Stupidity was critical to Obamacare's passage ...

[Tom Ligon]

I have been staying out of the "General" swamp lately, but I ventured in expecting to see some discussion of this story.

http://www.valleybreeze.com/2014-11-11/ ... GL5ZclrTjs

I am, at the moment, unhappily wading thru the Open Season mess, due to my perfectly satisfactory and affordable high-deductible plan being classified as illegal.

[paperburn1]

My plan had major changes just before the care act started leaving me with a 15000 dollar deductible and the same monthly price. If I go to change providers on my plan (via obama care network) then my rates will triple and still leave me with a 5000 dollar deductible.
Current plan is to when my wife turns 65 in three years then put her on medicare and throw myself on the misery of the VA system.

[mvanwink5]

Tom,
We are all in the swamp and have been for 6 years, at +Trillion dollar yearly deficits for nothing. My retirement savings went to bail my parents and brother out (family first). None of what is thrown out here is theoretical, it all comes home to roost, but you know that; my friends don't as they live in lollipop land on the left coast. So, stupid is as stupid voted.

[D Tibbets]

I think, the blame game is much more complex. The affordable care act was a collection of processes. The biggest was the sharing of risk and supplements for low income workers. Also, alterations in other plans was implicit. State modification of medicare was one example. The opposition poisoning of the plans through deceit and manipulation on the state and private levels are rampant. The end result is a painful mess for many of the end consumers, who are Cannon fodder for the fight. The assigning of blame is based mostly on political bias.

Dan Tibbets

[mvanwink5]

Nice try Dan, "Yes we can," and "Forward" as well as all the socialist initiatives are an economic disaster mitigated only by massive Fracking efforts and its success (which if CAGW were real and Obama actually believed it he would block to save the planet as red faced greenies wanted - remember shutting down coal???). +Trillion dollar deficits and docket full of scandals, but defend it all you want as the rest of us pay for your delusions.

[D Tibbets]

Tom,
We are all in the swamp and have been for 6 years, at +Trillion dollar yearly deficits for nothing. My retirement savings went to bail my parents and brother out (family first). None of what is thrown out here is theoretical, it all comes home to roost, but you know that; my friends don't as they live in lollipop land on the left coast. So, stupid is as stupid voted.

What bias and narrow vision is this?

Last 6 years- false. Nothing- that is also false.
The erosion of the social contract between business and workers is a large part of the short fall from a insurance standpoint. Government deficits are in large part due the suppression of historically reasonable taxation rates, mostly by Bush. It is nice to retain more of your earnings, but it is then disingenuous to then turn around and blame government shortfalls on spending alone. The more you argue the more in depth and obtuse the arguments become, until finally, they are twisted to what ever political bias you are a fan of. This is the political landscape now. Unfortunately, it serves few except the political pundits. There is a reason why any incumbent has very poor favorability ratings now.

Dan Tibbets

[D Tibbets]

Nice try Dan, "Yes we can," and "Forward" as well as all the socialist initiatives are an economic disaster mitigated only by massive Fracking efforts and its success (which if CAGW were real and Obama actually believed it he would block to save the planet as red faced greenies wanted - remember shutting down coal???). +Trillion dollar deficits and docket full of scandals, but defend it all you want as the rest of us pay for your delusions.

Economic disaster? May be someone should tell Wall Street. Fracking has prevented an economic disaster? Well, it probably hasn't hurt, though the current glut will certainly be painful for many in the fracking business. I am amused by those who point to fracking greatly boosting US oil reserves while also screaming for the essential import of Cannadian oil. Note that I am not necessarily opposed to the pipeline as a portion of a flexible portfolio of energy sources. The political screaming by special interests and the devotion of many to their preaching is distasteful though.

Dan Tibbets

[mvanwink5]

There you go again, acting like the 60 Senate Democans, the House Democan majority with the "Yes we can" emperor were bystanders, victims of the past. There hasn't been a budget much less a balanced budget and Social Security has been robbed blind. You point to Bush, yet the Democans doubled down on what that Prog did that didn't work and extended it to the nth degree with another unfunded government program that can't work. Unending wars where we "nation build," leave, and ISIS runs rampant. Racial relations are at their worst, what has worked? Name one thing.

No, I don't accept your delusion and blame game.

PS Stock prices only reflect the massive Federal Reserve money pump machine. Subtract that and the stocks have gone nowhere. Of course the problem with the massive pump is trying to back out of it. Inevitably it will have to happen, the Fed will have to stop the pump, then listen to the 'wise' WallStreeters cry and howl. (And without the Fracking the money pump would have stopped a long time ago due to inflation).

