There is also a refusal to understand that the older people get, the more healthcare they will probably need. Bodies do, in fact, wear out or develop issues exacerbated by the aging process. Having just undergone a number of major health issues in the last couple of years, I can safely say that they would have been much worse without the excellent insurance my employer provides. But back in the early days of the ACA, when I was looking for work, having ACA plans saved my butt.
Since HIPAA was enacted in 1996, all employers have guaranteed issues, you liar. Why did you lose your coverage? Didn't you have guaranteed renewable individual insurance, so you were safe? You want people to wait till they get cancer, then enroll in Obamacare, too silly.
I was among those who couldn't buy insurance for any amount of money due to pre-existing conditions. If I wanted coverage, my only options were government jobs. Sure, I made a lot more money in the private sector, but one illness would wipe that out. Now I'm old AF with Medicare and a supplemental policy, and I'd like nothing more than to have my coverage available to everyone. I know, dream on.
Higbie and Malone will feel satisfied when they hear that our nearby hospital, in Hudson NY, just announced that they will no longer be a general hospital but will instead focus on emergency care. No planned obstetrical care. No heart surgery (except if you’re dying!). Hundreds of people will be fired. They are the biggest employer in the county. I’ve become inured to the depredations of the current frat bro* administration, but even so, this cuts close to home.
* I was a frat bro but it was a different kind of frat. I recently got together with friends from my fraternity but they, to a man, loathed Trump. And some had voted for GW Bush.
Yes, this "Getting into heaven is the only thing that matters, so who cares if you have a crappy life here on Earth" bullshit that Xtianity has foisted on us for the last 2000 years has gone too far. Fuck the 1st Amendment- outlaw Xtianity before it outlaws us.
It makes the Kristians extra happy that they get to define what it takes to get into Heaven, which they also define. For thousands of years people have imagined gods. None of them are more real than the others since they are all supernatural.
Also, the ghosts of the millions of people whose lives were upended by European Christian/Catholic religious loons for hundreds of years—why the heck do they even think we live here now?-would like a word.
It’s not illegal to be a religious loon. But if your religion requires you to God bother your fellow Americans, just know…yours is a fundamentally un-American religion.
The, “Deep Dives” on Substack: Could this be the actual, ‘in writing’, “Concepts of a Plan” that the Dear Leader referred to in his debate with Vice President Harris, where he definitely kicked her ass back to, wherever she came from? Could we now in the sixth week of the government shutdown over the refusal of the ‘Magga-Nomitors’ to even consider the continuation of funding subsidies for the ACA, find a concrete plan to address the millions of Americans without health care coverage, soon to be joined with the Millions more who very soon will have no possible ability to continue their now exorbitant existing coverage? No…. It’s not that. It’s the prequel to the, “concepts of a plan”. It’s a statement meant to create the conditions for the bringing of the ‘concepts of a plan’ to fruition through re-alignment and re-imagination of the creation of the, ‘concepts of the plan’. But hey, that sure beats the shit out of funding the ACA subsidies that are ruining so many lives of those unwilling to even consider health insurance.
Health insurance for a bunch of losers is not a priority. Golden ballrooms, ICE goons and Gulfstream jets for Botox Barbie and her married lover are what matters.
The Dems need to message better. They should figure out (roughly) how many people's health care plans would be protected by what they propose and then publicize that number like crazy. It would likely fit on a cap.
The Dems need to make their messages resonate. What seems to work best is appealing to emotion rather than reason, sadly. The Repubs can get people riled up over things that never happened. The Dems could start with just the large number, then briefly explain it. I know the Repubs own the media, but Dems need to change their losing messaging game.
I voted for Obama twice, but I will always feel like he squandered a golden opportunity to move to a single-payer healthcare system. He listened too hard to those who said it could not be done, and we ended up with the half-measure of the ACA, which is simply a sop to the insurance industry.
I think about these moments in time a lot, and I will always believe he could have gotten it done if he'd made it a focus. Instead, he alienated a lot of people by failing to fulfill his campaign pledge that he would insist on a public healthcare option.
And now, look at the fucking mess we're in. We're going to have to have Medicare for all or whatever you want to call it eventually, it's just that I believed 20 years ago that it would happen in my lifetime. Now I'm not so sure.
Don't forget that, back in the "good old days," most policies had a $1M lifetime cap, so if you needed a serious amount of healthcare, or had an expensive chronic condition, you would hit the cap and then the industry would circle the wagons and no one would insure you. Followed by bankruptcy and then, once you were both sick and destitute, you might qualify for Medicaid. Nirvana!
