Let’s Tee Up Obamacare, ‘the Worst Bill Ever’

By Rick Ackerman Posted on October 7, 2013, 6:38 am EDT Last Updated October 8, 2013, 5:21 am EDT

If most Americans hate Obamacare already, wait till they see their healthcare bills in January. Big insurers, who strongly supported the Affordable Care Act Frankenstein they helped create, have notified customers that the biggest rate hikes ever are coming at the beginning of 2014. A friend of ours was informed just last week that the cost of his family plan will increase by 92 percent. He got off easy compared to your editor. My wife and kids are on a high-deductible plan offered by Humana whose cost will nearly triple at the beginning of the New Year if we don’t take steps to keep our existing plan. Turns out the Obamacare version they would substitute covers maternity care and a variety of other services that we neither need nor want.

The changes will be hitting tens of millions of Americans in just three months, threatening to implode a tortured economic recovery that was already the weakest on record. Premium increases will come on top of staggering price hikes effected since Chief Justice Roberts personally sanctioned an Affordable Care Act that the Wall Street Journal once editorialized as “the worst bill ever.” It should be obvious to all by now why Obama is unwilling to modify it. Clearly, it was never meant to improve the quality of health care in this country, but rather to redistribute income without imposing an explicit new tax on the middle class. “The president’s health-insurance plan forces those who hire, work and produce to pay full price for health care, while creating generous discounts for practically everyone else,” noted an op-ed piece by Casey Mulligan last week in The Wall Street Journal.

Next Wave of Obama Redistribution

“This second redistributionist wave of the Obama era will follow a first wave of tax hikes, additional unemployment benefits, food-stamp expansions, waived work requirements for welfare benefits, etc. These measures were supposed to be temporary, intended to help people cope with the recession. The recession officially ended in mid-2009, but many of the administration’s measures continue,” wrote Mulligan, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the author of The Redistribution Recession.

With the foregoing mind, the Question of the Week invites you to tee up Obamacare and whack it with everything you’ve got. Based on personal experience, anecdote, hearsay fact, or anything else that helps make the point, why do you think that the Affordable Care Act really and truly is the worst, most economically destructive piece of legislative crud ever rammed down our throats?

Jill October 13, 2013, 11:35 pm

BTW, the Affordable Care Act is great for the majority of small businesses. Faux news watchers probably think I am kidding here. No, it’s true. For those 2 or 3 people who frequent this site who are not allergic to facts, here is an article detailing why.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/10/14/131014ta_talk_surowiecki
- gary leibowitz October 14, 2013, 12:25 am
  
  I am so confused! I thought Obama and his cronies going back to FDR want to create CHAOS. To destroy our way of life. I got the destruction part but can’t seem to remember just why they wanted to do this. I am sure I read the article wrong. I guess to assign good intentions with bad policy isn’t good enough of a reason. Where are all the Social Security arguments? Surely it is a mess, complicated, costly, and over managed by government, not to mention broke. Why isn’t it attacked the same way? I guess this one missed the CHAOS radar.
  
  I just re-watched the movie Lincoln. The amount of illegal arm twisting and bribery to pass the 13th Amendment should be revisited. The conclusion is that we should repeal that amendment on grounds of extreme illegal impropriety. Who is with me?
Andrew Gutterman October 13, 2013, 2:17 pm

220+ years ago

Experiencing an economic crisis exacerbated by the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the common people of France became increasingly frustrated by the ineptitude of King Louis XVI and the continued decadence of the aristocracy.

Today, or in the near future:

Experiencing an economic crisis exacerbated by the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, the common people of the United States became increasingly frustrated by the ineptitude of Washington and the continued decadence of the 1%.

Anybody want to make an educated guess about how this will play out in the future?
- original Dave October 13, 2013, 7:03 pm
  
  You can see what will happen, after the 30 sec ad.
  
  http://www.hulu.com/watch/542163
  - Jill October 13, 2013, 11:21 pm
    
    Wow, somebody with a sense of humor on this site. Now that IS Original, Dave.
- Jill October 13, 2013, 11:31 pm
  
  Maybe with Democrats having greatly increasing popularity because they at least throw a bone to the 99% whereas Republicans have consistently and exclusively been the party of the 1% and the crony capitalist welfare queens for decades now. The current government shutdown shows just how many lunatics are in the Republican party, like Michele Bachmann and her belief that we are “close to the end of times” as in the Bible.
  
  Although I see clearly that Democrats are more truth based than Republicans, and saner, I am concerned because there seem to be almost no true conservatives, in the sense of working toward a balanced budget.
  
  Republicans only want to balance the budget when Democrats overspend. When they themselves overspend, suddenly deficits don’t matter. There is actually no party that gives more than lip service to the governement debt– except as a way to try to defund their opponents’ favorite programs, while keeping their own favorite pork programs. In the case of Republicans, e.g. they vote to keep buying planes for the military of a type that even the military says they do not want or need– just because crony capitalist welfare queen companies are political donors.
Rich October 11, 2013, 11:22 pm

Several follow-ups:

1) Believe it or Not Dept

The Washington Times
‏@WashTimes

20m

Calif. Gov. Brown vetoes bill banning semi-automatic rifles http://wtim.es/1eekwD8

2) Guv Brown also nullified NDAA Indefinite Detention

http://benswann.com/breaking-c…

Yes Jill, there are libertarian Democrats, especially when they reach 75 and want to do right for posterity

A college journalist friend of mine who ran for Congress figured out the reason for the 0Care Mess:

http://usnvrepcan.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-0care-here-now.html
- Jill October 13, 2013, 11:16 pm
  
  Thanks, Rich, for the info. I truly didn’t know there were Libertarian Democrats.
  
  As for the explanation for the “OCare mess”, that one seems to reach very far to create a conspiracy theory. It’s not as if most Republicans have acted respectfully or cooperatively with Obama in other ways but just dislike his health care program. Right Wing echo chambers like Faux News criticize just about every single thing the man says or does, constantly.
  
  And as for the “mess”created by a lot of people signing up– perhaps that is more of a success than a mess. If a company selling a product has so many visits to their web site that they can’t handle them at first, until they make the necessary adjustments, that is considered success. But when so many people want to sign up for the government’s ACA that the web sites have problems, for some reason, that is considered a failure.
  
  Of course, if you watch Faux News, every word and action by Obama during his entire life is said to be a failure and a mistake. So this should be no surprise.
Marc October 11, 2013, 7:16 pm

Rick’s post for James T. sounds about right to me. If insurance companies were to assess the true premium costs gleaned from actuarial tables, few people could probably get affordable insurance. But like James wrote, as did I in my initial post, for many people that is a reflection of the foods they eat and their lifestyle choices. Perhaps making them deal with the true market repercussions for those choices, i.e., higher health care costs, would incentivize them to change their habits. Again, I’d be open to a public option for those who suffer from congenital/genetic diseases or disorders but are otherwise in good health. I just don’t see why people who can’t be bothered to make good choices are entitled to health care on the public’s dime.

Benjamin, I think you hit on a very profound point: “Surprises always await us because there is a special dynamic to human nature.”

I completely agree with the sentiment you expressed following that statement. More and more people, including many that have heretofore been “moderates,” or waking up to the excessive and overreaching nature of our leviathan federal government. And while most of those people are limiting their displeasure to water cooler talk for now, we’ve seen the beginnings of more political engagement and protest (i.e., all of the grassroots Tea Party groups), and even fledgling calls for secession in Colorado, Texas, California, Maryland, and elsewhere. There is also a small but vocal presence on the internet of people itching to engage in a revolution. If the economic depression many of us expect does unfold, and does so with a speedy vengeance (rather than unfolding as some slow-motion train wreck over many years), who knows exactly what people will suddenly be ready to do in their frustration and panic? Things like secession and revolt are most certainly on the table.
- gary leibowitz October 11, 2013, 11:44 pm
  
  You forgot to do studies on young people and the movement to go healthy. Organic, grass feed, using exercise and vitamins, yoga, personal trainers. This is BIG here in the NYC area. Even the big food companies are getting in on the act, some with false misleading advertising just to capture these folks to spend on their product. Never one sided as most people want to believe. Is my data not true? I have not yet verified this, but I will. I am falling into the conspiracy trap by saying personal experience leads me to believe I am on to something.
  
  How would the dynamics work out if the young do live a healthier life? The actuarial formulas will change. Need for costly treatment of diseases stemming from smoking or obesity might be reduced greatly. medical advances, if anything like the last 30 years, will also reduce costs by preventative means. The recent environmental changes, whether man-made or natural, are playing a big role with the young. I graduated with a Geology degree in the early 70’s and environmental concerns were just getting started. Scientific studies just weren’t there. Today the young generation is moving in a big way towards going green.
  
  Why do I always hear one side of the problem? Why do we make up our minds on how to view a situation and only focus on self-fulfilling prophesies? I do love blind scientific test with cross checked validation that the premise was initiated without no predetermined intent. I do worry about the amount of corporate investments into these studies since by their very nature it taints the results.
  
  Having said all that, I do think costs will initially be out of control before we learn to “correct” the situation. I guess you can say I am talking out of both sides of my mouth. A debate with myself. Perhaps I have a split personality? Just want to try and present the other side since most here are cheerleaders for only one side.
  - original Dave October 12, 2013, 1:48 am
    
    “You forgot to do studies on young people and the movement to go healthy. Organic, grass feed, using exercise and vitamins, yoga, personal trainers. This is BIG here in the NYC area. ”
    
    LOL, yes it is BIG, only IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT! Have you seen the prices of grass fed beef at Fairway and Whole Foods? $18-25/lb is not uncommon for most cuts. Even the unhealthy wanting ice cream pay $8.19 for Edy’s and Breyer’s in Gristedes, a Manhattan chain owned by Shop Rite but w/o Shop Rite low prices or at Food Emporium owned by A&P/Pathmark. CVS has Edy’s for $3.50 this week, BTW. Have you not seen a surge in $1/slice pizzerias in NYC? Why is that, because happy days are here again? The one at 23rd and 7th Ave is excellent, BTW. Get the sausage slice if you’re not kosher.
    
    Truly health and socially conscious people are going raw, vegan and giving up beef for humane reasons. You want to live organic, nice if you can afford paying $7.99 for organic strawberries $6.99 for 6 oz organic raspberries and $5.99 for an organic pineapple. Plenty of raw food products by companies looking to cash in on the movement, $7.99 for raw kale chips you can make yourself much cheaper. While there are young folks with high paying jobs, who after paying their rent maybe have some mad money left to play with for personal trainers and yoga classes, that is less the norm. An Archstone 1 bedroom rental in Chelsea is $4200/month.
    
    Since you believe the hype you’re reading w/o doing much research, the organic food industry is being absorbed by Big Foodie co’s who have been slowly pushing to have organic standards lessened to include non-organic components. Whole Foods has been absorbing small regional health stores for years, now since they’re quite large, they cut out various smaller brands and push their own private label.
    
    Along with new entrepreneurial companies like essentiallivingfoods.com looking to cash in on the raw organic fair trade sustainable “health” movement with products like unpasteurized organic almonds from Italy at $26/lb and many expensive superfoods from Peru, the Amazon, Ecuador, etc. FYI, all almonds grown and sold in the USA MUST be pasteurized, either chemically or by steam. Most are chemically, in a 4 hour bath of propylene oxide, a known carcinogen. No labeling is required by the FDA. Thus “raw” almonds in the USA are not, they are dead with no living enzymes desired by raw foodies. Organic almonds must use steam but are nonetheless a dead food. I laugh when I tell the typical “healthy” conscious NYC-er I encounter in a store buying almond milk thinking they are eating “healthy” but really aren’t, that the non-organic almond milk they are drinking has concentrated trace carcinogens. Their reaction is usually WTF?? Of course, the industry claims there are NO chemical residues. How much research do you think they have done? Another conspiracy???
    
    Since you’re now learning psychology here, you can learn about the influence of marketing health trends on those young sheeple who are in need of a cause to join, to feel good, like they are making a difference, but in reality are clueless to the BIG $$$ forces behind much of it.
  - gary leibowitz October 12, 2013, 2:28 am
    
    Perhaps you missed this statement. “Even the big food companies are getting in on the act, some with false misleading advertising just to capture these folks to spend on their product.”
    
    Your argument is typical on this board. Trivialize the other side with such remarks as “Since you’re now learning psychology here, you can learn about the influence of marketing health trends on those young sheeple who are in need of a cause to join, to feel good, like they are making a difference, but in reality are clueless to the BIG $$$ forces behind much of it.”.
    
    Yes everything good turns bad. No health movement. People are too stupid to read labels or understand what they get. Priced only for the rich.
    
    Like air service was in the 60s? As it becomes mainstream take a wild guess what happens to prices?
    
    Does anyone here ever acknowledge anything is good in life? Anything? Why even go on in such a torturous world? Yet I am constantly called a shill because I present balanced or at least an unhinged arguments. No world implosion today, no toxic cloud, no immediate crash. If there is an after life I can see you all not miss a beat and complain till after the after life is over.
  - original Dave October 12, 2013, 4:03 am
    
    “Yes everything good turns bad. No health movement. People are too stupid to read labels or understand what they get. Priced only for the rich.”
    
    Seems you didn’t fully read to understand,
    
    “FYI, all almonds grown and sold in the USA MUST be pasteurized, either chemically or by steam. Most are chemically, in a 4 hour bath of propylene oxide, a known carcinogen. No labeling is required by the FDA. ”
    
    IQ has nothing to do with it, OUR gov’t is purposely withholding labeling information for anyone to make an informed decision, just like they do with rBGH milk and current and future unlabeled GMO products. The government seems to be expert on everything including food safety thus should not be questioned.
    
    While many here from other realms view you as an anomaly, I just see another stereotypical opinionated NYC-er who has no real interest in questioning their viewpoints, seriously exploring alternate ones and stepping out of their comfort zone.
    
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zMiJ3bVnxk4/UTfC3RyKz1I/AAAAAAAABi4/TxtuzGetB_Y/s1600/Cute-Chimpanzees.jpg
    
    “If there is an after life I can see you all not miss a beat and complain till after the after life is over.”
    
    Sounds like you don’t have strong faith, the after life is part of religious packages. If you’d like some more immediate”proof” before expiration, I can recommend a few psychics and mediums in Manhattan and Long Island you can go to. Theresa Caputo, the Long Island psychic on TV, has a 3 year wait list but these are just as good.
  - gary leibowitz October 12, 2013, 5:19 pm
    
    This is absolutely ridiculous. You jump from one topic to the next and I have to follow along?
    
    Monsanto is no friend of mine. Unfortunately genetic engineered products are already being used, and in fact have captured most of our vegetable intake. If they find definitive problems it would already to too late for this generation.
    
    As for the milk product you allude to there is the FDA and other environmental organizations that people like you would prefer be abandoned. Too much government intervention. Love it that people complain on both sides of the same argument. Perhaps YOU are not one that wants government to allow the free-market to take care of this? In regards to all the studies so far it is inconclusive. It does however increase a hormone that could increase the occurrence of certain cancers. Perhaps you missed the decision from the Ohio high court that stated labeling will be allowed. This was in 2010. It is “LEGAL” to label milk, even as Monsanto tried to ban such labeling. FDA is allowing it with some stupid disclaimer that there is no difference. Yes Big Business has a stranglehold on our government. My Point Exactly. I see no reason why milk nationwide can’t adapt the same standard. Why not go after all the Pharmaceutical Companies while you are at it. How about the food processing plants that taint our food?
    
    You just reinforced my views about Big Business and its undue influence on government. I would like stricter rules that all have to follow. But alas most on this board want less rules and regulations, less intrusion into our lives.
    
    If I was you we should be worried more about FRACKING. The more I read the less I like. It is already a BIG problem here in the United States, and getting bigger. Our drinking water is a big concern for me.
    
    Yes this liberal is an alarmist when it comes to business influence over governments role to do what’s best for its citizens. To spend time on some silly idea that Insuring most citizens is a costly and inefficient process, makes no sense. It might very well turn out that all these people complaining about Obamacare is correct. That will only hurt us economically. Look at the DESTRUCTIVE issues as opposed to constructive ones. Genetics, Fracking, Plastics, etc… Now these have important long term affects on health.
gary leibowitz October 11, 2013, 6:21 pm

Why Rick looks for the crash scenario here is a puzzle.
The original target of 1769 is going well. While insiders seem to be exiting in greater numbers, and companies are reporting disappointing numbers so far for this quarter, it is not a stretch to assume we can reach that high.

Latest on the shut down:

“In addition to ending the shutdown and increasing the debt limit, the proposal includes an easing of the across-the-board spending cuts that began taking effect a year ago, and replacing them with curbs in benefit programs that Obama himself has backed.

Among them is a plan to raise the cost of Medicare for better-off beneficiaries.”

What a radical idea that took years to accept. Rising premiums on better-off beneficiaries? Radical I say!
It took how long to come to this “compromise”?

I wish to thank all for contributing to my understanding of psychology, especially the studies that show a split between people needing to “see” proof as opposed to those that trust science. The argument I keep getting about 9/11 is that they “see” for themselves something that scientists can not dispel. The eye sees all! I wish I could have dragged RICK into this and explain in detail his switch. Clearly his close friend persuaded him where the eye failed.
- Craig October 11, 2013, 9:22 pm
  
  Gary you and Rick obviously have never watched any footage and you rely on what someone writes or tells you.
  
  I will use another metaphor again (I know these confuse you and Jill and is how we spun off into this endless rabbithole in the first place) but here it goes:
  
  You are telling use science tells us that gravity can cause a tree that is slightly damaged to fall to the ground. And we say look here are pictures and the tree didn’t fall to the ground it is in a small pile of woodchips and we also have video of the tree disintegrating into those little chips which is a completely different outcome then the science you quotes explains. Then you jump up and down and say the science proves you are right when the pile of woodchips is never explained only that trees can fall down…except in this case it’s a steel tree and no steel tree has ever fallen down except 3 did on one day.
- gary leibowitz October 11, 2013, 11:18 pm
  
  Looked and looked at the long version of the footages.
  Looked at the footage of the whole in the building and fires. looked at the footage of fireman sayings there is a bulge in the building and it looks like it will fall, some 1 to 2 hours before it did. Listened to the testimony of engineers explaining what happens with this type of structure when it’s support beams fail.
  
  Yet here we are dozens of back-and forth arguments and YOU haven’t actually gone thru the article and videos and testimony from the site I presented. I find that strange to dismiss such detailed work.
  
  Yes gravity can do strange things. It can even show a person in free fall on a plane! You should look up just how and why gravity works and explain to me just how different gravity can look depending on circumstance. temperature, speed, mass of an opposing object. Yet all this doesn’t matter if the basis for your argument is that You Know Science And Structural Dynamics better than an expert in the field. After all you know with your own eyes what to believe. Glad we no longer rely on eye witnesses to put people away without using SCIENCE to either back it up or discard their version. Imagine how many people on Death Row that got put their thru eye witnesses and got exonerated thru science.
  
  The worse part of this is that YOU have not used your eyes for viewing the event, but someone else’s revised and edited video. Is that all you have? Seeing is believing? You got me there! Wow, I am certain you proved to everyone here just how easy it is to fall into the conspiracy trap. thank you.
  
  Lets move on since I believe both of us has presented out case with nothing more to add.
  - Craig October 12, 2013, 12:47 am
    
    So gravity and fires caused 8 floors to disappear instantly. So gravity and fires cause the 39 floors above the 8 that just disappeared to freefall to the ground. Gravity and fires cause steel and concrete columns to be pulverized into dust. So gravity and and fires causes steel to have diagonal cuts across them. According to you gravity causes “crazy” things…who is the theorist now? would you bet your life on what your theory is on building 7? I have asked twice and got more circles and circles of crazy answers and excuses for building 7.
    You could lie and say yes espicially because it is all just a what if but at this point a yes answer would be disingenuous. You are a true liberal, congrats. Maybe Obama will give you a star after your physician talks to you about relieving the country and your family of the burden of taking care of you in your old age and taking the cyanide pill. When you swallow you will smile because it was for Obama.
    
    It’s good I wore you out (along with a few others 🙂 sorry Rick). But that is your lefty fools best and only tactic and how obamacare got in….just wear people down until they can’t take it anymore.
    
    Have a good weekend nail, the hammer is going to enjoy the weekend.
Rick Ackerman October 11, 2013, 4:14 pm

Posted in behalf of my good friend, James T:

It would be impossible for me to say that this is the worst bill ever. There are many competitors, including those that insulate Big Pharma from vaccine liability, or the NSA from who-knows-what. But, I have a novel take on the reason for the presence of Socialized Medicine now, rather than years ago.

Insurance Companies Can’t Market the Proper Premiums?

Just guessing, but if I were an actuary my main alarm for health coverage would be this: my delightful generation, fat and stupidly growing older, separated from wives and husbands, and ultimately needy in old age, is basically uninsurable. Almost all financial risks cannot be covered for the generation in excess of 55 years. There is obesity, which correlates with nearly everything unhealthy. There is age itself. Who needs a lecture on those hazards? There is the increased danger of orthopedic injury, of digestive problems, of blood pressure increases, of depression which is common enough in old age. There is the strong decline in fitness.

The list of normal risks for insurers is high. High risk, high premiums. And, I am only talking about NORMAL risks of an aged group. Add to that the problems of chronic ill health, helped along by poorly grown food, overeating, and a decline in dental competence, and you have this Actuarial nightmare. The people we might insure can’t afford us! But, we ‘have to’ sell them insurance, or it will be a public relations nightmare. What to do?

Enter the US Federal Free market promoting, Free World, Free Speech, Free Huey government. What happened when the railroads failed? Bailout. What happened when the banks, the car companies, the savings and loans, the defense department and all those failed business became unprofitable, or even more unpleasant: boring and nearly unmanageable? Right! The Big Gov took over. And, what happens when the fit, modern baby boomer or his first-born examines the actuarial report?

He runs his weekend marathon and flashes his million dollar smile at the Board meeting and says, pounding the table like his grandfathers: “Men, we are no longer in the insurance business! We are now a partner with the American People to guarantee that EVERYONE has insurance. In this massive partnership, we can siphon off our fair share. If not, we must leave health insurance now. We cannot profit in the coming twenty years, because the market cannot afford our product. But, if Uncle Sam can pay $85 billion ($85,000,000,000) a month – one trillion a year – to increase the money supply, Uncle Sam can certainly afford to cover every American with health insurance.

“Of course, our role will be to see to it that the details promote efficiency, that doctors don’t ‘waste’ time on patients, and that all the pharmaceuticals are available at prices reflecting, ahem – the TRUE cost of invention, certification, and distribution. These can be changed, and changed they will for the better.

“Now, how can we address the simple question of how the premiums will cover the actuarial uncoverable? Answer, they won’t. But, the other answer is that we will be sure to isolate these overly expensive lead weights on the system, and slowly, deftly craft a special system of universal sharing so that these unfortunate persons can have coverage. Of course, the coverage may have strict limits, and one option will be the Kevorkian option. We must keep that comment in here, please. The other option is the marathon option. As you know, I run marathons. And as you know, there is a part of a marathon where everyone, pro and amateur alike, hit something called the wall. This is where your carbohydrate supply has been used up and it takes the liver a moment – -which seems like a million years – to convert fat to glucose. Most if not all runners fail here.

“A claimant can, if he or she is able, justly and lawfully, insist on coverage which is uneconomical. But, he or she may well hit ‘the wall’ in our planned process. He will have dozens of debilitating and exhausting papers to sign, tests to take and so on, in order to obtain the continuation of the treatment. Brilliant? No, but typical of Bureaucratic agencies. We will get no blame, and those sickly persons can always pay us the PROPER premiums, if they have the funds.

“Finally, an actuary would also look at the shortage of ‘providers.’ This is an ugly reality but we intend to draw experts from around the world, just as the VA and the Bureau of Prisons does. These persons, working under a special immigration system, will gladly work for less to be here. Some may even be competent. All will be inexpensive and all will keep the normal MDs in check. The HMOs we have engineered have already pioneered a system of hiring MDs and controlling their time. And, the new MD with his $200,000 in student loans makes a perfect trainee.

” Do I, as a businessman, like Obamacare? Do I think it the worst bill ever? Yes and no. Our business as it stands today, would shrink in size, but our revenues would grow as would our profits. There is a great deal of profit in high premiums. Plus, the world financial markets are ripe for the infusion of capital we would harvest. Will this happen with Obamacare? Yes and no. Yes because our profits will be bigger than ever. No in that our capital formation will flatline until we see how it all works out in practice. Plus, you can be certain that we will be in line for NEW sources of Government sponsored capital and loans which we know how to properly put to work.”

I maintain that the whole thing only happened because the insurance industry wanted it, to hand off the whole population while it cherry picks on the side and while it opens up new funding opportunities inside the gov. And, finally, it will work like all American bureaus work: slowly, unaccountably, and eventually, with long lines. Private care and private insurance will be like gold but guess what? It will cost the insured a great deal. The public insurance scheme unfortunately will include serious privacy destructions, delays, idiocies, contradictions, and of course the people of the US are hardly angels themselves. They will figure out ways to game Obamacare. Look at the horrors of Florida medical care and all those costs!
- BKL October 11, 2013, 6:24 pm
  
  A pretty honest appraisal of the daunting task of insuring Americans.
  
  For many years, America has needed a crash course in proper nutrition. It is absolutely terrifying to see the food that they eat. It is so obviously disgusting, too; like trying to understand why junkies continue to mainline heroine.
- original Dave October 11, 2013, 8:50 pm
  
  “And as you know, there is a part of a marathon where everyone, pro and amateur alike, hit something called the wall. This is where your carbohydrate supply has been used up and it takes the liver a moment – -which seems like a million years – to convert fat to glucose. Most if not all runners fail here.”
  
  Not if they are on a ketogenic diet, like Atkins. You’re in a fat burning state since your liver has already fully depleted glycogen, the stored carb supply. Thus, you don’t carb load before a marathon, you eat steak and eggs.
  
  http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-athletic-performance
John Jay October 11, 2013, 6:54 am

Mario,

Every year as long as I can remember, Big Agriculture is threatening all the crops will “Rot in the Fields” this year because the Immigration Laws are “Too Strict.”
MSM runs this story constantly.

And every year the produce section at every supermarket is so overflowing with fruit and vegetables that there is a constant rotation of “Sales” to move the produce before it rots.

There has never been a “Labor Shortage” in this country. Look at the thousands of applicants every time even a few lowly McDonald’s jobs open up.
As I have said before, just look at In N Out Burgers in California, they have all young American kids working there. And every time I am in there, there are three or four young Americans interviewing to work there.
They have no trouble finding “Caucasians” who want to work.
Actually, there is such a shortage of “Caucasian” kids that some public school districts out here are fighting over them, to achieve their Government mandated race mix I imagine.

This country at its manufacturing zenith did just fine without millions of illegal alien workers.
One guy could support his family on his paycheck, and mom raised the kids.
Then LBJ unleashed Inflation and Big Brother and look at us now.
Talk about “Breaking Bad”!

The myth of the lazy American worker is just more Oligarch propaganda to justify endless millions of legal and illegal immigrants and H1B Visas.
When I was running a trucking fleet at my last job, I always had piles of applications from guys looking for work.
And we did not even pay that much for drivers.

Even now, with this country turning into a part-time job fest, the criminals in DC have the nerve to parrot the Oligarch Big Lie that, “American workers can’t cut it”, and “We have a Labor Shortage”.
And, of course, the MSM never calls them on those bold lies.
Of course!
- mario cavolo October 11, 2013, 1:19 pm
  
  JJ, Ben too,
  
  I appreciate your further thoughts on the subject. I think your points are right and I should retract my original meaning. Its certainly true that there are plenty of Americans willing, able and looking for any work they can get. My context on one point was the farm-oriented hard labor jobs not the city jobs like restaurants, truckers, etc. The second context I’m thinking about is that once middle class Americans have achieved that nicer level of lifestyle, they are more hesitant and less willing to go back to a lower level, hard labor lifestyle, compared to a person who has never enjoyed that level of lifestyle.
  
  Cheers, Mario
  - John Jay October 11, 2013, 3:52 pm
    
    Mario,
    
    Whether or not you and I disagree if the average American is or is not “less willing to go back to a lower level, hard labor lifestyle” I am afraid the correct answer is quite sobering.
    His services are no longer required at any level.
    
    Here are a few excerpts from a most excellent analysis of the situation from the comments on ZH from “chindit13”:
    
    “on a worldwide basis, labor has lost its pricing power. The world is too efficient at production, and cannot create sufficient demand, except through debt. The debt problem is a symptom. Debt was the stop gap solution as society tried to find a reason to be for everyone. No solution was found, and now the debt itself has become a secondary problem.”
    
    “The last time labor had such little pricing power, the predominant economic construct was feudalism. That ended when labor gained pricing power. That pricing power came in the form of the Plague. That was quite a price to pay.”
    
