Health Care Reform

[Jude]

Insolent pup.

Edited to add some random emoticons to soften the zinger:

[anthriel]

Let's hear it for rampant, cyclical cynicism!









ETA: AND insolent pups!

[Frelga]

The older he gets, he says.

[Sunsilver]

Two bits of news from this morning on my FB feed, both of them designed to spike outrage...

http://politicops.com/price-better-budg ... e-quickly/

http://conservativefighters.com/news/mu ... orrifying/

Check them out...CAREFULLY!

[Sunsilver]

Did you check them out? What did you notice?

Hidden text.

They are both FAKE NEWS. The bottom one is from a taxi driver strike, and the top one form the fake/satirical news site, Newslo. Unlike the Onion, Newslo mixes just enough real news in with their articles that they can easily be believed by the unwary. The tipoff in the riot video is the man waving a Belgian flag, and the lack of Muslim dress on any of the men.

I think I'm going to get off the computer, and do something USEFUL with my day!!

But OMG, doesn't this just show how easily propoganda can spread?? Dozens of people were commenting on both news items with real, murderous outrage! One person said of the Price video, "He's lucky I don't have a gun!" and, of course, the other video had people saying "RUN THEM DOWN!!"

[yovargas]

I googled "Tom Price". Snopes was the 3rd link. It has "FALSE" written in big red letters at the top. It takes a few seconds to debunk the story. It's so easy yet no one in those hundreds of commenters seems to have done it.

But.......for those couple minutes were I wasn't sure if it was real or not, I sure was ready to launch into ranting outrage.

[Primula Baggins]

Anthy, to answer your question as to why I'm afraid I won't be able to get health insurance, it's because we most likely wouldn't be able to afford it. With Trumpcare, we'd be looking at $14–15K just for Tom, and well over that for me because of my pre-existing condition. So, there would be insurance to which we would theoretically have "access," but even with a decent income, we would almost certainly not be able to afford it. I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed for Tom's job to last as long as it has to—certainly until we're both 65.

[River]

...and the bill's been pulled.

That was fun.

[yovargas]

lol politics

[Frelga]

It would be hilarious to observe from New Zealand. Or Mars.

Let's just keep in mind that a big part of why they couldn't pass it was because it wasn't vicious enough.

[River]

Well, the Freedom Caucus didn't like it because it wasn't vicious enough. So they made it more vicious to win over at least some of their votes and that made the moderates bail and still didn't appease enough of the Freedom Caucus to make up the loss in moderates.

[Frelga]

True.

At 538, a Perry Bacon, Jr. tweeted:

A coalition of mavericks, centrists, freedom-caucusers and people who want to get reelected killed Ryan/Trumpcare.

Link to How Trump Lost On Health Care

The position of the line break in my Twitter app caused me a brief moment of concern for Ryan...

[River]

Heard a Representative on NPR try really hard to blame the Democrats while simultaneously admitting his party couldn't work with itself. His claim was the Democrats didn't offer any ideas. While that's true, it's also true that the GOP in principle didn't actually need the Dems. In practice, though, the GOP can't work with itself.

[yovargas]

Considering most Americans apparently did not want the stupid bill, the correct term would be to credit Democrats, not blame them.

[Frelga]

Right. I've seen Representatives tweet something similar to this from my district:

"2,811 oppose the Republican plan
2 favor the plan"

Note that my Representative has posted his opposition to the Don'tCare act on his website, so the citizens felt less compulsion to call him.

In conclusion: call your Representatives.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Heard a Representative on NPR try really hard to blame the Democrats while simultaneously admitting his party couldn't work with itself. His claim was the Democrats didn't offer any ideas. While that's true, it's also true that the GOP in principle didn't actually need the Dems. In practice, though, the GOP can't work with itself.

I heard that same interview. The truth is that the Democrats have introduced a bill (which of course will go nowhere) to amend the ACA to add a public option. That would address the very problem that GOP representative from Alabama was discussing: the fact that in some states including his own, there are limited choices available in the exchanges because many insurers have pulled out. If there was a public option, people would be guaranteed of having at least one good option. But no one in the GOP will agree to that, even the more moderate members who balked at the AHCA (the bill that just got billed) because it went too far.

My worry is that now Trump and Price (the HHS secretary) will do everything possible to sabotage the ACA by not promoting the exchanges and imposing damaging regulations. But it is unclear whether that will be enough to make the exchanges completely fail.

[Impenitent]

It would be hilarious to observe from New Zealand. Or Mars.

Let's just keep in mind that a big part of why they couldn't pass it was because it wasn't vicious enough.

I'm observing it from almost-New Zealand; no hilarity here - hysteria is closer to it. Maybe Mars is right.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Uruk-voice]It looks like meat is back on the menu, boys![/Uruk-voice]

Repeal of Affordable Care Act Is Back on Agenda, Republicans Say

[Turumarth]

It never ceases to amaze me that Paul Ryan (and others) consider themselves followers of Jesus Christ and yet are admirers of Ayn Rand at the same time.

[Sunsilver]

Yes, I don't recall Jesus extolling the virtues of selfishness anywhere in the Bible...