I think that happened to Christopher Reeve. He was paralyzed from the neck down and it was hugely expensive. Luckily he had lots of rich and generous friends. It's bad enough to be seriously ill, but to be seriously ill and run out of money makes it worse for the patient and his friends and family.
Exactly! Most extreme preemies will cross the $1M mark before they cross their 2 mo bday. That used to mean the family was impoverished, and any other kids at home were denied health care and growing up in financial stability. And those medical bills for extreme preemies usually don't stop coming.
"They are perfectly capable of saying they want to open up the government and make the enhanced subsidies permanent"
Let's let Senator Karen Graham explain it so even you dimmest bulbs get it:
> "In an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Graham criticized Democrats’ approach and said he wouldn’t support extending the subsidies unless there was first “great reform.” He also said he would not engage in those conversations until the governments reopens.
“The subsidies that we’re talking about here, if the Affordable Care Act is so affordable, why every time I turn around are we spending $350 billion to keep it afloat?” Graham said in the interview. “Whether the government’s shut down or not, I’m not going to vote to extend these subsidies without great reform.”" https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5551921-graham-opposes-aca-subsidies/
* The ACA is so corrupt it needs "great reform?" The subsidies are what make health insurance somewhat affordable. (Please see below for one way to lower the gubmint expenditures.)
* Graham won't agree to even hold discussions on supporting the poor having assistance to get health insurance until the gubmint reopens. Karen must be of the opinion that the Dems are all stupid and ignorant of very recent history -- as recent as eight months ago when there was a promise to negotiate after Schumer allowed cloture followed by "haha, just kidding... sucker." The "world's greatest deliberative body" my ass. For a decade now the RINOs haven't debated, they demand!
* IMO, Graham is trying to gaslight the country by conflating the ACA with the ACA subsidies: "if the Affordable Care Act is so affordable" followed by "I’m not going to vote to extend these subsidies"
* Karen is being a tad disingenuous here; the very reason that the ACA is affordable is because of the $350 billion the gubmint planned on spending to keep it affordable. That is the maximum amount the CBO estimated the ACA will cost ***between now and 2035*** and his wording carries the connotation that the $350 billion is per year.
> "Based on recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), permanently extending the expanded subsidies would cost roughly $350 billion between Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 and FY 2035. Well over $50 billion of those costs are likely to go to households making more than five times the poverty threshold (about $160,000 for a family of four in 2025)" https://www.crfb.org/blogs/offsetting-aca-enhanced-subsidy-extensions
▪ Graham is correct on one thing, the subsidies need to be reassessed. The costs can be lowered by reducing the ceiling for qualifying; I can't grok why a family earning more than five times the poverty line needs subsidizing. Besides, if a family is pulling in $160k a year the odds are pretty good that at least one of the family works where company-supplied insurance is offered.
* Graham doesn't bother to offer a counterproposal on the size of the subsidy. In effect he's saying "I don't like your offer but rather than counter I demand you come up with another one that I can agree to."
* Karen doesn't give a shit if the gubmint is closed or open just as long as he gets what he wants; and fuck the rest of you.
Much like these folks believe everyone should have guns because they'd be the hero in a Bruce Willis movie and not the guy who gets killed, they also believe that they will never get ill and that going to the gym or taking supplements means they won't get cancer or other major illnesses like those other people do.
I chatted back and forth with one of those guys who thought his guns would protect his family. They could take shelter when a gang of home invaders showed up and he would take care of it. I pointed out that unless he lived in a castle, bullets could go right through walls and endanger/kill his family members. His response was that he would use bullets that wouldn't go through walls (NERF?). No comment on how he'd get the home invaders to do likewise.
now men have to pay for maternity leave because or, you know, lady doctor appointments that they shouldn’t have to pay because it’s a one size fits all.
.
I read this as prime whine about why do I have to pay into something that helps somebody who is different from me, won't that make it more expensive for me?
They make sense, because men are never involved with women getting pregnant. Women want to get pregnant, they get pregnant. Men have nothing to do with it. //sarcasm
For "conservatives," women are breeding stock, and not very valuable stock at that. Not like....say, a race horse, or something important. There are always more women, until they finally come up with a way to clone themselves, and then, who cares what happens to the feeemales?