    “There is no solution. This is just the beginning of the singularity. Sorry.”
    
    There you have it Mario, Economic Checkmate!
    I will send the entire comment to Rick and he can post it for comments on his forum, if there are no copyright problems etc.
    
    On a lighter note, did you finally find a car to buy?
  - mario October 12, 2013, 4:34 am
    
    JJ 🙂 the Zhang Huai S5 is a beauty, very similar to the Hyundai ix35…and it’s $ 17k vs 24k …hope by springtime all is right with the world and we’ll pick one up…
gary leibowitz October 11, 2013, 6:23 am

Wanna bet when the dust settles Obama care will either be gone or embraced as well as Social Security and Medicare is. Initially those 2 were not viewed favorably either. Today, no contest, especially if you know anyone 65 or older.

I have my doubts it will survive in such bad times, but even I have been wrong on occasion.
Redwilldanaher October 11, 2013, 4:01 am

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/09/gross-u-s-taxpayers-shelled-out-634320919-to-build-obamacare-website/

Quite possibly the most egregious waste of money ever for an epic fail of a website. Read the sum twice.

Now these sociopaths should lord over our health?

We’re extremists for not wanting to be party to this madness?

Hell is too good a place for these “people”..,
- Benjamin October 11, 2013, 3:26 pm
  
  Check it out, Red…
  
  http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/obamacare-website-problems-98029.html?hp=r3
  
  No way out. Oh, and people are going to be taxed because they didn’t buy the insurance that they can’t buy from a non-functioning website. Guess you gotta spend money to make money, eh? Hell indeed. Satan’ll have to dig a deep sub-basement, methinks!
- Redwilldanaher October 11, 2013, 5:24 pm
  
  Another recurring theme for Gary to address: manipulation
  
  US And European Regulators Probing FX Market Rigging
  Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/11/2013 – 11:12
  10 weeks ago we warned that the persistent “banging the close” action in FX markets warranted an investigation into market rigging and manipulation. It seems the US, Swiss, UK, and EU regulators have finally woken up:
  
  *U.S. SAID TO OPEN CRIMINAL PROBE OF CURRENCY MARKET RIGGING
  *SWISS, UK REGULATORS REVIEWING ALLEGED CURRENCY MARKET RIGGING
  *EU ANTITRUST REGULATORS SAID THEY ARE PROBING CURRENCY MARKET
Rich October 11, 2013, 12:58 am

Well Rick, are 230 comments a record?
Haven’t seen so many since the Debt Jubilee, which may be just around the corner now that the sugar plum fiat fairy chairs the Fed.
Fiat forever. Today stocks, tomorrow precious…

&&&&&

A record, for sure. But would you believe that subscription sales have not upticked even slightly? That’s why I’ve been putting all of my energy into the chat room and the daily touts lately. Anyone with enough time on his hands to go tit-for-tat with the likes of Jill and Gary needs to get a life. RA
.
- Craig October 11, 2013, 9:35 pm
  
  Oh Rick I usually stay off that Jill and Gary train, but like all fun and foolish things it gets old after a week.
  
  I do apologize for using a metaphor about 9/11 which got the drones rolling and I had to gonaling for the ride because I know I am 100% correct and it is that important to me and I believe it is the key to the dungeon literally.
  
  Back onto healthcare which is actually my expertise, the dirty secret of the plan being wrote by the insurance companies had one hole in it thou. The plan was to have them insure less people, have those people pay more and they would then using the Medicare payment model pay less to the providers. That plan is perfect except how are they going to charge middle class and preexisting conditions more? While the government takes care of all the people the insurances don’t want. How are they going to clear this hurdle? Well everyones plan will be priced by……their credit score…so who has a low credit score? Poor people, people with medical debt in the past they can’t pay. Bravo insurance companies bravo. They are not discriminating against poor or blacks or preexisting directly. Yeah some will slip in or out on both ends but they will charge more to less customers, pay less and be able to say oh it’s awful we have laid off another 1,000 employees sniff sniff feel for us…
Benjamin October 10, 2013, 6:37 pm

I want to address some of the points that have been made here which stood out to me as I scanned over the many posts made thus far (quotes may be inexact)…

Mary: “People didn’t used to worry about health insurance.”

Someone remembers! This point should be framed in diamond-studded gold and hung at the entrance of every discussion on healthcare. I can’t claim to recall those times, as I was born after. But I have some family members that are old enough, who say the same thing. And making things so complicated — whether through insurance or single-payer systems — has always struck me as patently absurd.

So what happened that changed everything into what it has become? How did medical coverage become so vital to everyday existence? Mava posted an excellent point that illustrates why…

Mava: “It all began with the idea of healthcare being a right.”

Frame this one in silver, with gold accents and appropriate gemstones. That’s exactly what happened. I’m not sure when and how that ball got rolling, but it’s not rolling like it used to. It is, as the tyrannicaly impulsed say of the Constitution, an outdated idea.

So out have come all the king’s horses and men, to get that ball rolling again. Have they succeeded? Will they, if they haven’t already? Let’s find out…

Jill: “Fox News claims that so many people hate Obamacare, yet that issue is what got Obama re-elected.”

First, I want to make clear that I’m not talking TO Jill, as that has long since proven pointless and time-wasting. I’m talking ABOUT something she said because there is a broader point to make.

“I know I’m human. And if you were all these things, you’d just attack me right now. So some of you are still human too.”

In that John Carpenter classic, only about 1/3rd of the nearly dozen men were things. But it was enough to destroy the entire outpost.

Less than 33% of all voting-age adults ever voted for the “man” known as Obama. There are easy-to-find sources out there that allow one to see the election results, by county and/or state. Compare the number of voters and votes for the winner to the actual voting-age population. He didn’t win. More broadly, while politicians always win _elections_, they increasingly fail to win the hearts and minds of the majority.

That’s why “blacks hate Obama/democrats” in a search engine turns up juicy results, like this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdTihf2_GGM

If one is still skeptical, hey… there’s a whole side-menu of related videos, which in turn have more side-menu videos in them. They only get better!

And being from the Chicago region myself, I know that these are not isolated pockets of people. Yeah, there’s lots of mindless sheep and thugs out there, but a great many aren’t with all this plantation crap.

So if large numbers of everyday Chicagoland black folks are leaving, what about women and young adults? We’re always told how much those groups just looove Obama and marxism! Maybe these loyal armies do exist, but I’ve yet to meet a single real person who is on board that ship. The only time and place I encounter them is when they’re Mr./Ms. Faceless Troll on the internet. Yet, they’re said to be Legion!

Bullspin. Bullspin from the handful of bold liars. The U.S. is not a crackhouse built of termites. It is a house with a termite problem. But if the termites are exterminated… There will still be walls and a roof over our heads. The damages will get repaired. Because most of us are still human.

I’ve rambled enough, so I’ll give it rest right here. Oh, and… Nice to see some of you again!
- John Jay October 10, 2013, 9:23 pm
  
  Benjamin,
  
  I will, once again give my one word answer as to why this country has been going down the drain for the last 50 years.
  
  INFLATION!
  
  Inflation is why no one can afford a house, an education, or medical care.
  To protect themselves from Wage Inflation the Oligarchs have flooded America with tens of millions of unneeded immigrants, both legal and illegal since 1965.
  All these tens of millions of put even more Inflation pressures on home prices, medical care prices, and education prices.
  They helped push Inflation ever higher, and wages ever lower.
  
  There was never any reason to let those tens of millions of immigrants in here!
  The has never been any “Labor Shortage” in the USA except for the WWII years when millions of men were in the military!
  There was only a CHEAP labor shortage in the eyes of the Oligarchs.
  And they have gotten their way since WWII.
  In spades.
  
  Now, even the Republicans are working to put the final nail in the coffin with “Immigration Reform”.
  This will complete the Trifecta to make your money worthless, your labor worthless, and your Civil Rights worthless!
  And, incredibly, the people most affected by this final “Cookbook” are not assaulting DC with outraged protests.
  
  It is over.
  
  The meth cooking, coke snorting, alcohol swilling, video game playing, football watching masses are being led to their slaughter by the Judas Goat of Political Correctness.
  
  You can’t fix stupid!
  - mario cavolo October 11, 2013, 4:49 am
    
    Love ya JJ….but let’s also suggest the reality that American caucasians seem quite unwilling to take the low end jobs, work the fields, hence labor shortage, hence the need for cheap immigrant labor…Many mainstream, common class Americans enjoyed the American dream of a reasonably comfortable life they could live, but they also became unwilling to do the menial labor. Well those days are long and truly gone.
    
    Meanwhile, inflation is the ultimate release valve, all it will ever be, we’re getting our overdose of it here in China that’s for sure, thankfully starting from very low baseline prices…
    
    Cheers, Mario
  - mava October 11, 2013, 6:57 am
    
    JJ,
    
    I basically agreed with all your logic here in the above post.
    
    But, I want to ask this:
    
    Who let you in?
  - Benjamin October 11, 2013, 11:27 am
    
    @Mario RE: Lazy, greedy white people won’t work the fields
    
    These jobs are never even open to them in the first place. Having trucked across miles and miles of miles and miles of agri-country in the U.S., I never once seen a sign, in any language, telling people the farm was hiring laborers. Kinda makes one wonder how the illegal aliens (not immigrants!) come to find out about them. But that mystery will have to wait for another day.
    
    Now, those “EEEWWW! Work! Get it away from my creamy, smooth, alabaster skin before I break a sweat!!!” jobs aren’t exactly low-paying, now are they? They’re not the greatest, but they pay more than McDonalds does, which are the low-paying jobs so many Americans are working. Yet, you “suggest” their unwillingsness to accept less. Well, I see them accepting less all the time. And as for those recent protests ($15.00/hr min wage)…
    
    a) they haven’t nor will be getting it (thank God). Not all of it, anyway, if they get any part of it. And it won’t be adding up to more for them, as that is impossible.
    
    b) I saw some of those protests. What single McDonalds resteraunt hires 50-100 employees? Not even when things were better, back in a time when I was flippin’ tacos and nachos at Taco Bell — for a much lower min wage, but with as much inflation and debt burden (relatively), yet no one complaining about it — were there ever 50-100 employees at a single resteraunt. And all the resterauntS were still open for business in my area. So how does this math add up? It’s really simple. The sentitment is not all that popular and/or the clueless minority were paid by their masters and bussed in to sites to grouse n’ rouse for a day.
    
    Outside of fastfood, for YEARS I’ve been seeing skilled workers — mostly non-union, too — losing jobs and rehiring into lower-paying ones, for the same or more work. I’ve tons of stories, personal and from others, so…
    
    I’m gonna have to FedEx that “unwillingness” sheet back to you, highest priority.
    
    @John Re: INFLATION!
    
    Yes, but more accurately, it’s the real cost of the burden of debt (hat-tip to Rick, for that insight). As for the rest of your points, I find nothing to disagree with, really. But I do have a comment on this…
    
    “And, incredibly, the people most affected by this final “Cookbook” are not assaulting DC with outraged protests. It is over.”
    
    Don’t know about you, John, but my situation is probably better than that of millions of others. But even I don’t have the time and money to be travelling up to the Mordor on the Potomac. I used to think that was important, but like so many other things in life… I changed.
    
    But did you know that when the Revolution started, so many volunteers didn’t even have a rifle? They wanted one, though. Apparently, they got one from somewhere. Surprises always await us because there is a special dynamic to human nature. I’m always getting surprised by people that I thought would never wake up. A cousin of mine, a millennial, for example…
    
    What changed him from five years ago? I don’t know. Maybe marriage, a new house, a kid on the way, his career in the insurance business? All I’m certain of is that he used to doubt and sometimes laugh at my “paranoia” over the feral government. Not anymore. What will he be doing? Not complying with Obamacare, he has stated, which is all he needs to do. But if he goes to DC for anything…
    
    I won’t be joining him. Even if I had the time and money to go, I wouldn’t. I’ve different plans for the same reasons. I’ve sworn Oath to our Constitution and have done the wardance of my Apache ancestors. I’m dart frog, rattle snake, bee (maybe wasp)… Aggressive defender. What Mordor wants from me, it’ll have to come out to me and get. Until it does, the line stays in the concrete. Molon Labe.
    
    You don’t know what another one, million, or hundred million are thinking and planning, nor what they will or won’t do at the last minute. Nothing is over for me until I am. Nothing is over for you until you are. Nothing is over for the “zombie masses” until they are (it is over for the zombies, though).
    
    That’s all.
  - mario cavolo October 11, 2013, 1:09 pm
    
    “These jobs are never even open to them in the first place.” and your other comments…nice points Ben, well said…such things are rarely so straightforward, often more to the story. Cheers, Mario
  - Benjamin October 11, 2013, 2:53 pm
    
    @Mario: Thank you for your understanding. Sorry, gotta cut this short…
    
    @everyone talking 9/11 in my thread (or this topic, for that matter): Yo, people! I didn’t start this thread for that, nor did Rick post this topic to discuss it. Take it somewhere else please. Thank you.
    
    &&&&&
    
    Yes, thanks. The thread should be taken somewhere else. I didn’t expunge it because it had become too enmeshed with on-topic discussion. RA
  - mario October 12, 2013, 3:26 am
    
    Right Rick, apologies. Mario
- gary leibowitz October 11, 2013, 3:19 am
  
  Ben,
  
  Obama received only 33 percent of the vote and blacks hate his policy. I saw the video. Wow, compelling! You should present this to Fox and Carl Rove. He is convinced the election was won by Republicans.
  
  And who was it that said the real information is being stifled? Its out there, boy is it out there.
  
  Has anyone questioned. like I have repeatedly, why Rick would agree on all your conspiracy theories except the biggest one of all, 9//11? I gave my explanation from recent psychological studies done in South Carolina. Fascination how each of us refuse to believe we have remnants from a genetic makeup going back millions of years.
  
  I wouldn’t worry so much about our fellow man’s intent on destroying others as much as our own mind’s attempt at deceiving ones self.
  
  Rick, you refuse to approach the one question plaguing me. How can you reconcile 9/11 as being legit, and all other lesser events as falling into a pattern of conspiracy. I really am interested to hear this. If all it took was one close friend’s nod that the media’s expert review was correct, why do you insist on ignoring anything or anyone that isn’t a close personal friend of yours.
  - Craig October 11, 2013, 3:47 am
    
    There is the BIG problem you “believe” what you believe about 9/11. I KNOW I am right. I am so 100% sure, i would bet my life on it. Would you bet your life on your “stance”?
  - gary leibowitz October 11, 2013, 6:11 am
    
    Craig, did you look at the article and multiple videos that I presented, or did you “shut it out” refusing to analyze the arguments presented? How can someone be one hundred percent sure without having verifiable proof? Is it like faith? Are you saying that because you saw a video that looked to you it had to be by demolition you refuse any explanation? I am baffled why people just shut down and don’t even bother to “listen”.
    
    You talk nonsense and so do all the other conspiracy people when they use an eye witness or part of some speech instead of the WHOLE context. To believe in such folly is to believe everything was pre-planned, and get this, executed to perfection, with no smoking gun to reveal the truth to anyone. Wow. That is only done in Hollywood movies. These guys are good. The fireman and policeman there were staged for the benefit of the show. the 7 hour fire and destruction on one side of the building was faked. the fact that independent engineers are satisfied with the structural collapse, including Rick’s friend.
    
    Break down the evidence fella! In order for building 7 to be set up so had the towers? Surely they also must have been set to explode and did. Surely the planes were staged as well. allowed to hit the building and then the charges were set off. allowed to kill thousands of people to justify their end result. surely the fireman and police were NOT in on this too? They managed to keep months and possibly years of secret operations away from prying eyes. pulled off the biggest, largest scam ever in our history with not one single individual that was “in” on it to slip up or reveal the secret. now with that logic I never wonder why it is so hard to get thru. No debate or evidence. I get snippets of video without the whole thing being shown. I get “your” word for it that it is impossible to fall in that manner simply because your eyes will never accept any explanation other than demolition.
    
    BTW, to what end was this done? All of the government would have to be in on it. military, heads of aviation, CIA, FBI, etc. all to allow the future path of our government to be one of war and spying? Check our history. We don’t need any excuses, we just do it. So often with so little reason it is mind boggling, yet you believe we needed an elaborate plan like this?
    
    Never Mind! Does anyone here beside JILL see the absolute insane logic to this?
  - mava October 11, 2013, 7:31 am
    
    Gary,
    
    Did you go to an American high school? No offence, however I do understand that my statement is offensive, yet to offend is not my intent here. But, if you didn’t, then you would not need to reject the conspiracy solely on the fact that you were not on it. Reason why you would not need to?
    
    Because, you would understand that the laws of physics do not change even for one day even in the United States of America. They just don’t. Buildings don’t collapse with a speed close to their free fall estimate. The bigger the building, the bigger (not smaller) the difference between the free fall estimate and the speed of collapse. There is actually a good reason for that.
    
    If you can see this, try to look at this from aside. Ok, so this is what is going on (physical impossibility). Yet, here you are, rejecting the physical laws on the premise that this was too perfectly organized.
    
    I had been in the situations where I could not get it, and I know that from your point of view, it all looks different. Let me try another way:
    
    Say there was an apple in pries’t room and now there isn’t. He didn’t see the altar boy taking it. There was no one else. Therefore, concludes priest, this must have been an act of God. For this to be a routine theft, the buy had to execute this perfectly, which is unlikely, reasons priest.
    
    That is you. If you are calm right now, please, take a note that the reason I am building this comparison is to accentuate the following: May-be it was almost impossible for a boy to steal the apple perfectly, but it was not impossible. However, for God to remove the apple, it was completely, absolutely, positively impossible. Yet, you are ignoring this absolute certainty, in favor of uncertain element.
    
    It may have been almost impossible for the conspirators to pull it off, but it wasn’t impossible. Bigger feats had been accomplished by determined people.
    
    Yet, it is not possible, never was possible, and will never become possible, for any building to fall within even 10% of it’s free fall estimate time of collapse. It is not, because the building needs to be broken, and the time to do that must be spent. The time is thus proportional to the building itself. This is the precise reason why big things collapse very very slowly, and the small things flap in no time. Even if we do not include the inertia allowances, the time of actual collapse would still be way longer than “the free fall plus 10%”! So, this means that we are extremely safe on this, – there is no way to get close to the free fall speeds, yet, this is what had happenned on 9/11 three times over.
    
    To, you, however, it is easier to assume that the nature made an exception on that day, than to assume that the conspiracy was organized better than you think.
    
    Secondly, Americans typically overestimate the extent of the preparation necessary for this. The entire set up could be done in one night, by a group of 20 men, all of whom could be executed immediately after the project, in the van picking them up by a gas release. This is not to say that this is the way it was, but only to say that this is just one way it could have been done. There are about thousand more ways. In the mean time, there is zero flexibility on the laws of physics.
    
    Thirdly, Americans, for some reason, switch their appropriations as follows:
    
    We believe that a couple of turbines and bunch of aluminum foil can take down the same exact building that numerous teams need to furnish with countless high tech explosives to take down. The same object appears to both, powerful and powerless, depending on what outcome we want. (Shouldn’t it take a super massive plane, the likes of which humans never built, to take down such a massive building capable of resisting so many explosives? And shouldn’t it take a one man and a few explosives to take down the joke that can be destroyed by two turbines and a ton of foil?)
    
    And so on, Gary…
    
    There are thousands of all American Engineers and Architects who do certify that as described the 9/11 incident was impossible to happen.
  - Carol October 11, 2013, 2:39 pm
    
    Mava >>”Secondly, Americans typically overestimate the extent of the preparation necessary for this. The entire set up could be done in one night, by a group of 20 men”
    
    Mava I agree with your posting and take exception to this one item. I saw something recently that showed some pretty convincing evidence that what took down the two towers were small (suitcase) nukes. If that is the case, and it seems most likely, then it would have taken only a couple men not even 20.
    
    If you think such a thing is totally unbelievable ask yourselves how did tires of cars, and fire trucks sitting on lots close to the building that collapsed just disappear! Totally not only melted but vaporized! Even thermite won’t do that much less airplane fuel fires, ONLY the heat created by a thermonuclear device could accomplish that.
    
    check it out
    http://presscore.ca/2012/concrete-evidence-shows-us-government-nuked-new-york-city-on-911.html
  - DK October 11, 2013, 4:27 pm
    
    Carol, you’ve come across the same thing I did in trying to understand what would cause cars in the vicinity to burn from the inside-out via their electronic components. It seems it was either caused by that and/or a directed energy weapon.
    Anyway, I’m done. I’m personally interested in one of the biggest events in history that dramatically changed our country and I will continue to try to understand it the way people try to understand JFK. Beyond that, I’m done wasting time going back and forth with the likes of Gary, et al.
    I hope, no, I pray that I’m wrong but there are just too many people with a much better science based understanding of what happened that think the same thing.
    
    Regarding O-Care, it is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever crafted, it doesn’t do anything for healthCARE, nor cost, it affects EVERYONE, and it looks like we are stuck with it. Once again, because most of us still don’t know what the bill actually has in it, we wait to see how our fate is being decided for us. It works every time doesn’t it? Will we ever learn?
    
    We need to get rid of the Gang of 535, every incumbent must go. As a matter of fact, every Republican and Democrat must go, we need a cleansing, a detox if you will. That is our only hope.
  - Rick Ackerman October 11, 2013, 8:08 pm
    
    Gary, my friend(s) are the foremost experts in the world on “controlled demolition.” Their father invented the technique.
    
    Regarding my supposed belief in conspiracies, like nearly every other statement you make in here, that is a complete falsehood. In fact, other than the financial conspiracy detailed in ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island’, I am too cynical to believe in conspiracy theories. I might add that so many of them blame ‘the Jews’ that I’m surprised to find you so fascinated by 9/11. Me, I prefer, simply, to give bin Laden credit where credit is due.
  - Craig October 11, 2013, 9:46 pm
    
    Gary all of your “questions” have been addressed countless times over te last 3 months. Changing the argument and trashing the same BS will not change things. Nor will kissing jills ass to come rescue you. I have covered this with you many times that I have read the popular science debunking article line by line many many times and I often use that article to point out how they spin what they say around and around and don’t answer anything that it helps prove my point to people. And again the editor at the time was DHS secretaries freaking cousin…so no you don’t have send me another link to “meet the authors” see Gary here is the difference I read all sides, I listen to rush, Madcow (before she was paid off with banker bailout funds, yes you can look that up too but you won’t) and I make a decision on my own. You seek the opinion that suits your needs and point to it till your finger is bloody with zero independent thought. You and Jill point to specific opinions that suit your needs, me, Red and others point to facts that you can find anywhere and can not be dismissed. But like most things, although it’s been fun bashing you, sometimes the hammer gets sick of hitting the nail and must admit that nail is defective.
  - Craig October 11, 2013, 10:24 pm
    
    Gary…would you bet your life in your stance, yes or no?
mava October 10, 2013, 5:43 pm

But we can’t argue about any of this, because we have different morals.

According to my morals:

-Violence is bad!
(Bam! Obama loses already ! You can be forcing people into anything!).

-Theft is bad!
It is NEVER ok to steal from others, even if it is to give to the poor!

-Consequences are FAIR!
The Ant and the Grasshopper type of justice is holy for me. If you didn’t care to work when you were young, – don’t expect me to feel any sympathy to you later when you can’t feed your family. And:
If you bang your girlfriend before you learn to feed her, don’t expect me to jump on feeding your progeny!

However, those are just my morals. Majority of this country has vastly different morals:

-Violence is OK, if it is to force everyone to comply with my morals.
-Theft can be OK if it is in someone’s favor (as if it isn’t, always, in someone’s favor)
-Consequences don’t matter. I dance all the summer, and when the winter comes, the ants must be forced to feed me.

RA can show any type of argument, by FOX or whomever else, it won’t matter. Because of the following:

The arguments are only removing the obstructions, making it easy to compare the case to one or another moral principles, but they have no effect on the principles themselves!

Thus, the best argument can only show that Obamacare is Theft and Violence. It can not overturn the fact that some people believe that Theft and Violence are acceptable choices.
Dave October 10, 2013, 8:09 am

Obama is like Robin Hood, takes from the rich and gives to the poor. Do we NOT like Robin Hood???
- Rick Ackerman October 10, 2013, 8:17 am
  
  The rich? That’s rich! Obama’s “the rich” is, like, all those fat cats supporting a family of four on $75k — well above the level at which federal handouts completely dry up.
  - original Dave October 10, 2013, 9:39 am
    
    Well, fat cat earning $75K shouldn’t be having in today’s world a family of four like a house cat’s litter and should follow China’s giant panda low birthrate model, one baby maybe every 2 years and only fertile 2 days a year. If twins are born, mother chooses stronger one to live.
    
    Not Obama’s fault if family planning wasn’t implemented and the Dem’s are pro-abortion. Obamacare is not their sole source of cost increases. Where are the Republican’s on food mfrs, college tuition and other sources of price increases?
    
    Like the panda, the middle class is endangered!
Jill October 10, 2013, 12:52 am

Regarding Clinton pushing through the 1993 budget bill:

http://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/clinton-and-economic-growth-in-the-90s/
- Craig October 10, 2013, 3:31 am
  
  No one cares about Bill Clintons balanced budget. We got it, it was a one time thing, it was just a show to give you drones something to cling to…stop clinging.
  - Jill October 10, 2013, 5:10 am
    
    It could happen again. There’s another Clinton running in the next presidentia election, you know. And in the coming years, Chelsea will probably run too.
  - Craig October 10, 2013, 7:18 am
    
    Your correct they are already priming her. Didn’t Hillary talk about how awful hedge funds are? Only to set her only daughter up with the son of an imprisoned hedge fund manager…the hypocrisy with these Clintons never ends. Hey Jill since you love looking up stuff and the Clintons why don’t you look up the castle that Hillary likes to visit in Belgium and all the history around it…it’s quite interesting. Maybe she will invite you to join her there sometime. 🙂
Rick Ackerman October 10, 2013, 12:51 am

The following is from Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. He evidently has had enough of Obama’s blame-everyone-but-me posturing:

Most of the folks who blame Fox News don’t watch Fox News.

Obama is blaming Fox News for 2/3 of the country disliking Obamacare. Here’s Neal Cavuto’s explanation and it is great. If you don’t understand what is bad about ObamaCare please read his comments and you will understand.

Mr. President, Fox News isn’t what’s making Americans sick about your healthcare law. Your healthcare law is. Welcome, everybody, I’m Neil Cavuto. And excuse this departure from form. But I think this is just poor form. So, it’s time we set some things straight.

Mr. President, we at Fox News are not the problem. I hate to break it to you, sir. You are. Your words are. Your promises are. We didn’t sell this healthcare law. Sir, you did. Remember this?

President Barack Obama: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.

Mr. President, tell that to tens of thousands of retirees at IBM and Time Warner and dozens of others, who’ve been dumped from their coverage and told to find their own coverage. Fox News didn’t break that news to them, Mr. President. Their companies did.

Fox News didn’t push more of those firms to hire part-time workers. Your healthcare law did. Fox News didn’t incentivize fast food restaurants to scale back their benefits. Your healthcare law did. Fox News didn’t make doctors want to opt out. Your healthcare law did. Fox News didn’t make insurance premiums sky rocket. Your healthcare law did. Just like Fox News didn’t grant hundreds of exemptions to companies that needed them. You did. And Fox News didn’t delay one key provision after another, including online enrollment for those small business exchanges. You did.

Just like it wasn’t Fox News that said we had to pass this to see what was in this. You did. Or was that Nancy Pelosi? Sometimes I’m confused. But of this I am not. Fox News didn’t re-do basic math. Sir, you did. Fox News didn’t say you can cover 30 million more Americans and not see a hit in premiums. You did. Fox News didn’t say you could throw in those with pre-existing conditions and not have to pay for it. You did. Fox News didn’t all but say you could get something for nothing. You did. Fox News didn’t come back years later and say, oh yea, we did raise some taxes. You did.

Here’s where you are right about Fox News, however, Mr. President. We can do math. And did. You cannot. And did not. We said it, and proved it. You didn’t. And we’re all suffering for it. Take it from the numbers guy at Fox. Numbers don’t lie. The number of Americans working part-time and nervous. The number of retirees days away from being dumped on exchanges and anxious. The number of company bosses with any news to pass along on those exchanges, but still clueless. The number of doctors who want out. The number of congressmen now opting out. No, Mr. President, none of those numbers lie.

But with all due respect sir, I can only conclude you do know; I know, I know you hate us at Fox. But please take a look in a mirror, and fast. You think we’re the skunk at your picnic. But that doesn’t mean we’re the ones that stink. Because that smell isn’t coming from the folks reporting on your law. Mr. President, that smell is your law.
- gary leibowitz October 10, 2013, 1:05 am
  
  I do wonder why so many people, other than Obama, feel the same way? in fact almost all other news agencies would agree on the extremely slanted views they have presented. From a Muslim to illegal African born native. they were the ONLY ones presenting such Inquirer style news. Just look up past articles criticizing FOX. Are they all wrong? From all the news agencies? No bias? No agenda?
  I guess the building 7 debate starts all over again. BTW, it is a standing joke on how Fox carries out its agenda.
  
