Originally Posted by playwrite

On the very remote chance that something has changed since I was away, do you care to back that up with some facts?

[cue the crickets]

Perhaps in my long absence, you forgot - I don't do magic pony land.

It's your freaking quote!!

"Who gets screwed (hint - see the poor in staes with Republican governors/legislations)"

Congratulations!!!

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Uh yeah, Morgan & Rockefeller, like all of the other robber barons, built their empires on favorable national banking tax rates & generous federal railroad subsidies.

There's a direct line from "government corruption" to "too big to fail." They are no strangers to using public policy and regulation to shut down competition and enrich their own industries.

Do you honestly think that private power will ignore the public purse ... or police power for that matter? Most wars we've fought in this country's history have been in support of business interests, because they could buy as many politicians as needed to get it done. Lowering taxes and eliminating regulatory authority doesn't eliminate rent seeking. To the contrary. It makes it legal and even acceptable. It also makes it cheap.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Uh yeah, Morgan & Rockefeller, like all of the other robber barons, built their empires on favorable national banking tax rates & generous federal railroad subsidies.

Correct, it is also interesting that these two individuals ended up supporting progressive politicians in the early twentieth century. Despite the rhetoric of the progressives I can't imagine Morgan and Rockefeller supporting an agenda that did not serve their interests. The same is true of big business today, why do they also support a big government agenda that is nominally opposed to them as their predecessors did?

As the graph in one of my previous posts shows, 5% of the population will need to have their 'insurance' changed to real insurance.

This has become the latest in the Right's front against Obamacare (I guess they're sensing the website will become a non-issue in a few weeks) with this woman in Florida having an order of magnitude increase in her premium becoming their poster child. Here's the scoop on that -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ance-premiums/

The Health-Care Trilemma: How Obamacare is changing insurance premiums

...A good example of the tradeoffs is the case of Dianne Barrette, a 56-year-old Florida woman who's been featured in the media because her current plan will cost 10 times more under Obamacare. As Erik Wemple discovered, her old plan was health insurance in name only. It didn't cover inpatient hospital care, it didn't cover ambulance services, and so forth. Under Obamacare, all plans have to cover those benefits. So Barrette's old plan was extremely affordable -- $56 a month -- because it covered basically nothing. Her new plan is much more expensive but also much more generous....

Basically, these are the people who want to drive a 30-year old 2-ton Oldsmobile down the road at night with bald tires, iffy brakes and no lights - not only putting themselves in danger but expecting the rest of us to pay for their healthcare (or, funeral cos at the morgue) at the emergency room when they eventually show up. And good luck to them finding their insurer when it comes the time to cover anything.

Now that is funny, but then the GOP congressional critters and their 'think tanks' can always out do anyone -

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...insurance-fare

...Our research finds that for many states, the insurance on health exchanges will cost more than existing insurance. This study illustrates that the general experience for individuals shopping on the exchange is that of increasing premiums from what was available to them prior to implementation of the exchanges. Many families and individuals will face this reality as they apply for coverage, and the implications of experiencing sticker shock are important to consider if enough people choose not to sign up for coverage for various reasons...

Well, their 'study' left out some stuff -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/one-...bamacare-study

One Big Problem With Heritage's New Obamacare Study

They didn't account for the financial help that the Affordable Care Act gives uninsured people to purchase insurance, one of the law's central provisions.

Under Obamacare, the sticker price for insurance isn't what most people are going to actually pay. The law offers tax credits, on a sliding scale, for people making between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level. According to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than half of uninsured Americans have an income within that range.

Another 38 percent fall below the poverty line. They are supposed to be eligible for Medicaid under the law, and millions in poverty will be covered that way. However, more than 20 Republican states -- with an assist from the U.S. Supreme Court -- have refused to expand Medicaid coverage to them. So people in those states are admittedly out of luck, but that wasn't the ACA's intention.

That leaves only 10 percent of uninsured Americans who make above 400 percent of the poverty level and, as the law was conceived, would be paying the premiums that Heritage highlights in its analysis....

Now, as the previous graphic shows, that 10% becomes 5% because half of that 'insurance' gets grandfathered in - you get to drive your Olds with the bald tires, iffy brakes and no lights for another year or so [You figure some of these folks will be given Darwin Awards during the year so there will be less transitions next year].