I remember when my mother was attempting to get medical help for my grandmother, who had to go into a nursing home from the hospital, because she needed 24 hour care. She had to go through the Department of Social Services (Medicaid did not yet exist). I remember when the case worker came to our home, and how upset my mother was with his questions, which were flat out insulting. SS finally agreed to cover her care in the nursing home.
My parents had paid all her living expenses, and all the medical expenses up until then - sometimes at $5 a week. I'm not sure what we would have done if they'd refused. Mom would have had to quit her job (yes there were "two income households" even back in the rose-colored 50s) and we would have lost our house. But, I guess for Republicans, that is the goal, as long as it isn't the wealthy who suffer.
The problem with stupidity is 1. It kills people but you're not allowed to say that is what killed them, because it seems rude, B. Stupidity often kills innocents without killing the stupid person, and iii. Stupidity can take too long to remove the stupid someone from this planet.
I think we should let the MAHA/MAGAt people go back to the way things were, where people lost their property, homes, farms, and businesses because their kid got sick or their elderly parent ran out of money and needed full time care or they themselves faced a catastrophic situation. Or their kids were no longer part of their parents' health insurance plan past 18? 21? regardless of their education or job status. And as Robyn wrote of in this post, the punitive "pre-existing condition." Especially but not limited to pregnancies. How quickly they forgot the bad parts. They complained the ACA would have death panels, but THEY are the ones who want to have death panels again.
BUT LET THE REST OF US OPT IN TO UNIVERSAL MEDICARE, or at least something that looks like the health care that Congress critters get.
There is also a refusal to understand that the older people get, the more healthcare they will probably need. Bodies do, in fact, wear out or develop issues exacerbated by the aging process. Having just undergone a number of major health issues in the last couple of years, I can safely say that they would have been much worse without the excellent insurance my employer provides. But back in the early days of the ACA, when I was looking for work, having ACA plans saved my butt.
Since HIPAA was enacted in 1996, all employers have guaranteed issues, you liar. Why did you lose your coverage? Didn't you have guaranteed renewable individual insurance, so you were safe? You want people to wait till they get cancer, then enroll in Obamacare, too silly.
Stick a pin in this one. Based on who else he reads, I don’t think this is a good faith operator.
I was among those who couldn't buy insurance for any amount of money due to pre-existing conditions. If I wanted coverage, my only options were government jobs. Sure, I made a lot more money in the private sector, but one illness would wipe that out. Now I'm old AF with Medicare and a supplemental policy, and I'd like nothing more than to have my coverage available to everyone. I know, dream on.
Higbie and Malone will feel satisfied when they hear that our nearby hospital, in Hudson NY, just announced that they will no longer be a general hospital but will instead focus on emergency care. No planned obstetrical care. No heart surgery (except if you’re dying!). Hundreds of people will be fired. They are the biggest employer in the county. I’ve become inured to the depredations of the current frat bro* administration, but even so, this cuts close to home.
* I was a frat bro but it was a different kind of frat. I recently got together with friends from my fraternity but they, to a man, loathed Trump. And some had voted for GW Bush.
Sigh. This, among other things, is what happens when superstition replaces science. And when trumpsters run the show.
Yes, this "Getting into heaven is the only thing that matters, so who cares if you have a crappy life here on Earth" bullshit that Xtianity has foisted on us for the last 2000 years has gone too far. Fuck the 1st Amendment- outlaw Xtianity before it outlaws us.
It makes the Kristians extra happy that they get to define what it takes to get into Heaven, which they also define. For thousands of years people have imagined gods. None of them are more real than the others since they are all supernatural.
Religious loons are un-American.
Also, the ghosts of the millions of people whose lives were upended by European Christian/Catholic religious loons for hundreds of years—why the heck do they even think we live here now?-would like a word.
It’s not illegal to be a religious loon. But if your religion requires you to God bother your fellow Americans, just know…yours is a fundamentally un-American religion.
Religion is more often used to gain power over people than it is to promote good behavior and empathy. In fact, it's a way of shutting people out.
The, “Deep Dives” on Substack: Could this be the actual, ‘in writing’, “Concepts of a Plan” that the Dear Leader referred to in his debate with Vice President Harris, where he definitely kicked her ass back to, wherever she came from? Could we now in the sixth week of the government shutdown over the refusal of the ‘Magga-Nomitors’ to even consider the continuation of funding subsidies for the ACA, find a concrete plan to address the millions of Americans without health care coverage, soon to be joined with the Millions more who very soon will have no possible ability to continue their now exorbitant existing coverage? No…. It’s not that. It’s the prequel to the, “concepts of a plan”. It’s a statement meant to create the conditions for the bringing of the ‘concepts of a plan’ to fruition through re-alignment and re-imagination of the creation of the, ‘concepts of the plan’. But hey, that sure beats the shit out of funding the ACA subsidies that are ruining so many lives of those unwilling to even consider health insurance.
