Obama Care vs Republicans

[xoxoxoBruce]

Bill Is A Fucking Jackass - An Analogy

Unfortunately this scenario is all too familiar to many Americans. I wouldn't want Bill in my workplace sabotaging things when he doesn't get his way. Would you?

So, imagine that the company you work for held a poll, and asked everyone if they thought it would be a good idea to put a soda machine in the break room. The poll came back, and the majority of your colleagues said “Yes”, indicating that they would like a soda machine.

Some said no, but the majority said yes. So, a week later, there’s a soda machine.

Now imagine that Bill in accounting voted against the soda machine. He has a strong hatred for caffeinated soft drinks, thinks they are bad you you, whatever. He campaigns throughout the office to get the machine removed. Well, management decides “OK, we’ll ask again” and again, the majority of people say “Yes, lets keep the soda machine.”

Bill continues to campaign, and management continues to ask the employees, and every time, the answer is in favor of the soda machine. This happens, lets say… 35 times.

Eventually, Bill says “OK, I’M NOT PROCESSING PAYROLL ANYMORE UNTIL THE SODA MACHINE IS REMOVED”, so nobody will get paid unless management removes the machine.

What should we do???

Answer: Fire Bill and get someone who will do the fucking job.
Bonus: Bill tells everyone that he was willing to “Negotiate”, to come to a solution where everyone got their payroll checks, but only so long as that negotiation capitulated to his demand to remove the soda machine.

Bill is a fucking jackass.

-Anonymous

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Bonus: Bill tells everyone that he was willing to “Negotiate”, to come to a solution where everyone got their payroll checks, but only so long as that negotiation capitulated to his demand to remove the soda machine.

Now, now. Don't make him seem so unreasonable. He's also willing to unplug the soda machine, or remove the sodas from it.

And then remove it.

[DanaC]

Excellent.

[orthodoc]

This is excellent, I agree. Too bad we don't have a Queen who can and would (through her Governor-General) fire all of Congress and force a snap election, like she did in Australia. And behold, a government shutdown has never happened there again.

The 2014 elections will be interesting. Every single Republican needs to be fired.

[Lamplighter]

The horrors... think of all the little soda bottles with their tops torn off,
empty and waiting to be returned to the supermarket.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Adak, once again you have diverted off to talking about "wealth", "goal", "taxes" etc.
That's either a debating tactic, denial, habit, O/C, or whatever ?

We started with Pelosi's comment about food stamps being a stimulus to the economy.

It's very simple...
When $ is spent on food in a local food store, it is income to the store.
When the store has income, it spends $ on employees, supplies, advertising, maintenance, and profit to the owners.
When people don't have $ to spend in the local food store, the store goes out of business.
That is the local economy.

When the government gives low income people $ 1.00, they spend it in the food store,
and it's employees and suppliers and advertising firms and contractors
and investors, each in turn spends portions of that $1 generating the $ 1.84 in the other expenditures.
That is the stimulus to both the (local and national)economy.

So, Pelosi was right... Right ?

It would be IF the dollar being spent, was a dollar that wasn't simply printed up by the feds, out of nothing but fancy paper and inks.

Take it a step further and see where it leads: The gov't decides it's a stimulus to the economy, and we definitely need a stimulus, so they give everyone food stamps, and lots of them.

The problem is, there is no more wealth added to the economy to support it. So our dollar goes into free fall, as inflation flies through the roof.

Almost every gov't does a bit of this, because they know that normally, there IS some wealth being added to their economy, year by year. In our case, we've overdone it, causing our dollar to sink in value, year after year.

[Happy Monkey]

The $0.84 in the $1.84 is wealth added to the economy.

And the $1.00 is food for the hungry.

If you're looking for places we've overdone it, don't look to food stamps.

[Lamplighter]

Oregon is considered a "blue state" but this is primarily because
there are 2 "ultrablue" voting areas (Portland and Eugene)
that essentially control national elections.
But the rest of the state is intensely "red",
and the GOP is well represented in the State legislature.

But poverty is spread across the state, and 15% of the 3.9 million
population fall in the legal definitions of qualifying for assistance.

This article is about sign-ups during the first 2 weeks of Obamacare:


The Oregonian
Nick Budnck
10/17/13

Oregon cuts tally of people lacking health insurance by 10 percent in two weeks

Though Oregon's health insurance exchange is not yet up and running,
the number of uninsured is already dropping thanks to new fast-track enrollment for the Oregon Health Plan.

The low-income, Medicaid-funded program has already signed up 56,000 new people,
cutting the state's number of uninsured by 10 percent, according to Oregon Health Authority officials.

Since late September the Oregon Health Authority sent out notices to 260,000 people
already enrolled in the state's food stamps program since late October.
Under the new Oregon Health Plan income eligibility rules, in 2014 individuals
must earn 138 percent of the federal poverty level or less to qualify,
as compared to the 100 percent cutoff this year.
The new cap means monthly income of $1,322 for an individual,
$1,784 for a household of two, $2,247 for a household of three, and $2,704 for a family of four.