Now that's funny too, but what's really funny is the lack of memory by GOP critters. Here's some 2010 headlines -

Enzi demands do-over on healthcare grandfathering clause
By Julian Pecquet - 09/22/10 01:54 PM ET

You’re losing your plan
By Scott GottliebJune 14, 2010 | 4:00am

New Rules on Changes to Benefits
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: June 14, 2010

Obama touts healthcare law as new provisions take effect
The president visits with those who will immediately benefit as he continues to rebuff Republican attacks on the overhaul.
September 22, 2010|By Noam N. Levey, Tribune Washington Bureau

- each and every one of those headlines and more all refer to the fact that some people's premiums will be going up as they're shit-for-insurance plans get flushed down the toilet - boo-hoo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_1Pw1xm9U

Are these GOP critters, morons? Or do they just believe you are a moron?

Originally Posted by playwrite

I can see where facts would seem like bullets to someone like you.

You display all of the qualities of any good whore; Always reliable, always on the same street corner where your johns can easily find you.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

It's your freaking quote!!

"Who gets screwed (hint - see the poor in staes with Republican governors/legislations)"

Congratulations!!!

That's not a "bipartisan" screw, dude. That's pure GOP hatefulness against the poor.

Flip that switch on the back of your head and engage your brain.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I'm hoping it creates electoral unemployment, so the GOP-TP can enjoy all the benefits they've cut to the bone.

Two-thumbs up!

But ya know us bleeding hearts will still try to take care of 'em.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

You display all of the qualities of any good whore; Always reliable, always on the same street corner where your johns can easily find you.

You morons all do the same song-and-dance when you're hit by the facts.

Now dance for me sweetcakes -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwFc7Xn47RU

Originally Posted by playwrite

You morons all do the same song-and-dance when you're hit by the facts.

Now dance for me sweetcakes -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwFc7Xn47RU

Oh! I forgot your always warm, wide-open and inviting... Mouth.

Originally Posted by playwrite

As the graph in one of my previous posts shows, 5% of the population will need to have their 'insurance' changed to real insurance.

Do you ever stop with the nonsense you get from the industry press releases? I'm supposedly part of that 5%, but my new plan has LESS COVERAGE and higher costs in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO.

And you wonder why people get emotional?

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Do you ever stop with the nonsense you get from the industry press releases? I'm supposedly part of that 5%, but my new plan has LESS COVERAGE and higher costs in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO.

And you wonder why people get emotional?

Ah, dude, you live in the GOP hellhole formerly known as NC. We've been over this.

I guess the proof that the ACA is a giveaway to the insurance industry is in the pudding of the stock market.

ObamaCare Enriches Only The Health Insurance Giants and Their Shareholders

So far in 2013 the value of the S& P health insurance index has gained 43%. Thats more than double the gains made in the broad stock market index, the S & P 500. The shares of CIGNA are up 63%, Wellpoint 47% and United Healthcare 28%. And if you go back to the early 2010 passage of ObamaCare, you will find that Obama’s sellout of the public interest has allowed the public companies the ability to raise their premiums, especially on small business, dramatically multiply their profits and send the value of their common stocks up by 200%-300%. This is bloody scandalous and should be a cause for concern even as the Republican opponents of the bill threaten the close-down of the government.


We warned you back on December4, 2009 in my blog ” The Horrendous Truth About Health Care Reform” that the Obama White House was handing a “ free ride for the health insurance industry” that would allow premium hikes of 8%-10% a year by CIGNA, Humana HUM +0.05%, Aetna AET -1.67%,UnitedHealth Group UNH +1.7% and Wellpoint, and as well a $500 billion taxpayer subsidy, a half trillion dollars without any requirement that the health insurers had to spend the subsidy on medical care. Several US Senators including Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia spoke to me openly of the outrageous sellout being foisted on the nation’s uninsured citizens.


