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Mirage
Re: You can be sure the moneyed supporters of the Republicans...
Sun Jan 29, 2012 07:12
63.194.75.2

He has tried, but let me put it this way, the promised reduction of healthcare costs left huge loopholes for insurance companies, and they have used them. Members of one insurance company here saw their private family plan rates raise an average of 30-40% last year. Mine was far worse, insanely, bizarrely usurious. Imagine getting a bill for almost $20k to renew your insurance...which will only cover the next 3 months. I did get a bill like that. This was the new quarterly fee. Nobody can pay that for very long, not even very rich people can afford 80k a year to cover a single person. People are selling their houses and moving into apartments trying to keep family members with chronic illnesses insured. If they ever lose their insurance, they cannot get insured elsewhere. Self insurance might be an option for the young and healthy, but not a good idea for a 55 year old self-employed man who has had a heart attack already and will be needing a bypass eventually. Not a good idea for someone losing their sight who would be unable to afford eye surgery without insurance. In order for me to get government healthcare assistance in my state, with my juvenile diabetes, these are examples of what it would take for me to qualify: loss of both legs or both arms, loss of vision in both eyes, or loss of both eyes. Everything on the list was that severe or worse. This is a scenario in which people might be tempted to blind themselves in order to be able to get lifesaving heart surgery, and there is something truly wrong with that.

Believe it or not, I would have been better off under Bush. I could have qualified based on legal blindness back then, meaning severe but not total vision loss. Uncorrectable 20/450 vision in both eyes or worse. Seeing the Big E on the eye chart would not have disqualified a person who for work and other daily purposes is effectively blind.

Obama seems like a nice guy as a person, but he has been unable to stand up to big pharma, insurance companies and other big business pressures.

  • Alain de Botton's plans to build an atheist temple. — Mirage, Fri Jan 27 17:18
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/01/atheist-writers-clash-over-how-to-not-worship-nonexistent-god.html Personally, I think this is an admirable idea and I would love to visit such a... more
    • The negative feelings may be related to .... — Baruch, Mon Feb 20 11:12
      the association of that with the Cult of Reason from the French Revolution. Not everyone regards the French Revolution in a positive light. And even the French almost immediately rejected this form:... more
    • Good question — Frashavan, Fri Jan 27 19:51
      Hitchens developed into a frothing right winger in his later years, so one would have understood that he probably thought that the poor and ill should die -- like most Tories and Republicans. I'm not ... more
      • Your bias against Atheists really shows thru.... — Kasey, Sat Jan 28 05:33
        with your comments on Hitchens and Dawkins which are way off the mark. Yet many Atheiasts tend to keep it to themselves for obvious reasons in a partial theistic prejudiced and Christian society made ... more
        • Re: Your bias against Atheists really shows thru.... — Mirage, Sat Jan 28 08:48
          I had thought he may possibly have chosen the word temple because Buddhists may be either secular or religious and Buddhist temples in Western nations have been pretty welcoming to secularists over... more
        • More likely it's my dislike of grandstanders — Frashavan, Sat Jan 28 08:03
          Both Hitchens and Dawkins are major league grandstanders. His lurch to the right was noticed, and widely commented on; if you didn't read it, then do some research. If Hitchens hadn't chosen to... more
          • Bias — MN_Morgan, Mon Jan 30 12:52
            Most people get that tribe mentality (no matter what tribe they belong to) and attack anything outside of it, whether it is subjective or not. The ones with the bigger mouths are the ones that make... more
            • I never got the whole "groupthink" thing — Frashavan, Wed Feb 1 05:30
              And the more vocal people get in all expressing the same opinion, the more I want to question it. That's just me, I suppose...
              • Standing outside — MN_Morgan, Wed Feb 1 12:00
                It helps to be able to stand back, look at a situation before just becoming a yes man. From basic observation, we see people have a tendency to conform to things they think they want for the sheer... more
          • I can agree with you on the point of Hitchens.... — Kasey, Sun Jan 29 05:46
            support of Bush for the Iraq war....both appear to have been ignorant of the lethal divisions below the surface within that religious nation among Sunni, Shia, Christian and other group which Saddam... more
          • There are some biases. — Mirage, Sat Jan 28 09:11
            There have been studies on that. I will try to find some links. There has never been a female President either, and given that women are a slight majority, it will be interesting to see how long... more
            • Bias is inescapable. — Frashavan, Sat Jan 28 09:29
              Everyone prefers some people to others; that's deeply psychological and can't really be changed. Bias becomes discrimination when it is expressed in action, of course. But, is it discrimination when... more
              • Re: Bias is inescapable. — Mirage, Sat Jan 28 10:20
                I didn't vote for him, even though it made me sad not to be a part of such an historical moment. The reason I didn't was that he was already sending too many messages to the hard right in his... more
                • It's all part of the problem with... — Frashavan, Sat Jan 28 11:35
                  ... a "representative" system, and one of the reasons I'm an anarchist. at the end of the day, whom does the representative represent? I agree Obama was sending messages before he was elected -- but... more
                  • You can be sure the moneyed supporters of the Republicans... — Kasey, Sun Jan 29 05:55
                    are doing everything they can afford, to undermine the good, humanitarian programmes Obama is trying to implement....regardless of the short term national consequences. Regards, Kasey
                    • Re: You can be sure the moneyed supporters of the Republicans... — Mirage, Sun Jan 29 07:12
                      • Any private system has to make a profit... — Kasey, Mon Jan 30 02:25
                        a national government run one might work better if the ALL health professionals did't try to rip off the system as they already do in the PHS. REGARDS, Kasey
                      • I'm not sure he wants to — Frashavan, Sun Jan 29 08:22
                        Obama raised a huge war chest, based on the donations of individuals, not corporations. That should have freed him from dependency on the moneyed interests, but seems to have had no visible impact.... more
                        • That's the breaks — MN_Morgan, Mon Jan 30 12:34
                          I have been jaded since I started voting. If it looks like it's too good to be true, it probably is. I do see an improvement in spite of all the crap, but I doubt anyone can fix this system. Even the ... more
                          • Great power amplifies the wrong it is possible to do — Frashavan, Mon Jan 30 17:41
                            ... but, from what I can see, it doesn't make it any easier to do good. I consider that one of the paradoxes of power, actually.
                            • Not sure I agree — Mirage, Mon Jan 30 22:13
                              I think despite having been pretty much a robber baron, Bill Gates has done some real good with his foundation. Yes, I imagine from the timing of it, that Gates probably did it initially to try to... more
      • Re: Good question — Mirage, Sat Jan 28 00:33
        I remember a thread about atheists not really congregating and we were all trying to figure out why. One of the things mentioned was that atheists don't necessarily share common beliefs really. A... more
        • Excellent post! — Baruch, Mon Feb 20 11:09
          Music lifts me too. And secular Jews are an official group, Humanist Judaism, though I find secular ethno-centrism to be a bit sad. Shalom
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