BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Songwronger
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 06:41 PM

Obama's a totalitarian. Marxist roots, doing business with fascists. A totalitarian's a totalitarian. At the end of the day, who was worse, Stalin or Hitler?. Totalitarians hate individuals, too. That's what amazes me most about Democrats, that they think they "care" about people while supporting these programs that devastate individuals. Pat Buchanan said today that there will be guillotines on Farragut Square (near the white house) if 76 million Americans actually do lose their insurance to Obamacare. I hope they give Obama a trial before they drop the blade, so we'll OK on the legal front.

And now, in an attempt to clear up Mr. Firth's video confusion, below is a link to Obama promising again and again that "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance.":

http://www.1800politics.com/one-lie-another-obama-promising-can-keep-existing-healthcare-plan/

The next link is to a similar compilation of clips, but the audio has been doctored. Obama's voice has been replaced by another. Obama said hundreds of times that "If YOU like your health insurance..." but in the snippets at the second link he's saying we can keep our insurance if HE likes it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-nb4dKXA2o&feature=player_embedded

The second clip is comedy, but it also more accurately reflects how Obama's treating us now. He lied to us for 3+ years about the nature of Obamacare, and now we're finding out that we can only keep our insurance if HE approves of it. Fuck him. Bring on the juries and the guillotines.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 04:05 PM

"One more thing.. In your estimation, do you believe that the ACA is a step toward Fascism? or Communism?"

Blow me, NoBod. There. Absolutely no pontificating.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 12:47 PM

Nobody, I have NOT "skirted the question." Nor have I "moved the goalposts." I have given a straight answer. YOUR problem is that you just don't like the answer.

I reiterate:   That's YOUR problem.

"One more thing.. In your estimation, do you believe that the ACA is a step toward Fascism? or Communism?"

The ACA is, per se, NOT a step in either direction. In fact, Fascism and Communism are not that different. Any apparent differences are only superficial.

Learn some political science, and the definitions of political terms, such as Fascism and Communism.

Nobody, you are using the same tactics as Gust from Insanity, which tends to reaffirm my suspicion that you two are not two at all, but one and the same person.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 11:32 AM

Don(Wyziwyg)T has made a reasonable point in his 'moving the goalpost' observation. Mr.Firth has skirted the question and avoided it altogether. Songwronger has yet to answer. Greg F. tried answering the question with another question. No wonder your bickering has a history of going back for years. Therefore the only one that deserves a reply is Don(Wyziwyg)T, however I'm going to wait for an simple answer to mine first. Mr. Firth's comment was in fact moving the goalpost, in case that was hidden from some in plain view.

The reason for asking is that the differences you may have of each other and me is because one's political point of view may have filled yourselves with fear. Fear of one form of government over the other, even though nobody seems to be willing or able to articulate it.

So let's try again:

"One more thing.. In your estimation, do you believe that the ACA is a step toward Fascism? or Communism?"

No 'pontificating', please.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 10:49 AM

....and that the insurance industry will never ....

Sticky keys.
Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 10:45 AM

I can't help wondering whether "Nobody" has managed to live in the real world without ever having made a statement in good faith, which he believed true, but which was made untrue by others moving the goalposts?

If so, he has been very lucky!

But it would explain his inability to even consider the possibility that it could indeed happen, even to a President, possibly especially to a President, given the "block everything" mindset of his opponents.

I'm quite readily seeing the logical disconnect between ACA costing more (i.e. benefitting rapaceous imsurers) and insurers being unwilling to join.

The answer of course is that ACA will be less expensive, and that the insurance industry will ever accept.

They seem too stupid to work out that 47 million extra clients, even at lower rates, will boost their profits.

Dumfuckistan indeed.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 10:41 AM

We already live in a civilised world.

No so's you'd notice. And who precisely are "we"?

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 09:50 PM

"Mr. Firth, We already live in a civilised world."

Not totally, Nobody.

You could try taking a look at the real world. Or I could make you a list if you wish.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 09:01 PM

Same question to you, Songwronger.

