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10 Comments
rougyThat shot of the guy throwing a dollar bill at him, laughing, walking away, then coming back to yell at him and point his finger at him...man....
Talk about a million words in that one shot.
Those are the people we're supposed to run a country with.
NordlichReiterAt the risk of sounding insensitive there are groups in each party that lack humanity, compassion, or common sense.
Blanket statements show just how far you have risen above those you hate so.
The Tea party is a plutocrat backed farce. The Republican Party is a plutocrat backed farce, and the same for Democrats.
The fight as always been against the company man. It never changes, not since oil scandal of Iran, Vietnam, or the second Iraq war. We need better health-care, yes, but cost of the US soul to the Corporation. Wait it was sold not once, not twice, but thrice to the company! She has no soul left to profit from.
If a party is sponsored by a Corporate Citizen then it is no party at all. Tea baggers can get fucked. While I'm at it, fuck Texas, for taking Jefferson out of their history books.
jimnmsThere was a local tea party thing here last week. I caught part of it on the news when they were interviewing some of them. This guy said that he was against the health care bill because it violated his constitutional rights and was a slap in the face to the soldiers over seas fighting for our freedom. WTF??? Having a choice violates your rights?
NordlichReiter>> ^jimnms:
There was a local tea party thing here last week. I caught part of it on the news when they were interviewing some of them. This guy said that he was against the health care bill because it violated his constitutional rights and was a slap in the face to the soldiers over seas fighting for our freedom. WTF??? Having a choice violates your rights?
Half of them didn't read the text of the bill, they are just spouting talking points.
I read it, part of it. It's all legalese. No public option and punishment for not being insured(more taxes), followed up by litigation and prosecution for not paying the taxes.
Porksandwichsays...I have to wonder at the motives of these members of the protests. I personally have spoken to at least one government employee who doesn't want the bill to pass because they don't want their health care plan to change, they paid 15 dollars a month and no co-pays. While I can understand that position, their health care plan is already government subsidized and I can't imagine that pooling the money already spent on the government employees into a single payer plan would do anything but put them in a better negotiating position.
Then we look at what the government already covers....and how people "game" the system to be apart of that coverage.
Medicare, which as far as I can tell covers 65+, but can extend to those who are under 65 and disabled.
Medicaid, which helps pay medical costs for some people with limited incomes and resources.
A lot of people can be on both Medicare and Medicaid.
There are a lot of people who should legitimately be on one of these plans but are trying to "do the right thing" and continue working what little they can even though they are disabled and various other things. I can totally understand why people do the following things Im going to list in a bit, but it's crazy that people have to limit themselves just so they can maintain health coverage for themselves or just their children.
What I've seen people do:
Worked at a medical billing place where a female employee had been working there for 5 or more years, unclear on her exact term of employment. She refused raises because they would put her into a income bracket where her child with learning disabilities would no longer fall under the medicaid plan he had been on. So she had to take it as more vacation days, more coverage on her out of pocket health premiums, or refuse it entirely. Taking the raise would have actually put her in the situation where she couldn't afford her home, child's special needs, and other basic expenses without a significant pay raise. There were other things with this where she wouldn't get married because it would affect her negatively as well.
Rental properties my grandmother owned. They were in a lower income neighborhood, many of the people there had to have her file paperwork for them to receives medicare/medicaid/welfare/etc. Over the years, my parents discovered that the renter's who had this paperwork were changing it once my grandmother had filled it out and returned it to them (government doesn't send it directly to the landlord nor asks for it to be mailed by the landlord). The extent of the changes were unknown, but it was assumed that it involved rent amount and possibly names on the lease (so they could claim one of the leasing parties was actually renting a room from the other.)
These rental properties also created situations where people were getting divorced so the "single-mother" could get healthcare and maybe even a supplemental check from the government for their children. The husband would reside elsewhere. But it created situations where the ex-husband would be hanging around a lot, like too much to not be living there most of the week....and violating the lease agreement in the process. Which was basically put into place to keep people from turning the apartments into a free place to get a shower, wash their car, etc because it was partially paid for by the landlord in the agreement. Where the water bill for a property containing 1 adult and 2 or 3 children would be 4 or 5 times the amount of a large house with 5 people.
Eventually this situation came to the point where the people getting government checks, gaming the system a little or a lot, and still couldn't afford their rent at some future date. The government body providing the checks to these people would contact the property owner/manager which was my father at the time, and try to find out how much more it would take to keep the place rented for the individual and even point out other rental property prices in the area ignoring square footage, number of bedrooms, etc. At this point, my father told them that the property taxes had went up so much that they were actually losing money renting to them rather than let the place sit empty where the building would be in a lower tax bracket.
The point of this is, if these people didn't have to worry about health care costs, they might be able to receive raises, afford the cost of living increases, and even better their situation. But it's like watching people trapped because a lot of them needed the health care either for themselves or for a child, and anything that caused them to lose it would make them lose what little they had already. But you can't let them live in a place for free or at a loss to yourself because that's just a no-win situation there for anyone.
