the LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
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But back on topic, where is the wonderful, affordable health care for all Americans that Trump promised us?
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I think when the State Exchanges that were set up for Obamacare went broke people found themselves without insurance. And even tho it was required, I don't think a lot of young people signed up for Obamacare. That didn't help. That just should not of happened. I mean, it wasn't suppose to but it did. Oh where did healthcare go...
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That is what I am asking, PT. Trump said he would supply us all with the best and most affordable health insurance. So, where is it? It is a simple question.
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Again crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor not a felony. In the past you got caught, you were deported since the penalty stipulated has to be a minor jail sentence. This new policy of forcibly separating parents from children reminds me of the nazi death camps separating family’s as they arrived at the camps. I don’t think this comparison to concentration camps is offensive because it is offensive what the goverment is doing. If these camps are such a wonderful place why are no congressmen or reporters allowed in to see the conditions in these camps. In the early 90’s the Bush administration lauded the treatment the returning wounded veterans were receiving at Walter Reed Army hospital only when reporters got in and reported the filthy fetid conditions these vets were in did the goverment fix the problem. If they will treat returning heroes so badly why should we believe that these kids are ok. Trump has attacked the free press so often that he is keeping the American people in the dark on where these kids are, conditions of imprisonment, schooling availability,. In addition by sending parents back without their children which is happening. And not keeping track of the returned parents children will be permanently seperated from their parents. If this comparison offends I think the people offended are people who would have approved the final solution.
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That is what I am asking, PT. Trump said he would supply us all with the best and most affordable health insurance. So, where is it? It is a simple question.
I miss the days when co-pays were under $30 and deductibles well under $3,000. Then Obamacare came along. I guess it will be a while for that to be unwound in the system. The insurance companies have handed down their costs to the consumer. We are what makes up "the sandwich". Insurance companies screw us from one side, politicians from another and we're stuck in the middle. No such thing as a free lunch. Unless you are here illegally.
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Then Obamacare came along.
There is an aspect of zero-sum game to this.
You cannot increase access to medical care for those that do not have it without concurrently decreasing access (via longer waits or increased prices) for those that do have access. The Obama administration sold the public a bill of goods by pretending there would not be both winners and losers with any healthcare reform.
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Yes but the republican death committees are removing protections for pre existing conditions and allowing health based premiums to be created for patients. In other words if you are on dialysis with private insurance you are now unable to change jobs ever. In fact a layoff may be a economic disaster but with the additional costs for premiums and the two year limit on cobra it could also be a death sentence. Same problem with health based premiums if the costs escalate high enough they will be a deat sentence. Trump ran promising best and cheapest insurance. What he meant was the healthy will pay less and the elderly and sick will just die. Trumpets need to stop parroting this bigots lines and look at the real effect this nazi is having on people. From threatening health care to separating families this is beginning to look like Nazi germany in the mid 1930’s. All we need is a crystalnicht to make the image complete. Remember the average German support the programs in the 1930’s but turned a blind eye on the crimes of the Naazi state. If the Germans had stood up in 1936 and said enough the world would have been a better place. It’s time for Americans to stand up and put a stop to this crap before it gets worse. Remember those who choose not to learn from history are bound to repeat it.
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PT and Simon Dog, again, I am asking you where the perfect health insurance plan is that Donald Trump promised us.
You can go ahead and complain about Obamacare, but that's not my question. Donald Trump sold the public a bill of goods by promising the American people that we would all have the best and most affordable health care. But neither of you can answer that question.
The unfortunate thing about Obamacare is that it was never given a chance to work as it was supposed to. When Republican governors refused to set up their own state exchanges, to be established so that they could manage their own state's finances (but no, they didn't want to cooperate the Black President), they forced the Federal government to manage health insurance in those states, and then those governors whined about the government taking over healthcare! So, we've gone from a government that tried to give states control over pricing and markets to a government whose President has promised us that he would fix it all, but he has not done so.
So instead of going back in time to complain about the ACA, I'll ask again...what has President Trump/the GOP Congress done to give us what was promised? Or are only the rich the winners while the rest of us are the losers? Isn't that the very thing that Trump voters wanted to see abolished, that practice of the elites getting most of everything while the rest of us scramble around, forgotten, for the crumbs?