"One more thing.. In your estimation, do you believe that the ACA is a step toward Fascism? or Communism?"

Mr. Firth, We already live in a civilised world.

Songwronger, same question.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 03:24 PM

And what web sites might those be, Nobody? I'm not familiar with them, but you obviously are well acquainted with them yourself.

As far as I am concerned, a "Kardasian" is a member of a fictional alien race in the television series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

The web sites I was talking about, with all the sloppy Photoshopping in them, were linked to here on Mudcat, by "ichMael."

Not unlike Gust from Insanity, you seem to be trying to judge me by your own moral standards, which is one of the reasons I tend to suspect that you are him with another phony name.

Some of Obama's speeches that have been linked to, presumably showing him lying, were actually made when he was explaining how HE intended the Affordable Care Act to work—before an obstructionist Republican Congress started trying to pull the rug out from under it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 01:09 PM

". . . do you believe that the ACA is a step toward Fascism? or Communism?"

Neither. It's a step toward joining the rest of the civilized world.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 01:05 PM

Nobody, I ignore your blithering in the above post (pure personal attack, which reveals your own weak position and general ignorance).

During Obama's first presidential campaign, there was a guy posting on Mudcat who called himself "ichMael" (either playing with his own name—presumably "Michael", and / or trying to invoke the name of the narrator of Moby Dick -- Ishmael) who made almost daily vicious attacks on Obama, even going so far as to start a web site intitled "The Mudcat Pages," on which he ascribed all kinds of atrocities to Obama, couldn't seem to make up his mind whether Obama had been born in Kenya or Indonesia, was a Muslim, and peppered the web site with photoshopped pictures with Obama's head on top of the body of some guy wearing a leotard and hugging another man, along with other photos of a similar nature.

One of the dead give-aways about the Photoshopping was that some of the angles were not quite right (same problem with the Kerry photos that I saw) and if the relationship between someone's head and his body were really that off, he has a real problem with his neck!!

It was amazing how much time and dedication "ichMael" put into his expressions of pure hatred for Barack Obama. Songwronger's nearly daily posting of attacks on Obama is on a par with that – and betrays a problem, not of the President, but of Songwronger's.

Guest from Sanity was Songwronger's biggest cheerleader, and in his absence, YOU seem to have taken over (unless, of course, you ARE Gfs using a new pseudonym).

So what's YOUR problem?

Do you, too, feel that Barack Obama is not the right color to inhabit the White House?

I am neither the bigot nor the pervert around here!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 11:03 AM

Oh Mr Firth! Do you actually go to those sites? What was Britney Spears doing in her 'compromising position'? How about Kim Kardashian? Were the bodies done as well as Mr.Kerry's? The rest would have to be up to your imagination. Being as you believe Mr.Obama without hearing what he said, I'm under the impression your imagination is perfectly capable of imagining some naughty and perverted things!

Pervert the truth, why not everything else?

The truth is he lied to the American citizenry. Are you going say that a President won't lie? Do you deny that the first Bush lied when he said 'Read my lips, No new taxes'?

What's the difference??

Only the eyes or ears of the beholder and the stubbornness to hold up that person who personifies their political beliefs and deny the truth of what they said. Can you or do you separate the values they have from the substance of what they say?

A lie is a lie is a lie no matter who says it, and if it was such a great and noble idea, why lie about it?? Why hide the truth from the people that it is supposed to 'help'?

One more thing.. In your estimation, do you believe that the ACA is a step toward Fascism? or Communism?

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,it doesn't really matter who I am
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 10:07 AM

What the hell are you guys talkin' about ?

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: sciencegeek
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 09:51 AM

For the record... this is SECOND attempt in recent history to provide affordable healthcare to all Americans.

The Clinton administration made the attempt and failed...

the following Republican administration was quite happy with the status quo. And who are now doing their best to sabotage the ACA.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 12:40 AM

Whoever dubbed in the voice was possibly some actor who could do a fair imitation if Obama's voice. But not good enough. I would like to see it run through a voice recognition test.

Close, but no cigar.