Health insurance for a bunch of losers is not a priority. Golden ballrooms, ICE goons and Gulfstream jets for Botox Barbie and her married lover are what matters.
Seems right to me
The Dems need to message better. They should figure out (roughly) how many people's health care plans would be protected by what they propose and then publicize that number like crazy. It would likely fit on a cap.
I'm seeing the numbers at the state and county level. The message doesn't resonate and gets no media until it's too late.
The Dems need to make their messages resonate. What seems to work best is appealing to emotion rather than reason, sadly. The Repubs can get people riled up over things that never happened. The Dems could start with just the large number, then briefly explain it. I know the Repubs own the media, but Dems need to change their losing messaging game.
I voted for Obama twice, but I will always feel like he squandered a golden opportunity to move to a single-payer healthcare system. He listened too hard to those who said it could not be done, and we ended up with the half-measure of the ACA, which is simply a sop to the insurance industry.
I think about these moments in time a lot, and I will always believe he could have gotten it done if he'd made it a focus. Instead, he alienated a lot of people by failing to fulfill his campaign pledge that he would insist on a public healthcare option.
And now, look at the fucking mess we're in. We're going to have to have Medicare for all or whatever you want to call it eventually, it's just that I believed 20 years ago that it would happen in my lifetime. Now I'm not so sure.
Don't forget that, back in the "good old days," most policies had a $1M lifetime cap, so if you needed a serious amount of healthcare, or had an expensive chronic condition, you would hit the cap and then the industry would circle the wagons and no one would insure you. Followed by bankruptcy and then, once you were both sick and destitute, you might qualify for Medicaid. Nirvana!
I think that happened to Christopher Reeve. He was paralyzed from the neck down and it was hugely expensive. Luckily he had lots of rich and generous friends. It's bad enough to be seriously ill, but to be seriously ill and run out of money makes it worse for the patient and his friends and family.
Exactly! Most extreme preemies will cross the $1M mark before they cross their 2 mo bday. That used to mean the family was impoverished, and any other kids at home were denied health care and growing up in financial stability. And those medical bills for extreme preemies usually don't stop coming.
Rethugs are such goddamn liars.
"They are perfectly capable of saying they want to open up the government and make the enhanced subsidies permanent"
Let's let Senator Karen Graham explain it so even you dimmest bulbs get it:
> "In an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Graham criticized Democrats’ approach and said he wouldn’t support extending the subsidies unless there was first “great reform.” He also said he would not engage in those conversations until the governments reopens.
“The subsidies that we’re talking about here, if the Affordable Care Act is so affordable, why every time I turn around are we spending $350 billion to keep it afloat?” Graham said in the interview. “Whether the government’s shut down or not, I’m not going to vote to extend these subsidies without great reform.”" https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5551921-graham-opposes-aca-subsidies/
* The ACA is so corrupt it needs "great reform?" The subsidies are what make health insurance somewhat affordable. (Please see below for one way to lower the gubmint expenditures.)
* Graham won't agree to even hold discussions on supporting the poor having assistance to get health insurance until the gubmint reopens. Karen must be of the opinion that the Dems are all stupid and ignorant of very recent history -- as recent as eight months ago when there was a promise to negotiate after Schumer allowed cloture followed by "haha, just kidding... sucker." The "world's greatest deliberative body" my ass. For a decade now the RINOs haven't debated, they demand!
* IMO, Graham is trying to gaslight the country by conflating the ACA with the ACA subsidies: "if the Affordable Care Act is so affordable" followed by "I’m not going to vote to extend these subsidies"
* Karen is being a tad disingenuous here; the very reason that the ACA is affordable is because of the $350 billion the gubmint planned on spending to keep it affordable. That is the maximum amount the CBO estimated the ACA will cost ***between now and 2035*** and his wording carries the connotation that the $350 billion is per year.