Or is it that the only goal for Trump and his supporters is to outrage everyone else just for the sheer glee of it? This is the chaos that Trump voters wanted. They wanted to "tear it all down", but there was never any talk about what was to be created in its stead. The goal was to destroy, but now we have no idea of what is to be created.
"I miss the days..." is the rallying cry, isn't it. I miss the days, too. I miss the days when America had pride of place in the world instead of kowtowing to strongmen like Putin. I miss the days when our allies didn't have to tell their populace that they could no longer count on the US for anything. I miss the days when outrage and chaos and plunder and enabling weren't the means by which we were governed. I miss the days when, although we all have the right to vote, we all no longer have the ability to do so, those days when voting didn't have to be so damn hard. I miss the days when the American people still had some semblance of sanity and compassion.
People were mad when Obama "lied" about being able to keep their doctor? What about Trump's lies about healthcare? Are people not mad about THAT? WHERE IS OUR EASILY ACCESSIBLE, GOOD AND AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE? Where is it? That's all I am asking.
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I never claimed Trump had the solution.
An honest conversation starts with: Any change will have winners and losers. We have to accept that some people will not be as well off as they are today as a result of public policy changes, as there is no free lunch. We cannot give to person A without taking from person B.
Obama started with: Everyone will have access and pay lower rates. It just doesn't work that way.
A big part of health care reform is establishing a system of transfer payments.
People were mad when Obama "lied" about being able to keep their doctor? What about Trump's lies about healthcare? Are people not mad about THAT?
Republicans get mad at Democrats who lie. Democrats get mad a Republicans who lie.
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It looks like the public outrage has given the Presidunce a heart, he announced he was going to sign something to end family separation now he can concentrate on killing the sick and elderly.
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He will sign something that violates a 1997 consent decree - cannot hold kids >20 days - courts will step in and then he can say the courts are forcing him to seperate families
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I never claimed Trump had the solution.
Trump claimed he had the solution. That was a campaign promise he made.
An honest conversation starts with: Any change will have winners and losers. We have to accept that some people will not be as well off as they are today as a result of public policy changes, as there is no free lunch. We cannot give to person A without taking from person B.
We're not talking about anyone having a "free lunch", whatever that means. And just exactly how does one define "winning" and "losing"? Who cares if Martin Skirelli loses (I'd define a jail sentence as "losing"). We take from Person A to give to person B every single damn day whenever we pay sales tax on anything we buy. Personally, I'm not going to cry if Ivanka Trump is not as well off as she is today as a result of ANY policy changes that in any remote way helps any American who needs assistance. An honest conversation starts with the fact that the winners are the swampy elites and the losers are the rest of us.
I find it very odd that so many people here are using the phrase "free lunch". There seems to be this pervasive notion that if someone else benefits, then that must mean that I'm losing something, that there is some inherent unfairness. Trump is always whining about how this is unfair or that is unfair or the press is unfair or the world is unfair. "Ooooooooh, that guy was so mean to me! It's all so unfair!" HE HAS ACTUALLY TWEETED THAT! We're becoming a nation of victims, wallowing in resentment and grudges. And it's always, ALWAYS someone else's fault. Always, someone else is to blame.
Obama started with: Everyone will have access and pay lower rates. It just doesn't work that way.
Well, we never got to find out.
Republicans get mad at Democrats who lie. Democrats get mad a Republicans who lie.
That's a bit of a squidgy reply, is it not? If there was a policy that Obama enacted that I didn't like, I wrote to him and told him so. I still have a copy of my letter and his reply. Trump is not a Republican, anyway. We should always be mad whenever any leader lies to us, ESPECIALLY one in whom we have put our faith and trust.
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And just exactly how does one define "winning" and "losing"?
If person A uses the force of government to seize assets (via taxation or a regulated market) from person B, person A is the winner in the game of transfer payments.
There seems to be this pervasive notion that if someone else benefits, then that must mean that I'm losing something, that there is some inherent unfairness.
Perhaps not you, but it is not possible to give someone a govt benefit (including dialysis, disability, etc.) without taking the money to fund that benefit from someone. It is rarely the person who is receiving the benefit who pays.