Politics can get pretty dirty. During the Bush vs Kerry campaign, I saw several photos in which Kerry's face was Photoshopped onto someone else's body, making it appear that he had been caught in a compromising situation.

And I've seen several such jobs done with Obama's face on someone else's body for similar purposes.

If one looks closely, one can see when this sort of thing has been done. So seeing--or hearing--is not necessarily believing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Songwronger
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 11:44 PM

You need to tell me, Mr. Firth, exactly WHO'S voice was saying, "If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan" when Obama's lips were moving. In the un-dinked version. When Obama was speaking, and promising me I could keep my health plan if I liked it, was that someone else speaking?

This is the most incredible lie I've ever heard in politics. And Obama's cornered like a rat on the issue. But his fascist allies are helping him out. Today I listened to 10 minutes or so of Sean Hannity on the radio (ultra-conservative, Republican), and he was talking about football. Obama just told the most massive public lie ever recorded, and the "opposition" is talking about sports.

I listened to 10 minutes of NPR too, just for the liberal perspective, and that crap was REALLY nauseating. How do you people listen to NPR? It's such obvious brainwashing.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 11:16 PM

Mr. Obama did not offer an apology, if you listened to the whole statement is full context. He offered condolences to all those who were hurt by believing him.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 11:06 PM

The operational phrase is "Within my experience, what he said is true."

You two are a pair of idiots!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Songwronger
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 10:56 PM

How has the clip been dinked with, Mr. Firth? There are other youtube clips of Obama making those statements. Please tell me exactly what words DID come out of his mouth over the past 3 1/2 years regarding individual health insurance policies.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 10:39 PM

"I didn't hear the speech, Nobody, so whether I believe President Obama or not is not relevant. Within my experience, what he said is true."

Period!

Priceless!
Mr. Ingenuous just said it all!!

The clip that Songwronger posted, Mr. Firth, had the words "If you like Your insurance plan" altered to "If I like.." To illustrate that the individual's choice was replaced with whatever Obama wanted is all that mattered, not 'you'.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 10:06 PM

Songwronger, as usual, you are nowhere near as well-informed as you think you are. I did not hear Obama's speech UNTIL Nobody from Nowhere posted a link to YouTube. After listening to that, I STILL have no viable evidence that President Obama lied.

You're talking out of your--ear!

By the way, Songwronger, it's patently obvious that the "Brief Clip" you just posted has been dinked with. That is NOT President Obama's voice (close, but no cigar!) and the words spoken and the movements of his mouth are just a bit off.

Watch it again, more carefully this time!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Songwronger
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 08:36 PM

Firth didn't hear Obama's speech, but what he said was true. Sigh.

Here's the most pertinent part of his speech. Brief clip

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 07:45 PM

""A mine worker was forced to live in company houseing, accept payment in company script that could only be used at over preiced company stores. If a worker was sick with black lung or injured at work.. they got no pay and their entire family could be evicted.""

There was even a song about a US miner who laid charges in the mine.

Big Jack Goff, I think, was the name. Anyway, one day he got careless and blew himself up, but being a rough, tough American male landed unhurt, only to find on payday that he'd been docked pay for the time he was in the air.

Seems that song epitomises the US attitude to blue collar workers, at work and in health care.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 02:12 PM

I didn't hear the speech, Nobody, so whether I believe President Obama or not is not relevant. Within my experience, what he said is true. But when people such as Songwronger and you started claiming that I would HAVE to change my health insurance, just to be sure, I did the sensible thing and called my doctor and my insurance provider. They said, "No problem. You're in good shape." I have yet to hear otherwise from an authoritative source.

I have asked a few friends whether or not they have had to change doctors and / or insurance companies and they have said, "No. No problem as is."

If that makes me—and my friends—"smug," then so be it! I think we can live with that.

Don Firth

P. S. In a movie theater rest room, someone spots a smoldering cigarette butt laying on a tile floor, far from anything combustible. But he, nevertheless, runs out into the theater shouting, "Fire! Fire!"

As I have said before, there are people running around loose out there who are in dire need of a good dope slap!

