Obamacare flies

[Warrior of the Light]

Those are exactly the details I'm talking about and I agree they should be dealt with, hard and improbable as it sounds.

You mentioned old people but what if a 11 year old boy gets a brain cancer and his parents only have a minimal income, why does he deserve any less care than a rich person's kid?

[rockouthippie]

I don't know how this law affects that incidence. I do know it chops the medicare budget some. If you are on medicare, your odds might be better now than in 2015.

What about 71 year old Dick Cheney. Does he get a million dollar heart?

I agree they should be dealt with

First! Otherwise it's just pouring perfume on a pig. You start with tort reform and go from there.

[watadoo]

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/the-strip.html#1

[rockouthippie]

We agree. I find very little contrast between Romneycare and Obamacare. I'm not a big fan of either of these guys. They both seem like a couple stuffed suits. Out of touch college professor or out of touch business shark. Both multi-millionaires. Both with a big interest in maintaining the status quo. I'm not finding anyone I know represented, even though with partisanship, they've convinced themselves they are.

At least Romney doesn't try to pretend he's not a stuffed suit. The first black President. Some days he and Michelle acted like they grew up in Harlem and not in upper middle class, ivy league educated.... Little Barry was playing B-ball in Hawaii, not slugging it out with gang members.

Dreams of the Father I met once. I was smoking weed and playing hoop in Hawaii trying to figure out how to get a chip on my shoulder. God Damn America!

Obama has written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind." What he was is a spoiled middle class kid feeling sorry for himself. Join the club. You could write something like that when you were 15, but you'd grow up.

OMG! I'm black! Gimme a toke!

If I had a son, he'd have Alfred E. Newman ears and be nowhere near Florida.

He'd be down at Sidwell School for the Washington elite with Sasha and Melika:

http://www.sidwell.edu/

With a tuition of $40K a year. For grade school. Lunch included. Sushi on Pearl Harbor day:

http://wusa9.com/news/article/178399/283/Presidents-Kids-Schools-Menu-For-Pearl-Harbor-Day

[rockouthippie]

Biden at least came clean after Obama mentioned his "blue collar roots" and admits lying about having an uncle that was a coal miner.

"My dad never worked in a Food Fair," "My dad never wore a blue collar, although Barack makes me sound like I just climbed out of a mine in Scranton Pennsylvania carrying a lunch bucket. No one in my family worked in a factory."

"The truth of the matter is, I got myself in trouble." "Hell, I might be President now if it weren't for the fact that I said I had an uncle who was a coal miner. Turned out I didn't have anybody in the coal mines. I tried that crap, you know. It didn't work!"

Biden is the son of a middle class car salesman and never worked a day in his life. His dad had enough money to send him to Catholic school and he went to college at Syracuse. He married well, meeting his wife while taking spring break in the Bahamas. His wife and one year old daughter were killed in a car accident in 1972. He ended up a single father, and by all accounts was serious about it. He became a Senator at 30, shortly before his wife died.

The truth about Biden isn't awful. By all accounts, he's a decent guy. Started out his law career as a public defender.

...but you sure as hell can't paint him as a liberal victim..... He's a suit, and when he got caught, he even admitted it.

[Aminifu]

I believe all national politicians are 'out of touch' with most Americans. They go by what the money, polls, and trusted friends tell them. In other words, they go by their life experiences just like the rest of us do. Thing is, most of our experiences are quite different.

Experience is the best teacher, but it should not be an absolute requirement to appreciate the condition of people with a higher or lower social-economic outlook and circumstance. White middle class is in no way equivalent to black middle class; high, middle, and low. I know from direct personal experience.

All of Harlem is not ghetto, just like all of Scranton is not coal mine. Take some virtual tours, if you can't travel for real. Learn something of the history of the places, not just how they are now. You may be shocked at the conditions of the neighborhoods on 3 sides (4th side is a mile or so from the lake) and a few blocks (less than a mile) from Obama's house in Chicago.

I drank alcohol as a teenager to have fun, I knew who I was. I was introduced to marijuana and cocaine in college and used them for a while as a young adult, also to have fun. Think a little deeper about Obama and other multiracial kids. Around his mother and his mother's parents and friends of that family he is treated (and taught to react) one way. Around others who react to him based on what he looks like (not how he sounds or carries himself), he is treated (and taught to react) a totally opposite way. I'm so glad I didn't have those kinds of identity issues along with the 'normal generic' ones growing up.

