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45686. Trillium - 10/29/2013 11:08:21 PM I'm hearing different stories about the ACA. Our insurance agent thinks that it will work, and that some people in my age bracket are getting much better rates than before. She gave an example of a family that is now saving $800 per month for a better insurance plan.
A cousin sends me links of discussions about ACA that claim the system will collapse because only the most desperate will sign on, and the healthier younger people will pay the penalty rather than sign up, because of the cost.
Blue Cross/Blue Shield is one of the groups that will serve most areas. I wonder if the other carriers will drop out and insurance will become single provider? Not government, but BCBS? Is BCBS the largest? It's the best known, I think.
I don't know. I do know that when the AIDS crisis went into full bloom around 1985, insurance rates skyrocketed, going up about 30% every 3 months for a year. I was paying close attention because my husband and I had just signed up for insurance because I had new babies and he had his own company. It's a huge expense.
My mother went without insurance for many years, during the decade before she was eligible for Medicare, because the cost was simply too high for an otherwise healthy person.
As a single person working for myself, before I had babies, I had avoided insurance for years before because the expense was higher than the return on the investment. 45687. Trillium - 10/29/2013 11:11:32 PM Funny New Yorker satire on the ACA website:
Borowitz on ACA website
45688. judithathome - 10/30/2013 4:53:21 AM Rand Paul lifts his speeches from Wikipedia...did it this week and has done it before earlier in the year.
Rand Paul: Truth Reader 45689. iiibbb - 10/30/2013 12:54:15 PM Here is my gripe.
Before Obamacare, there was a push for a single-payer system. It was the brainchild of Republicans.
Obama picked up that ball.
Because the Republican's were more intent on Obama failing, than serving the public, they rejected their own idea in order to force a stinker idea they thought would lose.
It won.
Now they've spent all their time trying to repeal it.
Instead of just getting something that works in the first place.
So they're going to haw and haw about how this was such a horrible idea and it's all Obama's fault... but the root cause is they won't fucking work with people and they're more interested in themselves than the whole country. 45690. arkymalarky - 10/30/2013 1:23:13 PM And they're sabotaging it, hurting people in their own states just to spite the president. If they ever do get back in power they'd better hope Dems don't use this playbook. I think they'd be derelict not to. I did enjoy watching the AR idiot get ripped a new one yesterday. 45691. Trillium - 10/30/2013 10:32:55 PM The partisan hatred really concerns me. Not just because it is hateful, but because they don't teach Julius Caesar and Roman History much anymore -- and people tend not to think about the implications of "divide and conquer". Civil wars, even scaled-back versions of civil wars, are an incredibly weakening waste of time and resources.
It was a Spanish professor, a huge Castro fan, who explained the timing of the Civil Rights Act that was finally passed in the 1960s. At that time, discrimination against African American citizens was a flaming disgrace to everything America professes to value.
Johnson didn't decide to back the Civil Rights Act simply because he was sympathetic to African-Americans, or simply courageous. The Cubans were 90 miles off our Southern shores, ready to ship in subversives to raise justifiable hell over Civil Rights.
Johnson's decision cost the Democrat party dearly when they lost "The Solid South", but there was going to be solid trouble no matter which way they went, there was no avoiding the issue.
We need to talk about our principles more, and how we plan to get there -- not all this divisive undermining.
We need to start exercising some common sense. The insurance system we have is quite weird and not sustainable. We need to get together and find a way to change it so that it works. Massachusetts' system worked for Romney (didn't it?) 45692. judithathome - 10/30/2013 10:55:33 PM Yes, it did...I think either 95% or 97% in Mass. have health care. 45693. Ms. No - 11/1/2013 12:49:30 AM What's bizarre to me is how much of the current GOP rhetoric sounds like they're still campaigning against Obama.
The man won.
Twice.
It's over.
He couldn't run again if he wanted to.
It's like they've all just lost their damn minds. They never should have let the Tea Party make the Kool-Aid for the convention. 45694. arkymalarky - 11/1/2013 1:14:49 AM Ted Cruz and his dad are both nuts. Dominionists are a big concern to my mother. I think/hope they are what drives the Tea Party to complete irrelevance and enables the GOP to purge them and become a reasonable party. 45695. judithathome - 11/3/2013 9:58:41 PM Your last sentence looks like it's in peril of not happening. It's more like the Republican party is driving itself into complete irrelevance and they left reasonableness behind the day Obama was sworn in as President.
The Tea Party didn't send Mitch McConnell out the day of the inauguration to tell his core group "We are going to do everything we can to make this man a one term President." He did that as Republican, not as a Tea Party suck up. 45696. judithathome - 1/10/2014 10:07:32 PM So, no one is talking about the demise of Chris Christie's political hopes? 45697. arkymalarky - 1/10/2014 10:46:46 PM I don't think anybody's posting about anything, really. I linked a fascinating video in the cafe the other day and no one even looked at it as far as I know. We are personally in the process of dealing with Stan's mother who had to go to the emergency room last night and is now in the hospital and probably about to head to the nursing home from there. 45698. Wombat - 1/10/2014 11:57:08 PM Other than a group chortling session about some air being let out of Christy's presidential trial balloon, I would prefer to wait and see how far this goes. 45699. robertjayb - 1/11/2014 8:44:54 PM I watched the video and as an inveterate innumerate found it entertaining but baffling. 45700. robertjayb - 1/11/2014 8:52:24 PM Christie's "I'm not a bully" reminds me of Nixon's "I'm not a crook." 45701. Trillium - 1/11/2014 9:03:24 PM Thanks for sharing the video, Arky. I enjoyed it and filed it under "Math topics", although I didn't have enough time to really focus while watching. I'm trying to prepare for the upcoming Anatomy & Physiology II class (reading about blood components, heart disease etc.) and it's a stretch... I try to break up the reading with exercise, but to stay on task. So truthfully I only skimmed the video but was impressed with the doodles and the way the girl's mind works. 45702. Trillium - 1/11/2014 9:04:52 PM But Arky further: Please feel free to share what you can about your mother-in-law's nursing home experience. One motivation for me to work in part-time home health was to learn more about what I will face if I have to look after several elderly relatives. So far all are doing okay, but I am well aware of our risks.
Nursing homes are akin to schools in the sense that there are huge variations in quality, and you want to do your research before (and while) you have family members involved. I'll be grateful to learn what your family finds wonderful/less than wonderful at the nursing home and why -- if you get their consent to share their impressions, it might help the rest of us when we deal with this situation. There are so many variables. 45703. Trillium - 1/11/2014 9:07:35 PM My impression of Christie is that he tries to be pragmatic, but this snafu was a BIG mistake. NYC runs on bully and mob politics -- anything is possible including murder so I'm not surprised. If I had been stuck in that traffic though, I would be mad about having been used as a political tool. 45704. judithathome - 1/11/2014 9:08:34 PM Best coverage on Christie is from Steve Kornaki on MSNBC...he knows many of the "actors" personally and used to work for one of them. He is presenting "just the facts" but at least he has more background knowledge on some of them than other reporters.
This sounds like politics as usual where I'm from...our Lt. Gov. recently called a police station and demanded they release his sister-in-law who was being held for drunken traffic violations and angrily identified himself with "I am David Dewhurst, the ------ Lt. Governor of this state!" 45705. judithathome - 1/11/2014 9:11:21 PM Trillium:
To heck with dealing with relatives...I'm at the age where I will need to deal with nursing homes MYSELF! ;-)
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