At the time I wrote, Goldman Sachs research operation estimated that the 5 giants would increase profits by 10% a year from 2010 to 2019, sending their shares up an average of 59%. In truth, the shares of CIGNA and some others are up a multiple of several times since the contest was resolved by a very tight vote in early 2010. One startling reason for this amazing performance was that Obama took off the table “proposals to significantly reduce health care costs” as the giveaway in getting the bill through, according to Ron Susskind’s best-selling book ,”Confidence Men,” which I wrote about in a blog on September 24, 2011. ( “Obama’s Incoherent Policy-Making”) Some 3 years later, UnitedHealthCare Group(UNH) was rewarded by being added to the elite list of the Dow 30 industrials.

More pudding:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertle...-shareholders/

"So much for the reforms embedded in the mis-labeled Affordable Care Act of 2010. It may not die a bloody demise this month, but it is certain to be reformed itself, let’s hope for the benefit of the 300 million, not just the millions of lucky shareholders who may have understood the ramification of ObamaCare, which was to multiply the profits of five giant insurance companies, just as the major bank oligopoly was rewarded by the federal bailouts and Fed monetary policy."..... Robert Lensner, Forbes staff

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Oh! I forgot your always warm, wide-open and inviting... Mouth.

Well that post defines you. Let me respond to it so it will be alway enshrined and readily referenced to enlighten future forum members of your somewhat limited capacity at discourse.

Originally Posted by Deb C

"So much for the reforms embedded in the mis-labeled Affordable Care Act of 2010. It may not die a bloody demise this month, but it is certain to be reformed itself, let’s hope for the benefit of the 300 million, not just the millions of lucky shareholders who may have understood the ramification of ObamaCare, which was to multiply the profits of five giant insurance companies, just as the major bank oligopoly was rewarded by the federal bailouts and Fed monetary policy."..... Robert Lensner, Forbes staff

And how many people did you sign up today (this week, past month, past year, next year, next decade) for single payer, Debs?

[cue the crickets]

Originally Posted by playwrite

Well that post defines you. Let me respond to it so it will be alway enshrined and readily referenced to enlighten future forum members of your somewhat limited capacity at discourse.

The forum members can already think of me whatever they will. It makes no difference in my life. Some will laugh and a precious few will be outraged.

Most (including many on your own spirit squad) of the posters on this forum have already managed to realize that you are a liar. Your use as a teaching tool pretty much ended at that point.

Originally Posted by playwrite

We've been over this.

That you're a liar who, confronted with his lies, prefers to double-down rather than man up and admit he got caught?

We sure have. Again and again and again and again and again and again...

Originally Posted by Copperfield

The forum members can already think of me whatever they will. It makes no difference in my life. Some will laugh and a precious few will be outraged.

Most (including many on your own spirit squad) of the posters on this forum have already managed to realize that you are a liar. Your use as a teaching tool pretty much ended at that point.

Let's just be clear about how much a scumbag you are.

I posted this as a road map for how the ACA will turn out -



- and you respond by calling me a "whore" and posting a TV clip implying repetitive blow jobs.

Pretty much sums up the level of intellectual discourse a scumbag like you can handle. Like I said, it will be enshrined as a warning to anyone considering an attempt of discussing anything with you.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Let's just be clear about how much a scumbag you are.

I posted this as a road map for how the ACA will turn out -



- and you respond by calling me a "whore" and posting a TV clip implying repetitive blow jobs.

Pretty much sums up the level of intellectual discourse a scumbag like you can handle. Like I said, it will be enshrined as a warning to anyone considering an attempt of discussing anything with you.

Sure. Pretend like a few days' absence is enough for all your well-established history of lying and whoring to vanish into irrelevancy. Even though, you know, the archives are right there. And you're behaving in the exact same manner.

It's always helpful when you put your utter contempt for other people on such clear display, though. So thanks for that.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

That you're a liar who, confronted with his lies, prefers to double-down rather than man up and admit he got caught?

We sure have. Again and again and again and again and again and again...

I can't tell you how pleased I am to find that while I spent a couple weeks in the South of France, you remained staring in the mirror and calling yourself Playwrite and a liar! Good to see the entertainment value is still here!

Let's refresh. This post is as good as any to start, going backwards or forwards -

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...808#post484808

I asked you to lay out your belief system and how it differs with the typical Randian slug. I did yeoman's work trying to translate your verbose horseshit into something that was understandable. It seemed you were trying the usual horseshit that property requires exclusion of one from the other and its not necessary for govt to discern that with its monopoly on sanctioned violence. Not only did I repeatedly ask you to clarify if that was your position but that if indeed it was, to point out where on this planet, currently or in history, such a thing actually exists or existed.