Networking and knowledge go hand in hand. Who you know will get you an opportunity. Bulls**t will keep you there for a while, but it takes real knowledge to take full advantage of the opportunity. So every parent, worthy of the name, seeks the best education they can provide for their kids. Not just elite in terms of the parents of the kids going to the school (good to start networking early), but also in the quality of the education. Nothing against good public schools, but they can't apply the resources per student a good private school can. And no matter the school, its up to the student to learn something.

So everyone should and does have an opinion on Obama, Romney, Biden, etc. I just hope they form it based on the facts for each person, what that person has done and what each has consistently stood for. Not on what they want them to be or some other unrealistic expectation. Don't be content with just the facts you want to hear, but also search out those facts you don't want to hear. Too often we go by a gut reaction from limited info and/or what we hear somebody we trust say and then we are 'surprised' by the result. My teachers always told me to do my own homework.

[rockouthippie]

White middle class is in no way equivalent to black middle class; high, middle, and low. I know from direct personal experience.

Bullshit. Your experience in the US is largely based on green. Obama led a charmed life, but alas he's black so it doesn't count?

Obama is obviously a victim of Hawaiian Jim Crow laws and the local Honolulu KKK chapter. They come along and if you're black, they put flowers around your neck and make you wear a flower shirt! I'm sure the cross burnings at Harvard were insufferable.

OMG!

I'm 50, like the President, so I recognize a 1976 teenage, west coast, middle class, goofy fucker when I see one because I was one. Our hair was flammable. I know from direct personal experience.

Really, by the time Barack and I came around, there really wasn't a hell of a lot left to protest. We weren't going to Vietnam. We couldn't even get drafted. All that Jim Crow stuff in the South was gone.

If you had a problem in 1976 or you have one now, it's not color, it's poverty. It's effects are color blind. If you are poor, you have the same story as any other poor person in this country. Color quit mattering 50 years ago.

If you had the bucks and the grades, you could grow up in Hawaii, go to Harvard, meet a beautiful woman, have 2 beautiful daughters, be an ivy league law professor, become President of the United States and still have time to evolve on the subject of gay marriage.

But he's black... so fuck..

[Aminifu]

I'm black (funny, I'm still not completely comfortable with that term. I was a teenager when it came into wide spread use), you're white (and seem to know everything), ... so fuck

I'm 61, born in Baltimore, MD. Dad from N. Carolina, he bought a row house via the GI bill, drove a taxi until he died (heart attack while in a hospital, it happens). Mom from S. Carolina, worked for AT&T, died because her employer provided health insurance refused to cover a brain operation she needed for an aneurysm. She had paid premiums for over 25 years and nothing in her documentation listed this exception. She ran out of time before the family could secure alternate financing (that happens too, it was years ago but I'm still angry about it).

Experienced Jim Crow laws in the south, got slapped around when 6 for trying to use a water cooler instead of a spigot. Just 1 of several things I had to live with down there to stay alive. Lived through some issues in Baltimore too (in the fifties), like buying food but not allowed to sit down and eat it where it was bought.

Then the sixties. Kennedy gave everyone I knew hope, then he and his brother were killed. I listened to the "I Have a Dream" speech in person. Experienced the riots in Baltimore when ML King was killed. Had great grades but poor SAT scores, 'given' a full 4 year scholarship to MIT in '69 anyway. Lucked into that whole 'talented 10th' thing. Watched the moon landing while on campus, went to Woodstock with some new found friends. Life was great for me. During that 4 years I got to travel all over the country and a little outside of it. Met all kinds of people, had good experiences and bad. From your pov and mine, I was 'charmed'.

Started college with a student deferment. Next year the lottery was started and I lucked out, again. Plenty guys I grew up with went to Nam, some even volunteered. Most did not come back. 2 who did tried to suicide, 1 succeeded.

In the seventies everyone took a much needed brake from the turmoil (not just race related) of the previous 2 decades, but there was Watergate and a few other things. Then the Arabs got hip to the fact that they had been undercharging for their oil and started overcharging. They also came to realize that at bottom, American foreign policy was no difference than Russian foreign policy. It seemed to be: With you only as long as you're useful, then screw you. US standing in the world started slipping. You have meaningful experience from here on, maybe a little sooner. I lived the fifties and sixties, and was forced to 'grow up' quickly.

Color quit mattering 50 years ago, for you maybe. Money (too little or too much), class, and race are still major problems in America from my pov. Back when I was growing up, race and class issues were more out in the open. TBH, I prefer it that way. You would better known who the 'decent' people are and who to be extra careful with. Poor, undereducated, and so called 'low class' whites felt they were better than any black person, some still do. Politics aside, well meaning whites tried to help but many had no clue, some still don't. I fault no one but myself for my current economic situation, but with my education and work experiences I can't help feeling I would be in a better situation if I was white (but I'm glad I'm not).