  &&&&
  
  In the first place, the ‘Inquirer’ is the Pulitzer-heavy Philadelphia paper; you evidently meant the ‘The National Enquirer,’ a tabloid far more trustworthy than your beloved New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times et al. As for your second point, yes, all of your left-wing sources were in fact wrong: Obama actually is a Muslim who was born in Africa. The weight of the evidence is so overwhelming that it makes the misreporting by all of your sources seem almost criminal. RA
  - Jill October 10, 2013, 1:16 am
    
    Interesting. Supposedly 2/3 of the country dislikes Obamacare, according to Fox News. Yet in spite of that, Obama got re-elected president in an election where ObamaCare was a major issue and his opponent promised to appeal it.
    
    Here are some ObamaCare myths, researched by factcheck.org. They seem to always have different facts than Fox, for some reason
    
    http://www.factcheck.org/2013/09/obamacare-myths/
  - DK October 10, 2013, 8:01 am
    
    No, Jill, check the polls from the last election. The POLLS indicate that Obama was not favorable in terms of his healthcare “solution.” Period. He did not, I repeat, NOT, get re-elected on that issue. He pursued jobs more than anything, on which he STILL has not delivered even in the slightest. It all depends on what the hot issue in the public forum is. Against McCain, if war were the issue, we would have gotten McCain, but since the economy was the central issue (and McCain is brain dead on that issue – and on just about every other one), Obama took that race.
    
    The Dems have admitted themselves that they LOST the house to the GOP because of the dissatisfaction with O-care. Too bad we are still stuck with the same “2” parties – 150+ years later and we are still stuck in mud.
    
    Your facts are erroneous, even the Dems admit the polling during last years election showed O-care was unfavorable.
    http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/15/obama-health-care-law-where-does-the-public-stand/
    
    Neither candidate was thought to do a good job on healthcare, Obama by points, 37-35.
    http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/29/presidential-race-dead-even-romney-maintains-turnout-edge/
    
    Furthermore, listen to the interview attached to the article Rick brought up earlier in Time Magazine.
    
    http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-inside-times-cover-story-on-medical-bills/
    
    Steven Brill the author (around the 2:15 mark),
    “Obamacare does very little to solve these problems which is probably why it got through Congress. It doesn’t do anything to control the prices of prescription drugs or medical devices, such as a CAT scan. In fact, if anything, it will increase the profits of all of the players in the market by making sure that more people have insurance and therefore more people are in the marketplace with funds from the insurance companies to buy all of these products.”
  - DK October 10, 2013, 8:31 am
    
    Gary, I will, repeat, see the above reply to your “debunked” post. Debunk that.
    
    I am done commenting on the issue even though there’s a TON more to say, like explaining not just the unhedged put positions on UAL, AMR, Marsh & McClennan a week before the event, but ALL of the unhedged derivative positions that benefitted from this even to the tune of over $.5 T. Ya know the ones that haven’t really been discussed.
    By the way, what is your take on Obama calling for a motion to dismiss on the case brought by Sundus Shaker Saleh against Dubya, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc, citing the Westfall Act. Give it all you got. You cannot debunk facts, sound science. The common sense portion is self explanatory. I would LOVE for you to try to discredit the Secretary of Transportation on his testimony. Go ahead, attempt your diversion and semantics.
    There’s a whole list of things for you to debunk. Many of us are not convinced, yet your side refuses a 3rd party investigation.
    Let an independent, unbiased party PROVE it all and prove us wrong. Nope, not gonna happen. Hm….
  - gary leibowitz October 11, 2013, 12:45 am
    
    DK, I don’t dispute or debunk the lawsuit and why the President wishes that executive privilege and power be absolute. All presidents rally around that one. As for the Puts on 9/11 there were many people that knew these events were about to take place. There were Arab communities on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn that (supposedly) knew. Is the names being withheld by Congress? A government conspiracy so large that all parties come together for this one cause? Republicans willing to cause a shutdown unless certain demands are met, but these same people unwilling to “give up” the corruption on all the other conspiracy charges? Absurd! Why in the world would the Republicans allowed an illegal alien to win the White House with such hatred seen? Sorry but it doesn’t make sense. You have to think this thru. On a DIME FOX would parade the “document” instead of slenderizing and slanting issues that their viewers already want to hear. no other supposedly news media would go where their sleazy accusations went. In fact FOX always bashes Obama even when he does the complete opposite one year later. He is always wrong even if he has been on both sides of the debate. How is that even credible? Do you really want me to site all the examples of this?
  - DK October 11, 2013, 5:46 am
    
    Well, once again Gary, you dodge this post and the above reply with multiple things for you to debunk! I specifically said
    “like explaining not just the unhedged put positions on UAL, AMR, Marsh & McClennan a week before the event, but ALL of the unhedged derivative positions that benefitted from this even to the tune of over $.5 T. Ya know the ones that haven’t really been discussed.”
    
    The ones NOT being discussed. Regarding your response you gave, no one is investigated? Who was responsible for initiating those trades? A firm by the name of A.B. Brown (Deutsche Bank – American Investment banking arm). You know Deutsche Bank, the company connected to insider trading (Munich Re.) just prior to 9-11?
    Who ran A.B. Brown up until a few years before the attacks? Buzzy Krongard, that’s who. He then became Vice Chairman after the firm was bought by Bankers Trust, who was identified in a case connected to drug money laundering. What happened with Buzzy Krongard after this tenure? Oh that’s right, counsel to George Tenet, then promoted to Executive Director to the CIA by George Bush. Funny how the CIA has so many banking connections over the years? That’s quite a list there.
    
    So you mean tell me the SEC, CFTC, and CBOE are being complicit in your explanation considering nobody was investigated and the powers that be told CBOE President to stop the investigation?? Their data streams are definite. Am I hearing that right? Someone is being protected? Considering, the vast terabytes of data showing who was involved in those transactions was erased/destroyed??
- Craig October 10, 2013, 3:28 am
  
  Are you kidding me? Jill and Gary respond with only more babble and a another link to foxsucks. I knew they would as I was readin but I didn’t think their responses would be so lame and weak as usual. Btw I loathe Cavuto but neither of you two can refute one sentence of that…oh I see you didn’t and couldnt….just links to foxlies.com comical, really.
  
  &&&&&&
  
  ‘Babble’, per Dostoyevsky: the intentional pouring of water through a sieve. RA
- Craig October 10, 2013, 7:23 am
  
  Do you (Jill) and Gary ever have an independent thought ever? Do you ever look at what both sides are saying, then look a the evidence and decide for yourself? We all know you just look for whoever agrees with what you want it to be and you hold them up as experts and the facts because it fits your ideals.
- original Dave October 10, 2013, 9:44 am
  
  Like many, Cavuto started at CNBC.
  Anyone notice George Will is now on Fox Sunday after years at ABC Sunday Morning?
Jill October 10, 2013, 12:51 am

I see that that was the last 2 years. For the most recent year, the House was in control of Republicans, so they bear most of the responsiblity for the past year’s expenses. For the last year, Obama certainly was not finding ways to spend money without the aproval of the House.

Just in case anyone here really cares about government spending during Repub vs. Dem control of the White House and presidency, here are the numbers.

http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html
- Craig October 10, 2013, 3:35 am
  
  Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down, huh?
  
  We got it republicans suck worst then democrats and fox lies more than CNN. I was wondering where you went, I figured you were hypnotized by the debt ceiling clock and the shut down clock on CNN.
redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 8:28 pm

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/us-adds-two-times-more-debt-economic-output-last-2-years_762311.html

Come on Gary et al., sing the praises of the Lever Pullers yet again. Epic fantasy worth of Tolkien! Gotta love the sustainability of this plan!
- gary leibowitz October 10, 2013, 1:00 am
  
  Are you proving that the dam that burst from the mortgage debacle was HUGE? I agree. Your solution would be to stop wasting our effort to keep this economy afloat? Well I am sure you have a good number of people here agreeing with you.
  
  Did I get real alternative ways to fix this mess? Let them burn! Not a solution in my book. I can even agree on some major points that they went about this in a very inefficient way. I prefer to stay clear of developing a macro economic structure since it is not my strong suit. I even question if there was a right or wrong way at that point. perhaps the damage is too great?
  - Craig October 10, 2013, 3:20 am
    
    You have a strong suit?
  - Redwilldanaher October 10, 2013, 4:01 am
    
    Gary, it was a blanking heist in broad daylight! Very inefficient???? Weeping Jesus on the Cross! man, you’ve elevated obtuseness to an art form this time around. They made money on all sides of this and in 3d! They also managed to consolidate even more power with nary a prosecution and they went back to fish in a barrel illicit profiteering in record time! Think of Kay Corleone Gary. It was a heist Gary, a heist. An unholy heist. A preplanned on heist. They write the script and then act it out. Its that simple. Do you think they knew they were too big to fail? I know market making groups that lost so much that the clearing firm was forced to keep them afloat to get back what they were owed by them! That is rinky dink stuff but if it happens on that level… Rick can confirm this I’m sure.
    
    They know who’s hand they can force. They knew that mbs were a joke. They laughed all the way to the bank on both sides. Even small timers like me saw it coming, you don’t think they did? Did you believe the nank when he told you it was contained? Did you believe the endless parade of Cnbc guest liars that insisted all would be well? Did you believe Greenspan when he told you he couldn’t see the tech bubble until after it imploded? Some of the metrics on these assorted cases of madness showed that we were 6 or 7 standard deviations stretched from the mean. We’d have been better off if we were 3 sheets to the wind rather than having allowed these psychopaths to have tightened their grip on us.
    
    It was a heist Gary, a heist.
DG October 9, 2013, 7:17 pm

If the consensus is that both parties are corrupt, then why do people continue to support their parties? What would happen if there was a massive exodus, by the citizens, out of each party. No party. How can you have party politics when there are no party members? Leave.
- redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 8:27 pm
  
  Parties are irrelevant in the end. Must leave the scheme. The scheme must be killed. The scheme is the prison. Leave the scheme to be free.
- Craig October 9, 2013, 8:45 pm
  
  There already is a mass exodus…but it’s from Kalifornia, New York and Illinios…to Texas. You can see te license plates, uhaul has all these one way rentals. They will vote in the same baboones they voted for in those Utopias and we will get more crime more taxes and less jobs….”for the children”. Kalifornians already ruined Nevada escaping from
  the disaster they voted for in Kalifornia. As you can see their claws are in Colorado. Exodus from the parties? Alittle knowledge and truth would hurry that up.
- mario cavolo October 10, 2013, 2:38 am
  
  Yea DG, we here are making our effort to be aware, intelligent analyzers. The vast majority of citizens don’t dig so deep, AND they don’t even know the degree to which their thinking is being conditioned and led by the society and its overlords….AND, let’s say it like it is, there are alot of straight up lies and deceptions being told to them which they swallow…
  
  Cheers, Mario
gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 6:22 pm

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/way-show-youre-among-elite-110757415.html

What is wrong with this picture? Corporations are already writing off the middle-class for a chance to capture the lions share of the small but very rich and profitable elite class. If only they spent more time trying to expand the middle class instead of doing everything possible to make sure we become obsolete.
- Craig October 9, 2013, 6:50 pm
  
  Gary….this is one of the many frusteatuons with you you support a system and people that wake up everyday and say they are supporting the middle class meanwhile every action they take is to wreck the middle class. Whether you believe this is a plan or just incompentancy I am not going to argue right now. But you have the nerve to say what about the middle class? Everything the system you support does it wrecking the middle class and if you cant see it you are absolutely blind. Do you seriously work as hard as it appears to be this ignorant?
- Redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 6:53 pm
  
  I’m with you for once Gary! I loathe the corporatists as well. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to ever have expected corporations to spend any time doing anything noble…
Dave October 9, 2013, 4:42 pm

The coming K9 coronal mass ejection will fix all of this.
Dave October 9, 2013, 4:39 pm

ObamaCare is not a noble idea. Natural Selection is. It took us billions of years to get to this point, and in a matter of less than 100, we are going to undo it all by reversing Survival of the Fittest, and turning it into Coddling of the Unfit. I’m sure that will do wonders for the quality of our offspring.
mario cavolo October 9, 2013, 4:34 pm

Rick and All,

Without a doubt I’m reading the greatest forum set in the history of my 3 plus years here at Rick’s. Congratulations to one and all.

My tiny two cents I shall thrown in. I feel fortunate to be viewing this whole Obamacare thing from VERY far away and very detached from it. Being familiar with healthcare in the U.S., with public healthcare in Canada and Europe, and with the healthcare system here in China, the following points come crystal clear…

America’s woes are definitely not bipartisan, the machine of the parties is truly destroying (has destroyed) the country. Sad, and portends not well for the future. Arguing R vs. D is something I stopped doing along time ago. Any citizen with less money stupid enough to give a cent of that money as a “donation to support the cause” which they can’t afford to give a politician who has millions and their kids in Ivy league schools. A citizen has to realize that the entire system is corrupt and has virtually stopped existing for its intended priority and objective, to take of the society. I’ve already said too much as its been said here a zillion times.

In the past 20 years leading to now, the healthcare system in the U.S. has become an abomination to the citizenry, corrupt and crooked and insane in countless ways. My wife and I spent 15 minutes for a doctor consult at a hospital in LA in 2012, refused all tests suggested including the “mandatory” pee in a cup to which we said, “no, we are going to pay for that”, and left. We then received a bill for $1000, which we never intend to pay. It makes no sense, none whatsoever. And now U.S. citizens are being forced to pay premiums to somehow spread the “cost” of that original $1000 insane billing. JJ did a great job of pointing out the convoluted, crooked system that now acts as nothing more than its own unique ponzi scheme to bilk the citizenry out of their money.

As if it were all not bad enough, Obamacare is now and simply the icing on the cake of the country’s death. I don’t even want to be negative, but sitting and looking at the facts, it is virtually impossible to conclude otherwise. It can easily be seen from afar as the final nail in the coffin that may very well sink any hope for recovery in the U.S. How can the govt possibly start forcing citizens to fork over $3-500/month MORE per household than they were before when healthcare as a % of GDP was ALREADY double of any other country. Obviously politicians know this rather obvious impossibility of success, yet they pass it anyway? This MUST be because it is part of their overall plan to continue to control and monitor the citizenry, which is happening more and more, and of which national healthcare is now part of the whole game. The situation is incomprehensibly bad, it is a massive tax on the society and the idea that you can’t say no is even more unbelievable. Thus, it is then a tax, plain and simple. They should have just charged every tax payer 5% and said “Go to the hospital when you need to, we’ve got it covered”. That would have been simpler and fairer, but its still more taxes and that’s very bad as it sucks money out of the economy. The cronies in Washington and big biz continue to ignore their duty to the country and society, and we all know the why’s and wherefore’s.

Today I have a headache, so I am going to go to the hospital and get an MRI on a GE Healthcare MRI machine that sits in a hospital in Shanghai, to make sure i don’t have a tumor or aneurysm in my head. I am going to pay $5 to enter the hospital, then $150 to schedule the MRI. It has nothing to do with health insurance, it has nothing to do with the hospital billing me differently than they bill an insurance company. It is simply a person needing a medical test and paying a fee. Oh how blessedly simple.

I want very much to say “Good Luck” to the U.S. in launching its new national healthcare system, but any intelligent human being can easily see it is even now far beyond wishing it luck. I truly wish it was not so negative, and I don’t regard this as my “opinion”, but undeniable, unfortunate reality that makes me worry.

The problem isn’t Obamacare, isn’t national healthcare, the problem is the underlying system which is already too far gone, too corrupt in countless ways; you can’t just then layer a national healthcare initiative on top of a corrupt, bloated, out of control system without first fixing the excesses in the system, something there is apparently absolutely zero will to do by all interested parties.

They have nationalized a corrupt system and sent the bill to every individual household, this is the same as the mafia forcing every business on the block to pay protection money. Its lunacy. Standing far away to see it more clearly, I’m sorry to be so negative about it, I really am.

Cheers all, Mario
- gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 6:11 pm
  
  Mario,
  
  Great article. I agree with your perspective but you must remember that you are comparing a fledgling economy with a mature one. I can guarantee you that China will one day fall into the same government trap once its growth expands to a point that requires a high standard of living. Your system still relies on cheap labor. It will never grow without allowing the perks to be expanded onto it’s citizens. Then the headache begins. It is possible that they continue to nationalize the whole system and reign in on excess costs and corruption. It is also possible they choose a system that works better than ours. I do however find it highly unlikely they don’t fall into the same trap that all large governments have.
  
  As for our failures with government control of social programs I would say that up until the latest mortgage debacle we could have easily controlled future costs with common sense long term planning. These are two very distinct differences. The failure seems to stem from deregulation and greed run amok, rather than a major flaw in our pursuit for expansion of government, some would say intrusion, into basic safety-net needs. To me freedom can only come when we stop worrying about our future. Health, food, cloth, and shelter should never be taken away from citizens that play by the rules. If you work hard and are physically able, you should not fear it all can be taken away by forces outside your control. Some would call that a silly utopian dream and naïve. Some would call that lazy since each of us is responsible to make sure we empower ourselves to prevent such disasters. I know from personal experience good intentions and good planning aren’t always recipes for success.
  
  Finally, as for the current Obamacare decision, I hope it doesn’t push us over the edge at a time when we are just starting to recover, and our debt situation is dire.
- BKL October 9, 2013, 6:16 pm
  
  The mafia, in this case, is K Street. They are thrilled to see American civil society fail so utterly, trying to implement this legislation, which they wrote, word for word, and labeled Obummercare.
- mario cavolo October 10, 2013, 2:32 pm
  
  Hi Gary,
  
  Thanks. Mmm, not a chance in hell that the Chinese system over the next 20 years will ever get even half as screwed up as the U.S. over First of all, the health system is already 100% under the control and care of the government so that’s already done. Secondly, no matter how well the society continues to expand and grow, there are still pretty much always going to be 600 million relatively poor people here that will always rely on inexpensive rates. Health care is treated here as a commodity necessity, like food and electricity, not a game for insurance companies. Hospital costs including doctor’s salaries and the cost of modernizing with new and better equipment are gradually rising and therefore so are the costs of care but its all relative to a straightforward pay for what you need model for the citizens managed by the govt. Beijing won’t shoot itself in the foot on this one, especially when they have the U.S. to watch as a pitiful example of what not to do.
  
  Cheers, Mario
DK October 9, 2013, 1:21 pm

It just keeps getting better. I wonder what the credit scores of people who can’t afford insurance are, typically? What are the credit scores for all of those illegal immigrants?

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/credit-scores-impacting-new-affordable-care-act-insurance-plans/-/1637132/22341034/-/l0jmq3z/-/index.html

Welcome to the Matrix. Craig, you were saying?
Don October 9, 2013, 3:48 am

Kudos to Red and Fallingman.
We have to remove the garbage before we can clean the kitchen. Someone last week called for a Reset; without it we are partaking in philosophical blather.
Some other views are valid, mine is:
“You may all go to Hell and I will go to Texas”.
Davy Crockett 1834-35
- Redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 5:00 am
  
  I called for it but others may have as well.
mava October 9, 2013, 12:22 am

Traveler,

I think it would be a mistake to think that the extra money violently thorn out of our hands by the state that is artificially rising our healthcare costs, won’t be spent into economy. Most definitely it will.

Just not by us. These money will be given to healthcare professionals and their financiers, in exchange for some additional services they will then render to the bums on the street that don’t want to work to earn those services honestly.

Yet, past all this noise, the money then will be spent by those same healthcare professionals and their financiers, right back into the economy.

Those healthcare professionals and their financiers will go ahead and order the vacations you and I were prevented from taking. That’s all.

Remember, the world does not end every time there is a murder. It’s just someone loses his life, and someone gains something. But the world goes on.
Traveler October 8, 2013, 8:14 pm

Divide and conquer in action right here in this thread… gotta love it.

For the record, I will pay 44% more on Jan 1. For a slightly smaller deductible. For a much higher out of pocket maximum.

The extra money forced out of our pockets to pay for this will no longer be available to be spent into our economy. At the very least, that will have nasty deflationary effects which I expect to show up in full force by the 2016 elections.
- Cam Fitzgerald October 8, 2013, 9:34 pm
  
  Just curious, how much do you pay?
Craig October 8, 2013, 6:58 pm

Yeeeeeehaw Gary!!! Yep all us southerners wear big ole cowboy hats, spit Tabacco in the can outside the store, ride our horses into town to the general store and het some flour some feed and of course bullets! Yep we all look like the Dallas cowboys mascot.

I live in a high rise in a big city in Texas and am from Las Vegas. The stereotypes you people in the northeast have are so ridiculous. Texas has 3 of the top 10 largest cities, Houston is just behind Chicago. You watch way too much TV. American cities and towns all look the same, some have more character from stuff built in the past. People act pretty much the same. People from rural new York are not much different than people from rural Texas or Pennsylvania. Get up from your PC and TV and go meet people in upstate new York.
- gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 12:57 am
  
  Perhaps I read the article wrong when it said 11 rural Colorado counties want to break away. Not anything like Chicago is it? Wanna guess what their population makeup is? Wanna bet Colorado isn’t exactly the melting pot.
  
  By using the crude analogy between the good ole days between the north and south I thought I emphasized major cultural differences. Are you saying they don’t exist? Reminds me of a prior mayor of Mississippi stating he can’t recall any segregation issues growing up in the 60’s. Gun laws aren’t exactly a major issue in NYC. In fact the stricter the laws became the happier residence became. Stop and frisk, a clearly illegal practice here, has been unchallenged for years. Only recently has it been brought to task. I can’t imagine seeing thousands of people roam the streets of Manhattan carrying a holster and gun.
  - Craig October 9, 2013, 8:16 pm
    
    Are you kidding me Gary? Seriously do you work that hard to be ignorant? Colorado has a high Hispanic population. You liberals really are the most racist people there is. So Chicago has high crime because it has a large black population? Is that want you are hinting at. Once again upstate new York is ready to fire shots in defense of the tyrannical gun laws imposed (I believe this is where the revolution will most likely start).
    
    Gun laws aren’t a major issue in New York? Seriously? “the stricter gun laws became the happier residence became”. Do you serious copy and paste liberal talking points or do you just read or watch the main stream news and never come out of your apartment?
    
    It’s called open carry Gary but that is illegal in NY and oh yes concealed carry is “legal” but you ONLY get a permit if you are in the mob, work for Goldman or know bloomberg.
    
    What YOU would see if you came out or your apartment is people scared and being controlled by the criminals in the poverty areas.
    
    If guns laws were reversed you would see a few people open carrying, a lit more people would carry concealed. Crime would plummet! Enact a castle or stand your ground law and people in new wouldn’t have 10 locks on their doors and wouldn’t pray no one comes in. You would see home robberies go way down. New York is slowly becoming like London high crime and where the people vet arrested for defending themselves. So Gary move to London and if someone is raping your wife and she hits him….she goes to jail. Your comments are very typical of the helpless city type that could not survive 2 days without help, that’s why you kiss the men in the earth Vader uniforms but yet hate self-sufficient people because you are neither strong or independent. You are a parasite and your masters talk about people like you that serve them and they despise you….you can read all about if you ventured away from CNN and huffingtonpost. Also Gary sunligh is good for you get out from the PC and get some you might learn something about the people around you not what the news want you to think.
- Redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 2:58 am
  
  I don’t give a damn about the streets of Manhattan. Live in bloomingidiotberg’s hell if you so desire just don’t try to blanket the rest of us with your Manhattan sensibilities. If we wanted those we’d choose to live in Manhattan and feel superior while we told everyone else how to live as we support ourselves parasitically in the shadows of some of the world’s most accomplished parasites.
  
  So because they’re not a melting pot they’re supposed to kneel before statists like you and forfeit self governance? Utter madness…
  - Fallingman October 9, 2013, 4:58 pm
    
    Red,
    
    Gary would NEVER carry his own gun. He contracts out for his muscle. That makes him a HYPOCRITE, along with every other unsavory thing he is.
    
    By the way, he claims to be a computer programmer.
    
    I find that hilarious.
    
    What’s the first thing you learn about programming?
    
    Garbage in…garbage out.
    
    Can you imagine what his programs are like and what kind of garbage the must spit out?
    
    It would have to be a government gig.
- gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 5:41 pm
  
  People like Red and Fall use hate, bullying and meanness to get their point across, yet Jill and I are the main focal point to why people refuse to contribute?
  
  Mario and Rich are two examples of people willing to listen. They bring up valid counter-points and opinions that can be respected.
  
  I guess Jill and I are those hecklers found in the Roman Coliseum that distract you from enjoying the gladiator games.
  
  I still would like to know why Rick has endorsed a personal friend’s opinion against the 9/11 conspiracy, yet finds most everything else fitting into that mold? Wasn’t there a mound of testimony from the experts that corroborated his friends findings?
  
  I find it fascinating how the mind works and has vestiges of Darwinian Evolution. We really haven’t progressed far enough to break the chain of pre-programmed responses. I hope we as a species live long enough to evolve. We are after all a product of our genetic makeup and environment. I have a habit of reviewing my own responses as if I am an outside observer, and realize just how trapped we all are. Even knowing this, I must struggle with myself to challenge my beliefs, and allow fresh perspectives to emerge. Not always successful.
  
  Cheers!
  - Redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 6:42 pm
    
    That’s some real spiffy baiting Gary but I think you’re mistaking bullying for frustration and hate speech for plain speak. Suppose that was bound to happen to you as you seem to reside in a disconnected bubble.
    
    Seems lost on you that you are the boy that has repeatedly cried non sequitur and erected countless strawmen all the while making the artful dodger look like his feet were stuck in mud. If you had any history at all of responding to the points others make then they’d likely respond to yours no matter how msm worn they tend to be. But the record shows that the opposite is true.
    
    See, here’s how it works. I disagree with Rick’s 9/11 views. So do many others here. Rick realizes this. No problem exists between us because we all realize that these are considerate people that have done a little independent research, thought for themselves and yet still reached opposing conclusions. The magic part is that we believe that the other is arguing in earnest. With you having been so far afield for so long and serving as a cavern in this forum for msm nonsense for so long, few bother to respond to you at this point.
    
    Why did the entire country of Afghanistan need to be invaded and the ruling government removed? Do you think that would have been possible had buildings not fallen?
    
    I am fascinated as well. Assuming that you really operate on the level, I remain astonished as to how well the miseducational system combined with the msm conditioning has continued to work on you.
  - Craig October 9, 2013, 7:06 pm
    
    I will be more interested in the reaction when all we have said becomes even more obvious to the true believers like Gary. Will he stop typing? Will he go into stronger denial? Who knows, I dint really care but if people like him finally concede because the truth conquers emotion we will know the info is gettin out there and humanity will win but my fear is these roadblocks (people) will get in the way long enough and it will be too late. People like Gary are unimportant in this, it’s the 20-30% with logic that must be awakened to the truth to free humanity again. And as for Rick and 9/11….he is a very smart guy, he may breakdown and finally look at the way building 7 fell and his own brain will connect the dots. That’s how it happened to me, I denied denied denied that could be true, once I finally saw building 7 I became obsessed to find out how I could have been so wrong.
  - gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 9:33 pm
    
    Craig, do you see an object thrown with force up towards the sky come down? Your own eyes sees nothing to explain gravity. I have reviewed and re-reviewed every single argument and angle concerning building 7 and have come away absolutely convinced it happened just as told. If you weren’t so biased into believing the worse in every single circumstance perhaps you would see things differently. The willingness to believe that every single event that turns out badly has been planned, goes against the odds. Reminds me of the NFL’s denial that the sport causes brain damage. There were some 45 brains dissected from prior NFL players and 44 of them showed brain damage, yet they make statements that the science isn’t definitive on a connection.
    
    Sticking with 9/11 please show me where you get your conclusions from? Every snippet of conspiracy footage or reports have been easily refuted with full text content and footage. The slew of structural engineers have all stated how the building was built and the dynamics of how it would fall. The damage to the building was seen for 7 hours prior to its collapse. The fact that firefighters couldn’t treat the fire due to low water pressure and being distracted with the main two towers is not indicative of any strange conspiracy. Just because you can’t believe it can happen that way doesn’t make it a conspiracy. Gravity, and Earth not being the center of the Universe, must also be thought of as a conspiracy. I know it worked that way for centuries.
  - Craig October 9, 2013, 10:33 pm
    
    I am not answering you to give you an answer I am answering you to let people that may be reading to make up their own mind.
    
    First of all! The NFL denial has zero relation with building 7. It is more akin to the cigarettes denial. You like Jill assume I side with big business or the NFL. I love NFL but they were dumb like the cigarette companies to deny what science may prove and common sense tells you that of course hitting people in the head causes damage stop trying to throw red herrings all over the place.
    