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 02:06 PM

nobody... for someone who lives in a country with national healthcare you sure seem obsessed with America and its problems...

more to the point, you only seem to be interested in throwing out negative diatribe that does nothing to address the issue of millions of Americans with substandard or non existant health care.

Are you some ex-patriot with a portfolio heavily invested in the very companies that have exploited Americans for decades and want to keep milking that cash cow forever? Because you sure as heck do not come across as someone who really gives a crap about us and hopes we can solve this problem.

Is the ACA perfect... a resounding no! Is this what the president envisioned as the solution.... another resounding no! It's the best - or actually the only- compromise for the time.

Flawed as it is, the AFA is better than what we've had to date and once folks have lived with it for awhile, they should be able to tell if they are or aren't better off and what would make the system work better.

So how you put forward something positive... like what it is that you like about your system and think could work for us. Not this frigging obsession with our President - who is mortal and hardly infallible, but actually cares that ALL Americans have access to affordable healthcare. If some people lose substandard policies - then I say great.. now sign up for something that actually serves your needs and does more than line some CEO's already deep pockets.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 12:55 PM

"Amazing how rapidly the brain-dead embrace Obama's propaganda, misinformation and lies."

He either did or didn't.

From a variety news sources listen to his own words.

You either believed him or you didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 12:05 PM

Only in the U.S. would people complain that they can no longer purchase worthless "health insurance" [sic] policies that don't cover shit and would be no help to them if they ever had even a moderately serious health problem.

Amazing how rapidly the brain-dead embrace RepubliClown propaganda, misinformation and lies.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 10:07 AM

up until recently, my vision plan was through the union & not my health insurance. so when the union changed providers after 20 years with another provider, I could no longer use my eye doctor. She decided to retire & sell her practice. The new doctor is connected with both providers, so I have no problem in that regards.

What I found most upsetting, besides losing a good doctor, was that the bill for the eye exam & two pairs of glasses came to over $700. WTF!!!! And did not include the extras that came out of my pocket.

The whole system is wacky... I or my spouse can only get glasses once every two years, but I can get two pairs as long as they are different prescriptions. Since the available frames change every year, I get the two pairs so I have a backup frame if the first frame breaks - which it usually does.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 13 - 05:19 PM

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 13 - 05:17 PM

I'm in essentially the same situation, Sciencegeek, and have found it satisfactory. save when medical providers like the durable medical goods store I mentioned above try to screw both the insurance company and me, but that's a whole nother thing.

My wife and I are both on Medicare, and we, too, have the Medicare Advantage policy recommended by the AARP. We checked, and they said essentially, "You're set. You don't have to do a thing."

So Nobody from Nowhere in Particular accuses me of being "smug" and not caring about other people.

Now, if the Affordable Care Act will come down like a ton of bricks on outfits like the durable medical equipment store and other rip-off outfits, that's fine with me. It'll save me the trouble of doing battle with them.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 07 Nov 13 - 02:03 PM

this whole topic is skewed, thanks to the wronger's need to disparage our President. There is NO such thing as "Obamacare"... and the Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress, not waved into existence by the executive branch.

Secondly, the ACA is designed only to bring the millions of Americans who are under or uninsured - read that to mean "what they have sucks" OR "ain't got no insurance"- into a health system with standards and affordability.   Those who already have employer provided health insurance generally meet the minimum standards or better, because no company wants to be paying out good money for crap. The insurance companies can only pull that BS on individuals who have little or no chocie in the matter... or fall for their gimmicks and don't realize how badly they are being screwed.

What we already have are Social Security and Medicare...
Social Security pays retirement, disability, family and survivors benefits. Medicare, a separate program run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, helps pay for inpatient hospital care, nursing care, doctor's fees, drugs and other medical services and supplies to people age 65 or older, as well as to people who have been receiving Social Security disability benefits for two years or more. Medicare does not pay for long term care, so people may want to consider options for private insurance. If you pay into Social Security, then the covered earnings qualify you for both programs.


And for those without a pot to pee in, there is Medicaid.