Many of the new enrollees are likely to have pent-up health needs.
A survey of 38,000 people on the Oregon Health Plan waiting list
in 2012 found 11 percent had diabetes, 8 percent heart problems,
30 percent high blood pressure, 22 percent high cholesterol and 5 percent cancer.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Kentucky leads the way.

Beshear doesn't name names or call people out directly, but this is a brilliant implicit condemnation of the behavior of most of the Republican governors around the country.

The attitude they've taken is that since no Obamacare is better than even the best possible version of Obamacare, they should try to engineer the worst possible version of Obamacare in order to hasten its demise. As Chernyshevsky and Lenin said, "The worse, the better."

And that attitude, really, has always been one of the worst sins of political radicals of different stripes. A callous willingness to sacrifice concrete human interests in the here and now in pursuit of long-term ideological ends is a great way to make sure people end up worse off than they otherwise could be.

Beshear is trying to act like a proper public official and make things go well for people in Kentucky. Too many governors are hoping to make things go poorly and then point fingers.

[Lamplighter]

Today on Meet the Press, Mitch McConnell was interviewed about the
situation of the government shutdown, debt ceiling, and the GOP.
Obamacare was discussed twice, and McConnell made the following statement:

In Oregon, no one has signed up, in Alaska... 7.

Does McConnell addictively lie, was he ill-informed,
or inverting a fact into yet another false GOP talking point ?

Whichever - Oregon has already signed up 56,000 - in the first 2 weeks.
--- as previously posted here

Or, for the GOP, 56,000 people translates into "no one".

[regular.joe]

Originally Posted by Adak

Take it a step further and see where it leads: The gov't decides it's a stimulus to the economy, and we definitely need a stimulus, so they give everyone food stamps, and lots of them.

The problem is, there is no more wealth added to the economy to support it. So our dollar goes into free fall, as inflation flies through the roof.

Thank the stars that we don't take it a step further. Lets talk about reality, only the lowest end of income qualifies for food stamps. So, in reality your argument here is pretty much hot air.

[Adak]

I have not heard what the Conservative leaders are saying about Obamacare, but I've heard no less than THREE Conservative talk show hosts - which is a LOT for me (caught them on breaks between ball games this weekend), remark that Obamacare is finished because of the poor roll out, the web site failures, etc.

And I've had my nose into some coding this last week, but that strikes me as the DUMBEST idea! A national health care plan will destroy itself, because the website failed during the first few weeks?

No way.

Conservative talk show hosts, you should hang your heads in shame on this crazy idea.

The British press has published some actual enrolled numbers into Obamacare, but official numbers in total, haven't been officially released yet. Whatever the numbers are, they should easily get the 7 million people that they say they will require, to keep the ACA viable. Out of over 400 million people or so, I'm sure they can enroll 7 million.

I'm not sure the ACA is worth spending a lot more time arguing over. It is the law, and it obviously will be tried for at least the next 15 to 24 months, to see how it goes. We have more pressing issues right now, like Iran's nuclear negotiations (now going on), the war still going on in Afghanistan, and our inability to stop the Fed's from over-spending.

You tried to stop ACA, but it was ill-timed and failed. Time to move on. We have a country to run here.

[glatt]

I heard some snippet at NPR this morning that said there are tons of people going to the sites to check them out and not actually trying to do anything. Tourists, basically.

They also said that most people disapprove of the sites in some poll they did, but the people who actually have gone to the sites rate them better than the people who haven't been.

For what it's worth, I checked out the site for Virginia, and was amazed at the number of options available. The prices were more than I'm paying now for my portion of my employer provided plan, but I'd need to dig out some paperwork to see if they are more than what I and my employer are paying combined. I think they are comparable. Also, at our income level and family size, we would be eligible for some discount. Not sure how much.

[Griff]

I heard an NPR report, last week maybe, interviewing a code monkey who explained how stupid the government always is on this kind of stuff. Basically they want all the functionality immediately instead a building a little at a time and adding more bells and whistles with each release like everyone else does it.

[Lamplighter]

Cheney is the topic of talking heads this week because he has "authored" a book about his heart.

USA TODAY
Susan Page
October 21, 2013
Cheney book documents his struggles with heart disease

He had the first of five heart attacks in 1978, when he was 37
and running in his first political campaign, for the Republican nomination
for Wyoming's sole seat in the House of Representatives.

Over the 35 years that followed, he has been saved from disability or death
through a series of medical advancements in treating heart disease that
often became widely available just at the time he needed them most.

He underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1988 and, finally, the heart transplant in March 2012.

.

Ummmm.... what are the odds for getting a transplant if you are/were not VP of the US government ?



By the way, Cheney supports the Tea Party assault on Obamacare.