    You have not reviewed jack buddy. You just read the cover stories the powers that be tell you and take em hook line and sinker…it’s a fishing term meaning you never question the bait. (I am always here to help) 🙂
    
    Another thing I must say is you tyrannical liberals who hide behind the power of the state all do the same things. You project your flaws on everyone else. You call conservatives and gun owners racists when you consistently hide your racism behind your willingness to give handouts. Too complex and sickening to get into here. And like the racism tendencies liberals always claim oppositions to your views are always attacked with saying they are biased and have no basis in fact and are emotion like you comment about RWD and fallingman about hate when it is you. Stop projecting your faults on us. You have no facts it’s all emotion and the party of tolerance is very intolerant if opposing views so give up that physchological warfare on us, it does work. Ok now that I have addressed that we will continue:
    
    Your gravity comments are another red herring, when gravity is the reason your “excuses” make no sense. Next your going to call me a flat earther, another liberal tactic like calling people racists and terrorists to discredit them by association. So proteding I thing gravity is a conspiracy theory is a weak tactic you employ because your points are so weak.
    
    Now I have linked the excellent utube video “this is an orange” here many times before. This excellent video shows different demolisions with explosives and then building 7. Once people watch this video they usually see that this is all true.
    
    Evidence of a demolition the building fell at just under freefall speed, your “debunking” articles always claim this is the absolute proof nonexplosives were used…so let’s use common sense now. A demolision clears the resistance. I will spell this out for you there were more than 80+ steel and concrete support beams as resistance. If a build fell due to failure or weakening of the steel. Steel melts at 3000 degrees, paper, airplane fuel diesel fuel burn at 1000 degrees. So these debunkers say 1000 degrees weakened the steal to such a degree that all 80+ support column gave away at the exact same second. If one single column failed and caused a domino effect on all 80+ steel columns then each would have failed on their own after all the pressure was put on them, this would take a long time to do. Let’s just pretend each column took 1 second, which is really stretching it. The entire collapse would take well over a minute and not the 10 seconds that it actually took. Also the columns run vertical so the collapse would be uneven as one failed after another, causing the ruble to be a big uneven pile. So let’s summarize this the debunkers tell you 80+ steel columns surrounded by concrete “weakened” by 1000 degree fires that were already out all collapsed at the exact same millisecond causing a 47 story build to collapse in it’s own footprint into small dust particles with no uneven pile at one second slower then freefallspeed. They claim that that 1 second proves that it was not explosives. If the building collapsed duetonreasons they claim each steel column would have given resistance until it gave way some might have been many seconds or minutes or hours as each had the entire weight of the building put on it. As the falling building used GRAVITY to find the path of least resistance the columns would have gave way in different directions some would be intact and would have fell sideways leaving a huge pile of steel and concrete well over 10-20 stories high. I watched their elaborate CAD drawings of how the building collapsed “internally” with each horizontal beam (not vertical beam) falling like a zipper inside the building “for hours” and then the outside shell fell like paper without the support. It really is a slap in the face of Antibes intelligence that watched it. See here is the key Gary did not watch this CAD model he only read the review of a person that watched and said it’s legit. A ten year old would know different. So there is their proof weak as all hell. They blame diesel fires from the generator inthe basement on one side of the building. How come just that side didn’t collapse. They claim damage from buildings 1 and 2. I’d you see the damage it is little corners nicked off at the base not very big, even if that was the cause why didn’t the building tip over in that direction it fell straight down symmetrically into a neat pile. Next they say the impact of 1 and 2 hitting the ground with such force weakened the steel and caused it to collapse 6 hours later…so that force destroys steel but the glass window remain intact? Cmon man, seriously? What other proof do I have well…..
    
    Only 3 steel buildings have ever collapsed due to fires in the history of steel buildings…guess which ones, that’s right towers 1,2 and 7 on 9/11. All leased by the same Bush insider who collected double the insurance (billions of $). Also he said on tape they decided to “pull” the building which means demolish it. Excuse was pull the firefighters out…yeah ok. A few years ago a Chinese steel building that shaped like a Z burned for a week while under construction…did it collapse? Nope….they scraped the burn marks off and kept building it. Is that all my evidence….nope. How do they blow up a building. The destroy all the support beams at the exact moment so that building falls into itself. There is tell tale sign of this as the top center of th building gives way one micro second earlier causing a krink
  - Craig October 9, 2013, 11:03 pm
    
    A krink in the top floor so that the void will be filled by the rest of the building also they take out the bottom 8 or so floors so that the top floors fall with enough force to break into small pieces inwards to protect the other buildings. Do we see this in all the videos of building 7….YES! On one angle you can see the bottom floors just disappear and the top 40 or soo just fall into the dust. Notice how they NEVER talk about building 7 ever and you never ever see it on the TV only towers 1 and 2. There is zero doubt building 7 was demolished with explosives. No steel building can fall like that without them. And Gary 1,000s of engineers and architects have signed a petition saying the official story is bogus, at risk to their careers, just like the scientists were destroyed in their careers if they disputed global warming, I mean climate change, I mean global cooling.
  - Fallingman October 9, 2013, 11:17 pm
    
    Let’s get back to disease care for a second.
    
    I favor allowing people to do whatever they want to do…have “insurance” or not have it.
    
    I favor that in every walk of life. Live and let live. As long as you don’t screw with somebody else’s freedom and property, and you take responsibility for your own actions, you’re FREE to do whatever you like however you like with whomever you like.
    
    YOU support the mandate. I don’t have the freedom to choose. You’re forcing me to do something.
    
    Okay, by any standard other than Orwellian doublespeak, does that make me the bully … or you?
    
    You conflate my asking questions that make you uncomfortable…questions you can’t answer…with “bullying.” You equate my verbal badgering with “hate.”
    
    Nonsense. I get that when a boxer is trapped in the corner and is getting wailed on by his opponent in the ring, it seems pretty “mean” to the person being battered, but it’s not really personal Gary.
    
    I don’t even know you. Why in the world would I waste an emotion as strong as hate on you? You’re nobody. I do really dislike you, but that’s more simply on principle…and maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe you’re a Prince of a guy who means well, but just has the inability to process complex thought.
    
    It’s just that you provide such a fat target that it’s impossible not to take pot shots at you. Clowns get pies thrown at them. What can I say?
    
    Maybe that makes me a bad person. Okay. Boo hoo. Call in the nuns. They can whack my wrist with a ruler.
    
    Bloody Jill and Gutless Gary. There you go. Now, if you like, you can call me a silly name. Oh wait. I’ve already called myself one.
  - Craig October 9, 2013, 11:28 pm
    
    On second thought Gary why don’t you watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BdVZj6aqlE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
    
    It will take 2 minutes and 18 seconds and YOU tell me HOW 80+ steel support columns failed at the exact same second without explosives? You tell me how te building fell symmetrically like that without them? You tell me, your the conspiracy theorist theorizing all these crazy ways it could happen without them. Tell use YOUR opinion of the visual evidence, not copy and paste someone else BS round incircles full of maybes and what ifs and once try get to one full paragraph of nonsensical BS they see I debunked it. Tell us? Three sentences tell us how? No changing the subject or links, you tell us how you think it happened.
  - Redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 11:58 pm
    
    Thanks for posting the link Craig. I’ve seen that video before. There are so many absurdities associated with everything 911 and yet the official story rolls on. The revulsion that so many experience when confronted with something closer to the 911 truth convinced me long ago that most people prefer the lie because they literally fear the truth.
  - gary leibowitz October 10, 2013, 12:53 am
    
    http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm
    
    facts: building 7 was 300 feet away from main towers.
    huge damage was seen on the videos presented. Fire was going on for over 6 hours (also seen on video). Police and fireman made public comments that there was a huge bulge in the building and it looked like it would fall. this was 1 to 2 hours before if did fall. The penthouse on the top west side went first as it should considering the damage and structural integrity of that area. the full video shows all this. The designed structure of the building was shown. A whole bunch of structural engineers attested to this. Ask Rick’s friend if he agrees with the physics of it all. Clearly if a structural engineer says this is a normal consequence of the damage to the building how can you dispute this? Do you have any testimony from a structural engineer to counter this claim?
    
    Please look at all the evidence, piece by piece. this article explains away every single conspiracy theories. it has video and testimony from the people on the scene that states it will fall way before it actually did. Were they also part of the conspiracy? How far will you take it to stay rigid in your beliefs? You personally can’t believe physics works this way? is that your argument?
    
    Look at all the footage presented. I am baffled why you prefer to ignore such glaring wholes in your story. 300 feet away, fires for over 6 hours, huge damage to one side, police and fireman commenting 1 to 2 hours BEFORE the collapse that they thought it would fall (based on visual bulging), structural engineers that reviewed the diagrams, video, and structure of building determined that it fell on its own. Are they all lying? Even RICK’s friend? This is what I have to contend with. Total denial of facts, refusal to believe anyone or any footage other than the ones that fit their theory. BTW I was there that day. Not 4 blocks away. I didn’t however leave my building that day to see the damage. Too bad. if I had I am sure you would call me a plant for this government anyway.
  - Craig October 10, 2013, 1:40 am
    
    There were lots of buildings less then 300 feet that got lots of buildings 1&2 on them and they stood tall after.
    
    The firefighters also said on videotape to clear the area they are going to blow it.
    
    Would you look at the video and see how the building actually fell not how they said it fell. But I will leave it to you to say…how exactly did 80+ columns fail at the same second? How did the building freefall exactly? Freefall as in fall at the speed of gravity with zero resistance only air? How?
    
    There was no bulging, the damage is minimal and was not to any support structures just exterior walls, and fires were out, give me a break there are tons of videos and pictures that confirm what I say and show what you are saying is complete bull.
    
    I have no doubts you didn’t leave your apartment…have you ever?
  - Craig October 10, 2013, 3:43 am
    
    Red,
    
    It is funny you do have to watch the video of Building 7 fallin from time to time…you actually forget how obvious it is when it’s been awhile. Like childishly obvious. And then you listen to people who have never watched one angle of it go on and on about “heat” “fires” “weight” of the floors and “damage from 1 & 2” “shock waves from 1 & 2” you watch 20 seconds of video that proves to the layman to the engineers by just watching…yep that was explosives. The only people that argue this have never looked at the building fall. Unfortunately too many people never will out of willful ignorance.
  - DK October 10, 2013, 6:13 am
    
    Sorry to butt in Craig, Gary, Red, but please, do me a favor and debunk ALL of the following. Yes, Gary, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.
    
    What do you have to say about the BBC reporting on WTC 7 having collapsed on a live feed 7 minutes before it actually collapsed – the building is literally still standing over the reporters left shoulder, LIVE. That video is all over the place.
    Debunk that.
    
    Give me a break, seriously???
    
    I have seen dozens of news feeds of homes made of friggen wood burn for hours and not collapse.
    We are talking about UL certified steel girders that go through MANDATORY fire hardening/testing. No inherent deductive reasoning whatsoever – no, no, here’s a “debunk” website. And you have the nerve, Gary, to tell me to be more “open minded?” You believe ONE version that is spoon fed to you.
    
    Think for yourself, screw FOX, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, ABC, and the rest of ’em.
    
    By “coincidence,” what was contained in WTC 7???? Hmmmm…
    
    How many friggen “coincidences” are there baked into this cake???
    
    How about all of the cars in the vicinity of the towers burning, literally, from the inside out due to electronic fires.
    Debunk that. I’ve come across 2 explanations for that, see if you come across the same because there is not even a realistic, valid attempt anywhere to debunk that.
    
    Debunk the flight recorder of the “plane” that hit the pentagon, which through FOIA request, proves the cockpit NEVER opened after take off. How about the flight path that high jacker flew with a commercial airliner when his flight history shows he couldn’t consistently operate a single engine Cessna worth a damn. What did happen to the remains of that that plane by the way? That’s odd…
    
    Look at the photos of the rubble of WTC 1 & 2, don’t you see the angular cuts in the vertical support beams? Looks like the results from what is commonly known as a “shape charge” in demolition. Look it up.
    
    Please debunk the molten steel that was found in the rubble by clean up crews and firefighters WEEKS after the buildings collapse. The fire fighters have given lengthy testimony over this, they compare it to what would be found at a foundry – molten steel. One explanation certainly would be military grade nano thermite still reacting, of which residues were discovered in the remains of the building.
    This is explained in a peer reviewed scientific paper – The Open Chemical Physics Journal (2009, 2, 7-31)
    Please! Debunk that.
    
    I’ve already addressed my opposition to Rick’s sources. I have my own, and they have their own experience in demolition and all kinds of various backgrounds in engineering and architecture. Even to approach this from your vantage point, Gary, the jury is out.
    
    There is NO credible reason why a 3rd party, independent investigation should not be conducted. This would satisfy any questions out there and in your case, silence ALL of the critics. Seems to me that’s on par with all kinds of suspicion with the government. How about auditing the Fed, for REAL. How about Fort Knox? How about defense spending – the Pentagon perhaps? No no no that would “jeopardize national security, ” or “interfere” with the Fed’s job. Yea? Well it also undermines the vested interest of WE THE PEOPLE, whom all of these miscreants operate at the expense of.
    
    Put up or shut up.
    
    Rick, my apologies again. I am going to remain silent from here on out, BUT, I am looking forward to a response, Gary.
    Please, skirt the issues/questions as so many here expect will do.
  - DK October 10, 2013, 6:33 am
    
    Sorry, I couldn’t resist one more issue.
    
    Gary, please debunk the testimony of the Secretary of Transportation in front of the 9-11 commission. Please discredit him. Please.
    Lee Hamilton questioning the Secretary of Transportation Norman Maneta
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y
    
    Oh, no, it’s nothing like all of the faked or manufactured news feeds from the 1st Gulf War by CNN (caught!), etc. Charles Jaco & Carl Rochelle much??? LMAO! Nice back drop! Funny how the reporters take cover and put on protection but the camera man doesn’t budge, no interruption whatsoever. No, the news doesn’t BS us, we aren’t misled.
    @3:15, but watch the comedy from the beginning.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S77CzzpkRJY
    
    I’m done here.
  - Craig October 10, 2013, 8:35 pm
    
    DK,
    
    Yes the whole 9/11 thing has so many holes in it that someone could write a book on it….oh wait they have many books. Every single event that happened that day can be shown to be a lie by direct or indirect evidence. If it were not for building 7, the pentagon would be the smoking gun….but as it is building 7 is such the obvious glaring unprovable item I choose to focus on that and that only. And not any of the weird things that happened around building 7 either. Just focus on did explosives being it down? Yes. Who could have put those explosives in a building that housed the FBI , SEC, CIA, Secret Service etc and you only have one answer and everything else and all the other proof becomes irrelevant. And the whole conspiracy is proven with 20 seconds of video, to even a layman with their own eyes and brains. If Rick just watched it once a lightbulb would go off and he would immediately realize we are correct. Yes just 20 seconds of video. But see Gary was the opposite of what I was, I never looked and I thought all the people that thought it was imploded just hated Bush so much they wanted to believe it. So I blindly defended bush not because I liked him it was because I didn’t like people taking cheap shots and anyone and he wasn’t Clinton. I finally looked and in 20 seconds I knew I was wring the whole time, I didn’t sleep for days, I almost threw up, the country and world I thought was not true so I began my quest to find out how the world works and who runs it. Aka who and why would anyone do such a thing to those poor people. The answers are awful and not pleasant but I would rather know then be a sheep.
    
    If everyone watched those 20 seconds and we just focused on that this tyranny and BS may end. There are so many issues to tackle but I think this one is the easiest to prove. If we focus on was it explosives or not then who could have put them there…case closed then we can worry about vaccines, FEMA camps, floride, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, GMOs, depleted uranium poising our “foes” and troops (that is te REAL WMD) and all the other crimes against nature and humanity that have been commited. So I believe it is central to any topic even thou Gary is the one that ran with it.
  - Redwilldanaher October 11, 2013, 2:21 am
    
    DK, Craig, thanks for taking the time and putting in the effort that you have. Seems we’ve all gone down the rabbit hole and as Craig noted, it’s sickening but I prefer it to being just another sheople.
    
    Craig, you couldn’t be more right about building 7 being the key because it is so obvious. If you the research there can be no other conclusion.
    
    Let’s look at it the other way. Let’s use probability theory expressed in terms of odds. WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT A BUILDING LIKE THAT COULD FALL SO PERFECTLY INTO IT’S OWN FOOTPRINT, EXACTLY IN THE WAY IT WOULD IF IT WERE A CONTROLLED DEMOLITION, YET TO HAVE DONE SO RANDOMLY due to natural causes?
    
    Please, please someone give me the odds of that happening! We’ll see who has the guts to take that question because that is the only question that matters. Once you admit how improbable that is then you must embrace the truth and all the lies that are then visible.
    
    Gary has been called out many times this week and I see there is much he has thus far not responded to. Clock is ticking Gary…
DG October 8, 2013, 6:05 pm

ACA is as brain-dead as corn based ethanol. (PEIX was hailed as genius in the beginning…..only gone from $5000 to $4!!!!!!4 not 4k …it went up 5x its first year…remember all the stupid ads with farmers ???)
The basic problem is it subsidizes corruption, due to a distortion of free markets. The ACA does NOTHING to promote the lowering of costs and everything to continue to force regulations upon an industry that uses those regulations to control price competition, forcing prices UP. The US spends 17% of GDP on healthcare. Most developed Countries are less than half that. Yet we have high cancer rates, high diabetes, etc, etc….comparatively we pay twice as much and get less.
I have been a 1 percenter since the 4th year out of college, 30 years ago. Productive stuff, making the computers you love, cheaper and better. I worked my ass off. Insane competition, riddled with failures, no bailouts, no subsidies, some successes. You’re welcome. Healthcare in America SUCKS. There is no competition. It is controlled by politicians and the large corporations that monopolize the industry.
What will happen with ACA is that rich people will figure out a way to reduce their income to meet the insane requirements. They will live off their nest egg. No income, no penalty. The middle class will howl even louder as they get screwed by this….. The poorer people and the newly immigrated from Mexico people will love it. Great job. Enjoy the turd sandwich y’all voted for, cuz now you are going to eat it…
http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_24248486/obamacares-winners-and-losers-bay-area?source=most_viewed
(most viewed – amazing it only took 6 years for boobus americanus to get here)
Maybe these folks will start pulling their heads out of their asses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-sdO6pwVHQ
“Obama” He’s sooooooooo smart!
(I realize it is propaganda, but y’all know people just like them…..maybe you!)

Look. McCain or romney had the same corrupt corporate warts. BUT…maybe the ex-republicans can make folks wake up and become ex democrats and then get together, draw a big venn diagram, AGREE on the corruption that they both can’t stand and start there. Hillary? Give me a break. How do you explain being broke before the Presidency and rich after, if not for corruption??? $200 million rich. Can’t deduct enough skivvies to make that tax go away….but you could start a foundation!!
If you are benefitting from ACA, realize it will suck for you, too. Sure, you might have a card that says you are insured. But that don’t mean you will get care. You’re just going to pay some for a card. Period. You are now a card carrying member of the healthcare sucks club.

There aint no such thing as free healthcare (or lunch).

Until free market competition exists and the whores in govt that feed at the corrupt corporate trough change, your healthcare in America will continue to cost more and deliver less…
Why do you think Liz Fowler, the principal architect of ACA, is now employed by Johnson and Johnson? Altruism? Corruption. Maybe you need to watch this again and grab a mirror this time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-sdO6pwVHQ

Peace
Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 5:21 pm

http://abcnews.go.com/US/frustrated-rural-colorado-counties-secede-51st-state/t/story?id=20493654&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

I bring even more good news friends! Can this little snow ball finally be getting some traction?

The answer has been right there in plain sight the whole time! None of their enslavement policies will work if we leave the plantation!

As fallingman has forced Jill to run and hide, so can we force them to steal only from their own kind. And we’ll see how long that lasts!

Can it get any more American to want to be free and independent from an over bearing and insular government?

Jill, Gary, send us postcards from the commune won’t ya?
- Craig October 8, 2013, 6:14 pm
  
  We could tell them to move to Russia but sadly Russia seems to be become more free while we become more like the soviet style Russia. The Russian newspapers have even stated that.
  
  Like i said before Texas or Montana seceding is the best hope for the world, Texas would be a big enough economy to be a world player. I really pray the people of Colorado stand up to the dems that are trying to turn it into a kalifornia utopia.
- gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 6:42 pm
  
  I guess the South should have kept their property in order to balance the unfair industrial North’s power.
  Equal but separate. My point is that when you live in congested integrated cities your view point changes.
  You are forced to get-along with people that you don’t know or ever intended to know. You experience all the nuances of life, both good and bad.
  
  The idea that states have their own persona and mindset is nothing new. If I was living in rural parts of the country, living a life of hard work and strong religious backing, I can understand where these ideas come from. I can empathize with them. How about Minnesota or Texas as two diametrically opposed views? That’s what makes us so unique and complicated.
- Fallingman October 8, 2013, 9:43 pm
  
  Love the move to secede/decentralize Red.
- Carol October 9, 2013, 4:40 pm
  
  Red,
  
  with all due respect, succession to become another US State solves absolutely nothing. All the 50 states now are just sub-corporations of mother US Inc. These counties will jump from being a sub-corporation of the STATE OF COLORADO (a sub corp of US Inc) to the NEW STATE OF WHATEVER or in order words jumping from the fire into the fire. What does that accomplish?
  
  We need some state or counties or other entity to form a new “country” but good luck because in this world of funny money that new “country” will either become another Corporation using funny money and the laws of admiralty/maritime/military (notes, contracts, force) or if we were lucky they would become another target of the Central Banks and become the next “axis of evil” and be “taken out”.
  
  There is no solution, this IS a prison planet!
  - Fallingman October 9, 2013, 4:50 pm
    
    Hard to argue Carol. Thoughtful as always.
    
    AND…the smaller the unit, the harder it is for the bastards to insulate themselves from your wrath.
    
    I can tell you unequivocally that my town councilmen FEAR what I’m going to bring to the meetings. The county people a little less. The state Rep and Senator consider me a minor nuisance. To the Congressweasel, I’m a blip…to the Senator, I’m pretty much totally invisible. To the bureaucracy…the real rulers…I’m just another number with ZERO influence.
    
    Plus, the very idea that we want out sends a message in and of itself of how much we think they suck.
    
    I’d love to see SC, Red’s home state and my former home state, secede again, and this time without the baggage of trying to defend slavery, which is, of course, the highest crime there is, short of murder…a crime the government specializes in.
  - Carol October 9, 2013, 5:17 pm
    
    Fallingman,
    
    I presently live ON South Carolina (the soil) not in SC (a federal district). I agree it would send a message but to whom – no one is listening.
    
    As far a SC carrying the “baggage” of slavery, as I am sure you know the civil war was about federalism NOT slavery. If slavery were the issue then why was the outcome to make EVERYONE a slave with their 13, 14, 15 amendments to THEIR CONstitution? It was a ruse to make people believe they were free all the while enslaving all of society.
  - Redwilldanaher October 9, 2013, 6:03 pm
    
    Carol, I agree with you on every point you made. A loose confederation of small and independent states is what I’d prefer to see. I have been on record here for many years arguing that anything short of a full reset is pointless.
    
    I agree that it truly is a prison planet and I assume that you realize that you, myself and Steve have all performed research of a similar kind albeit to varying degrees.
    
    I also reside in SC. I agree with your views regarding the War of Northern aggression.
    
    Deo Vindice
  - DK October 9, 2013, 8:43 pm
    
    “As far a SC carrying the “baggage” of slavery, as I am sure you know the civil war was about federalism NOT slavery. If slavery were the issue then why was the outcome to make EVERYONE a slave with their 13, 14, 15 amendments to THEIR CONstitution? It was a ruse to make people believe they were free all the while enslaving all of society.”
    
    I swear, of all people I converse with, those on this board are the only ones who realize this.
    
    Thank you, Carol
  - Fallingman October 9, 2013, 10:47 pm
    
    Yeah, no argument Carol.
    
    I’ve spent PLENTY of time articulating to the publick skool edjookated the unheard message that secession was about the freedom to choose…not any different from the revolution. Believe me, I get that … chapter and verse.
    
    Anyone, or group of people, should be free to peacefully exit an association no longer enjoyed.
    
    So don’t misunderstand my point. The “freedom to choose” argument was muddied by the issue of slavery. Hard to make the argument when you, yourself, are deny people freedom.
    
    It made it extremely easy to make the Confederates out as the bad guys, even though, as we all know…I automatically exclude Gary…Lincoln said very clearly if he could preserve the union without freeing one slave, he would. The war was about power and dominion.
    
    But the issue of slavery provided cover for the aggression by Lincoln and his endless string of incompetent generals.. Gave ’em a way to justify it to the public. That’s all I’m saying. The proximate driver of separation was unfortunate. And it was certainly the driver, although there had been many other provocations from the imperial North.
    
    Imagine if the issue that prompted secession had been something like a special 90% tax levied only on the sale of cotton or a law that outlawed gun ownership. That would have taken away any pretense of righteousness on the part of the invaders.
- Redwilldanaher October 11, 2013, 2:48 am
  
  http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/is-red-state-america-seceding/
  
  The Montpelier Manifesto of the Second Vermont Republic concludes:
  
  “Citizens, lend your names to this manifesto and join in the honorable task of rejecting the immoral, corrupt, decaying, dying, failing American Empire and seeking its rapid and peaceful dissolution before it takes us all down with it.”
  
  Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/is-red-state-america-seceding/#5gB37yufGK7g34TE.99
Marc October 8, 2013, 4:33 pm

Getting back on tpoic, as Cam rightly noted, I’m wondering why you did not address the point I made with you earlier, Jill? You’ve taken others to task for not addressing what you’ve raised, but you do the same. What about my observation that health insurance costs in this country experienced outsized price increases BECAUSE OF government intervention. It is because of the pay structure of Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the requirement to treat indigent illegal aliens gratis, that costs ballooned for everyone else over time. Just like federal involvement in mortgage lending drove home prices, and federal student loans drove college costs. Only the mechanism is different: with medical care, the government caused financial shortfalls that had to be recouped on the backs of the working insured; with housing and education, the government threw more money into the markets than would have existed under the private sector, and more money chasing any good or service will drive up its price.

So like most statists, your cure for the disease the government caused is more government.
- fallingman October 8, 2013, 4:43 pm
  
  Oh Marc, now you’ve pushed too far into inconvenient truth territory for easy answer Jill.
  
  Her type just wants to “pass another miracle” to fix the mess they created by screwing with things in the first place.
  
  The arsonist becomes fireman and hero. It’s so sick, but most people are so ignorant, so stupid and so full of hubris, they fall for/engage in the con every time.
  
  She won’t answer you, BECAUSE SHE CAN’T.
  
  CHECKMATE.
- mava October 8, 2013, 5:36 pm
  
  The people are too stupid, naturally, to see to it that no big corporation gets any undue benefits on the backs of everyone else. It seems to me that it is this stupidity of the general public, that will force said public into some sort of socialism. They just ain’t smart enough to keep the freedom.
  
  What happens is some fat cat wants a public ride. He offers a miracle, like worry free loans. The public, gets on it with vengeance. The setup has been completed at this point.
  
  Now comes the time to pay the piper. All this public being dishonest, demands the bailout. They can not be made responsible for their own choices, because they are too stupid. Somehow, being stupid, is now a better ticket than being smart.
  
  So, the government, worrying about their reelection, starts up the printing press in order to make the difference. The public is told that filling up something that is empty somehow is not inflationary. They aren’t bright enough to know better, and they don’t care either.
  
  The prices rocket up. Now what? If the government waits, then the price increases will make the bottom of the public not capable of paying for the doctor’s services. If so, they will do what they always do: fill the streets with blood. No matter that it was their own fault for trusting the promises of magic to begin with. They will kill until they had enough.
  
  So, the government knows this needs to be tended to. They make those working the hardest to pay more, to pay the way for the dummies. Not because it likes it, but because the government views us all as one dumb crowd. They see us all as dummies, because the result of our voting is always dumb, representing the large numbers of the people on the bottom. So, the government basically says: “I ain’t gonna risk my reelection for these dummies that were begging for this problem in the first place”. The government does what keeps them in place – Obamacare.
  
  I totally agree with you.
  
  The long term effect of this is that for some time, the high earners will tolerate this, but this will only get the dummies even more confident in their voting ability to always get out of every stupid thing they dis scotch free, on the back of the guy who didn’t do any of it.
  
  But, then, at some point, the long suffering, hard working guy says : “F it. I’ve had enough” He sells the shop and moves somewhere else. This is something America hasn’t seen yet.
  
  But, it should. It should take a long hard look at the through Russia is looking at, because of the “brain drain”. It should look at it to see if this is something it wants to experience in the future.
  