I have health insurance through my job & my husband is over 65, so he is on Medicare... neither one of us has to do anything, so we didn't. We didn't go online to "check things out" and clog up the system for others. Does that mean we don't care... of course not, and to imply otherwise is insulting and just plain ignorant.

In fact, I'd prefer a single payer system because the only choices we have are single or family.... and every married couple that carries "family" coverage but has no children is subsidizing everyone else's kids. You want ten kids, pay for them yourselves thank you very much. And yes, I can keep hubby on my insurance plan... but I would still have to pay the full family fee and that will only cover the 20% that Medicare doesn't. The AARP advantage program is the better deal and our doctors belong to both plans.

And if this is as clear as mud... well, why do you think many of us want the current system changed. Level playing field, one set of rules for everyone...

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 07 Nov 13 - 11:00 AM

I agree with you, Don, because the Grand Old Party is far from grand these days and as undemocratic a political party as I've ever seen.

Now... to the issue of health care in America. After college, I spent 10 years working for minimum wage or slightly above and no health insurance, partly because I was involved with the horse business and my husband had a union job and some coverage for me. And until the Conservative wing of the GOP started its campaign to gut unions, that was common throughout America. It was the unions that either negotiated employer provided health care or else it was through the union itself. That is why union jobs "cost" more... they could ensure that the memebers had a livable wage and health insurance.

Now we have the working poor... minimum wage that was originally to ensure that full time or part time, non-union workers and kids that worked summer vacations could earn wages that were at least more than slave labor. And make no mistake, it was needed because history is full of examples of how the wealthy still begrudged fair treatment of their employees. A mine worker was forced to live in company houseing, accept payment in company script that could only be used at over preiced company stores. If a worker was sick with black lung or injured at work.. they got no pay and their entire family could be evicted. Nice... "Just who are the takers?" I ask.

I sold my soul for a pension & health insurance... took a state job where my pay and benefits were still manipulated by what union I was allowed to join. But it was still way better than what I had before.

But what this country needs is a single payer system... period. And regulations that limit the abuses possible when profit is the sole interest of a company...

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Nov 13 - 08:33 AM

The first step would be for every single one of the millions without healthcare to vote Democrat, and keep voting Democrat until the job is done.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Nov 13 - 08:24 AM

""Now, any suggestions as to how to improve the system?""

Yes! Beat the Republicans comprehensively at the next and subsequent Presidential Elections and gain a sufficient majority to do it.

Because I'll guarantee you one thing. You will never see any such improvement under a Republican government. They have never tried to produce any such, and have gone into hysterical screaming fits about ""SOCIALISM"" whenever Democrats have tried.

Why would anybody continue to believe that they are ever going to change for the better?...........change for the worse now, that is almost inevitable!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Songwronger
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 10:07 PM

Now THIS is interesting. From the World Socialist Website, today:

US government exempts new health exchanges from anti-fraud standards

In an October 30 letter, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius revealed that the Obama administration has determined that programs created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are not federal health care plans. This decision, which flies in the face of common sense, exempts the Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) and state-based and federally facilitated Marketplaces from laws banning kickbacks and various forms of semi-legal fraud perpetrated by pharmaceutical companies and other interested parties.

As the New York Times wrote November 4, "The surprise decision, disclosed last week, exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare."

And so on...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/06/exem-n06.html

So, Obama is ENCOURAGING corruption in the new system.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 07:00 PM

According to the World Health Organization, the health care system in the United States is 38th, behind France, which is listed as No. 1., Norway and Sweden, Italy, Spain, even San Marino, Andora, Malta, and Singapore.

Reporter T. R. Reid comments that Americans pay more for health care than any other country in the world, and they get less for it.

One reason for this is the competitive nature of many hospitals. If one hospital in a city buys a Magnetic Resonance Image scanner, every other hospital seems to feel that, to stay competitive, they need to have one too.   Since they are very expensive and need to be paid for, they tend to use these scanners for anything and everything from possible stroke to a hangnail!!