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It's what insurance is. Require everyone to maintain it, if they can't afford it subsidize their participation and tada you have an insurance market. Now define what exactly is meant by "insurance" and citizens will have access to healthcare when they need it ... I mean it isn't fundamentally complicated.
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You need to either force everyone to have it, or remove the mandate that people who choose not to get insurance get free emergency care. Given that the later is probably impractical, mandated insurance is the best way to reduce the quantity of transfer payments.
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You need to either force everyone to have it, or remove the mandate that people who choose not to get insurance get free emergency care. Given that the later is probably impractical, mandated insurance is the best way to reduce the quantity of transfer payments.
Yes, agreed. And if you mandate something you need to say what, exactly, you are mandating. Does it include mental health? Reproductive health? etc. And because some people are poor you need to figure out their way into the system. Medicaid is the least expensive way to provide healthcare to the poorest among us, the oldest, and youngest. For others subsidize their participation through insurance, recognizing that the politics of the situation require we dilute the buying power of payers allowing providers an advantage.
The high cost of healthcare in the US is complicated to justify but a big part is the cost of labor. In general I am in favor of paying people good wages so alas I don't have a way to immediately address the high cost but a national program does have levers states and private businesses do not - NIH, CDC etc. to work on public health, something that is otherwise missing and costly.
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People forget what created the American middle class, when Henry Ford began paying his workers 5 dollars a week, there was out rage among other business leaders about the amount Henry was paying. It turned out as Henry was hiring al their best employees more and more businesses began to match Henry’s wages the middle class was born. People were making enough money to afford a ford car and the American economy took off like a rocket. Raise the minimum wage and the economy will be boosted a low minimum wage creates a class that can’t afford to shop at the places they work.
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And here we go...
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/393028-house-gop-2019-budget-calls-for-deep-medicare-medicaid-spending-cuts
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I feel a bit sick,
http://www.anythingresearch.com/industry/Funeral-Homes.htm
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That is what I am asking, PT. Trump said he would supply us all with the best and most affordable health insurance. So, where is it? It is a simple question.
Congress would not pass Trumps wonderful Health Care bill. After the Mid-Terms we will have another chance to pass it.
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I failed to pass because of the outrage about the end of preexisting conditions ban and the allowance of health based premiums.
Both popular requirements.
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It is confusing to continue to see people point to current problems with health insurance markets, blame Obamacare and express relief at the lack of mandates and community pricing (preexisting conditions are not excluded). At some point people will realize that in the States where the Affordable Care Act has political support the system is working much better.
Healthcare - Red states hurt more than Blue states by Trump policies
Employment - Red states hurt more than Blue states by Trump policies by Trump policies
Higher prices - Red states hurt more than Blue states by Trump policies
The state you live in will determine your access to care if you don't have Medicare (for now).
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Raise the minimum wage and the economy will be boosted a low minimum wage creates a class that can’t afford to shop at the places they work.
There are some unintended consequences and no free lunch.
- Persons whose work is not worth the new minimum will not be hired, or get fired. Is a teenager with no experience really worth $15/hour?
- There will be a tendency to hire more adults and fewer 16 and 17 year olds for the min wage jobs. This will be due to the higher wage pulling more adults into the minimum wage workforce that they currently shun.
- Businesses that cannot afford a high minimum will fold, or not open branches in high wage areas. This is already happening in Seattle.
- Increased use of automation, such as self-order kiosks in fast food joints
- General inflationary effect, screwing retirees and those on fixed incomes
- Increased taxes as public sector unions demand raises commensurate with the percentage increase minimum wage workers are getting
- Forbes did a great article refuting the Berkley study that was commissoned for the purpose of concluding the $15 wage did not cost jobs: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelsaltsman/2017/06/21/the-problems-with-a-new-study-on-seattles-15-minimum-wage/#4c7affb7156a
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Every year the middle class is shrinking, the well paying manufacturing jobs are going away. If a employee can’t afford to buy products where they work the available customer base shrinks, less business less employees, less business less employees. What ford did was create a cycle of employees making enough to become customers, more customers more employees. If ou wanted the good workers you had to compete with ford and the other companies who also raised base pay. It created the economic engine that created the greatest middle class in history.