  Once the brain drain begins, it winds up and up and up, because with every productive member of society leaving, the proportion of the worthless bums to productive members changes again and again, always to the worse, making it only more evident for all the remaining ones that they must leave.
  
  Right now, America doesn’t see this in it’s future. There is some talk about business leaving for Chinese shores. This is not even nearly as painful as when all the brighter people will invariably get up and leave, leaving only the sick and the worthless home.
  
  Brain drain can not be stopped, unless the voting public actually understands it. But even then, the immediate consequences, the hardship of making the right decision is so great, that the public can never get the guts to actually do it.
  
  The country must die completely then. It can not be saved.
Cam Fitzgerald October 8, 2013, 9:18 am

Waste of breath you guys. Is the issue not about why medical costs are so extremely high in your country and what solutions might be implemented to bring them down? You are all being steamrolled by a health tax that strikes everyone else as utterly insane. What the hell does 9/11 have to do with the topic anyway…..or Libertarians or political events from the past? Seems to me you would be better off working on ideas to reduce costs than poking each other in the eye all the time.
- Craig October 8, 2013, 5:14 pm
  
  Seriously how many times do I have to explain this, this is a serious mental problem for people…all anyone focuses in on is key words, I use the fact that many democrats got on the truth movement that Bush was involved with 9/11, they didn’t look at the fact they just piled on due to their hate for Bush once they got Obama in they jumped off and wanted nothingto do with it because they were just using the issue to pile on to Bush.
  
  It’s an example people it was not a statement or has anything to do directly with Obamacare (although it did help get us here bit thy was not my point) my point was it is an example of how Jill and Gary act on issues that fit the narrative they want ignoring the lefts involvement or whoever they are trying to defend.
  
  The absolute ignorance of people just seeing 9/11 or any other key word from an example and jumping up and down saying what does 9/11 have to do with this just shows the absolute short attention span of anyone that does it and shows how there can never be any deep discussion because no one can think deeper than Bush=bad Obama=good and they can not see the forest through the trees. Oooops I did it again..cmon Jill let me hear it ” what do trees have to do with this???!?”.
Jill October 8, 2013, 5:58 am

Redwilldanaher, you say “Both of you seem to be missing the fact that there are far more libertarians here than republicans…”

But Libertarians ARE Republicans. Rand Paul, the big revered Libertarian here, what party did he run as? Not Libertarian. As I mentioned, Libertarians never associate themselves with the party of the only recent president to have left office with a budget surplus. So it is hard for me to view Libertarians as really believing what they preach. Libertarians seem to always run with the party that historically has overspent on corporate welfare programs whose costs far exceed the comparatively puny costs of social programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment Insurance.

Many here think that, if the whole country is controlled by a small number of corporations– as the whistleblower from the World Bank alleges– that the solution is to join forces with the Koch-Brothers-funded Tea Party– and to cheer on the government shutdown that they have engineered for their own political purposes. That seems very contradictory to me. Since these mega-billionaires are the owners of the 2nd largest privately held corporation in the U.S., and the 2nd largest family fortune in the U.S., they are hardly the ones to run to, if one is running from control by mega-corporations.
- fallingman October 8, 2013, 4:28 pm
  
  Now you’ve crossed the line.
  
  Rand Paul is no libertarian. He has said as much himself. He supported Romney…statist Ken doll.
  
  Look, to the extent that any Democrat is against the welfare warfare surveillance state and the Federal Reserve…guys like Kucinich and Grayson, they get kudos from me, even if I disagree with their support of the state on other issues.
  
  To the extent a Republican is opposed to the bailout nation, the Fed, the imperial wars, crony “capitalism,” farm subsidies, etc. etc. etc., she’ll get kudos from me, even if I oppose her on the drug war or the so-called “war on terror.”
  
  How hard is that for you to understand? But you supported Obama as the lesser of two evils Bloody Jill. You’re complicit in his crimes against humanity.
  
  And, by the way hon, Bill Clinton carried the water for Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Sandy Weill at Citi by teaming up with Phil and Wendy Gramm to pass and sign into law the repeal of Glass-Steagall. That was a crony capitalist country club Republican’s wet dream. It was also the dream of scumbag Democrats like Weill and Buffett.
  
  They’re all the same. They just play PR games to dupe gullible people like you.
- Rich October 11, 2013, 3:28 am
  
  Re “But Libertarians ARE Republicans.”
  
  Jill, since you persist in this fundamentally incorrect dogma, why not learn about Libertarian Democrats?
  
  They include Presidents Jefferson, Van Buren, Jackson and Cleveland, Senators Russ Feingold, Mike Gravel, William Proxmire and Ron Wyden, US Reps GK Butterfield, Dennis Kucinich (op cit), Tim Penny and Mike Thompson?:
  
  Plus a host of Governors whose names you would recognize:
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Democrat
gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 5:17 am

The real question remains. Has these social programs, corrupt and inefficient as it is, been beneficial to the masses and lifted our living standard, or have the been detrimental. Is it possible to extract the last 50 years of entitlements and conclude there would be a stronger middle class? I can only base my decision on personal family observations. My family as a whole has benefited greatly from such programs. My father and grandfather worked two to three jobs growing up, starting from high school. Never got higher education; never looked for hand-outs; were the most honest and giving people I know that distilled a sense of fairness in me.

Now if you want to focus on those that take advantage of these programs, you must conclude all programs and all systems must cease from forming, since all have bottom dwellers. Does any of your self approved programs work as intended all the time? Balance “for the good” of the masses and you should have your answer.

In conclusion there is always a cost for massive government programs. Is the programs themselves to blame for the debt implosion or is it a combination of other factors. The ever increased disparity between rich and poor surely can’t be explained away by saying that these social programs were the cause. How lopsided would that imbalance be without these programs?

The real question I have is will my multiple posts be allowed. Have I exceeded the Rick-O-Meter tolerance?
- Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 5:32 pm
  
  I hope Rick issues you an irrevocable lifetime membership here Gary. The theater of the absurd material that you litter this forum with help to remind me why being nimble and technically oriented are the only ways for me to trade the markets. The irrationality reminder you provide is of great value…
  - gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 1:07 am
    
    Yet another titillating debate you present me with. You counter with “absurd material that you litter the forum with”. Yet no rebuttal of any kind. No facts, opinions, references, historical similarities. Nada.
    
    I guess my premise that giving away these handouts saves that person money. Simple supposition. I guess if we didn’t subsidize housing, food, and health costs you believe that person would still manage to maintain the same or better standard of living. Simple math is applied. Government payment verses out of pocket. Are you really arguing this point. Do you out of habit just argue no matter what I say?
  - DK October 9, 2013, 9:19 am
    
    Gary,
    “Giving away these handouts saves that person money. Simple supposition.”
    
    At the expense of those who have worked to make their situations better for themselves and their families. Um, where did those handouts come from? I believe that would be answered with “theft” in the form taxes! Mandated (there’s that word again). Hail to the queen.
    
    Get the damn gov’t out of my wallet! Are you so afraid to the let REAL free markets TRY to resolve these issues? I think we all know the answer to that. But you’ve never actually experienced that happen so I can understand your hesitation. Too bad we’ve had the same mob rule running this country for over 150 years and look at where it has gotten us. How’s that “change” working for ya?
    
    No, no, we need to create more bureaucracy, which has inherent unnecessary costs rife with fraud, coupled with a bogus monetary system, thus contributing to the ever escalating costs you claim to save, continually feeding the beast that people become dependent on. Pretty ingenious cycle, don’t ya think? Hm, almost as if it were by DESIGN. Uh oh, there’s that “conspiracy” concept again. It is a model. When your head finally leave the sand for the surface to breath, you might actually realize this.
    
    Perhaps, someday, you will find that most of these issues were CREATED by the government or using the government as a vehicle.
  - Fallingman October 9, 2013, 4:41 pm
    
    This is an idiotic strawman argument.
    
    Would I stop at a four way intersection if you didn’t post a traffic light? YEAH, because I don’t want a bad outcome.
    
    Just because the $%#^&@! government doesn’t provide the service DOESN’T MEAN IT WOULDN’T GET PROVIDED and in a far more efficient and personal way. But they cripple you, hand you a pair of crutches and then say, “Without us, you wouldn’t be able to walk.”
    
    Of course, now that the government has taken over in area after area and done an ace A-1 crappy job of the responsibilities they’ve coopted, we’re stuck with the status quo. Anything you do as an individual has to be done with the money left after taxes and the time left after working for the man to pay the taxes. There ain’t much left.
    
    Example: I have to pay for insurance I’ve never used and may very well never use at a high rate so other people get a subsidy. I have less money to pay for truly preventative HEALTH care. The money went to pay for DISEASE care.
    
    As Ringo Starr famously said, “Everything the government touches turns to s**t.
    
    Congratulations Gary on the part you’re playing in the decline and fall of western civilization.
    
    When it falls, do we get an apology?
  - mava October 9, 2013, 4:54 pm
    
    “Giving away these handouts saves that person money. Simple supposition.”
    
    Why should I care? Why should I care about a person that refuses to solve it’s own problems? I work on my own. I ask not about any hand outs. Tell me why must I be forced to become someone’s family member?
    
    Do you really think that you can rob people at gunpoint and have no consequences? Do you not detect the already existing level of animosity? Continue the violence and you will see it finally exploding.
    
    If I don’t care about someone you think of as “poor”, that is because I remember that when I was in college, that someone had party after party and was on drugs all the time. I am sorry, but I have ZERO sympathy to that person.
    
    Yes, you can violently take what’s mine and force me to help them, but do you think you had solved something? You don’t think that I will NEVER allow that person to ever succeed in anything, because I remember the reason they are poor, and I remember being violated?
    
    You think it’s that person I am going to promote, after what they had done to me and others like me?
    
    You think you can do violence, and have no consequences, in short? That you change this one thing, take money from my pocket to their undeservingly, and everything else will remain the same?
    
    Man, will you be surprised when the whole place boils up with hate, and you will be left guessing “Where did that came from?”
    
    Violence has consequences.
Jill October 8, 2013, 2:12 am

BTW, I know that both parties hands are dirty, as I wrote before, but I guess Craig didn’t read what I wrote. He just answered it without reading.

Anyway, regarding the dirty hands of both parties and the banking system, here’s an interesting article from a whistleblower from the World Bank.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/world-bank-whistleblower-reveals-how-the-global-elite-rule-the-world/5353130
- Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 3:07 am
  
  Jill, I suggest that you force-feed that link to Gary because it accurately describes the conspiracy by the few to control the globe. He’s told us we’re all crazy if we think in those terms. Seems like you two allies have things to reconcile…
  - Jill October 8, 2013, 4:52 am
    
    No, we don’t have anything to reconcile. Unlike you folks, we don’t expect people who agree on some ideas to be clones of each other on every single issue. Neither Gary nor I is a political fundamentalist who feels compelled to hold a large list of political dogmas in common with a group of other people.
    
    I guess that kind of political dogmatism must have its roots in the Christian religious fundamentalism that so many Right Wingers adhere to. Moderates and progressives are not usually fundamentalists.
  - gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 4:54 am
    
    Her is her exact quote:
    
    A former insider at the World Bank, ex-Senior Counsel Karen Hudes, says the global financial system is dominated by a small group of corrupt, power-hungry figures centered around the privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve.
    ===================================
    
    I have no problem with that statement. In fact it only reinforces my notion that unchecked power will corrupt. Same situation with LIBOR fixing. Same with the bundling of toxic mortgages, and big corporations control over politicians. You however equate all activities to be linked into one larger conspiratorial design to harm it’s citizens. I see it as a means to a person end. When all is said and done most people and groups in power twist and cheat the system for their own personal gain. No grand scheme there. Sorry it just isn’t part of out nature to cooperate with others in order to make a concerted effort to gain “group” power. The very same people that are either inclined for individual gain, or are thrust into an enticing position of power, do not share their greed and power well with others. Most nations that have such control and corruption do so from a position of ONE to many. One person controls and many follow. In a democracy it is much harder to control.
    
    The Bank for International Settlements, and the NSA are great examples of very powerful groups that have lost the objective checks and balances needed. I wish all such entities stop immediately. That doesn’t mean their sole purpose is to destroy our way of life. How you get from power/control to evil intent is a big step. In fact it would not be self-serving to do so. My one main mantra has been for transparency, inability to form such powerful groups, and constant checks and balances. That means rules and restrictions most here abhor.
    
    Have I strayed from my mission?
  - Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 5:04 am
    
    Great, then I’m sure Gary will be along shortly to take you to task for distrusting the government and for believing something aside from the official propaganda. He may even be forced by his own words to label you as some kind of a right wing nut.
    
    Both of you seem to be missing the fact that there are far more libertarians here than republicans…
  - fallingman October 8, 2013, 4:36 pm
    
    I have nothing to do with religion. Why do you bring that up? As a backhanded slur? Well, you missed the mark completely.
    
    It’s a canard. Save your idiot stereotypes for your low IQ friends.
    
    Jill, did you you know not all black people like watermelon and some blondes are pretty smart?
    
    Honestly, raise your game or shut up.
  - Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 4:57 pm
    
    I could take issue with a lot more of this Gary but I’ll stick with “…sole purpose is to destroy our way of life.”
    
    The only problem with that line of yours is that they HAVE destroyed our way of life! What they haven’t destroyed they’ve deformed. The very things that are unfolding now and have been for some time were predicted long ago and were said to be part of an agenda. Sure, it’s all just compound coincidences….
    
    Several people have placed Rockefeller’s nwo quote in Rick’s forum. They’ve placed other similar quotes here as well. Have you ever addressed any of them? Will you? Have you not ever heard your presidents refer to the nwo and pieces of the agenda?
    
    I know people that have told ten year olds not to show up for baseball evaluations so that they can make them their sleeper pick. Yet you’d have me believe that when hundreds of billions if not trillions are involved, out and out psychopaths are going to conduct themselves as perfect gentlemen thereby avoiding collusion at all costs…
  - Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 5:06 pm
    
    Gary, if you were all about transparency then you’d be raving and ranting here everyday with the current administration in your sights. Instead you’re knee jerk taking the contra side for the sake of well taking the contra side. The only way that the Bush admin could lift their image was to have something far worse follow it, which has clearly happened. If you had any integrity you’d have railed and would still be railing about how these Chitown thugs took you for a ride. Instead you still have newer members of Rick’s forum wondering if you are an Internet stooge for Barry Soetoro.
    
    I rest my case…
  - redwilldanaher October 10, 2013, 5:07 pm
    
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_PRESS_FREEDOM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-10-10-02-45
    
    Go ahead Gary, Jill, take them to task. This is from AP, one of your preferred “news” providers. It’s not old news, it’s from today. If you run and hide from this then you’ll have lost what little credibility you retain here. No excuses.
- DK October 8, 2013, 4:27 am
  
  Whoa, Jill?
  
  Damn, pigs must have grown wings (they’ve probably created that in a lab somewhere actually).
  
  I never thought I’d see that.
  - gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 6:26 pm
    
    The Thugs of Obama are spending government money for people that can’t on their own. You might label it as giving to slackers but that’s the argument you present me with. A bleeding heart, soft touch, but by no means a thug. You would think with all the talk about this unfair administration poor corporations would be reeling from his control.
    
    Bottom line, stop taking useless sides when it diverts from the real issues at hand. Left/right, up down, we are spinning in circles. Greed and no accountability combined with numbed uninterested citizens always results in unfair practice. NSA, World Bank, the Pentagon, congress, big corporations, Libor fixing, and on it goes.
    
    You try to divert what I have stated all along and seem to ignore my absolute major theme. Listen carefully. I believe that without stringent checks and balances all groups or individuals given the opportunity will be tempted to line their own pockets. Even YOU! When taxes got diverted from corporate responsibility to individuals, when governments compensated to placate their citizens by giving more assistance and hand-outs, the result will always be the same. If we had a constitutional mandate to balance the budget, or cap our debt from the start none of this would be possible. the ramifications of political graft and greed would have been dealt with by now. I always worried that politicians would seize on the so-called Clinton surplus to push their ideology to the extreme. The Republicans made it abundantly clear that their mandate was to allow social programs to run amok and force these programs to shut down thereby winning the end-game. The Democrats equally guilty of using their ideological mandate to spread the wealth, did so by lining their own pockets, giving a free pass to corporations, and piling on debt with no thought of ever addressing the problems.
    
    We need accountability, not philosophy. We need a policing system to prevent self interests. We need to fairly balance the needs of those 57 percent along with a private business mentality to keep this government viable. We get diverted with ideology when pragmatism should be implemented.
    
    I do not support an umbrella approach to health at a time when the debt is hitting critical levels. I believe in socialized government, but we must clean house first. we are falling into the same ideological trap that got us here without opening up our eyes to the reality that it can’t go on forever without major consequences. This happened exactly because both sides think this is a philosophical game that each needs to win. Too bad personal perspective is so out of whack. The average political player has already played the system for his own benefit and does not internalize what devastation can come out of their folly.
  - Fallingman October 8, 2013, 10:06 pm
    
    Not a thug, huh? Then you’d be okay if I refused to participate in the mandated program, especially given that my premia have been raised 318% and it’s creating a financial hardship to the degree that I can’t really afford it anymore. (Ironic, huh?)
    
    And you wouldn’t send the goon squad if I refused to pay the fine/tax?
    
    Yes or no?
    
    Should I get to make my own decision … freely … to buy disease care coverage or not?
    
    YES or NO?
    
    Your answer is clearly no.
    
    So, let’s cut through your mindless blatherings and get to the heart of the issue.
    
    If I don’t buy “insurance,” they will try to penalize me. If I refuse to pay the penalty, they will threaten me. If I still refuse, they will arrest me. If I refuse to be arrested, they will kill me. That’s what you support, only you don’t have the cojones to actually provide the muscle yourself. You hide behind the skirts of the lawless enFORCEment agencies.
    
    You’d like to pretend that your hands are squeaky clean. Well, they aren’t. It’s two lousy steps from mandating to incarcerating or killing anyone who resists.
    
    If you tried to reach your actual filthy hand into my actual pocket to steal from me Gary, you’d withdraw a stump, but you don’t have to fear stealing from me indirectly. You hire out your hits and sit back smug and relaxed, pontificating about god knows what. (Can anyone even really decipher your BS?)
    
    By pretending you aren’t, you and Bloody Jill have become the worst kind of thugs. Spineless collaborators.
  - gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 1:31 am
    
    You know my position. I believe the state has an obligation to help all of us in a collective way. Lets get rid of all interventions, car safety and insurance, all social programs, taxes for roads and bridges, food labels and safety requirements, work and child labor laws, all taxes. Where do we draw the line? Is Social Security OK but not Medicare? I would rather have been allowed to save my own money in my own responsible way. I didn’t plan on using that money to pay for a single mothers problems? You can argue for individual responsibility over collective help till the cows come home. That isn’t the real issue. The debt is not as a result of socialized treatment of its citizens. Power, corruption and mass apathy created this mess. I can assure you had we no social programs what so ever we would still be arguing over the debt. Did we already fall into a great depression without government intervening in our lives with social mandates? In the 1890’s and back we go. I don’t recall any major push by our government then to spend money they didn’t have on wasteful social programs. We are missing the point folks. We divert away from the core issue, lax laws and run away corruption without punishment.
    
    My major complaint is that there are systems out there that have worked much better yet we don’t try to emulate it. I prefer graft and greed at the political level be wiped out before we can discuss how this government treats its citizens. Stop the corruption at the source before discussing the ideological issues.
    
    I already stated I do not want another government project at this time. I don’t think it is feasible. I do however believe in a socialized approach. I don’t know how many more ways I can state this.
    
    &&&&&
    
    We need term limits, is all. They would have deep-sixed Harry Reid’s political career 20 years ago, to the enormous benefit of the Republic. RA
  - Fallingman October 9, 2013, 4:26 pm
    
    You won’t renounce the use of violence.
    
    I guess that makes you a compassionate thug.
    
    Sounds oxymoronic, doesn’t it?
    
    Yeah, well, that’s because it is. You don’t solve problems through violence Gary. It’s not only immoral, not to mention illegal … for anyone other than your goon squad buddies, it doesn’t work … for long.
    
    Did they not teach you that in kindergarten?
    
    “He who complies against his will if of his own opinions still.”
    
    … and thinking about how to throw off the yoke.
Dave October 8, 2013, 1:46 am

It’s cost savings for US companies to send surgery patients to foreign companies with 5 star hotels stays than pay for USA medical costs. Watch Surgery Vacations/Medical Tourism from last week’s ABC News.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/american-companies-send-workers-surgery-vacations-20426170
- Jill October 8, 2013, 2:15 am
  
  Good idea. Our medical system here in the U.S. is so incredibly expensive and corrupt. The Affordable Care Act is the only solution anyone has proposed. The party of No is great at criticizing, but they have no solutions.
  - Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 4:40 am
    
    Jill, you need a good detox. Can you not see that these role playing clowns trade roles when necessary to further their shared master’s agenda? Rs were against endless wars until they’re not, Ds the same. Onothing’s words have been fed back to him dozens of times in 5 years. The WWE recycles the material that DC has perfected.
    
    The party of no was yesterday’s party of yes and so on…
  - Rick Ackerman October 9, 2013, 9:53 am
    
    Marc’s point seems to have gone over your head, Jill: Our medical system is incredibly expensive and corrupt solely because of government’s involvement. In fact, every major problem that exists in America today is attributable to Big Government. I got to see the absolute truth of this early on, writing about the dismantling of OEO as a newspaper reporter fresh out of college in 1971.
  - Rich October 11, 2013, 3:16 am
    
    No Jill, most here and in America proposed returning medicine as much to competitive free enterprise as possible, considering the Rockefeller Foundation has owned allopathic medicine since William Avery Rockefeller peddled crude oil as a cure for cancer
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rockefeller,_Sr.
Rich October 8, 2013, 1:23 am

Jill, I would vote for JFK who cut taxes, over 0 today

You might be interested in Obama’s funding sources, mostly Superpacs and large donations. He became a multimillionaire working for government:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/candidate.php
- Craig October 8, 2013, 1:39 am
  
  JFK was an elite puppet that was breed to sellout the American people…..except he decided to go against his family and their masters. Especially the banks and well he list his head over it and the other puppets were put on notice.
- Jill October 8, 2013, 2:17 am
  
  No one elected to the presidency can do any different from that, until we have public financing of campaigns. Right now it takes a ton of money to get elected. Again, I am talking about the lesser of 2 evils here– evils caused in large measure by our corrupt system of money buying politics.
  - Jill October 8, 2013, 2:17 am
    
    That reply right above was to Rich, about Obama.
  - Rick Ackerman October 9, 2013, 9:49 am
    
    Yeah, right, like the money won’t find its way into the hands of the same political scum if you ‘restrict’ it. A friend of mine — a Pulitzer winner who now does political consulting — says the campaign-financing loopholes he finds or invents for clients are exactly the same sort of quasi-criminal shennanigans he used to write about when he worked the other side of the street.
  - Rich October 10, 2013, 11:26 pm
    
    Thanks Jill.
    
    We will find out in June and November 2014 if an issues-based majority Libertarian, friend of disgruntled Blue Dog Democrats, Republicans, Democrats, Independents and Decline to States, can be elected in a 2:1 D:R dead illegal voting Casino union district while limiting campaign donations and firing imaginations for real representation while ignoring the usual campaign smears.
    
    By then, most voters should be mad as hell at 0Care and the party that jammed it down their throats.
    
    The multi-millionaire D Freshman Rep who voted for 0Care, Drone Strikes, Endless Wars, Indefinite Detention, Patriot Act Espionage and Retroactive corporate immunities was turned out of office in an adjacent district, sat out a year and did not get 55% of the active registered voter votes in 2012 when 0 won.
    
    2014, being a non-Presidential year, may well depend on motivated turnout rather than machine votes.
    
    We are the only serious National candidate to limit campaign donations to $100 per election from individuals only, no special interests.
    
    Somehow we went from zero Twitter followers to 795 in the last three weeks supporting previously unheard majority viewpoints and issues, even after Twitter repeatedly kicked us out.
    
    795 may not sound like many, but in Las Vegas CD 1 there were only 1745 registered Libertarians in a state with closed Primaries when we started.
    
    So time will tell if a committed candidate can catch fire with an alienated electorate…
- gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 4:31 am
  
  This is going nowhere. Each person picks a side to be on and tries to defend it without trying to understand why we do so. Hate to say it but the majority are hard-wired to think Right/Left, Republican/Democrat, public empathy as opposed to empathy for immediate friends and family.
  
  http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2012/11/are-your-political-beliefs-hardwired/
  
  If you view all topics as a scientific experiment with no preconceived expectations you might be able to “ignore” your hard-wired inclination. The very fact that Rick sides with most conspiratorial views except the 9/11 (building 7) collapse only reinforces the hard-wired notion. He relied on a close friend with engineering background to break his natural inclination to be suspicious and distrusting of government. Fascinating studies that have pretty much been verified over and over.
  
  If anyone can tackle the 9/11 issue using only a reporters mindset (or forensic scientist) to review all pertinent facts the conclusions would be obvious. Alas most of us can’t. We skim the surface not even registering any data point or fact that throws the conspiracy theories out and focus on a collage of half-truths and incidents to reinforce our pre-determined beliefs.
  
  Moving on to the current debate, all politicians, especially those entrenched in the system, fall prey to their hard-wired opinions that become calcified. Compound this with the lack of checks and balances to thwart greed and self gratification, and we have the two headed monster of today.
  
  Lets not fall into the trap of looking for any snippet of hearsay or innuendo to latch onto. We are like gravity itself, determined to pull in any object that comes close to our hard-wired opinions. There are concise and balanced reporting in regards to Obama care, just as there was for Social Security and other social programs. You can absorb these reports and still be against them, but do so without looking for the select pieces of information that “falls” into your hard-wired opinion.
  - fallingman October 8, 2013, 4:12 pm
    
    Good thing you’re not hard wired Gary.
    
    Ha. Physician heal thyself.
  - fallingman October 8, 2013, 5:54 pm
    
    Is little Gary tired of the fight?
    
    Here’s the deal pal. You are your kind are addicted to violence. Your only solution in every case is to use the heavy hand of government to FORCE people to do what you want them to do, but you don’t hold the gun. You’re too cowardly. You hire a good squad to do your dirty work.
    
    When you force someone to surrender his property, that’s called robbery. When you force someone to surrender her freedom and serve you involuntarily, that’s called slavery. No way to prettify it Gary.
    
    Here’s my declaration:
    
    I’m not willing to compromise EVER on the question of whether it’s okay to use violence…threats and brute force…against peaceful people as a means of achieving social/political/economic goals…period.
    
    You are. You enshrine the use of violence under the guise of caring. That’s so unspeakably sleazy, but hey, maybe it’ll get you a Nobel Peace Prize. It doesn’t take much.
    
    Your casual willingness to rob and enslave makes you a brute and a thug, even if you don’t make the threats directly, even if you don’t point the weapon at my temple. even if you don’t handle the jailers keys.
  - Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 7:46 pm
    
    Rick’s Forum Hall of Fame post by fallingman. As true and real as it gets!
  - fallingman October 8, 2013, 9:39 pm
    
    Thanks Red. You are da man!
    
    I don’t know how you stand these people. I’ve had it.
    
    Did I mention, YOU ARE DA MAN! ?
  - DK October 9, 2013, 8:58 am
    
    Fallingman telling it like it is! Awesome!
  - gary leibowitz October 9, 2013, 5:10 pm
    
    Fall, I guess you just exemplified my point. Stay lock-jaw focused and let nothing or no one trick you into losing your concentration.
    
    I can only count on one hand examples of people on this board that actually converse. For all others it’s an amplified sounding board of self encouragement.
    
    I also find it strange that only 2 regular contributors on this board try to counter the extremely one-sided opinion, and in so doing have angered so many. A debate or consensus forum? No contest. How about using calm focused rebuttals to push your point across like RICH has done. He has some very valid points and has directed his response to counter my arguments.
    
    Why do people feel frustrated over 2 opposing views when the vast majority are in sync? Either you use this forum for debate or as a means to bolster a very one sided view. Is this just another Roman Coliseums where you cheer the gladiators on?
  - DK October 9, 2013, 7:45 pm
    
    Gary, that’s because this shouldn’t even be a debate. This is bad for our country in its present form, at the very least. And you can skip all of the gobbledegook about “we haven’t even given it a shot yet.” We know enough that raises concerns and we have questions not being answered (even on the Daily Show); we the people can see where this is headed. When people perform R&D, or design, and they see problems, they go back to square 1 – unless you’re Microsoft and this isn’t something that can be fixed with a patch even though that’s exactly what government has done throughout our time. This affects everyone in every way.
    
    Let us know revisit the fact that the vast majority of the country does not want this bill and they didn’t “vote” Obama back in because of this bill, even the polls told us that. Mittens helped him a great deal. The House Dems DID lose the House because of it though, even they concede that.
    