Obama had it better than many in his situation, but a charmed life, I think not. Lucky as hell and he took full advantage of what networking brought his way. But what do I know, you're white and know better_______________NOT.

Anyway it's not about Obama or race. The battle for universal health care must be fought on more than 1 front. Tort reform, sure, but the whole justice system could use some reform. Only computer technology has advanced further than medical science in the last 30 years, but doctors are not 'gods'. They still 'practice' medicine and sometimes no better than in 1912 (e.g. your back pain treatment). There are plenty of real mal-practice cases. There are plenty of bad drugs released on us. When I listen to the commercials, the potential side effects sound worst than the ailment the drug is supposed to cure. The medical insurance and drug companies need to be allowed to use a different business model, where profit is not the be all and end all. Why do these companies profits need to increase way beyond 'need' from year to year, for the businesses to be considered successful?

[rockouthippie]

I'm 61, born in Baltimore, MD. Dad from N. Carolina, he bought a row house via the GI bill, drove a taxi until he died (heart attack while in a hospital, it happens). Mom from S. Carolina, worked for AT&T, died because her employer provided health insurance refused to cover a brain operation she needed for an aneurysm. She had paid premiums for over 25 years and nothing in her documentation listed this exception. She ran out of time before the family could secure alternate financing (that happens too, it was years ago but I'm still angry about it).

You could be white and tell an identical story. Mine isn't much different other than our 11 year age difference. You say racial inequality. I say life. At least you got some college money out of it, I didn't get shit and I had good grades.

You lived in the South during and before the civil rights wars. But that isn't Obama smoking a blunt in Hawaii ten years later.

In the seventies everyone took a much needed break

And why didn't we stay there? Vietnam ended. Johnson sent the FBI to bust up the clan.

But Obama and I? We're too young to know shit about that. Obama and I never saw a whites only drinking fountain. I sat in the back of the bus. ???

There are plenty of real mal-practice cases

The reason there is no tort reform has nothing to do with that. Malpractice attorneys are to Democrats what Big Oil is to Republicans.

The public good has zero weight in this discussion, just like it did in the ACA. We said health care reform and the government said payday for lobbyists. We say tort reform, the government says payday for lawyers.

You might say.... Gee.. I made a pretty good life for myself. Reverend Al and Oprah will be along, with hand extended for money, to tell you "Whitey's out to get you! You should be out singing God Damn America with Reverend Wright and Ferrikam!".

Oh brother. It even works when you end up President and never had a real job in your life. Perhaps feeling hypocritical, the President even had to paint Biden as white trash that "stepped out of a coal mine with a lunch box".

You and I have more in common than you and Obama. The call it stolen honor when you pretend you're a veteran. What do they call it when you're black and cry foul when you're upper middle class, college bound and living in Hawaii? The only cracker Obama ever ran into had cheese on it. Oprah never met one she didn't eat.

1975 is not 1965, and Alabama is not Hawaii.

Obama even talks about the "Hawaii's Spiritual Tolerance". Finding too much tolerance, I guess he had to leave and read some Bill Ayers to find some outrage.

What's really weird about Obama is that he goes into his impersonation of Martin Luther King while being completely establishment. Compared to Obama, George Bush is a hippie.

Change! What do you lobbyists think? I can evolve my thinking. I can think of no one better to handle health care than my good friend Max Baucus?

..but I born in a log cabin in Indonesia... killing clan members with my bookbag..or was that when I was smoking a log in Indonesia and talking about eating FiFi...

[Aminifu]

You could be white and tell an identical story. Mine isn't much different other than our 11 year age difference. You say racial inequality. I say life.

I said nothing about racial inequality. The problem I see is institutional racism. One on one, most people can get along. It's only went we group up, cliche up, gang up and rely on stereotypes that trouble starts. People say its not me personally and that's generally true. Things are way better than they were on the surface, but racism is still ingrained in too many of the institutions that control or guide our ways of life for Whites, Blacks and every other race in this country. America is not a melting pot, its more like a salad bowl. Some stuff works well in a salad and some doesn't. People attitudes are slow to change, maybe in another 200 years we will really learn to 'all get along'.

At least you got some college money out of it, I didn't get shit and I had good grades.

As for my scholarship. Right place, right time. If it wasn't for King's murder and the riots, I don't think I would have gotten it. Administrators at MIT said that played a big part in the decision to 'relax' admission standards that year. My class included the single largest group of Blacks admitted at one time, before or since. Mistakes in judgements were made, some of us should not have been admitted. There was some serious trouble and lessons were learned.