I have been told that there are more MRI and CAT scanners in the city of Seattle than in the entire country of Canada. There, if the doctor requires a CAT scan, the patient is sent to the nearest hospital or clinic that has one, rather than every hospital spending millions of dollars on one of these machines when there already is one, a few blocks away.

I have been in favor of a single payer health care system all along. It works well in most other countries and many have gone that way for obvious reasons.

But in the U. S., when any politician, including—especially!—the President (not just Obama. ANY President) even hints at something approaching a single payer health plan, the Right Wingers and Conservatives immediately scream "Socialized Medicine!!" and accuse that politician (including the President, whoever that might be) of treason, and of being a Communist or Socialist.

So the brouhaha about President Obama's attempt to improve the system is nothing new.

Various hospitals and health care facilities simply charge what the traffic (the health insurance companies, mainly) will bear. That also goes for durable medical equipment. I use an electric wheelchair when I travel any distance (polio at an early age affected my legs), and recently I had to have new batteries installed. When I receive the bill from the durable medical equipment store from which I ordered the batteries, I was flabbergasted to find that my insurance company had been billed for all they allow for wheelchair batteries. $300.00! Then, the company billed me for an additional $375.00!!

The insurance company is nicked for something close to the actual cost but padded as much as they dare. Then the patient is stuck for a co-pay charge, there, too, as much as they think they can get away with.

This for a pair of batteries that, if purchased from a regular battery supply store, would cost $150.00 for the pair. They are standard marine batteries, the kind one might use for one's 36 foot Chris-Craft motor launch. The only difference was one set is labeled "Marine battery," the other is labeled "Power wheelchair battery." The specifications and dimensions are identical. Rip-off because it is "Medical Equipment."

I have been in favor of a single payer health care system for as long as I can remember, so, Nobody, this does not indicate "progress" as to my position. That's been my position all along (as an intelligent perusing of what I've been saying all this time) should make abundantly clear.

==========

By the way, my doctor (cardiologist this morning) said nothing about cancelling me or my insurance. She checked me over (I have a possible problem with one of my heart valves), and told me that everything looks fine so far, nothing to be concerned about, and to come back in six months when she will do a heart scan (NOT with one of the multi-million dollar scanners, but one that will tell her what she wants to know).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 01:29 PM

I come from one of those 'more civilised countries'. We could use some improvements ourselves with our single payer system. America could take the lead on this and cause far reaching influence to the whole of those 'civilised countries'

But your suggestion is an improvement over your previous tones.
We may be making progress!

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 01:06 PM

Yes. Go to a straight single-payer system like the more civilized countries have.

But the Republican Party and the Tea Party libertarians won't allow that. So you have to go with whatever plan you can get through a mean-spirited and obstructionist Congress.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 12:49 PM

I was typing while your comment came up.
That was a reckless and inaccurate conjecture. I am not a Republican. I am not a Democrat. I am a person who has lived under socialised medicine for quite a few years. I am also not going to entertain such wild presumptions about who or what you think I am. I will say that I am on a short leave from our schedule and have been taking this time in an area that many of our country and trade choose to visit when working on either long projects or tours.

In closing, several of us watched with interest the news coverage of HSS Secretary Sebelius being questioned on Capital Hill. And almost every point that I and others have brought up about misstatements and the debacle was brought up and acknowledged by the Secretary. As I understand it, the hearing is Chaired by a Democrat. Your assertion and assaults by others here toward myself is absolute and utter nonsense. If you don't believe me, then turn on your news!

Now, any suggestions as to how to improve the system?

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 12:31 PM

Not "smug," Nobody. Confident.

Interestingly enough, I have an appointment with one of my doctors in a couple of hours.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 12:29 PM

Good Morning.
Being as there seems to be no objection to further suggestions and to avoid a few obstinate fellows on here who insist on personalised assaults and diversions toward the direction of themselves, I'll open with this possibility.