I also told you I had not a fricken clue what you were trying to say about 'person' and requested clarification.

When confronted by facts and logic (and that your verbose horseshit, well, actually does stink) Cooperfield resorts to homo erotica fantasies while you resort to turning into Gollum and telling Master that he is tricksey.

Maybe it's not F. Provence, but you guys sure are entertaining! Thanks! Two thumbs up!

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Sure. Pretend like a few days' absence is enough for all your well-established history of lying and whoring to vanish into irrelevancy. Even though, you know, the archives are right there. And you're behaving in the exact same manner.

It's always helpful when you put your utter contempt for other people on such clear display, though. So thanks for that.

You keep referring to this "well-established history" or "the archives" - care to point that out?

Or is this the file cabinet you keep in magic pony land?

You a funny 'man,' Mr. Gollum.

=======================================
By the way, we're still waiting for that video of you getting off 100+ rounds with a hand gun. Come on, you have to be out of the hospital by now, give it another shot (pun intended) - you know, you got that other leg. You're the last hope - apparently Glick is still in a coma from his 'accidental' self-inflicted head shot.

Originally Posted by playwrite

- and you respond by calling me a "whore" and posting a TV clip implying repetitive blow jobs.

You forgot the part of the TV clip that implied your addiction to meth is the cause of you delivering those repetitive blow jobs. That's an important part of the analogy and shouldn't be left out.

- as our own Justin/Cooper clowncar is this little fact that every House Republican has voted to shift the nearly 50 million people on Medicare to the ACA-like private health insurance exchanges!

Remember this every time you see some GOP a-hole telling us how much he or she hates the ACA exchanges. These dumbshit hypocrites actually voted to put 50 million more people on it! They actually LOVE Obamacare!

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/p...with-obamacare

Paul Ryan's Secret Love Affair with Obamacare
By Jon Perr

The Affordable Care Act, Republicans and their right-wing water carriers warn, is the worst thing to happen to America since slavery and the Fugitive Slave Act. But for Congressional Republicans in general and Paul Ryan in particular, Obamacare also happens to be the love that dare not speak its name. After all, Ryan's dangerous and unpopular voucher scheme to privatize Medicare not only depends on the success of the very kind of health insurance exchanges he now decries, but also requires the ACA to cover the 65 and 66 year-old beneficiaries he would drop from the program covering 49 million seniors. And as it turns out, the same Paul Ryan who would defund, delay or repeal Obamacare nevertheless wants to keep every penny in new revenue it generates in order to fund his massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy.

This week, Rep. Ryan called on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to resign over the troubled launch of the federal online health insurance exchange serving the 34 states who refused to build their own. But as it turns out, Ryan needs the exchange model to work almost as much as any Democrat. As Ezra Klein first explained almost three years ago, the privatization of Medicare contained in Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" blueprint and the GOP budget based on it requires it:

The current Medicare program is completely dissolved and replaced by a new Medicare program that "would provide a payment - based on what the average annual per-capita expenditure is in 2021 - to purchase health insurance." You'd get the health insurance from a "Medicare Exchange", and "health plans which choose to participate in the Medicare Exchange must agree to offer insurance to all Medicare beneficiaries, thereby preventing cherry picking and ensuring that Medicare's sickest and highest cost beneficiaries receive coverage."

Sound familiar?

Familiar, indeed. Alice Rivlin, who worked on Ryan's first version of the voucher, later confirmed to Klein that the idea was almost identical to the Affordable Care Act:

If Ryan-Rivlin will unleash ferocious innovation that holds costs down, then so too should the Affordable Care Act. So at the end of our conversation, I asked Rivlin, who supported PPACA, if I was missing something. She laughed. "I keep talking to Paul and trying to convince him of that," she said. "But even if he agreed with me, he couldn't say so."

Of course, Rep. Ryan also couldn't publicly say that his underfunded voucher scheme would inevitably lead to rationing as costs were dramatically shifted to seniors unable to pay them. Sadly for Ryan and the 95 percent of Congressional Republicans who voted for his budget, the Congressional Budget Office could.

