I just had to share this picture. My brother-in-law took it while attending the Pride Parade up in Seattle. Obviously it’s a great representation of where Obama and Romney stand when it comes to marriage equality. But that’s not the only reason it sticks with you. There’s Obama, the mostly hopeful guy (I could get into some metaphor about making the future brighter for Americans of all colors but that might make you all choke). And then there’s Romney, who’ll close down your factory and make toys illegal like the Burger Meister Meister Burger, only he’ll do it with a smile on his face and better hair.
It’s been a good week. I’d say a good week for liberals but the fact is, this has been a good week for Americans. I know there are conservatives all over the land who are crying into their badly researched Bill O’Reilly books on Lincoln, but if they could bring themselves to get some information from just one other news source than Fox or Rush Limbaugh, then they might actually be kind of jazzed about the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act (and incidentally, if you only know it as “Obamacare,” it probably means you’ve been listening to slightly biased “news” people…).
Anyway, here are just a few of the cool things we’re getting:
• Insurance companies don’t get to charge women higher premiums than men. Fifty percent of us are women. How can at least half of us not be psyched about this?
• Insurance companies can’t deny you coverage or charge you more because you have a pre-existing condition. They also can’t dump you if you get sick. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have at least one thing wrong with them. Sad to say, my husband is working at his current job because there’s a snowball’s chance in Hades that we’ll ever be able to buy insurance on our own ever again because I’m a train wreck.
Incidentally, it’s a government job, and the insurance kicks ass.
• If you’re a family of four that makes $92,000 or less, you’ll get a subsidy to buy insurance. Let me say that again. $92,000 a year or less qualifies you. If you make more than $92,000 a year, then be happy that you make that much and suck it up. We all need to remember that health care is expensive. It isn’t going to drop from the sky for free (I mean, unless you’re a Christian Scientist).
Here’s a nifty little chart that’ll show you how much you get to save.
• Young adults can stay on their parents’ plans until they’re 26. Remember what you were doing when you were in your early 20’s? I do, and it wasn’t getting a job with health insurance.
• Seniors will no longer get screwed over by the “donut hole” in Medicare Part D that doesn’t pay for drugs. If you think this isn’t a problem, go chat up some old guy who has to make the decision to either pay for Lipitor or an economy-sized box of oatmeal.
These are just a few of the changes that have and will go into effect because of that evil President Obama and his conniving Democrats. In all seriousness, the transition into this isn’t going to be pretty. And truth be told, this plan doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to fix the problems we have. For instance, there’s the issue of hospitals being corporatized like this one where I live (from what I hear, these guys are like what the Death Star was to Alderaan).
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| From RGJ.com |
But guess what? Right now, the Affordable Care Act is all we’ve got. NOBODY in the House and Senate is budging, so we ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Incidentally, I started writing this post because a conservative friend of mine got kind of miffed on Facebook because people (me) were laughing about right-wing reactions to the Supreme Court decision. She wanted to know why anyone would laugh at or bag on any party. And she told us to get the facts. Hopefully I’ve dealt with the facts part. As for the laughing and bagging, let me say this:
I have friends who are Republicans. They’re smart, reasonable people who are trying to get their party back from the extremists who’ve taken over. But when I hear people saying they want to move to Canada — which not only has socialized medicine but socialized “a whole lot of other stuff” — to escape the horrors of our country, well, how do you let that go.
I’m afraid moving to Canada is a liberal overreaction. Conservatives don’t get to have that one. Conservatives only get “seceding from the union” or “taking the place back by force with the gun that I like more than my wife and that they’ll have to pry from my cold, dead hands.” Because the fact is, there are no “good” countries to move to that don’t have socialized medicine. Sweden, The Netherlands, Australia — they all take care of their people. So I’m afraid those of you who so desperately want us to remain the only first world country without universal healthcare may have just found yourselves between a rock and a hard place.
But you might want to check into Somalia. I hear they have a very decentralized government. And they’ll even let you be a pirate.
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.
I was shocked by "friends" who posted on their facebook accounts: If you support this, delete me as a friend. Very disappointing. I don't care what you call it, I'm able to keep my 20-something year old daughter insured for now, so I'm in favor. I don't need to fight with anybody about it and I don't think it's a reason to end a friendship. Get a grip people.
I just wish people would actually look at what the ACA is going to give them instead of engaging in all this knee-jerk reaction stuff. It frustrates me.
Sadly Conservatives never rob the rich, so they would make lousy pirates 😉
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Nice take. You mention mostly what we all "get" from the ACA but I submit; who is going to pay for all of this? I want a Porche but cannot afford one….so my Maxima will have to do. I voted for Obama and am disappointed that the legacy he is leaving for us is a wake of high debt and socialized government. Everyone seems to act as if they are entitled even though they didn't earn anything. I think of liberals as takers and conservatives as givers. Our kids will be saddled with enormous debt on a sinking ship if Obama continues. I have never voted conservative but will in the coming election. It's our only chance for survival…..
Okay, THAT was a good one.
Thanks for reading JW. I'm guessing we have pretty different takes on healthcare in general, just based on your car analogy. I don't see it as a Porsche/Maxima situation. I think of it more in terms of everyone just having a car that runs in the first place. Right now, we have a lot of people walking and pushing their clunkers down the street.
As for paying for it. . . we already ARE paying for it. All the people who are uninsured are driving up the cost of healthcare every time they don't get preventative care, get really sick, and then use the emergency room (which is required to take care of them). There's huge savings in actually keeping people well.
I wish our country were brave enough to really take this on. As long as healthcare remains part of the normal marketplace, we'll never move forward. As interesting as it sounds to give people the chance to "shop" for their healthcare, when it comes down to it, you don't have a choice about buying something when you're sick. If you need a drug that will make you better, you have to have it. It's not a matter of saying, "It's okay, I can live without the Porsche."
And I don't know how you feel about it, but I'm fine with the tax on wealthier Americans to help pay for this. We need it. If it means a family has to shave a day off its fourth trip to Disneyland one year so that a hundred families can go to the doctor, then I'm okay with that. You talk about being on a sinking ship. A country IS sinking when it's filled with people who don't feel secure about their futures when it comes to their health and well-being. Or their finances because a health problem could crush them.
As for Obama spending us into the ground, leaving us with debt, liberals being takers, all that stuff, I don't know how much you've to checked out some of the stats on that. If you look back on the spending histories of Democratic and Republican presidents, Republicans actually outspend Democrats and leave the country in greater debt. I'm not sure why the reputation of Democrats leaving future generations with a mountain of debt persists when Republicans seem to be the ones who like burning up the credit card and not paying the bill.
Uhhh,,,,let's take a look at what the debt was when Obama took office. Bush and his rich friends left a mess of eight years' making; it's pretty hard to clean up in four years, especially with Republicans voting down every jobs bill.
Argh! Thank you for your post, as I learned some things! The ads I don't understand are the ones expressing concern over there being too many patients now—um, was it better when sick people just died in gutters?
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With Obama, we are lucky enough to not only get the ACA, we also get all this great stuff too: http://www.barackobama.com/lgbt/accomplishments.
Can I add published i-phone photographer to my CV now? — Tim
Yeah, this is really like trying to put a broken egg back in its shell.
Haha! That's classic. Help! We're being overrun by sick people!
That IS great stuff. I never knew 90% of that stuff! And yes, you can add that to your CV. I'm sure it'll help because the rest of your accomplishments haven't amounted to squat.