> "Based on recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), permanently extending the expanded subsidies would cost roughly $350 billion between Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 and FY 2035. Well over $50 billion of those costs are likely to go to households making more than five times the poverty threshold (about $160,000 for a family of four in 2025)" https://www.crfb.org/blogs/offsetting-aca-enhanced-subsidy-extensions
▪ Graham is correct on one thing, the subsidies need to be reassessed. The costs can be lowered by reducing the ceiling for qualifying; I can't grok why a family earning more than five times the poverty line needs subsidizing. Besides, if a family is pulling in $160k a year the odds are pretty good that at least one of the family works where company-supplied insurance is offered.
* Graham doesn't bother to offer a counterproposal on the size of the subsidy. In effect he's saying "I don't like your offer but rather than counter I demand you come up with another one that I can agree to."
* Karen doesn't give a shit if the gubmint is closed or open just as long as he gets what he wants; and fuck the rest of you.
fnord
Whatever the hell "great reform" is. Of course, we all know by now that Rethugs aren't big on details.
The "great reform" we needs start with getting rid of the Repubs causing most of the problems.
For fuck's sake, UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS DO NOT GET ACA, you stupid lying MUPPETS.
They know. Which makes their fucking Goebbels BIG LIES EVEN MORE HEINOUS.
Much like these folks believe everyone should have guns because they'd be the hero in a Bruce Willis movie and not the guy who gets killed, they also believe that they will never get ill and that going to the gym or taking supplements means they won't get cancer or other major illnesses like those other people do.
I chatted back and forth with one of those guys who thought his guns would protect his family. They could take shelter when a gang of home invaders showed up and he would take care of it. I pointed out that unless he lived in a castle, bullets could go right through walls and endanger/kill his family members. His response was that he would use bullets that wouldn't go through walls (NERF?). No comment on how he'd get the home invaders to do likewise.
If these men are Earthlings, what the fuck am I?
now men have to pay for maternity leave because or, you know, lady doctor appointments that they shouldn’t have to pay because it’s a one size fits all.
.
I read this as prime whine about why do I have to pay into something that helps somebody who is different from me, won't that make it more expensive for me?
More like "How dare anyone be different from me?"
The words "lady doctor appointments" are exactly the kind of words Rethugs love. Stupid, overgeneralized, and condescending.
Gynecological is way too big for their little minds.
The only big word they can spell is Chappaquiddick.
Not to mention it's icky, with all the blood and stuff. If course it isn't too icky to stick their penis in there, but other than that, totally icky!
They make sense, because men are never involved with women getting pregnant. Women want to get pregnant, they get pregnant. Men have nothing to do with it. //sarcasm
For "conservatives," women are breeding stock, and not very valuable stock at that. Not like....say, a race horse, or something important. There are always more women, until they finally come up with a way to clone themselves, and then, who cares what happens to the feeemales?
I remember when my mother was attempting to get medical help for my grandmother, who had to go into a nursing home from the hospital, because she needed 24 hour care. She had to go through the Department of Social Services (Medicaid did not yet exist). I remember when the case worker came to our home, and how upset my mother was with his questions, which were flat out insulting. SS finally agreed to cover her care in the nursing home.
My parents had paid all her living expenses, and all the medical expenses up until then - sometimes at $5 a week. I'm not sure what we would have done if they'd refused. Mom would have had to quit her job (yes there were "two income households" even back in the rose-colored 50s) and we would have lost our house. But, I guess for Republicans, that is the goal, as long as it isn't the wealthy who suffer.
as long as it isn't the wealthy who 'suffer'
Maloney Baloney is a blithering idiot. Stupidity really should be more deadly.
He's not stupid, he's evil. It's the ones that believe this sh*t that are stupid.
Stupid or Evil: Do I have to choose?
The problem with stupidity is 1. It kills people but you're not allowed to say that is what killed them, because it seems rude, B. Stupidity often kills innocents without killing the stupid person, and iii. Stupidity can take too long to remove the stupid someone from this planet.
I think we should let the MAHA/MAGAt people go back to the way things were, where people lost their property, homes, farms, and businesses because their kid got sick or their elderly parent ran out of money and needed full time care or they themselves faced a catastrophic situation. Or their kids were no longer part of their parents' health insurance plan past 18? 21? regardless of their education or job status. And as Robyn wrote of in this post, the punitive "pre-existing condition." Especially but not limited to pregnancies. How quickly they forgot the bad parts. They complained the ACA would have death panels, but THEY are the ones who want to have death panels again.
BUT LET THE REST OF US OPT IN TO UNIVERSAL MEDICARE, or at least something that looks like the health care that Congress critters get.
This is the 21st century. We now have AI death panels.