    The country, whether you side with a donkey, an elephant, a porcupine, or an independent has basically deemed this bill unsavory and for good reason.
    
    The biggest issues with this bill are the areas that are now subject to the dog and pony media charade and subsequent “shutdown.” Apparently, they are non-negotiable, and part of the reason for that is, if they delayed or removed said parts the whole thing would fall apart or experience significant set backs – but it already is anyway.
    
    Not only did Obama patently lie about it (getting called out by Joe Wilson in the process), give us, what, 48 hours before they voted it on it (essentially shoving it down our throats), the people who ushered it in will not accept it themselves. There is no debating this, these are the facts. What rational person would ignore these issues and keep on marching? Why does DC want it so bad but John Q. doesn’t OR why isn’t he at least given a choice without penalty? You know why, everyone on this board does, we can all agree on that.
    
    It was written by special interests, not people who are really concerned with the citizens’ well being. People might be “insured,” technically, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get care (quality care at that). Every doctor I’ve seen YTD (PCP, PT, Osteo, Immunologist, Chiropractor, etc) has told me to get myself up-to-date by 12/31/13, then they chuckle. I’m not even in on the conversation when it comes to the details, but I can see when something bad is about to happen, especially when I’m not allowed to opt out without penalty. I’ve heard enough stories. The media talks a lot, but they aren’t saying anything.
    
    This is akin Paulson et al. ramming through the bailout package and threatening representatives with “martial law” if it was not passed. Remember that?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6KRXnYgu5I
    
    (if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, it’s towards the end, around the 9 minute mark, but the whole speech was very eye opening)
    
    This is why we break off onto tangents. It is business as usual and people are getting tired of it. Someone is benefitting, I know it’s not me but I sure am going to pay for it, and dearly.
    In the last 12 years (frankly, much longer than that) we’ve seen our liberties get trashed by the Patriot Act, the Bailout, Patriot Act 2.0, the NDAA, various H.R.’s (like 347), uncovered NSA breaches – more on that later – and now this. Right there are 6 enormous power grabs, 5 of them since 2007. Not a single one of them has focused on jobs/economy, the country’s single biggest issue. Isn’t that what Barry ran on, especially against Romney, in his last 2 campaigns? As you say, “where’s the beef???” Now they want MORE money, and more than $1T of it.
    
    Oh and what did happen to CISPA? Oh yea, Snowden happened to that. But wait:
    
    http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/324329-senate-working-on-counterpart-to-cispa-cybersecurity-bill
    
    and
    
    http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/324539-surveillance-leaks-hurt-cybersecurity-talks-but-legislation-still-needed-cispa-author-says
    
    Another E.O., huh? Wonder why this isn’t getting any MSM coverage?
  - Fallingman October 9, 2013, 10:11 pm
    
    Gary, god knows I tried…and failed. It’s why I no longer visit this comments page. Made an exception today, which I regret mightily.
    
    You’re impervious to logical argument and facts. I gave up. So be it, but that doesn’t mean, having failed at argumentation…that I can’t call you out for what you are…someone who believes he can subjugate other people to his will.
    
    That’s just plain sick.
    
    My “hard wired opinion” is that violence is always bad except when employed as a means of self-defense. If you don’t accept that basic precept of civilized living, then nothing else matters. The rest is chatter. And boy, can you ever chatter.
    
    IS THAT NOT A HARD WIRED “OPINION” OF YOURS?
    
    Clearly not.
    
    I acknowledge Rich’s patience and eloquence. He’s a better man than I. May he manage to penetrate your ultra thick skull.
  - Jason S October 10, 2013, 7:10 pm
    
    Gary, to quote you: “Fall, I guess you just exemplified my point. Stay lock-jaw focused and let nothing or no one trick you into losing your concentration.”
    
    This is what you do with truth. Truth cannot be subjective, it cannot be capricious, it must be immovable, resolute and incontrovertible. What Fall is doing is staying focused on fact as an anchor in this maelstrom of opinion, spin and deception. You must do this or you will fall prey to the Goebbels of the world.
    
    If you would like to have your facts change with the wind so be it, but enjoy your inheritance of a chaotic nightmare.
Craig October 8, 2013, 1:23 am

At least not consistently…. Oy vay

Have you not watched MSNBC or CNN they lie much more then Fox….fix is the controlled opposition…that’s why Fox lies about Ron Paul. Your chanels are the opposition! No one watches them but brainless drones! People watch Fox because CNN and MSNBC lie so much people are dying looking for some truth.

I swear I know you’re an MSNBC watcher….I brought up 9/11 as an example because most liberals believed the theories went it fit their agenda not saying you said anything about. Learn how to read not look for what you want to hear….your the type of person that hears the term “pitting lipstick on a pig” and ignorantly says are you calling me pig. Learn to read. Maybe when you read something about the elites you wont just be looking at how Bush is involved and how it ALL fits!

The thing none of the right and left knuckle heads will ever understand is that all these groups are wrestling for power. Like the NY and NJ mafia. The DC madam has 66% of congress on her list they act as one to kill her. Bill and Gore sell secrets to the Chinese, no one cares because it can bring their whole system down. Now he lies about sleeping with an intern…the gloves can come off as long as Bill only defends that and the republicans only go after that. They fight over power but act as one, go against the group you die or go to prison. I know it’s hard to understand chess with a tic tac toe mind.
- Craig October 8, 2013, 1:29 am
  
  Especially a tic tac toe mind that only sees the X’s and not the O’s.
  - Craig October 8, 2013, 2:43 am
    
    Your facts are what? Fox lies? Yes they do when it’s convient to the system. Fox lies about Ron Paul when he might win then kisses his ass after he loses (Glenn Beck). So you hate fox you hate republicans because you hate big business. Obama and the democrats love big business. That is not a whole lot of facts there and pointing out that no one can refute that Fox lies and that is your ONLY point is very Gary-esk and simple minded. I know examples and funny cut downs distract you but that is the MSNBC audience….oops someone stopped on MSNBC their audience doubled. And obviously you don’t comprehend very well since you can only focus on “9/11” and “tic tac toe” because you would realize real quick I AM NOT DEFENDING FOX, I am pointing out your MSNBC brainwashing and liberal talking points. All I want is a level Playing field so a real candidate will not be dismissed by ‘MSNBC or FOX and all the drones with no way to think for themselves can decide for themselves. You show the level of brainwashing that goes on at MSNBC…you have never even seen Fox do you realize it’s full of liberals posing as conservatives. You probably hate Rick perry because he is a republican …..when he actuay used to be a democrat, wrote a letter to Hillary saying how wonderful Hillarycare was. But MSNBC tells you to hate him not because he is a complete fake but because of the (R), learn to think for yourself, wake up to the con game. Don’t be a useful idiot for these people to divide and conquer us while we fight over petty issues. Fox sucks no CNN sucks. No fox lies! I have facts!!! What are your facts? Fox lies! Groundbreaking….
  - Craig October 8, 2013, 3:02 am
    
    Jill the Clinton gore thing was national news for months 10+ years ago. It was not fox (I don’t even think fox was around then) you are so single minded. They both lawyered their way out of it. They made aegis cruiser nuclear (I know I would have to spend pages explaining why this is so horrible, so i won’t) secrets available to the Chinese for $60k, yes they sold out our national security for $60k. You act Like I just made it up and they just did it. This is such old news, it’s called the Internet learn to look things up and judge for yourself and just not go by what your liberal brainwashing sights tell you.
    
    AEGIS cruisers are ships that command and control the entire sea through electronics. They fire missiles but mostly they basically blind all the enemy ships at sea to make them sitting ducks to the rest of our fleet. So yeah it’s kind of a big deal if other countries have it or know how ours works.
Jill October 8, 2013, 12:57 am

BTW, I am not even a liberal, at least not consistently. I would love to see Eisenhower reincarnated. I would vote for him.
- Rick Ackerman October 9, 2013, 9:42 am
  
  Now, that’s going out on a limb — a truly courageous declaration!
Jill October 8, 2013, 12:37 am

Craig, you sure find it impossible to rebut what I say, don’t you? You have to veer off into talking about 9/11, which I never said a single word about.

Of course both major parties work for the crony capitalist corporate welfare queens, which is awful– but the Republicans work for them to a greater extent. The parties are not identical. Otherwise they would not have spent so much energy on impeaching Clinton– not to mention the tax dollars it cost, which they claim to not want to spend much of.

While both parties are awful, it seems quite obvious to me that the Democratic party is the lesser of the 2 evils. Yet the party of Clinton, who left office with a budget surplus, holds no appeal for libertarians and Tea Partiers who claim to be budget conscious. Why is that? Is it perhaps because Tea Party politicians are opportunists, who suck up to corporate wealth and power– not idealists who believe in freedom and a balanced budget?
- Craig October 8, 2013, 2:20 am
  
  The reason republicans And liberterians hate bill Clinton is because he sold us down the river to the Chinese. Started the war on terror to go after militias. Wanted to bring in mandatory healthcare Hillary are…no different then obamacare both wrote by the insurance companies. He wanted to disarm us. Bring in UN troops. Bombed people outside of the western banking system and committed atrocities to those people to start wars. Blew up an aspirin factory as a diversion to his “problems”. An most people don’t know this but he also killed anyone that knew he was running drugs WiTH Bush sr as governor of Arkansas. It was called arkancyde when someone came forward with info and mysteriously killed themselves by shooting themselves in the back of the head…twice. He also blew up an FBI building to blame on the malitia and that building was picked because it had a daycare center and wanted photos of firefighters bringing out dead kids and also all his whitewater evidence was conveniently moved there right before. But what the right seems to miss like you only looking at one side….is both Bush jr and Obama are pretty much guilty of the same crimes and they cover for each other. If your heroes on the left (matthews, madcow, shultz) were such straight shooters why didn’t they ever bring up the fact that Bush Sr dad helped the Nazis in WW2 and was reprimanded for it? Because that would expose the whole system so they only talk about bush jrs drug use and C grades. Same reason fox goes down all the wrong rabbit holes with Obama to give us hope but no real evidence even thou there is plenty.
  - Rich October 11, 2013, 3:09 am
    
    Clintons also took BCCI Indonesian Lippo Riady Money to take competitive low sulphur coal in UT off the market by turning it into a National Monument.
    
    After legislating competitive advantages for Tyson, the company funneled $100,000 to HRC through a pork bellies trading account by taking the bad trades.
    
    They also used Commerce Secretary Ron Brown to sell missile guidance technology from a major Clinton donor, Bernie Schwartz, CEO of Loral, to the Red Chinese:
    
    Brown paid with his life, another DFOB that Snopes still disputes along with many others as accidents.
    
    http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp
    
    In Arkansas the Clintons were not only on the Bush Cartel MENA drug-running take, according to Dan Lasater, who laundered the money through the Arkansas Development Corporation and reportedly saw W and Slick snorting product with DEA Contra Pilot Barry Seale. Lasater spent time in jail with brother Roger Clinton for drugs.
    
    http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/billclintonscriminalbackground.htm
    
    They also collected Hepatitis and HIV tainted prisoner blood and sold it to hemophiliacs and others in Canada and Europe who died of AIDs and Hepatitis:
    
    http://www.wnd.com/2005/10/33137/
    
    UK Telegraph World Economics Editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchards began his distinguished journalistic career documenting how crooked the Clintons were:
    
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Life-Bill-Clinton/dp/0895264080
- fallingman October 8, 2013, 5:40 pm
  
  Jill,
  
  So, both parties are awful, but you support one, which makes you complicit in their crimes. Shows a lot of character…not!
  
  If you needed a car and the only two offerings were Yugos, but one was red and one was blue, would you say, “What are you trying to sell me this piece of crap Yugo for?” Or would you say, “I’ll take it in red?”
  
  No need to answer. We already know. Enjoy your Obama clown car in bloody red.
Rich October 7, 2013, 11:57 pm

Left Right claptrap cliches are for people who can’t handle the truth and prefer to blame, scapegoat and avoid thinking and voting responsibly for real reform.

Both political parties brought US to where we are, with government debts, mandates and derivatives far exceeding our ability to service corporate government police state welfare on the backs of the disappearing middle class and drones on innocent third world people.

No way is Medicare low cost. Medicare Trustees and Actuaries say Medicare goes broke in 2016 or sooner:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/04/23/trustees-medicare-will-go-broke-in-2016-if-you-exclude-obamacares-double-counting/

The Social Security Trust Lockbox is empty, having been spent on budget excesses by both parties.

Meantime the special interests including Congress, big corporations and unions exempted themselves from 0Care, already failing despite monopoly media hoopla and 0bfuscation.

Everything big corporate union government touched was ruined, from wars on guns, drugs, illiteracy, illness, poverty, terrorism, etc.

Time for limited constitutional government or 2.6 Billion DHS/FReedom Group bullets, armoured checkpoints and tanks, take yer pick:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/how-freedom-group-became-the-gun-industrys-giant.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Jill October 7, 2013, 11:19 pm

Funny how Republicans think the budget deficit is mainly from some little old lady getting her $800 a month in Social Security plus an inexpensive health care policy through Medicare. And they ignore the corporate crony capitalist welfare queen companies that start trillion dollar unnecessary wars, prison industrial complex companies that make multi-millions off of building and maintaining prisons for guys who committed “crimes” like being caught with a single joint in their pockets, and other corporate cronies who get all kinds of subsidies from the government.

And as for Fallingman, that’s hilarious that you think I am a Communist because I believe in Nixon’s and Romney’s health care plan– which Obama took and enacted as the Affordable Care Act.

That’s also hilarious that you think I am willing to pay part of the health insurance cost of some rude Republican who curses at me. You’re probably one of those Tea Partiers who collected a million dollars in farm subsidies from the government while crying about the poor being “takers” for getting unemployment insurance when they lose their job and are not able to find another one right away. I’m not going to add to your pile of money for you.

Keep the laughs coming, Brother. You crack me up.

And for all of you who think it is perfectly reasonable that Americans have had the most expensive health care system in the world– but are 50th in life expectancy and have many other statistics just as bad.
- Craig October 7, 2013, 11:34 pm
  
  The only thing worse than an uninformed liberal….is a liberal with some of the truth and tries to use every bit of the real conspiracy to fit the round peg into the square hole and blame all of the problems on the republicans. We get nowhere except pointing fingers at the party….it’s really like blaming the right leg for how the body got us to the trap because it had a limp….while both legs worked as one to walk us right into the trap. Jill please stop taking every nugget of truth and finding a way to make it fit your right hating agenda. Your tea party and fox news comments give away your slant. You’re like the liberals who believed 9/11 conspiracies only because it fit the agenda to blame Bush…without looking at any proof…which there is more than enough to convict a lot of people. And now that you got your lefty in and it is obvious if Bush did 9/11 than Clinton and Obama must be in on it….now it’s conveniently not an issue. Do something for your country instead of always trying to justify your political side…I got news for you Bush and Clinton are buddies. They work for the same people, not for you.
- fallingman October 8, 2013, 4:07 pm
  
  Number one. I’m not a Republican. Never have been . Never will be. Stop insulting me!
  
  I’ve never supported Romney or Nixon for god’s sake…a couple of sociopaths. Again, stop insulting me! I think the Bushes were bastards, Reagan was a fraud and a corporatist stooge, Clinton was Wall Street’s puppet. Getting the picture? They’re all peas in a pod.
  
  Just because someone doesn’t like you welfare statists doesn’t mean I like the corporate welfare or warfare agenda. It all sucks, but by supporting one, you support the other.
  
  I think you’re a FASCIST. You support a government which is fascist by any objective characterization, but I will allow you have a Trotskyite bent. The commies and the fascists are so much alike in so many ways, why split hairs? You’re a STATIST. You can hardly deny that.
  
  I think you must have me confused with your cartoon cutout version of anyone who opposed the government. I oppose EVERYTHING the government does. I am rabidly opposed to corporate welfare. I HATE the crony capitalists. I have railed against all the imperial wars and the military industrial banker, big ag/big phude, big pharma, big media, big prison, drug warring, terrorist warring, welfare warfare state corporatist complex. Does that cover it for ya, sweetheart? I don’t ignore any government criminality and cronyism. YOU DO!
  
  If you’d been paying any attention at all, you’d know where I stand. I’ve made it crystal clear countless times, and yet you fall back to this mindless Republican thing every time someone disagrees with your support for the bloody machine.
  
  You, yourself, are drenched in blood for your support of Obama. He’s a born killer. Who we gonna kill today with our drone attacks? Love that double tap, so we can kill those trying to rescue the injured too.
  
  He’s continued the Bush wars, started wars in Yemen, Sudan, and wants to start one in Syria. And you support him. I know, because you SAID you did Bloody Jill.
- Marc October 8, 2013, 4:26 pm
  
  Jill, you conveniently ignored what I pointed out to you earlier, namely, that health insurance costs in this country experienced outsized price increases BECAUSE OF government intervention. It is because of the pay structure of Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the requirement to treat indigent illegal aliens gratis, that costs ballooned for everyone else over time. Just like federal involvement in mortgage lending drove home prices, and federal student loans drove college costs. Only the mechanism is different: with medical care, the government caused financial shortfalls that had to be recouped on the backs of the working insured; with housing and education, the government threw more money into the markets than would have existed under the private sector, and more money chasing any good or service will drive up its price.
  
  So like most liberals, your cure for the disease the government caused is more government.
gary leibowitz October 7, 2013, 10:43 pm

Social Security payments and Medicare benefits are much greater for the current seniors than it would be if they relied on their own means. Even had they taken the money extracted by Uncle Sam and placed them in their own programs they would never equal today’s benefits. Should we abandon the notion of government intervention and let fate determine who wins and loses? If you are lucky where job, social status, and health remain positive, you will lose out on ever seeing your “investment” money returned to you. Same should be true with universal health. In fact the current senior citizens are taking out much more than they ever gave in, and the rest of us are subsidizing them. Since we are living longer than ever, the burden on the government is that much worse.

For those that believe we should be responsible for our own fate, and let private charities pick up the tab, I say find a country that allows such freedoms. I personally feel more relieved that our government helps in case I fall on bad times. Call me a slacker if you will, but I sleep better knowing there are social programs to help those that can’t afford full payment. The current statistics say there are 67 percent of households that have pre-existing medical conditions that would cause a spike in their insurance.

Like I stated before, the notion of Universal Health is nice, but starting it at this junction is fiscally reckless. Just another bleeding heart liberal on social programs. On fiscal responsibility I believe we can have it all, social programs and fiscal control, if we only can get a legislative branch that places its citizens above all else.

BTW, why no one brings up the glaring fact that corporations are making huge profits today, and have chipped away at paying Uncle Sam the tax revenue it used to receive, is puzzling. The facts are so clear I wonder why we never discuss how to correct that pattern, instead of blaming government for everything.
- Rich October 8, 2013, 1:03 am
  
  Gary, a few points.
  
  First, Chileans enjoy government pensions designed by “The Chicago Boys” based on NYSE performance that far outperformed Social Security, with actuarial returns as low as 0.30% depending on age, income and sex. Here in the States, big government union politicians borrowing and stealing pensions would not allow that. (How else do you think the Treasury Secretary stayed under the debt ceiling this year?)
  
  Second, Swiss Franc Healthcare Annuities far outperformed anything Medicare or Medicaid offered the last forty years. Now the Swiss, harassed by the IRS, will not do business with you unless you are a billionaire with a numbered account.
  
  Third, simple gold and silver, Constitutional legal tender in settlement of debt, outperformed Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
  
  Too bad Uncle Sam does not let us purchase unsubsidized contracts in lieu of being forced at the point of a gun and IRS theft to pay into inefficient government funds subsidized for people who do not work. (The IRS does not even follow their own procedures when they decide to empty an account.)
  
  Fourth, leveraged real estate, Treasury bonds and SPX all outperformed Medicare and Social Security most of the last four decades.
  
  But the trick is that for all these investments you have to be able to work and save money first.
  
  A government bent on destroying work and savings via excess borrowing, red tape, spending and taxes defeats prosperity.
  
  Not only should we, but we WILL in fact all be forced to abandon the fantasy of helpful government intervention as government finally realizes financial reality applies to meth cookers and politicians too.
  
  Yes, Social Security and Medicare are both upside down, and government has bullets (dum dum), coffins, death panels (unelected), drones, drugs, espionage, FEMA camps, ovens, tanks and electronic microwave sonar weapons horrible for when entitlements end and people riot.
  
  How many Americans are ready for SWAT teams at their front or back door?
  
  No doubt MSM will be extolling baby boomer euthanasia as worthy sacrifice for the collective.
  
  Excuse me Gary, but I repeatedly pointed out corporate government welfare special interest tax breaks and subsidies with the middle class paying most taxes, while churches, foundations and unions pay none, would better serve us with a uniform 28 basis point automatic transparent transaction tax for all, as our Constitution requires.
  
  Gary, exactly, really, truthfully, how has government actually helped you, other than claiming sounder sleep at night because of socialism (phshaw)?…
  
  Some of us might be interested to know…
  - gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 5:51 am
    
    My father got government subsidies housing after WWII, being a veteran. My mother was ill for decades, in and out of hospitals, and had the government not subsidized the costs my family would be on the streets. My father worked all hours, I hardly saw him growing up. We had “help” from family members to “take care” of us 3 kids while my mother was away. I went away to sleep away camp with help from our government assistance. I attended city collage where tuition cost was under 200 dollars per semester. I am sure I missed a whole bunch of aid and social programs that helped my family thru these tough times. My father was extremely frugal and managed to save 90,000 at age 65. He had 2 pensions stemming from work as an offset printer. He lost his job at age 63 because his company folded and his avocation went away when computerized printing took over. He still managed to find odd jobs and part-time jobs till his health gave out. His pension was cut by two-thirds when the industry wiped out future members of the offset printers union. He is 91 today and lives by himself with the help of a private aid. We are using his 90K to pay for this, along with his children’s contributions. He had a triple bypass and 2 knee replacements thanks to his supplemental medical insurance as a union member. My mother divorced my father 20 years ago. She has no pension and income. She gets a small monthly social security check and a small alimony from my father. She gets a nurse visit once a month, and an aid to watch her daily because she qualified for supplemental Medicaid. We three kids visit both parents at least once a week and help with their expenses. My sister became a math professor at a college, my youngest sister a high school teacher, and I went onto computer programming.
    
    Where we would be without help? Not sure. Did we benefit without taking advantage? You bet.
    
    Just another shill working the system. Did I answer your question?
  - Rich October 10, 2013, 10:46 pm
    
    Yes Gary, thanks and best wishes.
Rich October 7, 2013, 10:30 pm

Jill, your repeated specious claims do not add up and you ignored people’s relevant questions to you here as though you were 0 giving another late one-way press conference.

How did you get through to sign up for 0Care when most in fact could not?

If you are in fact paying a lower 0Care premium, you probably chose a much higher deductible.

This works until you and others have a claim and have to come up with a sizable deductible you cannot pay.

Or your 0Care is subsidized by the 66% still working, the darkest deepest secret of 0Care. I say this as someone who taught healthcare insurance licensing.

Why does anyone work if they think they can get a better deal not working?

Your comments about balancing the budget simply come off as trying to hide yourself as shill for yellow dog Democrats. Did you support, “We have to pass it to see what’s in it” Pelosi too?

Libertarians in fact consist of both awakened and disgruntled Ds and R’s, contrary to your robotic repeated false claims.

Were you in fact in favour of selective government closures to Amber Alert, Military Chaplains, National Memorials and kicking people out of their homes on Federal Lands after government assassinated a young mother who got lost and panicked in DC traffic and was applauded by Harry Reid and media?

Did you support Harry Reid’s careless comment he doesn’t care about a child with cancer?

Anyone who can add two and two knows 0Care cannot deliver better care at lower cost to more people. Obama and Democrat claims that 0Care would save money are now off by -$6.2 Trillion additional dollars 0Care costs.

Anyone who understands competitive free markets know that big government ruined education, energy, healthcare, jobs, manufacturing, pensions and trade by red taping and subsidizing them.

No bill rammed through unconstitutionally from the Senate to the House (where revenue bills can only originate) by only one party without reading it represents the majority of Americans.

Obamacare is 20 new taxes and 16,500 new IRS agents on the back of the disappearing middle class 0 pledged to save and not tax.

US Kansas Rep Tim Huelskamp just told CNBC there are no major Treasury interest payments due until 31 October 2013, the next in December and the 17 October 2013 Jack Lew default date is bogus. He said the House GOP will go all the way to bring Reid and Obama to the negotiating table over 0Care.

There will be no default. Treasury prices up and SPX sideways since the “shutdown” confirm this.

Jarrett and Reid made a major DC elitist political miscalculation that may cost their party dearly in 2014.

The word is that 0 is passively and petulantly disconnected from the political process, preferring to play golf and spades with his body men, while Valerie Jarrett and Harry Reid make the decisions then trot him out to read the teleprompters without taking questions.

No wonder he was passive aggressively late every time.

Amateur boxer Reid, who worked for Capitol Police and claimed Romney paid no taxes, and is arguably senile, making ad hominem attacks on his colleagues, plans to run for Senate again in 2016 at 75.

By then the Senate may no longer be D. What is it about politicians who have a tough time leading their country or leaving the spotlight?

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2013/10/02/president-harry-reid/
- Rick Ackerman October 9, 2013, 9:35 am
  
  Great post, Rich. Thanks for weighing in with some very interesting details.
  - Rich October 11, 2013, 2:29 am
    
    Thank you Rick for raising the question.
John Jay October 7, 2013, 9:23 pm

It is just more of the same looting of what is left of the Middle Class in America.
If you have any assets to protect, you are going to be looted.
If you live paycheck to paycheck, no worries.

I watched an MD on a talk show explain how the Hospital Scam works in America.
They charge 1,000% more than what it really costs for a procedure with some profit built in.
That’s why when I get a Health Insurance statement from my Insurance Company for Hospital procedures, there is the “As Charged” price, and the “Negotiated Price” which is what the Insurance Company actually pays the Hospital.
They pay the Hospital about 10% of the “As Charged” price.
And the Hospital is making money at that 90% off list price, year in, year out.
And you may or may not have to pay part of that final price out of your deductible.

The scam is if the Hospital treats an uninsured individual with any assets, they go after you for the “Charged Price”.
You don’t get the same price as the Insurance Company.
Who is also making tons of money even paying the 90% off price.
You may or may not argue them down some.
But you can now be looted for what you own.

And if they can’t loot you enough to get the full “As Charged” price, voila, they have a huge Accrual Accounting “Loss”!
So any Hospital that is legally a “Non Profit” gets to manipulate the numbers to stay that way.

It was a bit more complicated than all that, but That’s the Looting Facts, Jack!

Just like Medicare can’t demand rebates or negotiate prescription drug prices!
Just like Medicare pays $5,000 for a $1,000 “Mobility Scooter”!
It’s all Government Sanctioned Legal Looting.
It will continue on, and continue getting more ruthless until the system implodes.

Healthcare costs are just one more “Looting Scam” lobbied into “Law” by the Oligarchs.
And the System will never change until it collapses.
As I’ve said before, Colonel Kurtz has retired and taken a lush job in the MIC!
“Immigration Reform” is going to add 10 or 20 million more “Voters” real soon, and they are going to “Vote” themselves more of your money.
You’re screwed.
As a good friend of mine who always laughs when I tell him about all this advises me…………….
“All you can do is make more Money!”
That is the only route of escape left open to us now!

Sorry about that!
- Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 9:45 pm
  
  They got you cornered both in sickness and in health. There is nowhere to run anymore; no place to hide. In the old days they taxed the sh*t out of the landless Irish peasants to the point they had nothing left for their own sustenance. It has gotten so much more sophisticated since then. The only way out now is death. But you will pay for that too before you go. At least the Irish could be bundled off to America and face off with the indiginous folks. It was something that was an option. I hear you Americans can’t even open a foreign bank account anymore. So screwed.
- Craig October 7, 2013, 9:57 pm
  
  John,
  
  Your almost correct…except it’s not the hospitals fault they are handcuffed by government regulations (you can not charge anyone different). So yes the hospital “charges”. $1000, the procedure costs them $100 to do, Medicare pays $90, Medicaid pays $81. Your blue cross plan or whatever pays $400-$600 your co pay is $40-$120 and an out of network payer pays $1,000 of which $100-$200 or more comes from you. Some stars require 30%-50% discounts on self pays which means if didn’t have insurance it would cost you $500-$700 however if you ask to pay Medicare rates they will most likely accept. So you see they make $300-500 or 300% on those procedures….well on those few but they do so much Medicare, Medicaid, charity on no pays that the profit margin in total is negative. For everytime the get $500 there are 10 $91 payments and 3 $0 payments…I will do the math for Gary $91×10=910 + $500 +$0+$0+$0=$1,410 less a cos of $1,400 (14x$100) equals a profit of $10 or <1%. So yes you that work and pay $500 for a procedure subsidize Medicare, Medicaid, charity care, self pays and illegals. Just like if a big gulp costs $100 for you because you have a job and everyone else gets it for free or for $0.99…except you have a choice whether to get the big gulp or not.
  - John Jay October 8, 2013, 12:33 am
    
    Craig,
    
    My insurance carrier only paid 10% of the full charge to the hospital.
    Ten percent.
    If I was uninsured I would have been presented with a bill for 100% of the made up charges.
    And if I had any money to my name, they would track that down real fast.
    