Then on the other side of the spectrum, people who are pretty well off job wise, but their jobs don't offer health care....or don't cover their spouse/kids for whatever reason. I know a few people in this situation. One of them works part time as a bus driver at the local school just for the health benefits, goes in early to run a route and leaves work early to shuttle them back home and goes back to his main job. Then sometimes runs night routes where he hauls band equipment, and in the summer does band/football bus runs. Otherwise is off all summer but still has coverage and draws a paycheck the way he has it setup. So I look at his situation as that he can't replace his primary job unless he finds one that will allow him to keep his bus schedule(and health care) or finds a primary job that offers equitable benefits to the bus gig...which government/school benefits are usually better than any job that is in the same pay range in this area.
Also families who don't fall into government dictated brackets, where health care companies won't insure a child because it was born with a major health problem. And the family is forced to pay the "cover you no matter what" plan where it's regulated I believe by the state the maximum they can charge for it. So you have this outrageous cost of health care for one child, and the family has to struggle with it for 18 years..where the child may not be getting the proper surgeries/preventative treatment to turn them into a potentially productive adult because the out of pocket expense would literally bankrupt the family. And when this child turns 18, they are considered medically disabled and the government ends up footing the bill for them for the rest of their life.....when there was the chance to correct or at least mitigate some of long term problems at a young age through surgery, counseling, or seeing proper specialists.
I just have to ask myself, what motivates these people to protest a system where everyone would be covered, and if they participated in it's creation...they could even push for it to be similar or better than their current coverage. And it would always be there, whether they are employed, laid off, in between jobs, working at job they love that has no benefits, need time off for personal matters.
And the system would have to have less headaches than the current one where you have to constantly check to see if something is covered, trying to figure out how much out of pocket it's going to be, if your plan will cover the drug that works for you or will only cover the generic that you have horrible side effects on. IE Some anti-seizure medications in generic form will cause epileptics to piss their pants during seizures while the non-generics don't. It's not even a life threatening side effect, but that's a side effect I don't think anyone would tolerate because that's a major quality of life problem.
NordlichReiterPorksandwich, below is a bit of pessimism and sarcasm.
It's a sick world were companies profit off of survival of the fittest.
I would like to think that the Human Race can surpass that, but probably not. Given the nature of today's world. Money is the root of all evil. The US uses fake paper as it's currency not real monies.
From a science standpoint, I would think that the race would benefit from good health care, but you know how science is seen.
More bad news; according to the US Census Bureau 152,505 people die every day, globally. There are only a couple sure things in life; death, taxes, and becoming a statistic.
This mindset is why Evolution has such a bad rap, simply because it is so bleak. That is exactly why it should not be used for profit. Species do not benefit from outright culling, neither do they benefit from outdated practices.
rottenseedI would've loved for you to have put some more time in linking evolution, population, and corporate greed. It's an interesting link that I could imagine would take a bit more explanation.>> ^NordlichReiter:
Porksandwich, below is a bit of pessimism and sarcasm.
It's a sick world were companies profit off of survival of the fittest.
I would like to think that the Human Race can surpass that, but probably not. Given the nature of today's world. Money is the root of all evil. The US uses fake paper as it's currency not real monies.
From a science standpoint, I would think that the race would benefit from good health care, but you know how science is seen.
More bad news; according to the US Census Bureau 152,505 people die every day, globally. There are only a couple sure things in life; death, taxes, and becoming a statistic.
This mindset is why Evolution has such a bad rap, simply because it is so bleak. That is exactly why it should not be used for profit. Species do not benefit from outright culling, neither do they benefit from outdated practices.
PaybackI'm taking a poll, who actually read anything of Porksandwich's essay?
Like I might even agree with him, but DAYMN if I'm going to read that shit to find out. Although, I see Nordich upvoted him, so probably not.
NordlichReiterRottenseed,
People are born with bad health and it is not their fault. It cannot be their fault. They were given no choice. I was referring to making people pay more to keep a person alive who was doomed before they were born, to an early death.
But another argument can be made; what about the environment caused them to have congenital birth defects, or was it a hereditary illness? Was it smoking, ingested chemicals, or something of a hereditary natural cause?
I can't be sure, because it was a long time ago, but I think Richard Dawkins discussed this in one of his books. A hereditary illness is natural selection, predation is natural selection, but a congenital birth defect because mom smoked is not natural selection. The baby that mom had could have lived to reproduce, but we shan't no because of the congenital defect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
What I find interesting is that these Insurance companies were created largely out of good intention, yet they are so horribly wrong. Making decisions based on profit.
Could one argue that the evolution of corporation mirrors the evolution of the Homo Genus? I suppose, could that mean that the only predator man has is another man? I know I'm begging the question, but it is something to ponder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_defects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system_in_Japan
NordlichReiter>> ^Payback:
I'm taking a poll, who actually read anything of Porksandwich's essay?
Like I might even agree with him, but DAYMN if I'm going to read that shit to find out. Although, I see Nordich upvoted him, so probably not.
You never agree with me.
I up voted because the comment was broken by paragraph, and the grammar was good.
If anything read the last two paragraphs.
To sum his comment up; he wrote about rental properties for older medicaid people and bad practices by the landlords. He wrote about a bus driver who worked two jobs, one so he could get government health care coverage. The last part of the comment Porksandwich decries the protesters for not taking part in the creation of a system of health care that does not deny treatment to anyone.
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