And why didn't we stay there? Vietnam ended. Johnson sent the FBI to bust up the clan.

The smart ones just when underground or changed their tactics. There are still plenty of dangerous radical groups of every race.

You might say.... Gee.. I made a pretty good life for myself. Reverend Al and Oprah will be along, with hand extended for money, to tell you "Whitey's out to get you! You should be out singing God Damn America with Reverend Wright and Ferrikam!".

My parents taught me to search out truth and think for myself. I've never been much of a follower on blind faith. The thing is with all those people you listed, there are nuggets of truth mixed in with their rhetoric. But, I don't like Oprah either. I've been to Rev Wright's church and listened to his 'sermons'. Taken in context, a lot of what he says makes perfect sense. For a people considered sub-human for hundreds of years and with what we have accomplished anyway for America and the world, I understand his angry.

You and I have more in common than you and Obama.

I can understand and even agree with many of your points. The ACA is another big change for America, time will tell if it is for good or ill.

Change! What do you lobbyists think? I can evolve my thinking. I can think of no one better to handle health care than my good friend Max Baucus?

Good politicians have always and will always mix truth with lies to further their agendas. The point is to win by any means necessary. The end justifies the means. When the end is for the so called 'greater good', some people benefit. The group that benefits just needs to be larger and more inclusive, imo. When the end is for selfish greed, nobody else benefits. With all his faults, I don't think Obama is selfish or greedy.

[rockouthippie]

The problem I see is institutional racism.

The problem I see is that institutional racism hasn't existed for 50 years, not since Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights act. Nixon is the one that put in affirmative action in the 70's. That still exists. So you get a bonus for being black. Does that count?

If it wasn't for King's murder and the riots, I don't think I would have gotten it.

If it weren't for Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon... I'm pretty sure Dr. King wouldn't have approved of affirmative action. I know Malcolm X wouldn't have.

For a people considered sub-human for hundreds of years

Everybody has ancestors who people treated as sub human. Join the human race. I'm part Polish. What the Russians didn't kill, the Nazi's finished off. Meanwhile, here in America, people worked themselves to death in Chicago factories. Likely standing next to him at work was a black guy.

Your African American story is more of an American story than it is black.

I've been to Rev Wright's church and listened to his 'sermons'. Taken in context, a lot of what he says makes perfect sense.

The same could be said of Hitler. Wright is an angry man who is out of time and out of touch.

You think all the civil rights hoopla got black their rights. I think it worked against the issue. The real reason is that most people in the country liked black people. What's not to like? Slavery ended 500 years ago in Poland. It ended 100 years earlier in UK than it did here. All without Dr. King.

My hero and a lesson. Rosa Parks. Sat down to have her lunch like anyone else would. What was really cool, and shows how peoples mindset was changing. No one did anything about it.

If African Americans had to go to war for their rights, they would have lost. Winning was because most people wanted you to win.

My dad was about 20 years older than you. He'd call a black man "Sir". Even the farm hick from nowhere knew he was looking at a fellow human being. You had contemporary cops who wouldn't arrest Rosa Parks. You had nobody yelling that they should. People let Martin Luther King talk and they didn't have to.

The Clan? Glad to see them scurrying for a rat hole.

[Aminifu]

The problem I see is that institutional racism hasn't existed for 50 years, not since Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights act. Nixon is the one that put in affirmative action in the 70's. That still exists. So you get a bonus for being black. Does that count?

Like I said before, some people have no clue. Do you really think simply passing a law changes anything that people in general don't want changed? Affirmative action is a flawed attempt to allow a race of people in the US to overcome centuries of discrimination, reparations would be better, imo. Quotas are being fought in courts every day. Set asides are being stolen by fake companies every day. Some cases are being won and fakes exposed, after years of court battles and tremendous cost. Too bad some of those who started these cases (like Black farmers vs USDA) have died waiting for their justice. There are plenty of places big and small were nothing much has changed, except on the surface. But, there are also places were change in attitude is taking root, which gives me hope.

Everybody has ancestors who people treated as sub human. Join the human race. I'm part Polish. What the Russians didn't kill, the Nazi's finished off. Meanwhile, here in America, people worked themselves to death in Chicago factories. Likely standing next to him at work was a black guy.

Your African American story is more of an American story than it is black.

You're damned right, it is an American story. No where else in the world was slavery practiced like it was in what became the good ol' USA. I'm not talking about a few years of man's inhumanity to man. As to the form it (slavery of blacks) took here, genocide may have been better. But talk to the American Indians about that.