    On the other hand I have a friend that spent two weeks in intensive care and was handed a bill for $300,000.
    Since she is broke she told them, I don’t have $300,000.
    And the hospital said, OK, forget about it.
    
    Just google hospital charges and see the results.
    Here is a nice one: http://tinyurl.com/d3xm3g6
    
    The article title is:
    “One hospital charges $8,000, another $38,000”
    Here is an excerpt:
    
    “Hospitals nationwide showed a large variation for many common procedures.
    For joint replacements, which are the most common hospital procedure for Medicare patients, prices ranged from a low of $5,304 in Ada, Okla., to $223,373 in Monterey Park, Calif. The average charge across the 427,207 Medicare patients’ joint replacements was $52,063.
    
    Similar variation showed up for hospitals that treated particularly complicated cases of heart failure. At the high end, a hospital in Newark charged Medicare $173,250. At the low end, a hospital in western Tennessee submitted a bill for $7,304.”
    
    I know costs are higher in some urban areas, but 173k in Newark vs. 7k in Tennessee makes me just a little suspicious.
    And 5k in Oklahoma vs. 223k in California makes me a whole lot more suspicious!
    How about you?
    And I won’t even start on the markups on prescription drugs.
    Looting, plain and simple.
  - Craig October 8, 2013, 1:04 am
    
    John and or anyone wanting an education on this (we know Gary and Jill won’t unless it fits their talking points)
    
    Hospital charges mean absolutely zero. Hospitals get paid on avg 30% of their charges. So as long as in total they get roughly 30% of what they charge they “should make money or break even. Yes some charge more then others some 3x what others charge. They only het paid what they are contracted for. Generally Medicare pays just under or right at actual costs even taking into account new jersey bs Tennessee. The Medicare payments get modified by the employment costs of the area. When Medicare pays $7,500 in Tennessee they may pay $8,300 in new jersey. If the hospital in NJ is running efficiently the cost of that would usually be @$8,400 or so. Of that $4,200 goes towards salaries of the staff (not doctors) and on avg $400 for supplies unless there is an implant. The rest is rent, utilities and all the other expenses. The charges at one hospital for that in NJ could be $30,000 another could be $100,000 but on avg the charges would be roughly $60k. Does not matter if they charge $30k or $100k they are still only getting the $8,300 from Medicare, Medicare/VA may pay $7,500. Now if an insurance company has a contract with the hospital they may pay per day $2,000 a day, 6 days would be $12,000. Or Medicare +20%. And pay $10,000. Or % of charges like 30% or 70% on $60k they could pay $18,000 or even $42,000. The same hospital could do 10 of the same procedures and get paid $8,300 on one, $7,500 on another, $42,000 on a third etc etc. It all depends on the contract. So selfoays are caught in the middle the only basis is charges so the hospital says $60,000. Patient laughes and says no way. The procedure did cost the hospital over $8000 to do but when you ask a selfpay for $60 or $100k you get a laugh. So if your a patient and have the cash you can ask them to pay Medicare rates or pound sand. They will usually say yes if you have the money and it is done. That’s the big dark secret know one knows. Now if everyone paid the same and everyone paid (free market go figure) you would see standard pricing and value added services to justify a slightly higher price. We got to this crazy idiotic way through government regulation, intervention and by the insurance companies contracts…the industry standard is this craziness. No one changed out of fear and now it will change. The government got involved by guaranteeing payments on half the patients and it wrecked the system. Now the solution is break it in half and have the gov guarantee 90% of patients until the Gov runs te Hospitals and the Doctors 100%. Then they will have control the healthcare and the people just as the communist manifesto perscribes. The government ruined the free market in healthcare 50 years ago and now blames the free market for healthcares demise when it was them intervening on purpose to wreck it so they can save us from ourselves.
  - DK October 8, 2013, 4:43 am
    
    Hegelian Dialectic, much?
  - Cam Fitzgerald October 8, 2013, 8:06 am
    
    OK. That helps a bit Craig. I am still trying to wrap my head around your cost structures down there. Seems you have a three speed system based on who is paying, private, government or other with wide variations depending upon the region. And then you have the ability to negotiate your invoice too? But it strikes me as unecessarily complicated and you really cannot know on the date of getting sick in a different city than your own what you might be faced with. Since I have never used medical services in the States I was unaware of all the complications. Perhaps what is most puzzling to us Canadians is that your whole system is really built on a business model that demands profits thus driving costs high whereas the system up here revolves around government building virtually all the infrastructure as one example and capping the costs for everything from prescription fees to wages to doctor services. So up in Saskatchewan I cannot say I know of even one single hospital or clinic that was not funded straight out of tax dollars. The government virtually always owns the land and buildings outright. Management and oversight is by health region boards, not shareholders. There are private labs of course but fee structures are set by government which can eliminate some of the incentive to open one. Was it Jill who was saying she is saving 6000 dollars a year under the new plan? Just curious Jill but what were you paying before implementation? I mean 500 per month is one hell of a payment for insurance that you may or may not even use until your twilight years. My own private coverage up here never set me back more than 500 dollars annually in total!
- Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 3:30 am
  
  Sorry JJ but you MUST be wrong… Gary has repeatedly signed off on all USSA accounting standards. His painstaking studies have conclusively proven that they are all on the up and up everywhere and that corporate profits have never been better!
  
  Accounting fraud is a myth promulgated by conspiracy theorists. Dell made more money writing puts on their own stock in the 90’s than by operating their company. Catherine Austin Fitts and many others have exposed Corp. Amerika and the Street for the vile carnies that they are and have even gone further and exposed the black market and black ops profits made by the “blue chips”. As fallingman, steve, mava, craig, yourself and many others have noted here in rick’s forum, this is a hopelessly sinking ship but it is made even more unbearable by the fact that the useful idiots relish the role of zealot.
  - John Jay October 8, 2013, 3:57 am
    
    Red,
    Reminds me of a Monty Python skit where Eric Idle plays a sleazy insurance agent who tells a customer who comes to his office to collect on his policy, “Sorry squire, but it’s right there in the fine print, if you have an accident, the policy is null and void”.
    
    As a matter of fact, our whole economy is beginning to resemble a Monty Python skit!
    And speaking of Monty Python, here is a link to one of their lesser known skits that is hilarious.
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7UqhDs8zj4
    
    We need lighten things up a bit here, it is getting a tad depressing talking about the Government!
  - DK October 8, 2013, 4:42 am
    
    Yes RWD, just like mark-to-model, I mean market, asset pricing. That was a fun flip.
  - Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 4:52 am
    
    This is good for a few more laughs. Click this link every time Gary cites rising projections though do keep it well oiled because it can overheat. We know from experience that “raising estimates” lines are part of his default bread and butter package.
    
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-07/will-we-ever-learn-36-years-over-optimistic-earnings-growth
- Rick Ackerman October 9, 2013, 9:31 am
  
  Steven Brill wrote the definitive article (in Time magazine) on hospitals’ Master Price List. You’re correct in noting that the exorbitant charges for many services and facilities is simply pulled out of thin air. But it is only Medicare/Medicaid that get a big discount, which of course must be offset by those who are insured privately or corporately. Medicare and Medicaid pay providers by estimating the cost of services rendered, then tacking on 10%. However, even the very biggest insurers lack that kind of negotiating power. Instead, their payments are based on the exorbitant Master List prices, less a discount that almost never exceeds 30%.
  - Craig October 9, 2013, 5:34 pm
    
    Rick,
    
    The Time article was pretty spot-on, and I meant to mention it in my examples.
    
    But typically Medicare pays 20% of charges depending on the charges for IP and 9% for OP. Medicaid usually pays off of the Medicare schedule but at 10% less. What your typical insurance company pays is all over the map. It’s as low as Medicare and as high as 70% of charges. No one pays 100% of charges except in states that don’t have laws that state you must give a discount to selfpays, typically that is 30%-50%. Hospitals are not allowed to advertise that they will give a discount to anyone without insurance either from Medicare or an insurance contract. If you advertise it the insurance companies will demand the same. So when you call them you can negotiate a prompt pay discount, which you can typically get down to Medicare rates with most places if you have cash in hand. I know, it’s like the off the menu $2.99 rib eyes specials at some vegas casinos.
    
    Typically costs are 20% of charges so asking everyone for 25-30% would be reasonable. But they need the insurances to pay on average 40-60% to make up for all the Medicare, Medicaid and selfpays (or no pays) they typically make up more than 60% of all patients. Also if you are low income and can price it they will write off 100% to charity. Profitable hospitals have a better payer mix of insurances and unprofitable hospitals have a higher % of Medicare medicaid charity and selfpays. When obamacare is fully implemented most insurance companies will raise your rates e en more but demand Medicare rates thereby reducing all payments to the hospital to right around Medicare. At that point ONLY the most efficient hospitals that are the right size will AT BEST break-even; the rest will close or become nationalized.
  - DK October 9, 2013, 11:42 pm
    
    Rick, thank you for pointing out that Time article, it portends to be a great starting point for understanding more about this quagmire.
    
    Fantastic!
Let Them Eat Plankton October 7, 2013, 8:48 pm

The worst bill ever? Why in the world would you say that?

On the contrary, this is going to be the best bill in decades to wake up the narcoleptic ninnies who infest America today. The only thing that gets their attention is a 2×4 across the back of the head. This bill is a lumber yard dropped on their testicles.

I truly hope the Republicans fail to block it. Why are they so intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? Let it work its magic on a population that, for the most part, thought this was going to be “free health care for everyone.” Let them struggle and sweat and curse those who ever turned this monstrosity loose on them. Then let them turn on the stooges who birthed it.

Worst bill ever? Why, my boy, this is an avenging angel. Let it do its work.

&&&&&&

I tend to agree, LTEP. House Republicans might have done better if they had simply let the Obamacare rollout happen, warts and all, without their shifting the nation’s attention to The Shutdown. However, a problem with simply letting the Affordable Care Act fail, as it surely will, is that the insurance-premium hikes already in the pipeline would still take effect. A further problem is that things would be such a mess by then that Big Government would be called on to ‘”rescue” the healthcare system with single-payer protocols. RA
dst October 7, 2013, 8:23 pm

T o be fair to you Maumaj. Sask. is the largest exporters in the world of U3O8, potash,and those whom what these are
we are the largest exporters of lentils, mustard seed and canola oil.
We produce more conv. crude oil everyday then Alberta, about 475,000 bls per day. So get a lot of royalties a lot.

We also produce great golfers, Graham Delaet from Weyburn, SK for those who follow golf and who care.

All from 1.1 million people.
Come over we need people to work here. If you can lean on a shovel you start at about $22.00 per hr.( the down side is hard to find labour.)
Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 7:43 pm

Wow. After reading the comments I am pretty shocked by how much your annual insurance bills are going to be. How much money will be raised in total to fund your universal medical program in the hands of private companies anyway? At least with the Canadian system the Provincial governments are the plan sponsors and custodians for the most part and therefore don’t extract profit. It is only when a person chooses extra coverage that is not funded (such as dental care, prescription eyeglasses etc) that people will opt for a private plan with one of the insurers. Otherwise the system tends to ration services for pricey surgeries and wait lists can sometimes be lengthy. That is not all a bad thing though because health care services are not wasted when they are limited and used to near capacity. I think I will side with those who worry this will shift an enormous amount of otherwise disposable income from the regular economy and into the hands of those in the medical and insuring community. Everybody remember when real estate and the banks ate almost all the national income single handedly through easy lending and rates that reset higher? Seems it is the turn for the medical industrial complex to have its day on the recieving end of the largesse handed out by government and its programs. Of course it should spell profit too and we might be looking at what companies to buy now that they will soon be swimming in loot. Like how solar was hot, hot, hot when it was getting subsidized or how anbody starting up an ethanol plant in the early days was getting money thrown at them like crazy. So now it is the time for medical devices and innovation in the health fields I am betting although I will admit I have not given it a thought before today. Must be worth looking into.
dst October 7, 2013, 7:39 pm

Maumaj, not sure where you get your information from. Took my wife to emergence was in a room in 1/2 hour. She was out in 1.5 hours.The emergence room was empty when we lift friday afternoon.
“Did not cost us” a penny. our budget in SK. is 42% of our total budget.
The provincial gov’t took over 50 % of our education property taxes the past 3 years. I pay less in property taxes now then I did 17 years ago and get at least as good as service. We get have enough doctors where I live in a regional hospital area. Everyone I know gets a doctor.

So be careful with what you read and your generalizations.
- Maumaj October 7, 2013, 8:20 pm
  
  My comments are from personal experience and the situation in Ontario and Quebec.
fallingman October 7, 2013, 7:07 pm

Rick,

I’m reminded of why I no longer visit the comment section of your excellent site. It’s completely pointless to engage with the likes of Jill and Gary. I’m a fool to do so.

You are a brilliant guy and an exceptional writer. Know that appreciate what you do…and also know that I won’t be weighing in on any of your questions. I also wont be beating myself in the head with a hammer or drinking turpentine … or juggling chainsaws.
- Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 8:29 pm
  
  Don’t leave yet Fallingman. This one is getting interesting!
  - fallingman October 7, 2013, 9:40 pm
    
    I appreciated your comments above, but I’m gone.
    
    I’ll check back to see if Jill has sent me her address yet. She’s gonna be sharing her premium reduction windfall with me. But other than that, it’s all yours.
- Dave October 8, 2013, 1:14 am
  
  Another much better reason is that Rick greatly reduced his time spent here engaging with us in order to focus on his trading room and other stuff, thus we lose out on his insightful comments, musings, etc. His additional brilliance could be experienced recently when he gave a rare live trading session as a test, truly a master savant at work! I feel he’s focusing on too few a community, the day trader, by trying to create new ones that can implement his HP method, but by watching the trading chat, it’s not an easy task and very time consuming vs. providing the majority of subscribers who don’t trade futures and options more consistent guidance on stocks, ETFs and commodities for longer term trades. Though one has to pursue what they love and Rick IS a trader at heart and you can feel his enthusiasm when he’s doing it. Spending time debating those with unwavering opinions and closed minds is not a productive use of his time.
Dave October 7, 2013, 6:41 pm

Rick, I checked Mutual of Omaha’s website and they don’t currently offer individual/family or small employer healthcare coverage, only critical illness, Medicare medigap, disability, long term care.

You should read the complaints against MoO and consider changing companies.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/insurance/mutual_of_omaha_health.html
- Dave October 7, 2013, 7:11 pm
  
  I suggest looking at United Healthcare’s High Deductible plans.
  
  http://www.goldenrule.com/health-insurance/high-deductible/
  
  UHC has been a breath of fresh air compared to others I’ve had. While I use their Medicare Advantage plans, they seem to have their act together. They are only company offering a $0/month PPO for Medicare Advantage and hardly increased their 2014 co-pays. They also offer Silver Sneakers – free gym memberships and Platinum Dental plans for miminal extra monthly charges. Their customer service has been excellent and responsive. They also are the health plans AARP offers under their name. MUCH better run a company than Emblem Health or BCBS both who have been cutting benefits and raising premiums both with lousy customer service. Of course there are complaints against UHC’s Golden Rule, so it’s basically choosing the least of all the evils! Whatever you do, don’t sign any contracts 10/21 – 11/10 during Mercury Retrograde! We’re already in the shadow/portend period since 10/1.
- Rick Ackerman October 9, 2013, 12:57 am
  
  Actually, it’s a Humana policy that insures my wife and kids. I’d confused them with Mutual because that’s who holds my long-term care policy.
  - Dave October 9, 2013, 1:54 pm
    
    Even more reason to look at United Healthcare!
    Ginkgo Biloba herb is clinically shown to help age related cognitive decline and possibly Alzheimer’s preventitive. I like CVS’ 30mg tablets, 60 mg/day is an average dose. Could help avoid having to cash in on that long term care policy! 😉
Northshore October 7, 2013, 6:20 pm

Rick,
You state that most Americans hate Obamacare. I am a health insurance agent with around 500 clients with individual health insurance. They will be the ones most impacted by Obama. In talking to dozens of them over the last month or so, there have only been 2 rabid Obama haters. The rest of them only want advice on what to do. Without getting into the discussion about the pros and cons of Obamacare, I just want to make the observation that the vast majority of those I talk to are O.K. with it. By the way, the implementation of Obamacare will cut the income of an insurance agent by around 50%, not that anyone other than those affected really cares. I don’t see a groundswell of support to restore the previous commission levels just so people can pay more for their health insurance.
- Redwilldanaher October 8, 2013, 4:44 am
  
  That’s wonderful. Polls indicate that Rick is accurate.
- Rick Ackerman October 8, 2013, 4:49 am
  
  I don’t believe they are ‘okay’ with it, Northshore — not unless your clients are mostly Romney 47-percenters. The simple fact is, middle-income earners of between $40k-$90k are all going to pay more. On average, Obamacare will effectively boost their marginal tax rate from 38% to a little more than 50%. This is just plain arithmetic, since someone will have to pay to make people with existing conditions, or those with medical emergencies, instantly insurable. Nor did I make up the part about the Obamacare option forcing me and tens of millions of others to pay for services that we neither want nor need.
  - gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 5:43 pm
    
    You already pay for things you don’t want or need in all types of private insurance. The premiums are baked in. Car insurance, regardless of how clean your record is relies on demographics and type of car, not just cost of car repairs. Health insurance relies on sex, age, demographics, pre-exiting conditions. You can’t cherry pick the type of service you think you would need in the future. Home owners insurance is the same setup. All insurance companies use an actuarial scale to determine cost, regardless of the fact that you don’t fit into that scenario. they always spread out the risk.
  - Jason S October 9, 2013, 6:45 pm
    
    Rick, here is a good (Gary, it is a NEW YORK TIMES) article outlining how the higher marginal tax rates will screw mid and low income earners under the ACA. Casey Mulligan has also created a graph showing that the marginal tax increase will amount to about 52% in 2015. Joy to the world.
    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/the-tax-equation-in-the-health-care-law/?_r=1
dst October 7, 2013, 6:14 pm

We been on medicare since 1961, home of the so called free medicine in the western world. (saskatchewan) and our budget is in a surplus. It is not perfect but one does not need 3 jobs to pay for insurance like most do in the USA.

It works very very well here. Problem over in the USA it is timing not a great time to bring it in should have been done 40-45 years ago. But the insurance companies and your of lack leadership forethought and plain old human kindness to their fellow man, gave a damn about the poor or middle class.
There is a huge amount of misinformation flying in both directions.
Incredible.
- Marc October 7, 2013, 6:35 pm
  
  But do consider that, on a whole, the Canadian population is healthier than the American population, so health care needs are not as great. More importantly, the Canadian system does not cover tens of millions of illegal immigrants as the U.S. sytem has (which has played a big part in the cost increases heretofore).
  - Maumaj October 7, 2013, 7:15 pm
    
    Last time I looked, “health” coverage took almost 50% of a typical provincial government’s budget, with the debt taking an almost similar percentage of the budget. There is therefore very little remaining for the other government programs (education, infrastructure, culture, etc…) and governments keep on accumulating deficit budgets, year after year, with no balance budget in view, ever. The “health” costs keep on growing at a rate that is way above the inflation rate so this is leading to a total impasse. The chief benefactors of all this spending are the drug companies and on a lesser degree the medical professionals.
    
    The quality of Canadian health service is bad. An emergency visit will see you looking at over 20 hours of waiting time before seeing a doctor. Thousands of people have no family doctor so also have to wait hours to simply see an M.D. at a local clinic. Those who do have a family doctor, can make an appointment to see his M.D. but it will take weeks if not months before your turn comes up
    
    I have it against the term “health” insurance. Swallowing pills and being hospitalized is not healthy, it is detrimental to your health. It should be called “sick” or “disease” insurance. The healthy ones who take responsibility for their health end up paying for those who are huge consumers of pills and medical interventions because they do nothing to be healthy. The healthy one also has the privilege of having to pay for any supplements he may decide to consume, no government help paying for those. The healthy ones also have the pleasure of paying a 15% sales tax on those purchases to help the government pay for the lazy, obese medical consumers.
  - Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 8:27 pm
    
    No Marc, Saskatchewan is noted for having one of the most obese populations in North America. It is a very fat place. Not good for the dating scene.
  - Marc October 8, 2013, 4:06 pm
    
    Cam, I realize that many of the cities in central and eastern Canada are no better off than American cities in that regard. That is why I specifically wrote, “on a whole, the Canadian population is healthier.” Much of rural and western Canada is much healthier than rural America, so in totality, Canada’s population is better off. But if Saskatchewan covers its own health expenses, as opposed to a national funding system, then I appreicate your point.
  - Cam Fitzgerald October 8, 2013, 7:00 pm
    
    I just checked on the numbers, Marc. Seems Saskatchewan spends more than I thought on health care. Too many fat people! The per capita budgeted amount is roughly 4600. dollars per person. There are no monthly fees for health coverage though as virtually all the expenditures come from ordinary taxation. So anyway, that works out to being 383 dollars per month per person and includes everything from prescriptions to hospital and clinic budgets, Doctor, nurse and specialist salaries, testing, ambulances, education programs, therapy etcetera. Pretty much the whole kit and kaboodle. It also covers every single permanent resident in the province regardless of income. Not sure how that stacks up against what you are paying for insurance in the States but it is worth noting you already pay taxes (like we do) and so Health premiums are over and above. I cannot personally ever recall paying a fee for anything except eyeglasses and a small percentage of prescription drugs which are subsidized. Health spending takes 38% of the Provincial budget which might be lower than other provinces. But there is more to this than meets the eye. The Federal Government also transfers money to most provinces for certain programmes so maybe it is higher. If you are paying as much as 6000 dollars a year as Jill alluded it still strikes me as very high. What is the typical cost for a family?
Jill October 7, 2013, 5:37 pm

If the Affordable Care Act was really going to be a disaster, Republicans wouldn’t be shutting down the government in order to try to stop it. They know that it is going to work, and it is going to pay for itself with that medical device tax and with cost savings measures.

But I am sure many folks feel so very sorry for the companies that have to pay the medical device tax. These are companies that tale a piece of equipment that costs them $350 to make– and then sell it to patients for $13,000. Poor little medical device companies. My heart bleeds for them.

This is the “free market” that Hayek followers love so much. And the whole reason we need the Affordable Care Act. Medical care has not been affordable to huge number of people. And the fact that insurance companies could cut people off when they got sick an needed the insurance, was one of many predatory behaviors that insurances used to leech off of sick people, that will now no longer be allowed, thank God.
- Craig October 7, 2013, 6:28 pm
  
  The poor little tax that medical device companies will pay won’t pay for anything….guess who actually pays it…not the device company…the hospital does…don’t worry they will go bankrupt soon enough and be nationalized, don’t you worry.
  
  The republicans are the controlled opposition, this is all theatre to keep the libertarians and republicans at bay until they want a revolt. Nothing will stop obamacare nothing! Only delays maybe to give us hope. That’s why Biden got caught on tape high diving everyone on cspan running around screaming this IS A BIG F’N DEAL when it passed. You people are so easy to con.
  - DK October 8, 2013, 4:09 am
    
    “The republicans are the controlled opposition, this is all theatre to keep the libertarians and republicans at bay until they want a revolt. Nothing will stop obamacare nothing! Only delays maybe to give is hope. That’s why Biden got caught on tape high diving everyone on cspan running around screaming this IS A BIG F’N DEAL when it passed.”
    
    Thank you, Craig.
    
    I am not surprised that RWD and others give credence to the notion that the Gary and Jill “types” could in fact be paid shills. Some of their posts are just simply dumbfounding.
    
    Ugh, the frustration. Maybe putting lithium into my water with fluoride will help? How about an SSRI cocktail?
    
    You don’t have to be an A. Jones type to see the writing on the wall, but you might have to skip the next American Idol to keep up to date and connect the dots.
- Marc October 7, 2013, 6:29 pm
  
  Are you kidding, Jill? Look at the areas that government gets significantly involved, whether through heavy regulation or large subsidization, and you will see an area of significant price increase: housing, college education, most medical care. Now look at areas with much less regulation or government spending, and you will see prices that remain fairly stable or decrease over time: clothing, electronics, elective surgeries (cosmetic, lasik). The free market works until the government sticks its nose into things and worsens the issues it claimed it was going to solve.
  - Craig October 7, 2013, 6:40 pm
    
    They actually subsidize communications…it’s a Trojan horse just like the world wide web (a trap, gotta love their sense of humor). The 1996 telecommunications act made sure all phones track your every move…it’s not just apple, it all of them…by law.
    
    Al franken was so upset apple and Verizon are tracking everyone he called for the people that were responsiles arrest….except that all stopped when someone told him it was the law and congress is the responsible party. Enjoy your Trojan horses that make you feel “free”. Baah baah…sheep.
  - Marc October 7, 2013, 7:23 pm
    
    I’m not really sure what your point is, Craig. Electronics includes TVs, DVD players, digital cameras, etc. And phone services did get more affordable with deregulation. I’m not saying there is zero regulation of any of these devices; it’s just not as pervasive as in other areas. But if it makes you feel better, I do not own a smartphone (in part because of the reason you mention). I do, however, use the internet. I gather you do, as well.
  - Craig October 7, 2013, 7:57 pm
    
    I wasn’t saying anything about you, just the people can not see this is all a plan. Internet was “free” and “anonymous” like a drug dealer giving drugs for free to kids to get them hooked. Soon thumbprints to log on and pay to see sights. Arrests for comments and offending people online (already happening in Europe). Now we are so dependent on these things an technology it is another way of controlling us. I am an information hound…but when it becomes too much I will just toss all the tech. The electronics (appliances too) also are listening and sometimes watching you and sending data over power lines (via smart meters). Not really active yet but in progress, is possible now to dial into your dishwasher and listen to you an your wife. Everything is being put in place to dump all this info into mass databases to profile anyone, anytime for blackmail, arrests whatever they need. Yes things get cheaper with overseas slave labor and more demand plus competition, but this was not entirely without a push (money) to get us addicted to these goodies. They are awesome BUT…it’s is our jail cell without knowing it. We do need to use their arena to get the info out….it is, they are not liking it, they must pit our Internet 2.0 to squash the info going out….but their is paper and DVD info out there ro be distributed once that happens.
  - Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 8:17 pm
    
    Get a smart phone, Marc. Everyone has one and the people who will be most closely watched in the future are going to be those who avoid the invasive technologies. Do you imagine for even a second you won’t come to the attention of the analysts if you don’t have a Facebook account or Linkedin or a credit card or laptop with an active account? When a society is being comfortably monitored from every conceivable angle the resources then get directed at those who try to fly under the radar and live tech free using cash only. It is the obvious outcome.
  - Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 8:25 pm
    
    Never heard that about the dishwasher, Craig. Hopefully you are just making that up. My old answering machine though did have a coded function that allowed you to key in from an outside line and listen in to your own household. Who the hell ever dreamed that idea up and what was its purpose? I discovered it by accident. My ex-wife chucked the thing in the garbage after I told her about it (maybe she really was having an affair!). Not long ago I bought a new printer, by the way. The damn thing refuses to function unless I install Adobe so of course I did. But then it phones home and presumably reports on whatever I print out. Good thing I live a dull life and mostly use it for recipes!!!!
  - Craig October 7, 2013, 9:41 pm
    
    I did not make up the washing machine…there will be a huge market for older electronics.
    
    Speaking at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s technology investment operation, Petraeus made the comments when discussing new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously ‘dumb’ home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.
    Wired reports the details via its Danger Room Blog:
    “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”
    “Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said.
    “the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.” the CIA head added.
    Petraeus also stated that such devices within the home “change our notions of secrecy”.
    Petraeus’ comments come in the same week that one of the biggest microchip companies in the world, ARM, unveiled new processors that are designed to give practically every household appliance an internet connection, in order that they can be remote controlled and operate in tandem with applications.
    
    But Gary would say…they didnt mean that…or that the Army Manual (FM 3-39.40) that says to round up citizens by social security number is for use in “other countries”
    
    “The prisoner’s last name, first name, and middle initial are placed on the first line of a name board, and the prisoner’s social security number is placed on the second line.”
    Last time I checked, the United States Social Security Administration was not responsible for handing out social security numbers to people in Afghanistan or Iraq.
    On page 193 of the document, we learn that the policies outlined in the manual can be applied domestically. The language makes it clear that so long as the President passes an executive order to nullify Posse Comitatus, the law that forbids the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement, the policies “may be performed as domestic civil support operations.”
    