Instead of an intrusive blanket of needless and inefficient coverages for non-applicable services to individuals who don't need those services, such as maternity care for the elderly, or those who oppose certain procedures based on religious beliefs, why not a basic coverage that covers a broad base of common health concerns and leave an option open for the individuals to supplement their health care with private companies based on the individual needs of the individual customer? This would open a door to include such services as dental, physical therapies and preventative medicines. It would also not impact the economy, employers and businesses as hard as forcing them into a system they do not care for or want, and then 'punish' them with questionable fines and punitive consequences?
This would inevitably lower the cost of the infrastructure to administer the health care and those savings be passed to the actual provision of services? I believe this would create more incentive for physicians not to leave their practice.

how about it? Any suggested improvements to that would be welcome.

Comments?
Ideas?

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Nov 13 - 12:27 PM

So why not come out of the closet Nobody, and admit that you are a Republican sympathiser gloating over the insurers cynically sabotaging Affordable Health Care?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 05 Nov 13 - 11:42 PM

Mr. Firth You sounded so smug about having 'Medicare'. You better check again.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Nov 13 - 09:16 PM

Just for the record: Judging from his past history (Yes, I checked.) It is just about time for Nobody to disappear and GfS to come back on tap. Frankly, I don't blame G for not admitting anything- it's got to be a tad embarrassing even for him to admit to posting praise for himself. And I don't mean that snarkily.

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Nov 13 - 06:14 PM

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Nov 13 - 06:13 PM

". . . unrealistic mandates. . . ?"

Inadequate coverage to begin with. Hence, it doesn't qualify under the Affordable Care Act.

Why is this so difficult for you to understand? Or is your purpose to attempt to find fault?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 05 Nov 13 - 05:30 PM

Thank you for your 'useful suggestion'.

The companies are being force to drop people, because of the inability to meet unrealistic mandates. You know that as well as anyone else.
More disingenuous twisting.

Your preferred website ruled the statement as false. You have also avoided commenting on the Yahoo News site. It appears that your opinions are not share with very many.

Maybe it's time to offer some new ideas instead of more rehashing old lies or denying what is so widely viewed as being lies, misleading twists or fraud.

Useful suggestions?

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Nov 13 - 05:01 PM

A careful reading of that Politifact excerpt will reveal that it is not Obama who is cancelling people's insurance policies, it is particular insurance companies who don't want to provide the required minimum coverage specified in the Affordable Care Act, or that the specific policy fails to meet the requirements of the ACA.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So who's signed up for Obamacare?
From: GUEST,Nobody in Particular
Date: 05 Nov 13 - 04:12 PM

Very well then.

This is from a site you referred to:

Politifact

The Truth-O-Meter Says:
Jarrett
"FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans."

Valerie Jarrett on Monday, October 28th, 2013 in a tweet
Valerie Jarrett says 'nothing in Obamacare forces people out of their health plans.'
False
Share this story:

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett tweeted that "nothing in Obamacare forces people out of their health plans." We checked to see if that's right.

The White House has been on the defensive recently over its claim, repeated numerous times over the years, that under President Barack Obama's health care law, if you like your health plan, you can keep it.

His claim hasn't worn well amid the letters to hundreds of thousands of Americans with individually purchased insurance plans notifying them that their plans are being canceled. Typically, these policies no longer meet the requirements in Obama's law, such as the need to cover emergency care, maternity care, mental health or prescription drugs.

In August 2012, we gave a Half True to Obama's claim that "if you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance." A more careful phrasing -- former Obama adviser David Axelrod's claim that "the vast majority of people in this country are keeping their (health insurance) plan" -- recently earned a Mostly True rating.

But critics of the law have been on the attack about what they call Obama's broken promise. Defending the law, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett sent out this message via Twitter on Oct. 28, 2013:

"FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans."

Is it really a "fact" that "nothing in Obamacare forces people out of their health plans"?

The White House appears to think so. Asked about Jarrett's tweet at a White House press briefing the following day, Press Secretary Jay Carney backed up her view that it's the insurers' fault -- not the administration's -- if plans are being canceled.

It's insurers who are choosing to close plans, Carney said, noting that "the administration doesn't step in" to force cancellations. Instead, he said, "the insurer is making a decision to basically cancel the plan and reissue or offer the individual a new plan with different benefits or different costs."