As if factory work conditions can even compare, even though they stem from the same tree of inhumanity.

Every race of people used slavery at some point, some still do. But I repeat, nowhere was it like what happened here. I'm talking about from the time of the first landings until the American Civil War (and some years after that). Educate yourself, but then again what would be the point. That happened a long time ago and has nothing to do with now, right? Of course!

My hero and a lesson. Rosa Parks. Sat down to have her lunch like anyone else would. What was really cool, and shows how peoples mindset was changing. No one did anything about it.

I don't understand your Rosa Parks reference to lunch. She was simply too tired one day to give up a seat on a bus to a white man. She was arrested and taken to jail, and you're right about 1 thing___no one did anything about it (that day). She, like many who become historical figures, had no idea what was going to happen because of her actions that day.

People are herd creatures and most prefer to follow or trample those in front. The few who are leaders step up and lead when allowed. History/time tells us whether they were good or bad leaders based on the winners and losers. One thing is clear, they all are needed (Hitler, King, and anyone else you care to mention) to set a direction and if anything changes, then they are judged to be right on time. If nothing much changed, then they were deemed too early or too late.

Things are seldom all one way. Hitler did some great things for Germany at the time in the beginning. He also had some insane ideas that brought everything to ashes in the end. American institutions have shown themselves capable of great evil. American people have shown themselves capable of great good. I wonder which will win out in the end.

[rockouthippie]

OK, So I'll agree black people have some special misery I don't understand.

What will make you happy? What can I possibly do for ya? You vote. You can't be discriminated against, legally anyway. You get free money for college that I don't get, even if I have better grades. You'll get a job that would be mine even if I'm more qualified. I'm fine with that.

No where else in the world was slavery practiced like it was in what became the good ol' USA.

But not you or anyone you ever knew was a slave. Your great, great, great, great grandfather might have been a slave. Who knows who my great grandfathers are or where life buried them? Like just about every other American you see today, they were running away from something circa 1900... usually starvation..

We didn't get cholera, scarlet fever, polio, TB, or rickets. We didn't starve. We aren't dead at 50. If we died, it would have been our wives that did it.

God damn what?

You went to college. I went to college. Obama went to college.

That's about it. Pretty boring. Life sucks and then you die. We're Americans. Wanna beer?

[Aminifu]

All I'm saying is current conditions have historical reasons. Some ingrained stuff has been allowed to fester for far too long. Penalizing the more qualified person is one of the things I don't like about affirmative action. Its a poor solution to a tough problem and its not leveling the 'playing field' fast enough.

You suggest health care reform start with tort reform. I'm saying start were you can and bring other stuff in when you can. The ACA has finally made a significant start, imo. You think it will make things worse, I don't agree. Time will tell. I'm biased, my mom might have lived longer if some of the things in the ACA had been in place then.

Obama is one person. He can suggest stuff, but Congress passes the laws and the judicial system rules on infractions. He's like a football quarterback, too much credit when the team wins and too much blame when the team loses.

Congress now does not do its job. They are too content to let others write the laws and they just rubber stamp them. Like the crazy statement Nancy P made, "Pass the law to find out what's in it". What was she really trying to say or did she mean that literally?

For the pass 30 years, everyone seems more interested in exploiting 'loopholes' than in following the so called 'rules'. Maybe its always been that way and it took me passing 30 to start to really notice.

Two years in that full scholarship was changed to half grant and half loan. They claimed financial problems, but that's another story. Life is tough, but it is what you (as an individual) make it in America. That beer sounds good, but I think I'll have a scotch. Have a good day.

[rockouthippie]

Some ingrained stuff has been allowed to fester for far too long.

It was allowed to fester too long. Now it's history.

Two years in that full scholarship was changed to half grant and half loan

More than I got.

Obama's "cure", the ACA, perpetuates most of the reasons we need health care legislation in the first place. It doesn't insure everyone will have health care. About 30 million people won't. What it does insure is that we stay at the status quo.

It not only doesn't solve the problem, it makes sure we can't bargain with pharma, medical, or the insurance companies. It prevents tort reform. It prevents bargaining with medical and pharma over medicare cost containment. And, above all, it isn't paid for. It's way underfunded, so we just add that to the deficit.

It completely ignores the main problem. Medical care in the US costs too much. A lot too much. Most western countries don't spend what we spend ..today.. and cover everybody.

So Obama got all the "smart people" in a room and they said "Pay us. We're smart". Take a stab at the ACA... it largely reads like "How can we pay you? let us count the ways".