    The manual states, “These operations may be performed as domestic civil support operations,” and adds that “The authority to approve resettlement such operations within U.S. territories,” would require a “special exception” to The Posse Comitatus Act, which can be obtained via “the President invoking his executive authority.”
- mary October 7, 2013, 6:31 pm
  
  I can’t believe what I just read. This is the free market????? Simply amazing…
  - mava October 8, 2013, 5:06 pm
    
    This board has quite a few communists.
    
    Incidentally, this is the real problem with America. The democracy will self-destruct if some voting citizens are wrong.
    
    In Russia in 1914, these people had to murder the Czar’s royal family to change things their way and send the country to its demise.
    
    But, in America, there is the democracy. Meaning that these people only have to vote to destroy this country.
    
    And one more thing. Sometimes, there are not enough of these revolutionaries that want to kill America off. So, what do they do? Again, the democracy is an answer, because all they have to do is deliver just a little bit of damage (vote for a little bit of communism). This will increase their numbers as more worthless people are created by their programs. Next time they win at the ballot box that much easier.
  - Craig October 8, 2013, 5:50 pm
    
    America is NOT a DEMOCRACY!!!!!!
    
    We will never get anywhere with everyone parroting the medias brainwashing agenda! Of Gary has parroted this also, I just can’t find it amongst all his government hand out love.
    
    America is a Representative Republic….and no Jill I did not hear that on Fox news.
- Rich October 11, 2013, 2:27 am
  
  Jill, re
  
  “If the Affordable Care Act was really going to be a disaster, Republicans wouldn’t be shutting down the government in order to try to stop it. They know that it is going to work, and it is going to pay for itself with that medical device tax and with cost savings measures.”
  
  And your evidence and logic for this statement are exactly what?
  
  Please stop repeating DNC talking point lies and think for a moment.
  
  If 0Care is going to be such a success, why are politicians in both failed parties not falling all over themselves to claim they created it, like Al Gore the Internet and Willard, unelected after forcing it on Taxachusetts, but denying it on a Federal level?
  
  How can a medical device tax that increases costs pay for 0Care?
  
  How can covering more Americans with more medical services cut costs, already increased +$6.2 Trillion so far according to the non-partisan Government Accounting Office, after 0 claimed in his September 9, 2009, speech to a joint session of Congress, President Obama declared, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future” and added $7 Trillion in government debts so far?
  
  Facts are inconvenient things to some people:
  
  http://blog.heritage.org/2013/02/26/obamacare-budget-bombshell/
  
  Have you ever known a government program to come in under budget?
Marc October 7, 2013, 5:34 pm

I believe the worst thing about the unAffordable Care Act is how it tries to offset the costs for those with greater health risks by making those in lower risk categories pay more. It’s perverse that those with healthy eating and exercise habits subsidize those who can’t get off the couch or stop shoving garbage down their gullets. The majority of modern health problems are directly attributable to people’s lifestyles. Among the few populations that still exist in which people are active and eat little or no simple carbohydrates (isolated populations in Japan, Africa, and the Arctic Circle), there are very few health problems until the very end of life (and the average life expectancy is longer). So why shouldn’t people have to pay more based on their risk factors when almost all of them are self-induced? I wouldn’t have a problem with some kind of government-subsidized health care for those with congenital diseases or other genetically-linked disorders, as well as for people who maintain a healthy physical profile and yet still wind up stricken by a disease. But when you get beyond that, you take away an important incentive to watch one’s own health financial; that being, the financial repercussions. And insofar as many (most?) people don’t seem to find that incentive a strong enough motivator to take care of themselves, too bad! That is their decision, and in the America in which I thought I lived, they were suppsoed to be free to make it and live with the consequences without making their fellow citizens come along for the ride.
- Jill October 7, 2013, 5:44 pm
  
  Deductibles seem to be getting higher now, which might take care of some of that problem. But otherwise, how would you suggest taking care of it– having the insurance companies keep some kinds of complex records about how much people exercise and what they eat? Couldn’t people just lie? I am all for good diets and exercise, but I don’t see a practical way to make this work.
  
  Even before the ACA, risk has been spread out, by insurance-company-issued policies, in categories that were hard to measure or get the truth about– like diet and exercise or lack thereof. This is not a change. Healthy people who have insurance have always paid more for it than their risk of disease would justify– thus subsidizing those other insured people who practice unhealthy lifestyles like eating junk food and avoiding exercise.
  
  As for young healthy people, their insurance is still pretty inexpensive– and if it turns out they need health care, then they will not go bankrupt, as they might have before the ACA.
  - Marc October 7, 2013, 6:23 pm
    
    Much simpler than that, Jill. If you have a healthy BMI (or better yet, waist-to-height ration), blood pressure, VO2 max, leptin/grehlin levels, and blood chemistry, then you could receive subsidized coverage if you had the unusual misfortune of developing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Not many people with those characteristics develop any such diseases. And not many people who eat well and are physically active fall outside of those parameters, unless they have a genetic disorder (which are typically identifiable). So under my proposal, healthy people would also be protected from bankruptcy over medical costs. The lazy and/or gluttenous would not — but they could change that by improving their lifestyle, if they cared to do so. It provides a positive incentive, like saving in a tax-benefited retirement account.
  - mary October 7, 2013, 6:29 pm
    
    Jill, how old are you? When I was young, nobody worried about health insurance, and nobody was dying in the streets. The problems started in excess with medicare (although the problems really started with the Rockefeller control of medical schools leading to allopathic medicine as the standard). This is the perfect example of how political control destroys the market and makes life miserable, a la Mises. One intervention causes inefficiencies and problems, people complain, rapacious pols create more rules/regs causing more inefficiencies leading to bigger problems, and on and on. The answer is to get gov’t COMPLETELY out of the medical system. Prices would collapse, insurance would not be needed for most health issues and there would be catastrophic coverage for people who want it. This is econ 101.
  - fallingman October 7, 2013, 7:00 pm
    
    Deductibles are NOT going higher. Quite the opposite. High deductible, “catastrophic” insurance policies have been outlawed. Have you not been paying any attention?
    
    Stupid question. You never seem to pay attention, but ignorance doesn’t ever keep you from opining, now, does it?
    
    Young people and those who previously had high deductible policies and were self-insuring the gap to $10 K or whatever are the ones who are really getting hosed by this monstrosity. The healthy are being FORCED to pay the medical bills of the sick and reckless.
    
    The ACA is TAKING AWAY the incentive of people to take care of themselves and crippling their ABILITY to do so.
    
    If you’re forced to pay for insurance or MORE for insurance (or call it what it really is … pre-paid medical), you have less money to spend on things such as organic food, a gym membership, truly preventative measures, etc. That’s something even you can understand.
    
    And those who are covered will tend to use the system more, which will do two things presumably no one besides those inside big pharma and the medical combine wants. It’ll cause some people to be less careful and less interested in prevention … like the banker who knows he’ll get bailed out when he loses big on his insane bets … because they think the medical complex can restore health if they lose it.
    
    Ha, hardly. The medical complex CAUSES more illness than it “cures.” The worst thing you can do for your health if you aren’t seriously injured or seriously, acutely ill is to seek the help of the mainstream medical types. They’re able to do NOTHING to improve chronic disease conditions and the drugs and surgeries they rely on will &%^! you up.
    
    And, they’re expensive!
    
    The ass-backwards “health” care system is gonna kill us in two ways…medically and financially.
    
    Insurance was really cheap for young people, because most didn’t need it. Now, it’s expensive, because that money has to be siphoned off to pay for those who get subsidized “care.”
    
    That’s precisely why they had to FORCE people to buy it, because it’s a lousy deal.
    
    As always, you support the state and its use of brute force. How charming.
    
    Thug.
  - Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 8:07 pm
    
    And not that long ago everyone was scared of bankers when it was really the medical profession in the US that should have been scaring the pants off them!
    
    They sure did a number on you guys down there. Between outlawing so many alternative medicines and herbals to controlling every aspect of who could and who could not practice certain aspects of health care (midwifery as an example) to getting a complete lock on issuing prescriptions that now includes many things that were once available over the counter……and now they will be custodians of the most invasive of private information in easily accessible (and shareable) machine format. Your medical files….whew! Total control.
    
    So I just read someone saying that all your collective health histories are going to soon be stored in the database cloud in the sky. But why would the police need that? For your own safety? I guess when the day of reckoning comes it will be fairly easy to pick out the sick people for um….treatment.
    
    But is it true vaccinations will be mandatory? Sheesh. Where does it end? I also read that Mastercard will soon be demanding all its customers give fingerprints. Why stop there when they could just do DNA profiles on the whole lot of us? That would stop credit card fraud.
    
    Maybe the crazy guys who kept telling us the mark of the beast was coming were really not kidding. In our lifetimes no less. Implants have arrived! Step right up folks…..no implant – no meal card.
    
    You weren’t really hungry anyway. Were you?
  - DK October 8, 2013, 3:57 am
    
    Fallingman, thank you for clarifying.
    
    “Young people and those who previously had high deductible policies and were self-insuring the gap to $10 K or whatever are the ones who are really getting hosed by this monstrosity. The healthy are being FORCED to pay the medical bills of the sick and reckless.”
    
    Most of the people I keep in touch with (outside of my family), fall into this category.
  - gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 5:31 pm
    
    Marc, a sensible idea in keeping costs down. it would also encourage healthier choices. You still have people, thru not fault of their own, that have health issues. I wish there was an easy solution. Your method would require more administrative costs and a program from preventive health. I always believed there should be more accountability for all social programs. It’s like a person claiming back problems as a means to get disability insurance payouts. The insurance companies check for cheaters before approving these claims.
- Jason S October 7, 2013, 7:49 pm
  
  Marc, you hit the nail on the head of our completely backward systems. This applies to most of what Amerika does: penalize the efficient and healthy to subsidize and foster the inefficient and unhealthy. It is like reverse Darwinism, kill off those that are most adaptable and beneficial to help those that are incapable of adaptation and benefit. A sure recipe for lasting destruction.
  - Cam Fitzgerald October 7, 2013, 8:12 pm
    
    Well Jason, that is not so crazy. In other times when the public was in revolt or the economy suffering governments were quick to gin up a war and send the strongest and most youthful into battle. The same guys incidentally who were posing an actual threat to the monarchy of the day. Nothing quite like starting a fight you can’t win and getting rid of all the domestic troublemakers in the process.
  - Jason S October 9, 2013, 12:49 am
    
    True, Cam. I guess it is human nature. I suppose now it is too dangerous for the elites to gin up war with todays weaponry; too high a chance they get vaporized too.
    
    I wonder if the ACA is the first step toward creating the new healthy race? Anyone who doesnt comply will be shuttled off to a work camp much like the Germans did during their eugenics purge. That is a good way to handle dissidents as well.
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics
gary leibowitz October 7, 2013, 5:06 pm

The ideology behind Obamacare is a noble one. The umbrella coverage for all citizens regardless of work status, health, age, or financial stability will come at a cost. There will be inequalities based on the state you live in and your current insurance policies. The upper middle class will most likely suffer the largest financial disparity since their current plan is a high end policy. I agree it is a form of taxation. I also question whether we can afford to add further burdens to the struggling middle class.

The answer to all questions will be known in one to two years. The massive amount of money taken out for social security has been absorbed and accepted. In fact it is beloved by a vast majority. The fate of this insurance coverage is indeed in question. If it becomes a major political issue where one parties control of the house and senate is in jeopardy it seems likely this legislation will be repealed.

What disturbs me most is the continuous trend to shift costs away from corporations onto individuals. The tax burden for corporations went from 80 percent to 20 percent of total yearly intake. Corporations today are enjoying the largest profits and gross margins ever. Does anyone find that strange in this environment? While it is true that corporations will have to pay more for their workers coverage, it is equally true they can abandon their coverage with little or no consequences.

We are currently the richest nation when it comes to the top citizen tier and large corporations. The current crisis has only exasperated this disparity by focusing on cutting costs where it will hurt the 95 percent, and allow the top 5 percent to reap larger gains.

As for this new program, it will sink or swim on its own merits. If the majority of people see more financial loss than personal gains they will throw out the politicians who endorsed it. If the economy sinks into another malaise this program will go. I wonder just how disconnected our politicians are knowing the current burden this government, and it’s people, are already taking on to hold up the economy, and deciding to add this to it. It doesn’t make sense.

In the Clinton period where the economy was healthy and spending under control, we would have had a chance for this to succeed. To deal with the massive debt problem and government subsidies by adding a national health program is ludicrous today.
- fallingman October 7, 2013, 6:32 pm
  
  Gary,
  
  For Christ’s sake, corporations don’t pay taxes anymore than government “workers” do.
  
  If corporations pay the costs of insurance, do you think they simply accept that cost as a burden they have to bear and accept a lower return on investment? Some might want to or have to accept some of the hit, in which case INDIVIDUALS in the form of shareholders suffer via diminished returns or actual losses. But usually, they simply pass the cost along to …drumroll please … INDIVIDUALS who are their customers?
  
  You can pull all the 3 card monte-style third party cost shifting you want, but here’s the reality: Disease care is ineffective and costs serious money … money WE don’t have. It doesn’t matter much if a corporation acts as the administrator or the individual takes care of his/her own, the piper still has to be paid by US in one way or another.
  
  Or do you think that if a corporation “pays for” disease care coverage that the money came from some magical place that didn’t involve it being removed from the pockets of individual customers or shareholders? I guess you do.
  
  Reminds me of when Doug Casey was on the Donahue show back in 1980. Casey pointed out that taxes were high and the money was being wasted … and some buffoon stands up and asks, “Why do we have to pay for things with our taxes? Why doesn’t the government pay for it?”
  
  The idiotic comments of that particular economic illiterate were met with hearty applause.
  
  I’m sure if you had a live audience of morons Gary, they’d be cheering too.
  - Craig October 7, 2013, 6:54 pm
    
    You haven’t been following Gary very long. It’s well established that he has never had a job where he was responsible for anything financial or even learned anything by osmosis. He just does his little work and thinks things go into black holes and can’t be accounted for or tracked. Everything is so complicated we need the big strong government to protect us and our masters are never wrong. They make sun come up. Gary=The Sheeple’s Advocate
  - fallingman October 7, 2013, 9:35 pm
    
    I “followed” Gary to the point of chronic nausea. The man’s a mattoid. It’s why I no longer visit the site. I made an exception today. Not sure why. Oh yeah, I wanted people to know how badly I was getting screwed by the AFFORDABLE Care Act.
    
    But screwing people isn’t a byproduct of the plan. It IS the plan. I knew that, so what good does noting the screwage do ya? None.
  - Craig October 7, 2013, 10:05 pm
    
    Well Mark Dice did an informal poll of Californians and 9 out of 10 of them preferred Obamacare to the Affordable Care Act….
  - fallingman October 8, 2013, 4:00 am
    
    That would be funny if it weren’t so damn tragic.
    That’s how the politicians and the combine have come to rule us. They prey on the ignorant.
- mava October 8, 2013, 4:54 pm
  
  “The ideology behind Obamacare is a noble one.”
  
  Are you kidding me, Gary? A Noble ideology?
  
  To steal from a working man in order to enable a lazy bum who doesn’t want to tend the field to reap the same harvest?
  
  What specific parts of this travesty seem noble to you? The theft?
  
  If you want to pay for a few lazy families where not one member wants to graduate a high school, – that’s fine. You could do it just as well without any Obamacare. Just write a check to Washington, D.C.
  You could say this is Noble, although I will tell you this is simply dumb. At this point, we could call it a difference in opinion.
  
  The only difference that Obamacare had brought is it made this mandatory. Meaning that from now on, you no longer care about my opinion. You had decided that you will act with violence upon me, to make me act in favor of lazy bums, as you do.
  
  This violence, you call “Noble”?
  - gary leibowitz October 8, 2013, 5:24 pm
    
    Typical answer. I guess no one in your family ever fell on hard times, had a medical issue that prevented them from buying insurance, needed government assistance. So, since your personal experience, so far, is one of self sufficiency it boggles your mind to ever contemplate such a fate.
    
    Why do you defend corporations when their fat wallets are bulging. I guess you believe corporations should only look out for ever increased profits. That is a heartening description of the future. No tenure in one company since it will cost them too much, just like it does with a lot of unions jobs. in the past American corporations were never that greedy. They had a long standing relationship with their workers and treated them like family. health care, pensions, profit sharing, matched annuity payments, retired after 25 years of service.
    
    Why not get rid of all programs? Come on now. Surely you don’t believe social security is efficient. Surely you don’t believe in Medicare and Medicaid along with the prescription program. School lunch, after school (day care), aid for the poor, visiting nurses and aides for people that can’t afford to pay.
    
    The poor rich corporations. Why should they have a responsibility in holding up their workers. If you don’t want governments to do it and corporations you are left with your model of self sufficiency. I guess everyone should start their own business.
    
    The degradation of the American worker is not because of government intervention. In fact it is exactly the opposite. Imagine the continued trend of corporations to diminish workers compensation and the government abandon their ever increased social role. In case you haven’t done the math Americans are treading water and in most cases falling behind even with the ever increased help from this government. Now suppose you got exactly what you wanted, less government hand-outs and intervention. Can you honestly say with a straight face we would be better of today in that scenario?
    
    Corporations would not all of a sudden get a bout of conscience and divert their profits to their workers. You would be standing today in a land like India of yesteryear. A total divided caste system where the majority are dirt poor. So now most here want a continued trend of easing on corporations and the government to become fragile and abandon taking up the slack. Great idea! Now that’s a prescription for fast track economic ruin.
    
    If my math is off please correct it. if you believe everyone on assistance is lazy than I guess whole nations are lazy. if you believe in no government rule or intervention than I can guarantee at some time in your life you or your family member would suffer greatly. But hey, what do I know. I only try and deal with common sense realities, not some ideology that can’t work in the real world. Most people on this board internalize their plight and expect the world to behave as if they live in your shoes. Some people to no fault of their own fall on hard times. Some people thru generations of welfare and broken families take advantage of hand-outs.
    
    Is there anyone on this board that started out as a hard liner and because of circumstance fell on hard times and relied on government assistance? I would love to hear how they still maintain their original stance on hand-outs.
  - Jason S October 9, 2013, 12:37 am
    
    Gary, where does charity stand with you? Most of what you relish about government historically has been done by charities and they have managed to do it more efficiently.
mava October 7, 2013, 4:57 pm

It all started with the stupid idea that “everybody deserves healthcare”. This is part of the magic, a stupid wishfull thinking. But, Americans went for it, we know that because we saw them accepting the dumbest government orders when the government mandated that “everyone should be threated at the hospital, whether they can pay for it or not”.

On the other hand, the government always knew that Americans had become lame. When the government said that we all must wear the seatbelts, what did we tell them back? Did we say “No way!”? Nope. We agreed that we will become slaves to the idea that somehow “everybody deserves everything” even if this everything is something that the government pushes in our throats by violent force of law. We are lame, toothless tigers.

Well then, how do you give every toothless tiger everything? You force every tiger who can catch a mice to share with every tiger that can’t. Obamacare.

Now instead of taking a great vacation which you deserved by the virtue of the work that you have done, you will be forced to buy health care for those who couldn’t care less about having a virtue.

One of you will work hard, and another will barely carry his fat rear end around. Together, you will be able to have some sort of bearable existence.
fallingman October 7, 2013, 12:32 pm

Just got the letter from BCBS last week. 318% increase. Not an anomaly. My friends, husband and wife, are seeing a 328% increase…an additional $7,600 a year.

We’re in NC.

Another friend and business associate in California seeing big increases also.

This is what Hayek’s road to serfdom looks like.
- Jill October 7, 2013, 5:30 pm
  
  The policy for my husband and myself now costs $500 less per month, a savings of $6000 a year for us. I guess different folks have different policy cost changes.
  
  It remains to be seen whether anyone is on Hayek’s road to serfdom or not. The other advanced economies of the world have socialized medicine. And if everyone has health insurance, our health insurance policies will no longer be paying the cost of the uninsured to go to the emergency room for treatment of conditions that they would have gone to a doctor for– long before the condition reached that advanced stage– if they had had health insurance.
  
  And, the majority of middle class people will now no longer be just one serious illness away from bankruptcy– because their insurance company can no longer cut them off abruptly if they get sick.
  - Redwilldanaher October 7, 2013, 5:50 pm
    
    Compare the tax burden on citizens in the early days of this country to present day. Compare the per capita debt load then to now. Compare the regulatory burden that hovers over would be business owners. Look at the near total debasement of the currency’s purchasing power. Look at the nearly 100% corporately dominated media. Look at the government’s coercion of citizens.
    
    No Jill, the only thing that remains to be seen are absurd arguments to the contrary.
  - fallingman October 7, 2013, 6:09 pm
    
    Yeah, it’ll be a regular $%#^&@!paradise….certainly worth 318% more a year.
    
    I just have one small request … that you contribute all of your $500 alleged savings toward paying my premium … to help equalize the load. I’m assuming you’ll have no problem with that. From each according to her ability…to each according to his need and all that.
    
    Your ability seems to be have been greatly enhanced while my need has been greatly increased. Should I let you know where to send the check? Or are unequal outcomes just fine with you as long as you aren’t the one getting screwed?
    
    On second thought, why don’t you just let me know where you live and I’ll come extract the $500 at the point of a gun. That’ll make the whole experience more realistic … more ACA-like. I know that you, as a confirmed statist, hate anything voluntary…and I’m certainly more than happy to oblige you on this score.
    
    I’ll be eagerly awaiting your reply.
  - mary October 7, 2013, 6:17 pm
    
    Jill, the reason some people are “just one serious illness away from bankruptcy” is because of gov’t meddling in health insurance. More gov’t meddling will not help those people, it will simply drag us all down. And frankly, I don’t believe you will be paying less. I’ll bet you aren’t telling the whole story…
  - Redwilldanaher October 7, 2013, 7:50 pm
    
    Hoping that this orwellian foray into the health of the sheople stokes the long too dormant fires of secession.
  - fallingman October 7, 2013, 9:42 pm
    
    Where’s the damn address sister?
    
    You’re obstructing social justice!
  - DK October 8, 2013, 3:52 am
    
    Oh, is that why all of those in DC want to be exempted? No negotiations, eh? It is fundamentally ridiculous for politicians, lobbyists, and unions to demand exemption over something they claim to have gifted to us as “for the greater good.” But keep your head in the sand, we’ll be having to face the music soon enough.
    
    The other advanced economies have citizens, particularly doctors (and their families), that want to come HERE for treatment unless it is for a procedure that is not yet approved here yet or conducted under conditions that pale in comparison to ours. What’s the average wait time for a heart treatment in Canada? Sweden? Britain? China? How about other treatments? Cancer screenings? Surgery and/or specialists treatment? HA! How about the USA?? Look it up and then stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
    I know is how I know how foolish this move is because I’ve been exposed to the industry nearly my entire life; there are FAR better alternatives. How about we establish sound money that they aren’t constantly devaluing thus driving the costs of this and everything else “up.” How about we stop subsidizing the corn this, high fructose that, a side of GMO’s and pesticide/fungicide/herbicide/steroided/innoculated everything else. No, instead we need to have the fed goon squads raid Amish farms and organic Co-Ops to destroy their dairy, confiscate, and trample on their rights. Good ole FDA/Monsanto, EPA, FBI, DHS, pick three letters.
    
    What about those outright lies Obama was claiming when he was called out by Joe Wilson: Illegals being covered? Check. Rationing? Check. So-called “death panels?” Um, yea, check.
    
    Also, just because you have health insurance doesn’t mean you have health care. As many insiders have repeatedly pointed out – good luck finding a doctor who will take this. What say you about your deductibles? Everyone I know who has tried to sign up has come back with enormous figures!
    
    How about that mandate? Oh, so you won’t or can’t pay the penalty on time? Driver’s license suspended. If it drags on for up to 2 years? Lien on your property. Thanks for linking all of this directly to our banking accounts.
    Makes one wonder why the government felt it had to go out and hire 16,500+ new IRS agents and make them capable of being armed, heavily.
    
    Hopefully this thing destroys itself, but if it shouldn’t, we can perhaps take some gratification in watching you kick rocks.
- Jason S October 7, 2013, 7:20 pm
  
  Fallingman, et all, in addition to seeing premium increases, have you also experienced increases in deductibles and other max/cap costs? I have heard that those have gone up as well. Nothing like being whacked with another $6,000 out of pocket in deductibles if you get a serious health issue.
  
  Think about a family with a $200,000 a year income, they would have a $20,000/yr premium and then about a $15,000 deductible for a family of four. This is supposed to protect against medical bankruptcy? Please! Those on the edge of poverty will still go BK and now a whole lot of middle class folks will too.
  
  I wonder if it is too late to go back to school to become a BK lawyer?
BKL October 7, 2013, 11:04 am

It is certainly one of the worst bills ever. And do you know who that pleases the most? K Street. Do you think it is was Obama’s plan to create a bill that is impossible for anyone to understand?

Create an absurd, 5,000 page, Rube Goldberg bill and label it Obamacare. Whose plan was that?

In Japan, we have single-payer government healthcare. Call it Sukiyakicare. Every procedure costs one third as much as in the U.S., and it includes dental!!!
bc October 7, 2013, 9:22 am

In many counties there is just one policy offering from one insurer for each alloy; bronze etc. A monopolistic supply chain and a gun to the head forcing you to be a buyer. What could go wrong? They should name the policies bronze, stone, copper and so on after the primitive pre-industrial ages we are about to return to.
VegasBob October 7, 2013, 8:30 am

I think this bill will hasten our economic collapse. The hundreds of billions of dollars that will be diverted to “healthcare” will cause a corresponding reduction in discretionary spending in other economic sectors. I would not be surprised if the economic dislocation caused by this idiotic law throws the country into a depression, despite the Fed’s non-stop money-printing. In fact, I think fear of Obamacare is what caused the Fed to shelve its tapering plans.

In my case, the $6,000-plus ($509.68 a month is the cheapest bronze plan for my state/age) that I will be forced to spend every year to comply with the Obummer’s health insurance mandate starting in 2014 will result in a direct, dollar-for-dollar reduction in my travel and entertainment budget.

So my spending on such things as Starbucks, movies, travel, air fares, motels, restaurants, theater, etc will take a massive hit. If these discretionary spending sectors take a huge hit in the first quarter, then we may well see the economy spiral into depression before we even realize what has happened.

If the idiots in the Democratic party had really wanted to “reform” health-care, they could have raised the Medicare tax by a couple of tenths of a percent and made Medicare the insurer of last resort for those who could not qualify for traditional health insurance, as well as the insurer of choice for those over 55 who wanted to take early retirement before age 65.

A simple approach as suggested above would have saved government several trillion dollars over 10 years as well as encouraged early retirement by those who could retire early but were unable to do so due to health insurance considerations. This in turn would have brought down the unemployment rate several ticks.

As an aside, by year 5 of the Bush Administration I figured that Jimmy Carter was sleeping well, knowing that Bush the Dumber had captured the title of Worst President in History. Not to be outdone, the Obummer has captured the title of Worst President in History from Bush in even less time than it took Bush the Dumber to wrest the title from Carter. Moreover, the Obummer is such a lousy President that he makes Bush and Carter both look good.
mava October 7, 2013, 7:14 am

Because, it has nothing to do with health care. Its goal is to create a scapegoat for the coming economic collapse. The reason there is a need for a scapegoat is that it will be so bad after the collapse, there will be literally lynching mobs.

None of the politicians responsible for this disaster want to be punished. So, they want to ram in an obviously stupid piece of legislation now, so that they can blame the collapse on it, later.

Obama is too dim to comprehend what is he being used for. Because he never worked, he seriously thinks that this bill is a “good” law. He is simply too low on an intelligence scale to be able to see what ruin this bill will create, and how much mutual hate this bill will produce in people.

There is no other possible explanation.
- mary October 7, 2013, 8:21 am
  
  Mava, do you really think obummer gives a hoot what he’s being used for? He’ll live the life of riley the rest of his life. Ruin means nothing to him.
- Craig October 7, 2013, 6:03 pm
  
  Wake up people!!
  
  Do you really think this is Obama?
  The democrats?
  A bunch of coincidences, because of incompetent leaders? (congress)
  
  It is a program…a long term plan. Bankrupt America, dumb them down, move manufacturing overseas (old mercantile system), force them to revolt on their terms, divide and conquer. The dumb masses will divide them for us and give them cover (Gary).
  
  Drones built by 2016 finished 2018.
  Meaningful use done by 2016-2018 (this is where when cops pull you over they will see ALL your medical info instantly…straight from your doctors info on you)
  Obamacare fully implemented by 2016.
  National ID almost fully implemted, disquised as state ids
PhotoRadarScam October 7, 2013, 7:04 am

The government shutdown affected all non-essential agencies. Why doesn’t that include the department that is working on the Obamacare website? All we have heard is that they are working hard to fix all of the glitches. But by what logic is it essential to have people working on the website?

Let’s Tee Up Obamacare, ‘the Worst Bill Ever’

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