While it's technically true that the insurer makes the final decision, their choices are, to a great degree, limited by the law and the way it's been implemented by the administration.

Much of this process has to do with the arcane process of "grandfathering" plans that existed prior to the law's enactment in March 2010.

Under the law, insurance plans -- either those purchased through an employer or on the individual market -- may be "grandfathered" if they have operated continuously since before the law's enactment and have made no significant changes. This means the insurer can keep the insurance plan essentially as is, without having to implement many (though not all) of the new law's requirements, such as mandatory coverage for emergency and maternity care.

But experts say the regulations defining what constitutes a significant change are pretty tight. As our colleagues at the Washington Post Fact Checker pointed out, one of the regulations says that grandfathered status must end if copayments increase by more than $5.00 plus the cost of medical inflation.

And once a plan is poised to lose its grandfathered status, it's on the road to oblivion. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPAA, says that if an insurer wants to end a policy, it needs to give policy holders 90 days notice as well as information about alternative coverage plans that insurer is offering. That's essentially the message that many individual-market policyholders are receiving in the mail these days, and that is attracting so much attention.

Health policy experts told us that, in a technical sense, insurers are pulling the plug on these old, grandfathered policies. Echoing what Jarrett tweeted, Timothy Jost, a Washington and Lee University law professor, said that "if a grandfathered plan is being terminated, it is the insurer's decision -- nothing in the law requires it."

But other experts said that while this is technically true, it gives a distorted view of what's going on.

The law places grandfathered plans in such a straitjacket -- unable to attract new individual policyholders and unable to adjust terms to market conditions -- that it's only a matter of time before companies are driven to pull the plug. To ignore the government's role in establishing the parameters for this highly regulated, and highly competitive, industry is substantially misleading.

Gail Wilensky, the former head of Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush, called Jarrett's message "word games."

"Insurance companies cannot continue to sell individual policies that don't meet the requirements of the essential benefit package, either to individuals or to small businesses, as of Jan. 1," Wilensky said. "But since the insurance companies are not allowed to continue to sell these plans that the person previously had bought and may have liked, they are effectively being forced to change their plan."

Austin Frakt, a health care economist at Boston University who generally supports Obamacare, agreed that "Jarrett's statement misses an important point."

By all accounts, even the employers who are offering grandfathered plans to their employees are dwindling over time. The annual study of health insurance by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust found that the percentage of workers enrolled in grandfathered plans has decreased from 56 percent in 2011 to 36 percent in 2013.

Another study, by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, found that of the one-quarter of organizations that still have a grandfathered plan, less than half expect to keep their grandfathered status beyond the next two years. In other words, the grandfathered plan is slowly but steadily becoming a dinosaur.

Beyond the question of grandfathering, Frakt sees another element of the law that could strongly encourage -- though again perhaps falling short of requiring -- changes in health insurance plans. A 40 percent excise tax on high-benefit plans is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2018. While that's several years away, the provision "will change plans, either by making them more costly or incentivizing redesigns to get below the premium cap," Frakt said.

The irony here, both Wilensky and Frakt said, is that there are ways to describe what's going on that are both more broadly accurate and more flattering to the policy changes being undertaken.

The administration's "better argument is that we are making sure people have 'real' insurance that will be guaranteed to cover them when they need it," Wilensky said.

Frakt concurred. "The right view of this is that the law does motivate or force change, and that's a virtue," he said.

Our ruling

Jarrett said it was a "fact" that "nothing in Obamacare forces people out of their health plans."

Saying there's "nothing" in the law that forces people out of their health plans is a pretty extreme claim -- one that implies that insurers who pull the plug on non-Obamacare-compliant plans are acting in some sort of government-free vacuum. Even if it's technically true that the insurer pulls the plug on a plan, the insurer will only be doing this because the law itself and its implementing regulations have created a context in which, sooner or later, old-fashioned plans will inevitably pass into oblivion -- as the law always intended. We rate the statement False."

Now what??

I propose suggesting other ideas.