[mvanwink5]

Here you go Dan, here is the bared soul of your progressives in action. Listen to Gruber:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/388872155600 ... show-clips

[mvanwink5]

Dan, sorry that I get so bent out of shape at the audacity and hubris of these guys. They really do believe in their cause as do such zealots especially the founders of the hammer and sickle crowd, Castro, Chavez, etc. But you see, all those utopian 'experiments' ere abject failures and socialist utopian believers see chicanery, tricks, deception, as for our own good. This Gruber guy was just caught on tape laying bare what the Democans with full awareness did -Kerry, Pelosi, Reed (Gruber was taped on multiple occasions so you can see he didn't just misspeak). Obama is not finished with his nutty legacy, he has two years left. When he is finished I doubt there will be anything left of the Democans and progressives. He is just that arrogantly sure of the rightness of his socialist cause. Yet, it is hard to know if and how long it will take to undo the mess.

[Diogenes]

Economic disaster? May be someone should tell Wall Street.

Dan Tibbets

Wall Street is not a good measure of the economic health of the country. Not only is it heavily involved with warring computer algorithms running up the DOW like it was a global warming computer model, a lot of people have dumped saved dollars into it in an effort to get some sort of return on their money.


I will point out the Stock Market was going crazy in 1929 too.



I will further add that all the economic numbers put out by this administration are lies. They have deliberately fiddled with the methods of calculating inflation and joblessness so that their numbers don't show the scope of the disaster they've created.


One of the most important duties of the next President (apart from trying to put this entire administration in prison) will be to order various agencies to correct all the lying numbers this administration has faked. This administration needs to go down in history as the worst this nation has ever seen in terms of incompetence, over-reach and corruption.

[MSimon]

Nice try Dan, "Yes we can," and "Forward" as well as all the socialist initiatives are an economic disaster mitigated only by massive Fracking efforts and its success (which if CAGW were real and Obama actually believed it he would block to save the planet as red faced greenies wanted - remember shutting down coal???). +Trillion dollar deficits and docket full of scandals, but defend it all you want as the rest of us pay for your delusions.

Economic disaster? May be someone should tell Wall Street. Fracking has prevented an economic disaster? Well, it probably hasn't hurt, though the current glut will certainly be painful for many in the fracking business. I am amused by those who point to fracking greatly boosting US oil reserves while also screaming for the essential import of Cannadian oil. Note that I am not necessarily opposed to the pipeline as a portion of a flexible portfolio of energy sources. The political screaming by special interests and the devotion of many to their preaching is distasteful though.

Dan Tibbets

With very little effort pipelines are bidirectional.

[MSimon]

Something I posted in another thread. Applicable here.

=============================

The ironic thing about the medical issue is that we have medical science that will lower medical costs by something on the order of $1 trillion a year and it is being bottled up by Republicans over culture war issues.

Fortunately Republicans are losing the culture war.

Cut the cost of medicine by $1 trillion a year and it goes away as an issue. Cures for cancer, cheap treatment for auto-immune diseases (like about 2/3rds of diabetes), pain management with a LOT fewer opiates. And that is just the short list. And you can grow your medicine in the garden. One harvest gives at least a years worth of medicine. No more difficult than tomatoes. And because the medicine is not very lethal (no more lethal than tomatoes) it can be used without much oversight. We won't need a medical establishment to manage this. Medicine - except for injuries - will go back to being a small time affair. If we do it right.

With government so heavily involved in medicine it will be a revolution in the cost of government. Held up by the Culture War.

The ironies abound.

People will notice this in time and the Culture War Party will be tremendously hurt. You can't say you weren't warned.

[MSimon]

One of the most important duties of the next President (apart from trying to put this entire administration in prison) will be to order various agencies to correct all the lying numbers this administration has faked. This administration needs to go down in history as the worst this nation has ever seen in terms of incompetence, over-reach and corruption.

I wouldn't be so fast with the prisons and trials. Republicans have been killing 100,000 a year for at least 40 years because their Culture War has prevented a near universal cheap non-invasive cure for cancer.

If you start stringing people up for good intentions gone bad there will be quite a few Republicans swinging in the wind.

If mens rhea is no longer a defense no one is safe.

"They just wanted to keep their political faction in power" should be a defense. And that should include the stock in trade of politics. Lies. It should not be up to the courts to punish the liars. That job is the responsibility of the voters. If they abdicate their responsibilities they get what they deserve. You know the adage. People get the government they deserve. Good and hard.

[mvanwink5]

It is not about Dems vs Repubs, throw all the criminals in with big bubba and buds.