By 2030, CBO concluded Ryan's plan would cost seniors an extra $6,500 a year on average, with beneficiaries on the hook for 68 percent of their health care expenses. While the2012 and 2013 versions of the Ryan plan (which would continue traditional government insurance as one "public option" for seniors buying a Medicare plan with their subsidy) would not be as painful, the same cost-shifting dynamic remained.

Especially, it turns out, for future 65 and 66 year olds. Ryan's budget calls for raising Medicare's age of eligibility to 67 to save money. But if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, then these older and generally sicker Americans would be left to fend for themselves in the private insurance marketplace where the cost of a policy would be astronomical. (That is, if they could even purchase one. After all, ending Obamacare means letting insurers once again discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.)

On the other hand, Ryan's 65 and 66 year olds dropped by Medicare could purchase private insurance with federal subsidies if Obamacare isn't repealed. But if that's the case, the GOP proposal to raise the eligibility age to 67 generates negligible savings, only $19 billion over 10 years in this week's latest CBO forecast.

Regardless, Republicans who want to repeal, delay, defund or otherwise damage Obamacare have to own up to one other glaring contradiction. They may hate what the ACA spends money on, but they love every dollar it raises from savings and new taxes.

In September, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) called Congressional Republicans to task for precisely that hoax:

[House Republicans] have to explain to the American people how they voted for a budget that includes all of the Medicare savings from ObamaCare, that includes the same level of revenue generated from ObamaCare and, in fact, would not even balance in 10 years, if not for the Affordable Care Act.

Van Hollen was actually giving the Republicans too much credit. Their budget, as we'll see below, doesn't balance in 10 years. But it does indeed count on all of the cost savings and new tax revenue that more than pay for the Affordable Care Act.

That's exactly what that 95 percent of House and Senate Republicans voted for when they blessed Paul Ryan's budget in 2011, 2012 and 2013. While repealing Obamacare, slashing Medicaid funding by a third and leaving roughly 38 million more people uninsured, the Ryan budget still runs up trillions in new red ink thanks to its massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy. Paul Ryan's blueprint does not, as Republicans claim, balance in 10 year because it does not identify a single tax break it will close to fill the gaping hole left by almost $5 trillion in tax cuts. And yet, the Ryan plan still assumes every single dollar in revenue generated to fund the Affordable Care Act. The $716 billion in savings from Medicare providers, the capital gains and Medicare payroll tax surcharges for households earning over $250,000 a year and other new revenue raisers are all still in there. As Ezra Klein explained "Paul Ryan's love-hate relationship with Obamacare" in March:

Every Ryan budget since the passage of Obamacare has assumed the repeal of Obamacare. Kinda. Ryan's version of repeal means getting rid of all the parts that spend money to give people health insurance but keeping the tax increases and the Medicare cuts that pays for that health insurance, as without those policies, it is very, very difficult for Ryan to hit his deficit-reduction targets.

Not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Obamacare, as the CBO has repeatedly projected, reduces the national debt over the next decade. Its revenue exceeds its spending by an estimated $109 billion over the next 10 years. But without the revenue-raising provisions from Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, Paul Ryan and his GOP would have to plug a $1 trillion hole in their budget.

That's why they hate the sin, but love the sinner's money.

GOP loves Obamacare enough to switch 50 million seniors from Medicare to it??!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Copperfield

You forgot the part of the TV clip that implied your addiction to meth is the cause of you delivering those repetitive blow jobs. That's an important part of the analogy and shouldn't be left out.

psss, a little secret - if you want to get out of the hole your in, first thing is to stop digging.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Remember this every time you see some GOP a-hole telling us how much he or she hates the ACA exchanges. These dumbshit hypocrites actually voted to put 50 million more people on it! They actually LOVE Obamacare!

GOP loves Obamacare enough to switch 50 million seniors from Medicare to it??!!!!!!

I'm really glad that you could return from your vacation abroad to defend this GOP initiative designed to enrich insurers & screw working poor Americans!

(Do you have any idea how much you resemble the very GOP figures you obsess over? Do you function at the level of self-awareness?)